Two days ago I wrote about love…true love, awesome love, the kind of love that makes you write dumb blogs about love…but I didn’t write about the truest of all loves.

This weekend at church the drama team put on a small skit that I guess has been done multiple times around the country, but it was a performance I had never seen before and one I will probably never forget. The skit put true love on display, the truest of all loves: God’s love.

I didn’t cry when I proposed to Stephanie, I didn’t cry when she said yes, I didn’t even cry when she gave me that wonderful video…but last night while watching this performance I couldn’t help but shed a tear. The love I share with Stephanie is true, it’s awesome, but it doesn’t make me cry, it makes me smile real big because it’s so dang cool. The love God has for me, and all of us, is different. It’s never faltering, even when we treat the love with arrogance and disrespect, as perhaps I do too much, it is still there. That love makes me cry, because that love is by far the truest of all loves.

Here is a video of the performance, not by my church, but by one of the many church groups that have done the same thing.

It’s definitely worth watching.

Lifehouse - Everything Skit

I was listening on the radio today to a Christian talk show where two Christian leaders, or writers, were discussing global warming and other political issues. They brought up the fact that Rick Warren, a popular Christian leader, along with 85 or so other Evangelical leaders, signed a letter stating to help with the cause against global warming, or something like that. The topic was interesting I guess, but that’s not what caught my attention. (Whether global warming is a real threat or not, who knows? What I do know is that God is in control so if the world blows up, it happened for a reason. Isaiah 24 touches on that. Verse 3 says, “The Earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered…” So it sounds like this whole global warming thing has been planned for a while.) What caught my attention is that this writer, and Christian leader, was bashing people like Rick Warren and the other evangelists for signing this letter. He was laughing at them and couldn’t believe that they did what they did. And that frustrated me.

As Christians, how can we expect to spread the word and love of God to everyone if we can’t even get along with each other? Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose? To me, this guy’s response to the letter on global warming, saying it wasn’t the Christian thing to do, was, in itself, very un-Christian. When I say un-Christian, I mean acting opposite to how Christ taught us to act. To me, we don’t have to agree but can’t we accept? Can’t we believe that Christ moves in different ways among different people? It’s the same thing when people bash Joel Osteen about not being “Christian enough.” That doesn’t make any sense.

A couple posts ago, I wrote about doubt and mentioned how Donald Miller wrote in his book Blue Like Jazz, that there are people who believe and know that God exists and people who don’t believe and know that God doesn’t exist. He said that the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter. Well, the same thing is happening amongst Christians. Many Christians spend a lot of time worrying about what other Christians are doing and pointing out what is wrong and maybe the argument stopped being about what is right and wrong a while ago, and now it’s about who is right. Are not all arguments about that?

Anyways, it bothered me to hear that today and I just wanted to write about it. I wish we, as Christians, could all just get along. I think that would do wonders if we stopped pointing the finger at each other and actually lived as Christ wanted us to live. And yes, I realize the ironic thing about this post, that by me pointing out my frustration with a Christian going on the radio and bashing a fellow Christian, I am also doing the same thing. I guess it’s an endless cycle. Hopefully it will stop sometime.

I was privileged enough to hear Nick Vujicic speak last night. Nick is an amazing man from Australia. Twenty four years ago he was born without any arms or legs and now he travels the world speaking at churches and conferences, etc. spreading the word of Christ. He is probably the best speaker I have heard in a long time, if not ever.

A lot of times when you hear people speak who are faced with terrible circumstances the message is the same. I don’t know if it’s meant be the same, but most of the time you leave feeling a bit guilty, a “man, I’ve never going to complain again” guilty. Nick is different. His main message last night was how happy he was to be in the situation he is in. Not because he likes not having any arms or legs, but because he has been able to do so much to spread the word of God. He knows it is all for a purpose.

He said a lot of things last night that were pretty powerful, but my favorite was this: “There is no joy in the circumstance, but there is joy in the purpose of that circumstance.”

Here’s a video:

There are other videos of him speaking, etc on You Tube.

I was listening to the radio on my way home from the grocery store today and the guy was talking about William Tyndale. Tyndale was around in the early 1500’s in England. His main passion in life was to translate the Bible into English and spread it through England and the rest of the English speaking world. However, this act was looked at as heresy and in 1535 Tyndale was arrested, jailed in Belgium for more than a year, tried for heresy and treason and then strangled and burnt at the stake…all for translating the Bible into English.

