Soccer Mom Represents @ Justice Conference, Spoken Word Poetry Slam!

Win a Book and T-Shirt!

Is there a religious slogan that's gotten on your last nerve?

If there’s a religious slogan that you’d love to replace, we want to hear about it! 

Tell us what the tired old religious slogan is & how you’d replace it.

Email your ideas to whatsinyourclosetCONTEST@gmail.com

and we’ll pick one winner to receive a free copy of Permission Granted: And Other Thoughts On Living Graciously Among Sinners and Saints and also a T-SHIRT featuring your slogan!

No purchase required to enter.

Contest runs through April 1, 2012.  Send your ideas now!

Snow White, Bad Apples and the Prince of Peace

While searching for something on an old disc today, I opened up a file labeled "SNOWWHITE."  I knew that I was looking for something fairytale-ish, and thought it might be there.

What I found was: A BOOK.

Specifically, I found a book I'd forgotten I'd written. (The whole coma-unconscious-slumber thing being strikingly similar to the actual sleeping princess, right?)  It seems that about 17 years ago I wrote a book for women called, "Snow White, Bad Apples & The Prince of Peace."  The awesome title has remained in my memory banks, but I'd forgotten that I'd actually...written it.

Pretty crazy.

Because I'm very jazzed about sin these days, I was interested to see what I was learning about sin in the olden days.  I'm pasting it here, and I'm asking you:

Q4U: How do you describe what is sinful?  What makes something sin?

Please chime in by commenting, below!

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From Snow White, Bad Apples & The Prince of Peace...

In today’s culture, which is increasingly morally permissive, it’s helpful to look at the church’s history as a guide to learn what other generations have recognized to be the faces of sin.  The Church’s confessions of the 16^th and 17^th centuries name these sins:

•                Idolatry

•                Hatred of God

•                Self-love

•                Self-seeking

•                Pride

•                Transgression of God’s law

•                Distrust of God                                   

[Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechism, Second Helvetic Confession]

Some contemporary theologians, however, have noted that these temptations toward sin may not include some of the unique temptations facing woman today.  Instead, they have recognized these distinct temptations toward sin in the lives of women...

•                Self-hatred

•                Allowing selves to be degraded

•                Negating gifts God has given

•                Negating

•                Tendency not to take responsibility for one’s situation

•                Loss of identity and distinct self

There is in each, a temptation toward the polarity of our human existence.  In the first, we try to exceed our human potential by trying to be like God.  Rejecting the relationship that God offers, we choose to ‘isolate’ ourselves by placing the self at the center of our lives.  In the more modern reflections on sin women negate their human potential failing to recognize God’s holy image upon them and Christ’s own life within them.  In this failing, not the “self”, but an “other” is placed at the center of one’s life.  Often a man.  By rejecting the relationship that God offers, we become ‘absorbed’ into the life of another.

Q4U: How do you describe what is sinful? 

What makes something sin?

 

WIN A BOOK & A CUSTOM T-SHIRT!

Friends, I want your help!  If you've got a real example of a Christian t-shirt gone bad (or just one ripe for misunderstanding) I want to know what slogan you'd use as a replacement. 

I covet your thoughts! 

Big winner--in March, at time of book release-- gets a signed copy of Permission Granted AND a t-shirt featuring YOUR AWESOME SLOGAN!!!

Comment below with your big ideas...