Had this thought while I was running this morning: in my lifetime, the adjective "irreverent" has gone from being a criticism to being a compliment.

From National Review Online, The Gospel According To Peanuts:

“We got a call from Coca-Cola,” remembered Melendez. “And they said, ‘Have you and Mr. Schulz ever considered doing a Christmas show with the characters?’ and I immediately said ‘Yes.’ And it was Wednesday and they said, ‘If you can send us an outline by Monday, we might be interested in it.’ So I called Sparky on the phone and told him I’d just sold ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ and he said, ‘What’s that?’ and I said, ‘It’s something you’ve got to write tomorrow.’”

We learned in that American Masters series that Schulz had some ideas of his own for the Christmas special, ideas that didn’t make the network suits very happy. First and foremost, there was no laugh track, something unimaginable in that era of television. Schulz thought that the audience should be able to enjoy the show at its own pace, without being cued when to laugh. CBS created a version of the show with a laugh track added, just in case Schulz changed his mind. Luckily, he didn’t.

The second big battle was waged over voiceovers. The network executives were not happy that the Schulz’s team had chosen to use children to do the voice acting, rather than employing adults. Indeed, in this remarkable world created by Charles Schulz, we never hear the voice of an adult.

The executives also had a problem with the jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi. They thought the music would not work well for a children’s program, and that it distracted from the general tone. They wanted something more . . . well . . . young.

Last but not least, the executives did not want to have Linus reciting the story of the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke. The network orthodoxy of the time assumed that viewers would not want to sit through passages of the King James Bible.

There was a standoff of sorts, but Schulz did not back down, and because of the tight production schedule and CBS’s prior promotion, the network executives aired the special as Schulz intended it. But they were certain they had a flop on their hands.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a glorious achievement. It's hard to imagine it being made today.

I'm thankful that Sparky hung tough, and I hope to catch a showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas sometime this season.

May your Christmas season be joyous and Christ-filled.

Black pepper Friday? Walmart shopper in LA pepper-sprays rivals

Bargain hunters at a Walmart in Los Angeles were hurt when a fellow shopper attacked them with pepper spray as the doors opened on the US's holiday shopping season.

Authorities said the woman was trying to keep the other shoppers from merchandise she wanted during early opening on "Black Friday", the name given to the post-Thanksgiving shopping day.

"Somehow she was trying to use it to gain an upper hand," Police Lieutenant Abel Parga told the Associated Press. Authorities said the woman was "competitive shopping".

Officials said 20 people suffered injuries. Matthew Lopez, one of the shoppers, told a Los Angeles Times blog: "I heard screaming and I heard yelling. Moments later, my throat stung. I was coughing really bad and watering up."

Parga said police were still looking for the woman. The store remained open and those not affected by the pepper spray continued shopping.

We are the 100%.

We are not in a battle against flesh and blood. But all we like sheep have gone astray, so we forget that. We are consumed with greed and covetousness and set ourselves against others made in the image of God.

We forget our brothers in need, we envy and rail against those who have what we desire. We place our hope in men and systems and media and money and rage.

You can divide yourself from others and categorize yourself as a 99 or a 1.

I'm in the 100% that need Jesus.

HT: Abraham Piper

Our President recently decided - shortsightedly, I believe - to pour fuel on the always-simmering fires of class envy in order to help enact his agenda and, consequently, aid his re-election. And, evidently, it's working. And so, the Occupy Wall Street movement was born.

In observing this phenomenon, I've been trying to determine which of the following is the most relevant:

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. (Exodus 20:17 ESV)

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1-5 ESV)

The Exodus passage is among the most ignored commandments in Scripture. The passage from James is one of the most ignored warnings in Scripture.

It's sobering to consider that, certainly in James' times and culture, the term "rich" would have probably described almost all of us in the affluent west. That includes the white, middle-class Occupy protesters demanding that someone else pay their college loans.

In America, certainly from a historical perspective and even from a current world-wide perspective, almost all of us are the 1%.

So, what to make of the Occupy movement? I don't know. It seems to me that it is predominantly a case of the slightly less-rich storming the gates of the ultra-rich.

I don't think much good is going to come from it.