This got me thinking a lot about my faith, and the faith of many Christians. Would I, we, still believe in Jesus and all He did on this earth if it was not socially acceptable to do so? Much of what we do in today’s society is based on what is or is not socially acceptable. If believing in Christianity would get you arrested and tortured, would you still believe?? Not only believe, but outwardly say so? For example, could you go to Iraq or Iran today and stand in the middle of the largest city and stop people to talk to them about Jesus? That’s a good question. I would love to be able to say yes, but if I was honest with myself I know I would balk at the opportunity. I wonder what God thinks about that. Matthew 10:33 says, “But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my father in Heaven.” Does that mean even if you’d get killed for disowning God? I’m gonna go ahead and say yes.

William Tyndale wasn’t the first martyr. In fact, he just fell in a long line of Christian martyrs who willingly died for what they believe in. The majority of believers in the first century A.D. died a martyrs death. The first, Stephen, was stoned to death for preaching in Jerusalem (Acts 6-7). Many of the people who wrote the Bible died a martyrs death. Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, was beheaded in Rome. In fact, he wrote most of his letters that are in the Bible while awaiting his death in a prison cell…and his letters are all uplifting! How did he, they, do that? How did they have such a strong faith that they could willingly walk towards death? Perhaps it was because many of them were there, the early Christians anyways. They saw for themselves what we, as Christians, believe in. William Tyndale wasn’t though, and he still believed strongly enough to become a martyr.

All of this makes me think of two things.

1. I hope and I pray that my faith would be strong enough to speak the name of Jesus, even if doing so would likely end up in death.

2. I thank the Lord I was born in America, where being a Christian is a freedom I am blessed with.

Something that intrigues me is the idea of right and wrong, or better stated the idea of morals and how we develop them. For some things, everybody’s idea of right and wrong is different.  For example, one person could say it’s wrong to speed on the highway, and another person could say they see no wrong in speeding at all.  However, for most things, everybody, with the exception of a few oddballs here and there, has the same sense of what is right and wrong.  For example, don’t cheat, don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t do harm unto others.

Now, I’m not saying everybody acts out their lives according to what they know is right and wrong. How many times have we treated somebody in a way we wouldn’t like to be treated? We all cut people off on the freeways, however when someone does it to us they cross the line and step into the ‘wrong’ area. What I am saying is that all of us, every human on this planet, share a set of morals, a Law of Right and Wrong if you will, and I find that amazing.

What’s more amazing is that all of us know, or believe, that everyone else knows the Law of Right and Wrong. If not, why would we ever say to someone, “you can’t do that,” or “that’s mine, you can’t have that.” By saying those things, we are assuming they also know the Law of Right and Wrong, even if we have never met them before.

Why do I find this amazing?? Because if you think about it, it speaks loudly in favor of a God creating mankind, and in doing so instilling a sense of right and wrong, which we know about…yet have trouble obeying.

Humans all over the world and all through time, in every culture, whether it is Asian, Latin, American or Indian have had a sense of right and wrong, a moral code. This sets us apart from every other creature on the planet. Think about it…if someone cut you off you might want to rip his or her head off…but you don’t…because it’s wrong. However, would animals act the same??

C.S. Lewis talks about this in his book Mere Christianity. He brings up that some people say the idea of a Law of Right and Wrong is unsound because different civilizations and different ages have had quite different moralities. This is what he writes:

There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own…I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well find a country where two and two makes five.

I find that interesting because many can say our parents, or elders teach us the concepts of right and wrong, and to an extent they would be right. I learned never to talk to strangers from my parents. However, to another extent they are wrong. If we needed to rely on our parents to develop a set of morals, how did every culture end up with a moral code, or a Law of Right and Wrong? Did every first parent meet somewhere and decide that we all needed a set of morals?? I doubt it.

It’s just something to think about.

Is it wrong to be open and accepting to all things, even things considered “wicked”? I’m currently taking an online class on Christian Education and every week we have discussion forums where we answer questions and share our thoughts, etc. This week, one of the questions was to:

List and briefly explain some of the challenges Christian educators are now facing when it comes to audience awareness.

One of my fellow students wrote this:

I think the biggest challenge that Christian educators face today is staying true to the Bible. We are constantly having to be more “open and accepting” of immoral behavior and this requires educators to stray from the true word.

