There is a lot of discussion about the Emerging Church. There’s even a lot of discussion about what it is labeled. Brian McLaren prefers to say “the Church that is emerging”. But you say tomatoes, and I say why would anyone want to eat tomatoes. They are horrible. Here’s an interview with Dam Kimball, a pastor on the West Coast, (Santa Cruz), that has written a couple of books on the subject and is a speaker as well.

80% of adults in the U.S.  call themselves “Christian”
68% call themselves a “committed Christian”
60% describe themselves at “deeply spiritual”
45% call themselves “born again”
29% who attended  a church service, prayed to God or read from the Bible in the past week
16%  who say faith is the highest priority in their lives

Source: Barna Research Group

Came across these statistics – found them relevant.

1 dead, 17 wounded by knife-wielding assailants
Unbelievable. Attacks during Holy Week. If I start, I won’t stop …

http://blackcoffeereflections.com/2006/04/15/112/

“Golgotha, the place of the skull, where nails smashed through the wrists and feet of Jesus, the teacher from Nazareth in Galilee, can stand for the skulls of every genocide. Betrayal by friends, self-preserving denial, making sport with prisoners, the mockery of crowds, spectators drawn to the spectacle, the soldiers doing their duty and dicing for his clothes, a mother in agony, and a knot of women helplessly looking on—it happens time, and time, and time again.”
Richard John Neuhaus, First Things

IN THE CROSS IS SALVATION, in the Cross is life, in the Cross is protection from our enemies, in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the Cross is strength of mind, in the Cross is joy of spirit, in the Cross is the height of virtue, in the Cross is perfection of sanctity. There is no salvation of the soul, nor hope of everlasting life, but in the Cross.
Thomas á Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

“Maundy” is Latin for “Mandate” and is celebrated as the day of the Last Supper.
During which Jesus said to His disciples, John 13:34: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Christ then washed His disciples’ feet. Later that night He would be betrayed and arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“It’s common to hear from the pulpit that no one can fully appreciate the joy of Easter Sunday without experiencing the darkness of Good Friday. But the disciples would have been bewildered by both without the lesson of Holy Thursday. The day they received the command to love, had their feet washed by a king, and first understood the link between the Passover sacrifice, Christ, and the bread of life, shouldn’t be missed by any of us, even if the calendar shows a blank square.” Elesha Coffman

Christ Conspiracy + No Betrayal + Written some 150 years after Judas’s life = No Truth

Hooray, a new gospel. This one is by Judas. The “re-launch” is just in time to coincide with the DaVinci Code movie. And I do have an affinity for conspiracy theories.

You can read all about the gnosticism (eastern philosophy in the first centuries that taught they had an even more secret & special revelation to truth that was condemned as heresy in 180 A.D.). This is product of that.

To others this is their nail in their coffin confirming their disbelief. Someone more clever then me already noted that leave it to National Geographic to believe of all the gospels, this gospel one is inerrant. Neverthless, may God’s grace abound to them.

Listen, if people want to take what they believe from the fiction section at Barnes and Noble and from documents condemned as heresy, go right ahead. It’s the beauty of free will. No pastor or priest will launch protests calling for their beheading. One man’s fiction is another’s truth. One man’s heresy is another man’s certainty. It all comes down to faith in the end. What do you believe? How did you come to believe that? Why do you believe that? Have your answers. But let us remember, somebody’s epistemology is lacking, someone’s philosophy of life is wrong, someone’s faith is not true. It might be mine but then again, it might not be.

If you are interested in reading why check out:
Unmasking an Ancient Heresy

The Judas We Never Knew

No Reciprocation by Tony Perkins
A two-page color ad in a recent Washington Post celebrates the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, a $20-million “think tank” at Georgetown University in the District of Columbia. The ad shows one of Georgetown’s beautiful Gothic buildings, topped by a stone cross. In the night sky, above Georgetown, is a crescent moon and star — the symbols of Islam. How better to show the kind of “understanding” we will have? Christianity is to be subordinated, Islam is raised high — at a Christian university. Harvard also has a $20 million center provided by the Saudi billionaire prince.
What about the compromise of American liberties? There is no reciprocity here. All the talk on this side of the ocean is about “understanding.” Where are the study centers at Saudi universities? Does anyone there present courses on James Madison’s views of religious liberty? Does anyone there even suggest that feudal monarchies that deny their people fundamental human rights need to reform themselves?
Saudi Arabia is one of the worst violators of human rights on earth. No Christian can even carry a Bible on any street in Saudi Arabia. Converts there are beheaded. According to the U.S. State Department’s latest report on global human rights, recently issued, “The [Saudi] government has not provided legal protection for freedom of religion, and such protection did not exist.” Ditto for the freedom to establish political parties. Yet, here we have major American universities bending the knee for Saudi petrodollars. There have been persistent reports of Saudi-funded schools (madrassas) and mosques in America that teach hatred toward Christians and Jews.
And one more thought: has anyone told campus liberals, some of whom went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to keep military recruiters off campus because of the military’s “Don’t Ask — Don’t Tell” policy, about Saudi Arabia’s policy toward gays in the military?
(Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.)

Jack: To some extent this is about reciprocation, but at this point, I would settle for basic religious freedom rights. It is not propaganda when it is reported that Christians are beaten to death for possessing Bibles – this is reality! Sure, let’s have centers for understanding. Instead of convincing someone that Islam is the truth put your sword and bombs away, and let us reason and discuss and search the truth. If anyone’s faith is threatened by intellectual debate, then you can put up the all the centers you want, it’s not going to help.