As most of you know, Steve Jobs died yesterday. I think almost everyone can agree, whether you like Apple products or not, that Mr. Jobs was a genius and his company produced devices and computers that have changed the way we interact with technology and even with each other.

I'm not a Mac-bigot. I don't own an iPhone or an iPad, though we do have a Mac desktop computer. But I have often observed that Apple products all have a common trait. They just work, melding aesthetic beauty with breathtaking technological competence. We're all used to iPhones now. Twenty years ago we would have fallen over if someone had shown us a working model of one.

Kevin Williamson makes an observation here that I think is worth considering.

I was down at the Occupy Wall Street protest today, and never has the divide between the iPhone world and the politics world been so clear: I saw a bunch of people very well-served by their computers and telephones (very often Apple products) but undeniably shortchanged by our government-run cartel education system. And the tragedy for them — and for us — is that they will spend their energy trying to expand the sphere of the ineffective, hidebound, rent-seeking, unproductive political world, giving the Barney Franks and Tom DeLays an even stronger whip hand over the Steve Jobses and Henry Fords. And they — and we — will be poorer for it.

And to the kids camped out down on Wall Street: Look at the phone in your hand. Look at the rat-infested subway. Visit the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, then visit a housing project in the South Bronx. Which world do you want to live in?

[H/T Instapundit]

And now, O sons, listen to me,and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
-- Proverbs 5:7

As we cling doggedly to the theology our fathers fought for and passed down to us in good faith, the doctrinal dilettantes of the day nag, "What ever happened to semper reformanda?", positing evolving boundaries, a flexible orthodoxy, working on the assumption that our position in history gives us a better understanding of what the Bible really says.

The way we play with the shape of evangelical theology today arises from straight-up chronological snobbery.

In the New York Times last April we find this historical item related to the recent tsunami and devastation in Japan:

The stone tablet has stood on this forested hillside since before they were born, but the villagers have faithfully obeyed the stark warning carved on its weathered face: “Do not build your homes below this point!”

Residents say this injunction from their ancestors kept their tiny village of 11 households safely out of reach of the deadly tsunami last month that wiped out hundreds of miles of Japanese coast and rose to record heights near here. The waves stopped just 300 feet below the stone.

“They knew the horrors of tsunamis, so they erected that stone to warn us,” said Tamishige Kimura, 64, the village leader of Aneyoshi.

Hundreds of so-called tsunami stones, some more than six centuries old, dot the coast of Japan, silent testimony to the past destruction that these lethal waves have frequented upon this earthquake-prone nation. But modern Japan, confident that advanced technology and higher seawalls would protect vulnerable areas, came to forget or ignore these ancient warnings, dooming it to repeat bitter experiences when the recent tsunami struck.

Their ancestors knew what they were talking about. They had learned the hard way. And they erected markers: Don't build past this point. But we post-postmoderns are arrogant. We know better. We are smarter, more enlightened. And we have to accommodate more and more people. So we ignore the markers. We want to grow!

We must be reminded that semper reformanda does not mean "always morphing." It does not mean that the faith is ever changing, progressing into something better. In many respects, to be always reforming is to be always returning to the gospel. It is to be continually sloughing off the baggage of doctrinal add-ons and distractions, cutting out the ever-rising innovations, theological and otherwise. To be always reforming is to keep going back to the ancient markers in the face of constant temptation and taunting from those who'd have us play with heterodoxy ever-newly. Let us keep contending, keep trusting, keep returning.

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
-- 2 Timothy 1:13-14

Abraham Piper reports: "Soon after The Simpsons debuted, People Magazine quoted Barbara Bush as saying it was one the stupidest things she’d ever seen. Here’s is Marge’s respectful response . . ."



And here is Mrs. Bush’s response:

Dear Marge,

How kind of you to write. I’m glad you spoke your mind; I foolishly didn’t know you had one.

I am looking at a picture of you, depicted on a plastic cup, with your blue hair filled with pink birds peeking out all over. Evidently, you and your charming family — Lisa, Homer, Bart and Maggie — are camping out. It is a nice family scene. Clearly you are setting a good example for the rest of the country.

Please forgive a loose tongue.

Warmly,

Barbara Bush

P.S. Homer looks like a handsome fella!

