Had an interesting weekend

overall. Saturday was a nice, relaxing day. Cleaned the pool, made a huge pot of chicken/sausage gumbo, rode the bike to see “The Moving Wall”, watched four episodes of season one of Murder One (the only way to watch TV!) and studied for class on Sunday. Very relaxing.

Yesterday’s class was great. Had a nice turnout and the guys seemed interested in the subject, which was How to Understand the Bible. I was glad to be fully back in the saddle after letting DB teach the last two weeks.

I thought it was interesting and telling that when I searched my library for the phrase “how to understand the bible”, I had two hits, neither of which was really about understanding the Word. That’s out of about 1,600 books on religion and philosophy. But for the phrase “how to study the bible”, I had 92 legitimate hits.

I think that is part of the problem. People constantly study the bible but never really understand it. I don’t have my outline with me at the moment but one of the things that stood out during our discussion was that you have to make it personal. You have to own it. You have to bring it into your life by doing it. Only then can you begin to understand it.

The morning service was interesting. I was really into the music, in my own zone, just worshipping on stage, oblivious to everything around me. That’s an awesome feeling and it’s much easier to bring others into worship with you.

We had a guest speaker, Rick Stanley. He is Elvis Presley’s step brother and grew up living at Graceland from the age of six. He briefly mentioned Elvis in the morning service, and then talked a little bit more about him in the evening service. I don’t care much for his style, the old southern tent revival type of theatrics. But I do like that he doesn’t focus on the negative side of Elvis, balancing the more sensational, negative aspects of his life.

This is the second or third time I’ve heard him and I’ve noticed a bit of a change in his overall philosophy. He still has the theatrics but seems to be gravitating to the side of the evangelical wing that is blossoming by focusing on doing what the Bible says to do, as well as just studying it.

On that note, I found an interesting article in the NY Times about the movement of conservative evangelicals away from the Republican Party. Very interesting reading, it outlines several of the things I’ve been saying about politics. And why I think that people are going to be very surprised when the votes are tallied. At least those people that think that a guy with baggage like Rudy is not going to get any support from conservative Christians. And I think it is a good thing that Christians are pulling back from organized politics and focusing on the message of Christ.

Reading this article should help people that are not tuned into evangelical circles to realize where the attacks from the religious right on Mike Huckabee stem from. The distortions and blatant lies about the guy from people that openly call themselves Christians floors me but I understand why they are doing this. It’s real simple – he doesn’t kowtow to them and he doesn’t need them to speak to other Christians. He goes around them. In other words, he threatens their flow of money and lessens their influence.

I pulled back from my support of him when he hosted a Green Day and seemed to embrace Al Gore’s global warming nonsense. After reading more about the event itself, the people involved in it and his thoughts on trading carbon credits, I’m much more comfortable with his position. Even I can be gullible to the distorters and liars.

After church last night, LB and I went to Denny’s and had coffee. You would’ve thought I was Chatty Cathy I talked so much!

Yep, overall, it was an interesting, relaxing, worshipping, fulfilling weekend.