Another fellow student replied with this:

I agree with you 100%. It is horrible that churches have become “open and accepting” especially to things that are stated in the Word of God as being immoral.

Example: 1 Corinthian 6:9-10 says: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexual immoral nor idolators nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homesexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Homosexuality is something that is just wrong and is against the Word of God. How can anyone be homosexual and expect to be judged honorably by Jesus Christ. Doing this is laughing right in the face of Jesus Christ.

This is a touchy subject for me and it relates to what I’m writing about right now in Tuna Casserole. I just don’t agree. I mean, I do agree with what the Bible says, there’s no way around it, but is the church supposed to turn their back on the ‘wicked’?

Here’s what I wrote in response to my fellow students:

I think you’re right, As the verse says, the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God. However, do you think shunning the ‘wicked’ and turning a cold shoulder to them is right? I think it’s a good thing that churches are open and accepting, wasn’t Jesus? If churches are teaching that wickedness is ok, then that is wrong, but if a church is opening its doors to the wicked, how is that wrong? If anything I hope that the wicked do go to church and hear the word of God, so that they can change their wickedness. If we shun them and turn our back from them and hold our noses up in the air we will only breed more wickedness.

I use wicked as the Bible uses wicked in the verse above. I think many times Christians have a tendency to look down their nose at people who partake in things that are “wrong” and that just bothers me. It is just like the Pharisees in the Bible who can’t believe that Jesus would help a prostitute.

I’m not saying that God doesn’t condemn this stuff, He does, just as He condemns the bad words that come out of my mouth every once in a while…so how am I any better? Luckily, I’m saved by the grace of God. If anything, I think Christians should be more open and accepting of ‘the wicked’ and invite them to church, love them, and show them what a life with Christ is all about…don’t condemn them!

If I didn’t have anybody to love me and show me what God was all about when I was ‘wicked’, I would have never found the love of God. I hope I can do the same for somebody else. That being said, it’s important to recognize the difference between one who is not a Christian and one who is but still partakes in ‘wicked’ things.

As my friend says:

Those who knowingly sin without repenting and seek acceptance abuse God’s mercy. All Christians should have a big problem with an openly gay priest and legalized homosexual marriage, as much so as a priest who is an alcoholic or a man who cheats on his wife. Legitimizing does nothing to lessen its severity in the eyes of God. It is our duty as Christians to hold each other accountable and keep each other on the straight and narrow, hopefully in a way that is loving and not condescending or judgmental. We should remember and emulate what Jesus did for the prostitute, but we should not discount his parting words to her. Go, and sin no more.

In case you’re worried about reading below, I will let you know right now…I’m not going to give away any secrets about the 7th Harry Potter book. I don’t even know what happens because I haven’t read it yet.

I think I’m in love with Harry Potter…the books, not the boy in the movies. A friend of mine handed me the fourth book when it came out in 2000 and told me I would like it. To be honest, I laughed a little at first. I’m sure I said something like, “isn’t it a kid’s book?” I’m still pretty sure it is, and if so I have to say I like kid’s books. I read the fourth one all the way through in a couple days and then immediately went and borrowed the first three and read them. Ever since then I’ve been a fan. I don’t dress up in a wizard costumes and carry a wand around like other people I have seen, but I do read the books as soon as they come out and I also see the movies as soon as they are released. I’m not the only crazy fan. You know the new Potter book sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours. It almost made as much as the Iphone, and the Iphone cost almost 400 dollars more!!

I’ve heard a lot of ramblings about Harry Potter being evil. Many Christians speak out about it and claim it’s the devil’s work. They even post websites like Avoid Harry Potter where they try to show you why it’s a bad book. Evidently every body who reads it will join a cult and become witches. Hmm…weird. This bothers me. I’m 100 percent sure many of these people have never read the books, and if they did I’m almost 100 percent sure they would change their mind. The only evil in Harry Potter books is the evil wizards that Harry Potter is fighting against. When you read the books you don’t make some evil wizard your hero…the hero in the books is a boy wizard who is fighting for good.

This is interesting: Chicago Tribune Story

If anything, as a Christian, I think you can use the books for good. If you have kids, let them read the books and use them to teach Christian morals and values…they’re in there! (Harry Potter fights with evil temptations, etc.) There is a new resource guide published by the Church of England that suggests youth leaders should use the popular Harry Potter series of books and films as a launch pad for exploring Christian themes within church youth groups or Sunday schools.