Skye Jethani has a neat piece at Out of Ur today reflecting on Leadership Lessons from Superman's Underpants. You should read the whole thing because it's interesting and neat. But I want to pontificate on a point only tangential to his aims.

Commenting on the fanboy rage erupting in the discovery that the new Superman reboot will depict the Man of Steel sans those iconic red undies -- he won't be nekkid, of course, he'll just have the blue jumpsuit that's underneath them -- Jethani writes:

[W]hen Warner Brothers handed the responsibility for penning a new Superman script to Christopher Nolan and David Goyer, the same team behind Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, they wanted to bring the same realism to the Man of Steel they had brought to the Caped Crusader. But the Superman character, unlike Batman, is utterly unrealistic. He’s an alien who can fly, repel bullets, and fire lasers from his eyes. If we are to accept all of that, is it really too much to ask a modern audience to believe Superman would wear red underwear over his pants?

First, I think it's a good thing that Nolan and Goyer are taking over the Superman reigns. Their storytelling chops, cinematic instincts, and mythological depth can give the Superman mythos the gravitas it deserves.

But I honestly think one of the worst things that can happen is if they turn Superman into a brooding, gray-toned Dark Knight-esque mope-athon. The problem with the Superman reboot of a few year's ago was not that it tried to stay colorful and maintain the iconic Superman look/feel, it's that it failed as a movie. It was stupid, campy, poorly acted, and misfired on all cylinders of internal logic. But it did not fail because it wasn't gritty and "realistic." It was a terrible script and was handled by a hamfisted director.

I like the Nolan Batman movies a lot. The second one in particular is a towering cinematic achievement. But as a comic book fan, I still think Spider-Man 2 is the best *comic book movie* of all time. (Although this year's Captain America really wowed me.) To repeat and clarify: I think Nolan's Batman films are better than Raimi's Spider-Man films. The Dark Knight is clearly a better movie than Spider-Man 2. But if I want a movie that captures the wonder, the sparkle, the adventure, the razzmatazz of the days this ten year old couldn't wait to get Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman with his allowance from the spinner rack at Carl's Grocery Store in McAllen, Texas, Spider-Man 2 wins hands down.

And it didn't hurt that it was written by award-winning literary novelist Michael Chabon and directed with frenetic genius by Sam Raimi.

So, you see, Superman reboot honchos, you don't have to turn Superman into an emo kid with seasonal affective disorder or give him a bastard child to hand-wring over or even, God forbid, ditch the red undies, to make a good Superman movie that people will love. You just have to have talented people who will be able to capture the spirit of the Superman mythos. It better have color; it better have life; it better totally buy into the ridiculousness of the Superman premise; it better honor the standard backstory; it better move, baby. If you botch this again, we will hatess you forever, preciousss.

I had a meeting yesterday with a fellow in our church who has been unemployed for several months now. His wife now works two jobs, he is on unemployment and daily sending out resumes and appearing for interviews for things he is vastly overqualified for (which, ironically, does not help him get those jobs), and basically just trusting God. If anybody had a reason for envy, this dude's got it. But as we started talking about the economy in general he said something I'll never forget: "I love rich people."

Why? Because he's smart enough to know it's not poor people handing out jobs. My friend was/is a designer of kitchens (mostly cabinetry). In his line of work, it's rich people who bring him into company employ and it's rich people who (typically) remodel their kitchens or build houses with fancy new ones.

In this current election cycle we are hearing more class warfare rhetoric. A lot it boils down to further punishing rich people -- they don't pay enough taxes or what-have-you -- and a lot of it is calculated to stir up envy and resentment. This post from Kevin DeYoung today complements my conversation with my friend yesterday. An excerpt:

I thought it might be worthwhile to think about where private sector jobs come from. Most basically, new jobs come from people with money to spend who want to spend their money on more people. This means:

(1) The employer must have money. He may spend his own money. Or he may borrow money from investors or the bank. But somehow he has to have money.

(2)The employer must believe that spending his money on new employees will be good for his business. We may wish that employers hired people just cuz. But that’s not the way the world works. When employers want to be charitable they give to church or to their alma mater. But with their business they know they need to make money. Consequently, they hire new workers only when they believe that paying more people will eventually be offset by making more money.

