random religious animosity

i’m not sure what’s gotten me on this kick the last couple of days, but i’ve been really getting internally annoyed thinking about the prosperity, “name it, claim it”, health and wealth strand of xianity. i keep wanting to grab a white tshirt and write something on it along the lines of “jesus christ did not die on the cross so you could get lots of cash”. i mean, i’m not going to claim that i’ve got a lock on xian theology by any stretch of the imagination, and there are plenty of areas where i think my actions fail to meet the things i think jesus taught (i do try to never be a hypocrite though). but how in the world can people come away from the new testament, from the actions of jesus toward the rich and the religiously pious of his day, with the idea that jesus wanted his followers to be wealthy and get anything they have the faith to ask for? how did that health and wealth thing work out for the apostles and the first century xians? it boggles my mind.
in other news, i bought a number of xian/religious books at a couple of half-price books stores this weekend. i was originally looking for some of the new books that have been coming out the last few years about/by gen-x’ers and the general dislike of organized religion, xianity in postmodernism, that sort of thing. i only found a couple, but i wound up buying a bunch of other stuff from the “religion” section. i’ll list ’em all in the extended entry.
i also bought some dvds this weekend. i think i’m going to make a page of all the dvds i own, which isn’t all that many. at least not compared to a number of my friends, or my collection of cds (which i’ve been collecting since 1990 or so). i’ll put that together some other time. then everyone can see what incredible taste in movies i have. 😉

here are the books i bought:
virtual faith (the irreverent spiritual quest of generation x) – tom beaudoin
this is the one that most closely matched what i was looking for. i actually started reading it last night. it seems interesting.
the new faithful (why young adults are embracing christian orthodoxy) – colleen carroll
not sure if this’ll be good or not, but it was close to what i was looking for and might be a good read.
blue like jazz – donald miller
this one gets referenced by a lot of the people and books that i was actually looking for. not sure if i’ll like it or not, but i’ll give it a shot.
orthodoxy – g. k. chesterton
a classic piece of work that i thought might be interesting.
the twelve (the lives of the apostles after calvary) – c. bernard ruffin
fairly short read i think. curious to see what it says and how they pieced the info together.
the secret teachings of jesus (four gnostic gospels) – translated by marvin w. meyer
i always wonder about those crazy gnostics.
the history of hell – alice k. turner
i don’t think this was done from a christian perspective, which makes me much more interested in reading it.
the profits of religion – upton sinclair
i read the jungle back in college. although sinclair was still idealizing socialism and promoting it in this book from what i understand, i think it’ll be nice to see him rip into the organized religion of his day.
by design (science and the search for G-d) – larry witham
not sure i’m going to appreciate this. it’s a book on intelligent design. i’m somewhat curious to see what it has to say.
honky-tonk gospel – gene edward veith and thomas l. wilmeth
since i’ve gotten into various styles of old country, the ability of the musicians to flip back and forth between cheating/gambling/killing songs and religious songs has always stuck me as curious, so i figured i’d enjoy seeing someone else’s angle on it.
saving your second marriage before it starts – drs. les and leslie parrott
“let’s just be friends” (recovering from a broken relationship) – h. norman wright
hey…sometimes i figure i don’t know what the h3ll i’m doing. i kind of doubt i’ll get much out of these other than some mental mocking of the books, but perhaps there will be something good to take away.