"Oh, you hate ICE? Remember that when you're being mugged by an MS-13 gang member and you need ten masked men to beat up a totally unrelated 65-year-old cleaning lady on her way to her job."

-PG-13 version of a post from @FanSince09 on Twitter

Sermon: Is Christ Divided?

To some, Christ is a good person,
white, polite,
always falls the rules, keeps his head down and doesn't rock the boat,
is more concerned about prayers than oppression,
More about piety than poverty
More about virginity and vulgarity than about violence
more about your devotions then others' distress,
More about obedience to rules than about righteousness.

https://davidmschell.com/sermon-is-christ-divided/

#Sermons

My dear Wormwood,

It is imperative that you keep the patient away from doing anything to improving the material conditions of his neighbors, by any means necessary.

Call it socialism, call it woke, call it politics, whatever is needful. Whisper in his ear that it is the role of the church to do such things, and not the state.

And do not concern yourself with whether the church will do them, either; we have spent centuries teaching the churches to be concerned with their own survival above all else and to do such things as would oppose the projects of Our Father Below only as they have time and money.

In your letter you mentioned that you had shown the patient the fictitious quotation from me that our colleague Thistlefoot has succeeded in popularising, recommending that you keep the patient fixated on politics. This is very good.

Whenever he begins to feel concern for anyone we have entrapped in suffering, or is tempted to involve himself in the improvement of material conditions of others whom we have spent centuries building systems to make miserable, simply remind him of this quotation, and whisper in his ear that politics are Messy Business and Divisive.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape

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The above is my original content, not C.S. Lewis's, though I suspect Screwtape, were he a real entity, would agree.

Hymn: “The Greatness of the Smallness of God”

As I was working on this Sunday's worship service, I realized I wanted to include a hymn that I didn't think existed.

I'm preaching about the omnipotence of God (Presbyterians tend to prefer "providence" language) in response to a question from a member of my church.

Omnipotence is a challenge, and I've written about it before, but I couldn't

https://davidmschell.com/hymn-the-greatness-of-the-smallness-of-god/

#Uncategorized

I used to love modern Christian worship music but then I deconstructed. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

This also changed how I relate to modern Christian worship music.

I miss it a lot but I've never been able to go back.

https://davidmschell.com/on-modern-worship-music/

On Modern Worship Music

My Spiritual Musical Autobiography

I grew up with '90s and '10s Christian Contemporary Music (CCM). At one point I truly believed WOW Hits 2005 was the pinnacle of Christian music. (I don't listen to that album much anymore, though).

I have music by 4Him, Avalon, Amy Grant, Bebo Norman, Big Daddy Weave, Chris Rice (meep), Chris Tomlin, David Crowder*Band, Gateway Worship, FFH, Jars of Cl

https://davidmschell.com/on-modern-worship-music/

#Uncategorized

A Story of Kindness Turning Down the Temperature

This is the story of how I accidentally discovered the power of kindness to turn down the temperature.

Kristen and I stopped for a fancy lunch to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary on our way to pick up our kids from their weekend visit to their grandparents.

The restaurant was busy, and we had to wait 20 minutes before we got

https://davidmschell.com/a-story-of-kindness-turning-down-the-temperature/

#MyRealLifeAdventures