(3) The employer must be willing to take a risk. Very few new hires are sure things. Employers don’t know exactly what they are getting with their new employees. More important, they don’t know what will happen with their profits. They follow trends and track receipts and keep money in reserve, but in the end every expansion of business is a risk.

(4) The employer must be somewhat confident in his projection of the future. Yes, risk is inevitable. But shrewd businesses look to minimize risk. They want to know what their taxes will be, whether existing laws will be fairly enforced, what regulations will be like, what’s happening with their competitors, what’s happening with the prices of things they need to buy, what’s happening with markets overseas. There are a thousand things they’d like to know. They can’t know them all. But the more predictable their future looks, the more apt they will be to take risks.

This is just basic economics. The rest is good too.

As we near voting time, let's consider tuning out the rhetoric that would have us either punishing the rich or the poor and think logically, not emotionally or resentfully about taxes, jobs, and economics. Let's not hate our neighbor because he has what we want. We may end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

-- Titus 2:7-8

Titus was told to model sound speech -- which probably meant that he never said things like, "Like, dude, like, an awesome thing, dude, is the fact that, man, I like, totally don't know what to say."

-- Doug Wilson, Future Men (Canon Press, 2001), 43.

Here is Taylor Mali with a good reflection-via-representation on this phenomena:



What do you think? Does this sort of youthful manner of speech apply to Paul's words on sound speech?

I think Mali's parting shot helps us see that it might, particularly as it relates to speaking with authority and conviction.

"If you have faith, anything is possible. Anything at all."

That's a line from Soul Surfer one of the more recent "Christian movies" to enjoy some measure of success. The good news is that it is a fair bit better in quality than most films that bear the modifier "Christian." With a cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt, Kevin Sorbo, and Craig T. Nelson, you can be guaranteed some serviceable performances, even if the script stunk. And the script isn't great, but it doesn't stink.

There are a few maudlin moments, where the movie loses its tone for real life, but in general it is easily watchable, which is a rarity for this genre. The only exception is the performance of Carrie Underwood who plays a youth minister. Underwood might be able to knock the crud out of a song, but she is a huge acting fail.

Anna Sophia Robb plays Bethany Hamilton, the real life teen girl who loved surfing until a shark attack took her left arm. Then she loved surfing more. Hamilton and her family are devoted Christians, and their faith -- and its motivation in Bethany's life to relearn surfing and compete -- is the basic plot of the film. It is a story about triumph over the odds.

But is it a Christian movie?

Here's my beef, and I'm sure I will take some flack from somebody for this. Bethany Hamilton's story is inspiring and encouraging, and I'm sure she has real saving faith in Jesus Christ, but the message of the movie Soul Surfer appears to be "I can do all things through moralistic therapeutic deism which strengthens me." This doesn't make it a bad movie; it just makes it as easily a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness movie as it does a Christian one.

The quote that opens this blog post is a line that closes the movie. It is a good summation. But it begs the question: faith in what? At one point in the movie, as Bethany is summoning up the courage to reenter the water with one-armed gumption, she quotes Philippians 4:13. Well, not the whole thing. Just the first part that says "I can do all things." Not, you know, how.

There is plenty of God talk in the movie, actually, but I don't remembering hearing the word Jesus once. I could've missed it, but the overwhelming point appears to be that if you work hard enough, God will bless you with being able to do cool things like surf with one arm.

When I was a kid I had a poster on my wall of a dude dunking a basketball with Philippians 4:13 as a caption. I got pretty good at basketball as I got older, but I'm sorry to say that, despite my earnest faith, not literally everything is possible.

I don't think that every movie (or book) created by Christians ought to have the clear plan of salvation in it. That is not how I discern a movie's "Christianity." BUT. If you're going to put explicit faith-in-God talk into a movie -- and call it Christian -- I think you ought to go all in and have the courage to make it Christian talk.

Of course, the way Soul Surfer approaches faith is exactly how many Christians in real life do. This is a real problem and it's not the movie's fault. But in the end, if the explicit message about God you're communicating is that believing in yourself can help you succeed because of a benevolent God, you ought not call your movie Christian. Soul Surfer posits a quote-unquote "God" palatable for any religious soul itching to be inspired without any uncomfortable gospel of Jesus stuff. It's for the same "evangelicals" who don't understand what the big deal is about Mormons being considered Christian. (None of us has perfect theology, right?) And it's for the Mormons too.