Here is the article: Harry Potter and Christianity

One thing that makes me wonder is the fact that many people who are against Harry Potter are so because of the presence of magical characters (witches, wizards, ghosts, goblins, and so on.) Ummm….Lord of the Rings had the same thing, and nobody really spoke out about that. In fact, the author JRR Tolkien is a very outspoken Christian. There is a famous quote by him, “God is the lord of angels and of men….and of elves.”

Nobody speaks out against Lord of the Rings. So, why is Lord of the Rings ok, but Harry Potter isn’t? Probably because it’s better.

I really reccomend the books to anybody who wants to read them. I know I’ll be sharing the books with my kids someday.

If you’re intersted in getting the books and you don’t have any yet, I’d buy this: Harry Potter Box Set

I think that’s enough bickering for today. By the way, the new Harry Potter movie is cool. Slower than the other ones, darker than the other ones…but a good transition into what’s to come. I’d reccomend it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the spiritual gifts from God. Paul describes God’s spiritual gifts to believers in 1 Corinthians 12 I’ve actually been thinking about it for a couple months, ever since I was introduced to the idea of speaking in tongues.

I visited a Pentecostal church for about a month or so a couple months ago, and let me say up front I think the Pentecostal church is amazing. The worship and expressions of faith there are humbling and heartwarming. No, the Pentecostal church is not a cult. I’d recommend it to anyone. But it did get me thinking about the whole speaking in tongues concept. I’ve read Acts 2, a couple times where the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and the disciples began to speak in tongues. The hard part was, I knew I could never speak in tongues. To be honest this frustrated me a little bit. I think I believed that if you were chosen by God you could speak in tongues. It’s a gift from God. So where does that leave me if I can’t? I didn’t come to believe this because the Pentecostal church told me to believe it, it was just my own unsupported thoughts and insecurities I guess.

But now I’m ok with it. You see, there are many different gifts that God blesses all believers in Him. Actually in a study I did, I found 23 of them in the following verses:

1 Corinthians 12:8-10 (Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Healing, Miracles, Prophecy, Spirits, Tongue Speaker, Interpreter of Tongues)

1 Corinthians 12:28 (Apostleship, Prophets, Teachers, Administration)

Romans 12:6-8 (Service, Exhorting, Giving, Leading)

Ephesians 4:11 (Evangelism, Pastoring)

1 Peter 4:9-10 (Hospitality)

Exodus 31:3 (Craftsmanship)

Timothy 2:1-1 (Peace)

1 Psalm 150: 3-5 (Musical Praise)

I could have some of these words wrong, but thats how I’ve interpreted them. So what’s mine?? I have no idea, I just know its not speaking in tongues. I have a feeling maybe teaching or knowledge. Not because I’m knowledgable now, but because I have a thirst for knowledge and I know in the future I will be knowledgable….mmm…hopefully.

Why do I care?? I care because I want to know. I feel it’s important to understand God’s given gift to each one of us. If we know we can focus on that gift and use it completely for God’s glory.

If you were ever worried or ever wondered what your gift is from God, I encourage you take a look, search online for a questionnaire, you’d be suprised what you could find. But know that each and every believer has a gift that God has given them and we should use it anyway we can.

1 Peter 4:10 “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”

I post some of my blogs on myspace as well. I posted the same blog on “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” and had a friend respond, which I encourage. This is what he wrote:

I totally agree with your general thesis that the ‘Jesus’ industry is large and exploitative, and how if said archaeologist might have fucked up, then they would more likely try to make an esoteric connection, than admit that they are wrong. But…as an atheist, I must draw attention to this:’…RELIED MORE ON “WHAT IFS” THAN “HERE’S HOW.”‘

Sure, a documentary might do this every now and again, but religion is based on this idea. The ‘Here’s how’ must be based upon truth, which is the child of logic, reason, and most importantly…proof. No religion anywhere can offer any solid proof that their tenets of faith are correct, that is why it is called faith. The only thing that can offer solid proof of anything is what has been accepted as scientific law. Religion is based, unequivocally, on the ‘what if’s’

As said before, I feel this documentary was an exploitative pile of shit, and it should in no way challenge anyone’s faith…much like the Da Vinci code. But I find that the primary implication of this particular blog provides a false dilemma.Of course, as an atheist, I can’t entirely prove my disbelief in God or Jesus as a diving being. I can only base it upon what I feel to be overwhelming scientific evidence.

