Christianity is for Sale

My wife and I live on the New Zealand Superannuation. It is enough for us to survive on, and have the occasional cup of hot chocolate at a cafe.

From time to time, I have attended Church Home Groups, or Small groups, for bible study, or study to advance my theological knowledge etc. Without fail the studies have used a booklet, often called a study guide, written by some one with personal, or deduced knowledge, relating to the subject. Because of copyright restrictions, the study guides and personal study books cannot be photocopied, so each participant must purchase a booklet. Okay, so an average cost seems to be $8 - $10 each. Average small groups vary from six to twenty people. The publisher gets $60 to $200 per group.

Likewise, if you wish to catch up on what your favourite Pastor is writing, then you could be paying anything up to $50 per book. Have you checked out the price of a bible lately?

I can actually remember saying to my wife, prior to publishing anything, that I would write Christian literature because there was a captive market and I could make a fortune. Well that didn't go too well. I could not afford to pay an editor, cover person or spend time searching for a publisher or agent. I went for Smashwords because at the time they were the only people who could take my MS Word document and turn it into an EBook free.

I published Ripples, a book of stories with a Christian and moral theme for children, and Pastors, and a novel: The Begat Legacy. Some copies of Ripples were purchased, mainly, I suspect, by family, although they deny it. At $0.99c, I thought the price was reasonable. The Begat Legacy, an 800,000-word novel, aimed at the secular market, I priced at $2.99c. A few copies sold but not many. 

I got to thinking! Checking out Smashwords and Amazon free EBooks, I found that there are not many Christian Books available. There are a large number of pornographic and general available however. During 'Read an EBook week', I priced Ripples free and The Begat Legacy for $1.99. There were downloads of a couple of copies of Ripples but none for 'Begat'.

I then made both available free. There have been many downloads since then.

So what do I make of all this? From now on, I will make all my Christian EBooks available free. I do not class 'Begat' in that category as it is targeted at people who would not pick up an overtly Christian book. It is R18 and designed to open some minds to the fact that there is such a thing as Christianity. If only one person picks up a bible to check what I have written, I will be satisfied with it.

The big question left is; Why do Christian writers, particularly of study guides, apologetics and doctrine, put their books financially out of the reach of so many? They publish to a captive market, a market eager to purchase books that they can be assured are suitable for their tastes and beliefs. If we are to reach and teach, then should we not be publishing free? Did not Paul work for a living while he served?

Mm, interesting!

Would you die for a metaphor?

  The above sentence is the headline the editor placed above my letter to his publication. That publication is 'Touchstone,' a newspaper published by the Methodist Publishing Company in New Zealand, although it points out that the opinions included in it do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Methodist Church of New Zealand.
  One of the regular contributors is Ian Harris who contributes to the column headed 'Honest to God.' In his March 2013 column he wrote concerning some widely held views concerning the Gospels and their versions of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
  In reply I submitted the following opinion which was published in the April edition of Touchstone under the heading of 'Would you die for a metaphor.' I reprint that opinion:
  I take issue with a few of the things stated as authoritative by your correspondent Ian Harris in his column, Honest to God, in your March issue.
  Ian states that the gospels are filled with lessons and hope but not necessarily facts. I must confess to admiring Mr Harris. Over the years I have come across his columns and believe he comments as he does to stir up his readers to open their minds, I admire that.
  In the column I refer to, he comments negatively upon matters written 40 or 50 years after an event. Surely, there would still be people alive who had witnessed that event. There would also be those who had heard, first hand, from such witnesses. They would have to be a more authoritative voice than someone living 2000 years after the event.
  Likewise, up to 100 years after the event, one would think that the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders would have produced witnesses to refute what the Apostles and early Christians were saying.
  After all, here were groups of people claiming that they knew the Messiah and those groups were 'eating' into their faith. One would presume that given the chance, the Jewish authorities would have jumped quite decisively upon provable lies, but evidence of such is absent.
  Numerous critics of the physical resurrection, point to inconsistencies within the gospels when it comes to who saw who and what and when on Easter morning. As a former police detective, I and every lawyer I ever came across can tell you that if there are five witnesses to a single event then there will be five different versions.
  If you want to examine this matter in any detail I would suggest you read Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ.
  I further believe that many of those people viewed Jesus as more than just 'a man among men.' After all, the early believers willingly died for their beliefs. If they were defending something that they knew to be a lie, do you think they would have died for it?
  As a Christian, if you believe that the resurrection was not physical, are you willing to die for it?

Weeds

  I have just returned from a month in Perth, Australia, to visit my daughter, her husband and my five grand kids. All that amounts to a huge backlog of 'stuff' that I can 'blog' about. Another day perhaps.
  Today I have been reintroduced to weeds. Not 'weed', that one that sends you into a haze or something, but the common old garden variety. The ones that grow out of little cracks in the concrete or where anything joins anything. The ones I have met today were introduced to me by a lady at my church. I had barely arrived back in Masterton from Perth when the telephone rang. The said lady, in a very nice way, said my attendance was required (would be appreciated) at the Church buildings the following day as there was work to be done. It would be beneficial, I was informed, if I brought a spade with me.
  I duly attended. Weeds had made their homes in a variety of places about the building and had to be removed. I had not really noticed them to be honest. I attend at the church and associated buildings regularly but my attention is always focused on what I am there to do or upon whom I am speaking with. I had never noticed the weeds. It turns out that previously, the weeds had been dealt to by a person who was no longer able to undertake the task. Nobody had replaced him. (How sad is that?) Not only that, it took another person to point the weeds out to me.
  The story of my life I reckon. Possibly yours too. How many weeds are growing in your life that you are not seeing? Perhaps you also need someone to point them out to you.

