News Corporation: Harper Collins: Zondervan, University Press of America

Okay...so
My brother last night was giving me a hard time for owning some books published by Zondervan. He was not giving me a hard time, he was furious...he wanted me to burn every single one of the books....
He then spouted out, what sounded like to me a conspiracy theory. One that I was quite unfamiliar with. He said that Zondervan publishes the "Satanic Bible."
To be honest, I was too, unfamiliar with the "Satanic Bible." So I asked him what he meant, was he using a coded name for the NIV translation or was there an actual "Satanic Bible?" And if there was such a thing why the heck would Zondervan have anything to do with it? A sub-point I told my brother was that almost all of my "Christian" books are from Zondervan and I have no desire to burn them all. I like my books!

So I pushed him aside until he could come up with some facts or at least give me some idea of what he was talking about. he did not.

So I did some research of my own:
The Satanic Bible does exist.

It is ridiculous. It was published in 1969 by University Press of America and is associated with the "Church of Satan" and "First Satanic Church."
there actually is a follow up book the "Satanic Rituals" apparently Anton LaVey, did not get everything right the first time or he did not have enough fun the first time seeing that the second book in '72. And a third book later, the "Satanic Witch."
(yeah it gets worse.)

So what is the relationship of University Press of America to Zondervan?

They are all owned by News Corporation. Zondervan is a sub division of HarperCollins.
University Press of America is a part of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. (this company along with HarperCollins publishes the Satanic Bible.)
In the end both publishers are owned by News Corporation.

So it is quite a stretch to make acusations that Zondervan is evil. It is NOT true that Zondervan publishes the Satanic Bible. It is true that the same company owns both the NIV and the Satanic Bible.

Does this make Zondervan authors hypocrits? Should we purchase our Christian books from Zondervan if we are risking having our money also publish The Satanic Bible?
There are great points on both sides of the debate. Should Zondervan try to move out of the corrupt ownership? What can they really do? What can we really do?

I mean we live in a corrupt world! And it is not going to change. We have to live in but not of the world...if we avoid Zondervan becuase they are associated with New Corp this we will end up being legalistic...think about all the other companies you should aviod as Christians, that are also corrupt and owned by New Corp:

Filmed Entertainment - News Corporation
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox Espanol
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Television
Blue Sky Studios
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Studios Australia
Fox Studios LA
Fox Studios Baja
Fox Television Studios

Television - News Corporation
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Sports Australia
Fox Television Stations
FOXTEL
STAR

Cable Television owned by News Corporation
Fox Movie Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Digital
Fox Sports Enterprises
Fox Sports Espanol
Fox Sports Net
Fox Sports World
FUEL
FX
National Geographic Channel
SPEED Channel
Stats, Inc

Direct Broadcast & Satellite Television - News Corporation
BskyB
DIRECTV
FOXTEL
Sky Italia

Magazines - News Corporation
Inside Out
Donna Hay
News America Marketing
Smart Source
The Weekly Standard
Gemstar

Newspapers - News Corporation
Australasian region Newspapers:
Daily Telegraph
Fiji Times
Gold Coast Bulletin
Herald Sun
Newsphotos
Newspix
Newstext
NT News
Post Courier
Sunday Herald Sun
Sunday Mail
Sunday Tasmanian
Sunday Territorian
Sunday Times
The Advertiser
The Australian
The Courier Mail
The Mercury
The Sunday Mail
The Sunday Telegraph
Weekly Times
United Kingdom region Newspapers:
News International
News of the World
The Sun
The Sunday Times
The Times
Times Education Supplement
Times Higher Education Supplement
Times Literary Supplement
TSL Education
United States region Newspapers:
New York Post

Books - News Corporation
Harper Collins Publishers
- Australia
- Canada
- Childrens Books
- United States
- United Kingdom
Regan Books
Zondervan

Other Investments - News Corporation
MySpace.com
Festival Records
Mushroom Records
National Rugby League - Australia
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Nursery World
Playboy
AskMen.com

I do not think we are using our time effctively if we are being so defensive! I think we are wasting our energy avoiding giving News Corporation our money...
God will judge News Corp. He will judge Zondervan and he will judge us.

(And seriously, all the Christians who watch FOX News....(Rupert/News Corp's favorite people to market to are Christians...) - they also market to the 'other side' with the Satanic Bible...maybe the makers of the Satanic Bible will switch publishers....)

But does that mean we should aviod purchasing books from Zondervan completely?
I personally will not go that far. God is using this publisher, despite the fact that it is owned by corrupt leader, Rupert Murdoch.


As far as other reason why you may not want to choose Zondervan (and the NIV)....well I could spend another entire post on that....

PodBible....Bible for IPod!

http://www.podbible.org/

This is a really neat resource!

podBible is the Bible. On your iPod. Hence the name "podBible". And it is free.

You simply download the Bible on your IPod - the ESV edition from their website. And then you have the ESV on your IPod ready to read at any time!!

Check it out!!!

Top ten reasons why the emerger didn’t cross the road?

This was a post by~ Michael Patton ~ on his blog before it was hacked. This post is no longer found on his blog but it is still some funny stuff!

The Kruse Kronicle wrote a brilliantly funny post about why the emerging chicken did cross the road, so I thought that I would write why the emerger did not cross the road.

10. Because he did not want to be labeled.

9. Because he was not absolutely certain that he could cross since in order to get to the other side, you would have to go half way, and in order to go half way, you would have to go half way to the half way, and in order to go half way to the half way, you would have to go half way, ad infinitum.