I am guessing Bethany's remarkable story deserved much better.

Janet Reitman has written a provocative book detailing the inner workings of the very secretive world of Scientology. Having read up a bit on L. Ron Hubbard’s science fiction-slash-religion creation before, I was familiar with the charge that in the early “auditing” process, budding Scientologists reveal their deepest darkest secrets to the church, who in turn may eventually use those to emotionally blackmail would-be deserters and dissenters. In an interview reprinted by Reuters, Reitman elaborates:

Q: There are all these rumors that celebrities like Cruise remain Scientologists because the church knows all their secrets and they fear blackmail. Any truth to that?

A: I didn’t go into that too much in my book, but it seems obvious. They have the goods on everybody. A great part of the Scientology experience is the confession that happens in the auditing experience. You are constantly being asked to write up your transgressions, maybe even your unspoken transgressions. They know everything about you. They would know everything about Cruise in the same way that they would know everything about me if I were a member.

What a racket.

And what a wonder, then, that Christians are forgiven and saved by a God whose filing cabinet of records against us is empty. Or, rather, is filled with the obedience of Jesus.

I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins. (Isaiah 43:25)

If you think I'm being political here, you're wrong. This isn't primarily a political issue. It's a moral issue.

And since ours is a government of the people, those of us who have been of voting age for more than a few election cycles are complicit.

[H/T Instapundit]

OK, first, full disclosure: I am a technologist. I have a degree in Computer Science. I even write software.

But I'm troubled by what's happening in our culture. Case in point: Google+. I only just heard about this, but it seems everyone is now "moving to" Google+ or wishing they could move to it or sitting on pins and needles waiting to be invited into it. We didn't even know what this was a day ago, didn't need it, and now everyone's buzzing about it. I assume it has more blinky lights or something? I guess it will give us a way of getting even more virtually connected to people we barely know and never see or talk to in real, physical life. Meta-life is more fulfilling, I suppose.

My inner conspiracy theorist is standing on a ledge right now. SkyNet had nothing on Google. They know everything about you, because you willingly have abdicated all your privacy to them. OK, OK, at Google headquarters they have a sign that says "Don't be evil". I don't want to be around the day someone there gets the bright idea to take that sign down.

But, what the hey. They've got apps!

Meh.

Just for fun, while I'm in this mood. Everything's amazing right now and nobody's happy:

With a few notable exceptions, the heyday of blog comment threads appears to be over. Some blogs don't even host comments any more, but the ones that still do -- like this blog, for instance, which used to average comments in the twenties for every post -- has seen its comment discussion glory days gone by. Why?

Three theories:

1. Max saturation of weblogs.

In the olden days, the blogosphere was a smaller community, and people were more invested in and enthusiastic about the actual community feel of the medium. Even in the ubiquitous flame wars there was a sense of camaraderie going on, like the spirit in a town pub or coffee shop. Now that the blogosphere has expanded and exploded, everybody is too busy blogging themselves to comment on other people's blogs.

2. Social media has officially made us socially retarded.

Facebook is a prime example. It's friendship for people who don't know how to carry on actual conversations with people's faces. We are now used to using social media -- blogging included -- as a soapbox, confessional, or self-promotional platform instead of a living room or conference table. We just don't know how to talk to each other.

3. Burnout or simple lack of interest.

We're either tired of online discussions in general, finding them fruitless or tiresome, or the appeal of the comment threads in the days of blogging newness has passed. We're on to other things now.

From a provocative piece by Peter Wehner:

In the wake of the victories by the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge, many liberals simply ignored what followed their ascension to power. Progressives believed the leadership of these countries were comprised of enlightened agrarian reformers who would improve the everyday lives of people in both countries. What the South Vietnamese and the Cambodian people got instead was unimaginable brutality and horror — and what we heard from many on the left were excuses and indifference.

I was reminded of this in reading Max’s post, which quoted a tribal elder in Afghanistan, commenting on President Obama’s decision to withdraw more than 33,000 troops by next September. “This drawdown will embolden the morale of the Taliban, and actually it has already emboldened them,” the tribal elder said. The Taliban are saying to the elders not to support Americans or you will be killed, and now they say the Americans are leaving and your lives will not be spared.