TOLERANCE IS HARD WORK

Indeed it is. I belong to a fellowship who state on our weekly bulletin that we are; a safe place for all people to worship regardless of race, creed, gender, cultural background, or sexual orientation. We pay, I believe, only superficial regard to that statement. Tolerance is somewhat absent, unfortunately, as various people, me included, push our own barrows. There is an Island congregation attached to our Church Community and their beliefs lean heavily towards the conservative. So do mine, being the Creationist that I am. Mind you, I came to the Creationist point of view via many roads that had me a radical progressive for many years. Unlike Paul, I was not confronted with a burning bush, but several unexplained matters from the Progressive point of view caused me to revise what I believed. However, getting back to where I was. While there is a conservative bent to many in the congregation, there is also a strong progressive presence. They acknowledge Jesus but have problems with God and the afterlife. Consequently, depending upon who is leading the service on any particular Sunday, the message can range over quite a wide field. Actually I like that. New points of view open up, and interesting points emerge. What I dislike is the disregard many of the opposing factions have for the others point of view. I appreciate the progressive point because I regard them at a different stage on a road that will lead us to God. Hopefully they believe the same of me. Sometimes, however, tolerance can be hard work when either they, them or us believe our road is the only road. I often use the analogy that if we set out from our home towns to go to a certain destination then we will possible all take different routes to get there. Some will fly directly, some will go by car and stop off at various points, some will do some work on the way. Some might encounter mechanical or health problems that will delay them. Eventually, those committed enough, will get to their destination. Hopefully, on their journey, they will pause to help those who are standing looking at the signposts at an intersection, or need assistance to get their car going. Hopefully they will be tolerant of others problems and ways of doing things and find that tolerance need not be hard work.

God Don't Live in No Church

In my book 'Ripples', a young boy with no religious affiliations finds 'Heaven' in a church on Christmas eve. The reality is, however, that God and Heaven are rarely found in such. That is unfortunate but true. On many occasions I have found that there are more 'Christians' outside the Church than in it. Okay, I know that Christians are sinners along with the rest of mankind and I accept that. The point is that Christians often tend to come across as more like the Pharisees of Jesus' time than the disciples of the new church.
I recall an example given me by an Uncle of mine. A dispute arose in their congregation when is was discovered that one of those charged with counting the collection money was making the given money up to a round dollar by adding extra of his own while counting it. The dispute was over the fact that the extra money had not been dedicated and/or blessed. What a performance. It split the entire congregation. Eventually the congregation left. As the door was locked for the last time the person locking it said, "We won." Who won?
The denomination I belong too do not usually baptise via total immersion. Occasionally, however, some one wants to be so baptised. One congregation were undertaking major alterations to their building so the suggestion was made that a bath be built under the font so that if, in future, immersion was required the font could be moved and the bath uncovered. Again, what an uproar. Love thy neighbour?
Both you and I could give many examples couldn't we? How sad. In this day and age, at this time, I think it behoves us to walk the walk like no other time. Our world is currently facing disasters, confrontations and evil the like of which has not been seen for a long time. Christianity is being sidelined by institutions and Governments in favour of secularism. Many of Christendom's critics point to examples similar to those mentioned above.
Don't you think it is time we Christians did better?

I AM A GOOD PERSON BUT GOING TO HELL

I mean, is this really fair? Okay, so perhaps I am not as good a person as I could be. I do the odd wrong thing. Quite a few odd things probably. But basically I am a pretty okay sort of guy. I swear occasionally but doesn't every one? I am faithful to my wife. I don't steal. I don't covet my neighbours ass, or anything else of my neighbours. I love everybody, especially after I have had a few beers. I believe in God and Jesus but I don't go for Churches because there are too many hypocrites inside them. I help old ladies across streets, help the poor and generally do good all over the place. BUT, at the end of my time I ain't going to get into heaven. Why ain't I going to get into heaven? Because I have not said the magic words, 'I believe Jesus was crucified for my sins, died, rose from the dead and is now in Heaven with God'. Why I don't say those words is because my faith is weak. It is a giant leap for me and it is taking me a long time to take that leap. On the other hand my life is full of people who consider the ten commandments as a challenge, and break as many of them as they can, as often as they can. Will they be going to heaven? Well they tell me repeatedly that they believe Jesus died for their sins, that he rose again and is now in Heaven and they believe that implicitly. They say that faith is more important that works. So there you go; me to hell, them to heaven.

Hospital Waiting Rooms Are The Great Leveller

Sit around any hospital waiting room for long enough, and who doesn't these days, and you will see that regardless of your station in this life, a pretty level playing field exists there. In general, discrimination does not exist. Okay, there are the thugs and bullies who perform, demanding rights that they do not have, but in general all those sitting patiently relate to one another. As I sat in Wellington Hospital the other day, I watched a young man, probably about 30 years of age, push a young child, whom I presumed to be his daughter, past in the wheel chair. His face was covered in tattoos. They were the type of tattoo that would have prevented him from getting any type of job other than repairing roads. I do not say that in a judgmental way, but as a statement of fact. But there he was, doing what any other father would do, and doing it with sadness etched upon that face. In any other setting he may well have been bullying his way about (perhaps I am being judgmental?) but there he was clearly upset with his daughter's condition and situation. Again, in any other setting the other people about him would have given him a wide birth, but in the Hospital he and his were accepted and accepting. He was not the only one. People talk to strangers. They reveal to each other the most intimate of secrets. I know that some will say I am wrong because those who can afford it will go to a Private Hospital but I disagree. In an emergency, or even for a 'follow-up' the 'Gentry' will often mix with the 'Serfs' and both learn from each other.
Pity most Churches don't provide such a level playing field.