Regardless, I do enjoy reading your blog becaue it makes me think about beliefs contrary to mine, and that presents a challenge, which is a beautiful thing. You present your ideas in a mature and well thought out way, when you could just as well tell people like me that we’re going to hell, and be supported by others.Thus brings me to the end of my rather long ‘devil’s advocate’ commentary.

It honestly is always refreshing to hear other people’s points of view. If I only subscribe to my own viewpoints without giving regard to others I will never fully understand why I believe. With that being said, let me disagree with a part of my buddies statement.

To say religion is based upon a “what if” idea, is almost true. In fact, I do believe it to be true of many religions. But to say that “No religion anywhere can offer any solid proof that their tenets of faith are correct” is wrong and doesn’t have any support. In fact, of all the religions in this world, only Christianity has historical and archeological evidence to back it up.

Ask any apologetic professor and they’d be happy to show you the evidence. Ask the number of people who have set out to disprove Christianity, only to become Christians. C.S. Lewis is perhaps the most famous, but there are many more. Josh McDowell has a large book called Evidence of Christianity that is presented in an outline form not to convince anyone, but merely to state the facts. If proper research is done on the evidence of Christianity, you’ll see that Christianity is historical. To list the evidential proof would take forever, but I invite anyone to do a quick google search on apologetics or Evidence of Christianity and you’ll find it. Check out the website http://www.thetruthaboutreligion.org for information on all religions, and you’ll see only Christianity has historical evidence to back up its claims. To be honest, we know more about the life and death of Jesus Christ than we do any other human being ever.

A lot of people say that Christians only have “blind faith.” That’s not true. To become a Christian you don’t park your brains at the door. My heart could never rejoice in what my mind rejects. Christianity is not a blind leap into the dark; it is a bold step into the light. The tenets of faith of Christianity is that Christ died and ressurected three days later. If Jesus Christ died and never rose to life, then Christianity is a myth or a fraud, even I will admit that. In 1 Corinthians 15:14, Paul tells everyone to grab hold of this central truth, that “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” The evidence for the resurrection is the key to establishing that Jesus is indeed who He claims to be. It is the historical validity of this central fact that gives Christians genuine and eternal hope amidst a hurting world.

If we refuse to accept the evidence, that’s when we demonstrate blind faith. And that goes both ways.

I’m guessing the majority of you have heard about the documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” that aired on the Discovery Channel. It was all over the internet last week. If you haven’t heard of it, here is a link to the article i first read early last week. I recommend reading it.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1593893,00.html

Basically it goes like this: in Jerusalem in 1980 a tomb that contained ten separate ossuaries (bone boxes) was uncovered while building an aparment complex. 6 of the boxes had names on the side. The documentary claims that these names are of the family of Jesus, including Jesus himself. This of course would mean that Jesus never did rise from the tomb nor appear after his death before ascending to heaven. The documentary also claims they found a box with the name Mary Magdalene and a box for the son of Jesus. Of course meaning that they found out that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had a baby. For more information read the article, because i don’t want to go through it all.

Hopefully you tuned into to watch the documentary last night, if not for the entertaining purposes, then just to watch and fully understsand what’s being presented to the public. I personally think that it was perhaps the first documentary I’ve seen that relied more on “what ifs” than “here’s how.” It really showed a lack of respect to the art form of documentaries. Anybody who watched could see that the “ifs” were stacked to support one hypothesis, that of course being that this must be the family of Jesus, and these must be Jesus’ bones. As an example of how far the director would go, at one point they put a tube camera underground only to discover they were in the wrong tomb. The director, the eternal optimist, says “although we found ourselves in the wrong tomb, perhaps these finely crafted ossuaries, so close to the talpiot tomb (the one they were looking for), are somehow connected to Jesus or his followers.” In other words, because this is Jesus’ tomb, the nearby tombs are likely those of his followers and because those nearby tombs are likely those of his followers, this must be the tomb of Jesus.

During the documentary they also suggest they have DNA evidence that says Jesus and Mary Magdalene were not related through the mother…therefore they must be man and wife. What?? Why not through the father? Why not cousins? I think there are a few more explanations. How come they didn’t take this a step further? For example, if Y-chromosome samples from Joseph and Jesus showed no genetic link between father and son, then the discovery channel could take credit for proving the virgin birth. How come they didn’t test everybody’s DNA? Other than the obvious answer which is it wouldn’t have made for good television.

