After Saturday’s sermon (above), which was quite possibly the best tithing sermon I’ve ever heard, I’ve been pondering the concept of tithing time. What would it be like to devote about one and a half hours a day to God? (Based on a day of about 16 waking hours.) I was reading Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Procrastination and this passage really struck me.

Fifth, men behave themselves as those who depend on another day, when they neglect anything today which must be done before they die. If there be anything, which is absolutely necessary to be done sometime before death, and the necessity of it be sufficiently declared and shown to the person for whom it is thus necessary, if he neglects setting about it immediately, sincerely, and with all his might, certainly it carries this face with it, that the man depends upon its being done hereafter, and consequently that he shall have opportunity to do it. — Because, as to those things which are absolutely necessary to be done, there is need, not only of a possibility of a future opportunity; but of something which is to be depended on, some good ground to conclude that we shall have future opportunity. Therefore, whoever lives under this gospel, and does not this day thoroughly reform his life, by casting away every abomination, and denying every lust — and doth not apply himself to the practice of the whole of his duty towards God and man, and begin to make religion his main business — he acts as one who depends on another day; because he is abundantly taught that these things must be done before he dies.

Those who have been seeking salvation for a great while, in a dull, insincere, and slightly manner, and find no good effect of it, have abundant reason to conclude, that some time before they die, they must not only seek, but strive to enter in at the strait gate, and must be violent for the kingdom of heaven. And therefore, if they do not begin thus today, they act as those who depend on another day. — So those who have hitherto lived in the neglect of some particular known duty, whether it be secret prayer, or paying some old debt, which they have long owed to their neighbor — or the duty of confessing some fault to a brother who hath aught against them, or of making restitution for some injury — they act as those who depend on another day.

I have been acting as though I have all the time in the world to do all kinds of things. But the fact is that the clock is ticking. And the choices I make about my time, perhaps even more than the choices I make about my wallet, are the best indicator of my commitment to the Lord. After all, I’ll make more money sooner or later. I can’t make time. It’s a very sobering thought.

Over at JackLewis.net I stumbled across a post about the cancellation of The Book of Daniel. It turns out the writer, Jack Kenny, blames a “Small Minority of Loud-Mouthed Bullies (SMLMB)” for the cancellation. Well, okay. He can characterize Christians unfavorably after The Book of Daniel’s cancellation just as he did before it – it’s a free country. It’s just that now he’s not getting paid for it, and his audience for it is more limited than it was while the show was on. I suppose he can get a blog to rant on like the rest of us.

The post at Jack Lewis made some good points, namely that Christians are not guilty of censorship because they engaged in free speech, and that homosexuals (Jack Kenny is homosexual) have frequently boycotted and complained when homosexuality is not portrayed they way they like in various forms of entertainment. What’s sauce for the goose…

I remember when the movie Philadelphia came out and people raved about it – how it would change the way people think about homosexuality and about AIDS. I thought then how hypocritical it was that the same group of people who claimed that violence in entertainment had no affect whatsoever on viewers was raving wildly about the social impact this movie would have.

The fact is that entertainment does have consequences. Having a message hammered in your ears week after week certainly does tend to reinforce it. Why do you think we’ve had Commander in Chief served up in plenty of time for the 2008 elections? Having the message hammered in time after time that Christians are bad (remember “poor, uneducated and easy to command”?) does matter. And this show may have been subtle about it, but packing the cast with that many “Christian” characters with such serious flaws would not have been tolated for any other group. Replace “Christian” with “Muslim” or “homosexual” and try to imagine the show getting aired at all, much less staying on as long as this show did. Not. A. Chance. Even though I didn’t boycott the show or email anyone about it, I can certainly understand why others felt they should.

You want a SMLMB? Try this on for size: Less than 5% of the population, by the most charitable estimates (Kinsey’s 10% has been debunked by so many reputable sources I can’t pick one. Google it.) that forces the other 95% to modify their behavior and speech. This tiny minority is statistically over-represented in journalism and entertainment and consequently is able to push their agenda at us from almost every media angle. And when it is rejected repeatedly at the ballot box, they ram it down our throats in the courts. Sounds like a Small Minority of Loud Mouthed Bullies to me.

My other posts on The Book of Daniel TV show are here.