Snakes on a Plane, the Musical: Terror at 30,000 ft. The World's Greatest Guitar Player Ever. Theology Vs. Jesus.

Recently, Lydia and I flew out to Oregon to attend my grandmother's funeral. The trip went well - given the circumstances - and we were glad to get the opportunity to see family.

The trip was largely uneventful, save for two strange flights. On our flight out, the flight crew was some sort of musical theater/comedy troupe of sisters (actual sisters), who - I am guessing - took up flight attending to get them through the recession. Everything was a song. The safety announcements were put into rhyme and sung (isn't there a law against that). When we landed in Portland, OR - the best city in the United States - the flight crew came on the loud speaker and said, "we've just touched down in Hawaii... just kidding, everyone." ha. funny. It was weird.

On the flight home, Lydia and I had the privilege of sitting in front of a celebrity. He was the guitar player for one of the greatest bands in the world... Kutless. (For those of you that don't know, Kutless is a truly terrible Christian hard rock band). And, he was full of himself, bragging endlessly and loudly about the 5,000 person crowds he would attract. I think the best part was when he said, and I quote, "God just really blessed me, and I had the chance to learn from one of the best guitar players in the world." His seatmate took the bait and followed up. "Who?" "Mark Stuart," he said. The seatmate fell silent. "He is the main guitar player for Audio Adrenaline... yeah, he's one of the world's best rated guitar players." At this claim, Lydia and I began to laugh and had to pretend that we were laughing at something else (like our flight attendants).
On another note, I love how easily Christians who claim to be committed to Biblical infallibility or inerrancy can dismiss theology that they disagree with, even when it happens to be directly from the Bible or the lips of Jesus. (Of course, this is not a problem among persons who don't accept infallibility and can therefore be honest with what it says). Yesterday, I heard a classic example of this at the church I'm temporarily working at. The pastor read from Matthew 6:14-15, where Jesus says:

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

"It almost sounds like," the pastor said with wonderment in his voice, "Jesus is setting our forgiveness of others as a condition for his forgiveness of us." (This is of course, exactly what the passage says.) "Of course," he continued, "we know that this couldn't be what it means, because then Jesus would be teaching works righteousness, which couldn't be."

Yes!

Stringent Reformed Theology: 1.

Jesus: 0.

Tough luck, Jesus. Your move.

It has been an eventful few weeks. I have at least two more blogs worth of stuff to post, but, for the sake of everyone, I will stop now.