And wait a second…how did they get the DNA? If you watch the documentary they say the bones were quickly reburied after the discovery in 1980. So they say they got the DNA from the boxes themselves. Susan Sheridan, a Bioanthropologist at the University of Notre Dame said this in an article.

The DNA could have come from a variety of sources, Sheridan said, and most likely came from people who handled the boxes. What it probably did not come from are the bones originally found in the boxes.

“Getting ancient DNA out of bones, i mean we’ve got four big skeletal collections here from the near east … We have really excellent bones, and we can’t get dna out of them. … You have to be very careful about contamination control,” Sheridan said. “and a lot of times, even in the bones we have from Jerusalem that are about 500 years younger than (the ones mentioned in the film), some fungus has moved in and destroyed our ability to get DNA.”

And all they discovered was that the two sources were not related through the mother. They must have been married.

Other archaeological experts are speaking out against the documentary as well, including the man who did the original excavation of the tomb back in 1980.

This is from another article:

William Dever, who the Washington Post describes as one “who has been excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years and is widely considered the dean of biblical archaeology among U.S. scholars” has responded to the film by saying,

“I’m not a christian. I’m not a believer. I don’t have a dog in this fight … I’ve known about these ossuaries for many years and so have many other archaeologists, and none of us thought it was much of a story, because these are rather common Jewish names from that period,” he said. “It’s a publicity stunt, and it will make these guys very rich, and it will upset millions of innocent people because they don’t know enough to separate fact from fiction.”

The Washington Post added that similar assessments came yesterday from two Israeli scholars, Amos Kloner, who originally excavated the tomb, and Joe Zias, former curator of archaeology at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Kloner told the Jerusalem Post that the documentary is “nonsense.” Zias described it in an e-mail to the Washington Post as a “hyped up film which is intellectually and scientifically dishonest.”

One part of the documentary that i felt was particularly funny was when they said “Maria is the latin form of Mary, and is how Jesus’ mother was known after His death as more Romans became followers.” How do the filmmakers know that Jesus’s mother was known after his death by a latinized form of her name “as more romans became followers”? Are they ignorant of what was going on during that time? And do they not see the obvious contradiction here? People became followers of a crucified and risen savior, not a middle-class resident of Jerusalem. If Jesus was walking around Jerusalem with a wife and kids, there would be no followers, Roman or otherwise, to be calling her Maria.

I have to admit, as a Christian I’m not mad or offended at this documentary. I’m actually entertained and happy that they released it. To me, it shows how far people will go to try and disprove Christianity, and it still hasn’t been done. Unfortunately, I do believe it will hurt many people. I think there are many people out there who maybe were questioning christianity and were questioning the validity of the claims, and then to have this movie come around…who knows. Hopefully they will see it as the joke it really is.

I do have to say one final thing though, and i’m saying this not as a Christian, but as a person who is intereested in history. Something major happened in 33 ad, the year of Jesus’ death. Something that changed the world. What was it? Jesus’ followers said he was raised three days after the crucifixion and ascended into heaven. They said this in the same town that it happened. Christianity began in Jerusualeam, the same country that Jesus was crucified. It’s not like they started spreading rumours in a different country. And if they were lying…why? For money? Fame? These people were martyrd for their beliefs. Put to death in gruesome ways, some stoned, some crucified upside down. I would like to think that if they were lying, at least one of them, when faced with death would say, “ok, ok…just joking.” I know i couldn’t die for what I knew to be a lie. And if it wasn’t true you’d think they would find evidence that it wasn’t…and this documentary wasn’t it…

The truth is, the “Jesus” industry makes a lot of money, and there is no end to where speculation can take you…as long as it can be used to attack the christian faith, anyway. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an end in sight and we can expect more of this in the future.

Also, Dr. Joe E. Zias published a viewer’s guide to ‘The Lost Tomb of Jesus’ that you can find on his website. Dr. Zias is a member of the science and archaeology group at the Hebrew University. “This group is composed of scientists from various disciplines, attempting to bring diverse fields of scientific inquiry to archaeology, anthropology and research on the dead sea scrolls.” In the guide he says way more than i could say to show how far off the filmmakers are. If you’re interested it really is good reading.

Here is the link: http://www.joezias.com/tomb.html