8. Because it was not a labyrinth shaped road.

7. Because only arrogant people cross roads.

6. The liquor store was on his side. ( :) Come on, lighten up!)

5. Because they don’t ordain women or homosexuals to street preaching on the other side.

4. Because everyone crosses the road, it must be wrong.

3. Because to cross the road you have to go West.

2. Because it was a one-way street.

1. Because he did not want to be accused of J-Mac-ing.

Good HomeWord Devotional (today)

Help Me! I'm Stuck!
This devotional was written by Jim Liebelt

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.—Philippians 2:4

One day, a centipede walked by a tree where a wise old owl was perched. The owl asked the centipede, “You have so many legs! How do you know which one to move next?” The centipede froze in his tracks. He started thinking. He didn’t know which leg to move so he couldn’t move any. He cried to the owl, “Help me! I’m stuck!” The owl said, “My little friend, you are stuck because you are too focused on yourself. When you are focused on what is going on in the world around you, you have no thoughts about how to move. You simply move.” The centipede looked out to the horizon and saw the sun setting. “How beautiful,” the centipede said. Just then, his legs were freed and he began to walk again.

It’s been reported that Dr. Karl Menninger, a famous psychologist, once gave a lecture on mental health. During a question and answer session that followed his lecture, he was asked, “What advice would you give someone who felt a nervous breakdown coming on?” He replied, “Lock up your house, go across the railway tracks, find someone in need and do something to help that person.”

Both the story and anecdote above remind me that when we focus on ourselves – on our problems and circumstances – we can become inwardly paralyzed, preventing us from being everything that God intends for us to be, including serving others effectively. We can freeze in our own tracks.

Following Christ is not primarily an exercise in introspection, but rather of reaching out to others and lovingly serving them in His name. In times when I’ve been in tough situations, or have felt sorry for myself for some reason, I’ve experienced release from my anxiety by changing my focus to others and getting myself involved in serving. Routine self-evaluation is healthy. An obsession with self is not.

Today, if you are feeling paralyzed by the weight of a difficult personal situation, I encourage you to shift your focus from yourself to the Son and find someone you can serve in His name. The weight will seem lighter and you will start moving again.

location limitation

Has anyone ever put much thought to how small we actually are....
How we are limited in our location compared to how big this earth is....
Sure there are cars, train, and planes but it still takes time to get places.

We are efficient when we are settled in on one location, focused on goals that we accomplish in that one area!

This limitation effects all compartments of our life...

dating
jobs
social/economical
who are friends are
what teams we root for
what church we go to
our beliefs/values


Something interesting to think about....

beautiful thing about the Trinity

The Trinity is a amazing....
(Okay so the "Trinity" is not found directly (say word-for-word) in the Bible as I am directly calling it, the Trinity...but the Biblical evidence for the Trinity is real and hard to deny. )

Finding a way to explain the Trinity to someone who does not have the same background knowledge is difficult.
The concept of the Trinity is complex and complicated...but it is amazing, beautiful and supernatural.
There are quite a few website I was reading that tried to simplify the concept of the Trinity by using real life examples and analogies.

These are great because they help wrap our minds around the concept of the Trinity...but they are not enough. They all fail in truly explaining the Trinity and it is difficult for me to use these analogies because they sell the Trinity short! The truth is that we cannot ever really truly wrap our heads around the idea of the Trinity. We are human.

Another danger in using these cute (sometimes neat) analogies is that many times they are just illogical and wrong!

So what is my definition of the Trinity? (you are asking)...okay:

The best way I have heard, understood, and explained the Trinity concept is this:
There is only ONE God. God, though, has three distinct persons that co-exist. God is not like man, in that we only have one form of our being that exists at one time. As men, we operate on the physical. But God lives beyond the physical. It is a three-in-one union or Godhead.

Again:
The Father is not the same person as the Son; the Son is not the same person as the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is not the same person as Father. They are not three gods and not three beings. They are three distinct persons; yet, they are all the one God.

I was not originally planning on spending so much time on this section of this post, but this is good stuff! (and important too!)

What I wanted to post about is this verse in the Bible:


"Let us make people in our image, like ourselves " (Gen. 1:26)

Notice it does not say...'Let me make people in my image, like myself'

They (the three beings) are having a conversation with themselves.

We see that they (The Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit) are
1. Self- sustaining and sufficient
but yet also
2. Relational.

They are relational within themselves...they love each other but they are also want to be relational outside of themselves! they did not have to create man, but they wanted to! They wanted to love us. They wanted us to be like them! This is a beautiful thing!

When did church start Sunday service? Why?

Apparently the Roman church started it.

NOT ONE of the texts I read, set the first day of the week, Sunday, apart as a rest day or as an more important than any other day of the week.

A better question remains then:

Why Sunday over Saturday?

Which is really the Sabbath?

The Sabbath is still Saturday according to all a study of the Greek Hebrew Word.

So another great question remains:

Are we Christians today in trouble (or in violation) for using Sunday as oppose to Saturday? Or is God just generally happy that we are keeping "a day" out of seven holy, restful, and "Sabbath?" Will God at least punish the Roman church?

Other sources:

Book and movie by David Pack

http://www.sabbathfellowship.org/biblestudies/erwingane/biblestudy_gane_sabbathchng.htm


Final Thought:

Christ's resurrection was on Sunday, this is why Sunday was so important.

An opposing thoery or thought could be that, Saturday was God's "day of rest" therefor so it should also be ours.... (that assumes a 7-day Creation)...

Really cool devo for today

It involves a war story:
http://homeword.com/DailyDevotional/DevotionalDetail.aspx
check it

Alex