Yet we have figures like the liberal evangelical Jim Wallis urging the United States exit immediately, without even a single reference to the hellish future that would face the people of Afghanistan if that were to happen. Wallis argued something similar in Iraq, urging the United States to withdraw rather than support President Bush’s surge strategy. If America had followed the counsel of Wallis, Iraq would have descended into civil war and mass death.

None of this is surprising for Wallis or those who shared his worldview. After all, in September 1979, Wallis wrote of the Vietnamese “boat people”: “Many of today’s refugees were inoculated with a taste for a Western lifestyle during the war years and are fleeing to support their consumer habit in other lands.” (See this profile on Wallis.) Wallis’ words were disgraceful, a slander of innocent people who were fleeing a repressive government. And in Cambodia we didn’t see the emergence of social justice (a favorite phrase of Wallis’); what we saw instead was forced labor, slavery, starvation and the extermination of roughly one-quarter of the Cambodian population.

I recall my cognitive dissonance: Why weren’t those on the left –who took great pride in advertising their compassion for the poor, the dispossessed, and the downtrodden and who took special pride in their multicultural sensitivities — the least bit horrified by what happened and their complicity in it? Didn’t the mass graves, the genocide, and the killing fields bother them? Why weren’t there more liberals like Joan Baez, who supported the North Vietnamese until she became horrified at its human-rights violations (she eventually published a full-page newspaper advertisement describing the horror that had descended on Vietnam). Conservatism might not be perfect, I thought at the time, but it could do a good deal better than this.

Read the whole thing.

Why so many expend such sweat and precious breath to fluidize and demonize Christianity is simply quite beyond me. Surely there are infinitely more negative and disruptive forces at work in the universe than something that gives hope and comfort, let alone refuge, aid and medical assistance to countless millions. I imagine it’s pretty much the same old bag of rattling bones, the detractors and stone throwers bitch and whine while negativity and selfishness runs rampant in their insular worlds. When was the last time you heard of “The American Atheist Association” building schools and housing for the homeless and disposed on the frozen slopes of China or bringing in medical supplies and vaccinating poverty stricken tribes in the African wilderness while warring factions try to kill them?

That's from a dizzying -- and quite bold -- rant by Bernie Taupin, perhaps best known as Elton John's longtime songwriting partner. You should read the whole thing.

(HT: Daniel)

Since I began in ministry 17 years ago as a youth pastor, I've been hearing young men and women say about dating and marriage some variation of the phrase, "I just want someone who loves Jesus." Of course, this includes loving them, loving others, etc., but the gist of it is, "I don't care about superficial things; I just want a good Christian."

Yesterday I called these people liars on Twitter. Some understood and agreed or LOL'd. Others asked to clarify. One guy asked me why I called him a liar. :-)

I'm sure there's a few people who really do only want someone who loves Jesus and will compromise on the rest. But the reason why the vast majority of the people who say this are lying liars is because I've watched these same young people date nonChristians, get into unhealthy sexual relationships, basically live like God ain't watching, and/or ignore the young people in their relational spheres who actually love Jesus.

In fact, I notice that the young men and women who do just love Jesus tend to stay single quite a while.

So I'm left assuming that what people really mean is "I just want someone who loves Jesus . . . but also looks like Channing Tatum or Megan Fox. Actually, if they look like Channing Tatum or Megan Fox it's cool if they just think Jesus is neat. Actually, if they're a nice person and look hot but don't love Jesus, I'm sure they'll come around through some full-body witnessing."

I notice the double standard even in young men and women who look more like Carol Channing or Redd Fox. They want a nice Christian significant other who won't be superficial and will just love them for who they are -- but they want that person to be hot (or have a well-paying job or whatever). :-)

I used to call even these people liars because I'd have young men saying they didn't care about looks just faith and young women saying they didn't care about looks just faith, but none of them would date each other.

(By the way, wanting a hot significant other is okay. God bless ya if ya happen to land one. Just be honest about it. And stop saying you just want a good Christian if that's actually the most negotiable trait on the table.)