I’m thankful. I’m thankful for you guys, my old real-life friends and new digital friends who stop by here on a regular basis. Thank you for interacting and sharing opinions and contributing to the discussion. Thank you for buying my books and reading my articles and encouraging me along the way. I hope I can return the favor someday.

“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.” (Meister Eckhart)

Thank you. And Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your family and friends.

See you on Monday.

When we were expecting our daughter eight years ago and we started looking at options for decorating her nursery, I was struck by something I noticed at the local Christian bookstore. It had a little section devoted to religious nursery knick-knacks. (Also, one or two religious paddy-wacks may have been available.) Most of the nursery stuff fit within a certain theme: Noah’s ark.

Why Noah’s Ark? Because it’s a cuddly story, and the cute giraffes and fat hippos and fluffy sheep and stuff make it a favorite among kids, I guess. In fact, it’s such a cute Bible story it got a special section in my son’s preschool Bible, complete with a bearded cartoon Noah with a couple of doves on his shoulders and kittens on his feet. There may have even been a kangaroo. Back then, and still today, you could buy Noah’s ark toys and lamps and bookends and baby hats and onesies and quilts for your little one. It’s such a sweet story, we practically hit Christian babies over the head with it from the time they exit the womb.

How horrible will the day be when these kids actually read their Bibles and discover that Noah’s Ark is a story about God smiting EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the earth except for one righteous family? And about smiting EVERY SINGLE LIVING CREATURE on the earth except for those two-by-twos that wgot tickets for the ark? When did we decide that Noah’s Ark was a children’s story anyway? Answer: It was when we forgot that Noah’s ark is a story about death and drowning and worldwide apocalypse.

And that happened probably around the same time we Christians got concerned about the dangerous amounts of sex and violence in movies and TV shows, while conveniently ignoring the sex and violence in our Bibles.

There’s a Christian college in Iowa that’s trying to make us remember that our spiritual texts — which many view to be the “very words of God” for us — have some rough edges. Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, has been putting on a dramatic musical called “Terror Texts,” in which Goth-clad students recite and act out some of the most horrific stories in the Bible, accompanied by a rock band. Elisha sending a couple of she-bears to maul kids who made fun of his baldness? It’s in there. So is the story of Eglon, the obese king murdered by Ehud (whose 18 inch-long knife sunk so deep into the guy’s flesh that his fatness closed in around it). Plus a handful of other stories you probably didn’t hear about in Sunday School, but which are spoken verse-by-verse in the musical, in all their scary King James glory.

I say Good for them. We need to remember that the Bible is not a safe book. It’s not really a book for children. It’s a book that, to this day, still disturbs me. Its stories can be primitive and ugly and completely foreign to my 21st century experience.

But it’s so hard to remember that, because our tendency is to sanitize our religion behind a glossy sheen of purpose-driven piety and paintings of Jesus holding sheep.

That’s why:

1) I wrote a book introducing people to the Bible. Because Christians in particular and Westerners in general have no business not being intelligently informed about a book that has so much influence in our culture today. Secular culture, religious culture, all of it. Like Aslan, the Bible is not safe. Of course, its overall message — once you get to the New Testament — is good. But there’s a lot of worrisome stuff until you get there. When it comes to redemption, Jesus has a lot to work with.

2) I am suspicious of anyone claiming the Bible to be something as simplistic as “God’s rulebook for life” or “God’s recipe for living” or any other statement that indicates that they’ve got the Bible all figured out and you can, too. Here’s a tip: They probably don’t. At least, they’re ignoring a lot of stuff. I have come to the conclusion that, when it comes to the Bible, one of the greatest virtues is interpretive humility — the willingness to admit that you might be wrong about what you think it’s saying. Unless you are an expert in Greek or Hebrew — and, it should be noted, I am decidedly not — then I’m hesitant to trust you when you tell me “this is what the Word means.” I’m talking to you, televangelist. And you, overconfident young preacher. And you, bookstore guy trying to sell me Noah’s ark figurines.

3) You should be suspicious of me if, in Pocket Guide to the Bible, I came across as if I had the Bible figured out or was trying to tell you what it meant. I shouldn’t have. I’m pretty sure I just stuck to “this is what it says, and this is how some people interpret it.” But if I stepped over that line, my apologies. Humility. Humility. Humility.

OK, rant over. Back to thawing your turkeys.

Dear Christian consumers, Christmas light-decorating aficianados, and people from the American Family Association who come up with products that are completely tone-deaf when it comes to American culture:

1. Crosses are appropriate yard decorations for those wishing to express their devotion to Jesus. Even crosses that are 5.5 feet tall.

2. Christmas lights are appropriate yard decorations for those wishing to participate in a holiday tradition. Even Christmas lights expressing a religious theme.

3. Brightly lit crosses, placed in the yard, are probably NOT appropriate decorations given our nation’s racial history. If you must buy one, please keep it out of the yard. Keep it out of your neighbor’s yard, too.

Just a helpful holiday and/or racial harmony tip from your friendly Pocket Guide author.

From the “Christmas Cross” product description at the AFA online store:

Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can…. with the “Original Christmas Cross” yard decoration. Light up your front yard, porch, patio, driveway, business, organization or church this holiday season with a stunning Christmas cross.

Yep. I’d say “stunning” is probably the right word.

There’s a really interesting thread going over at Internet Monk about “the de-churching of America.” Lots of religious researchers are beginning to see evidence that my generation — people in their 20s and 30s — are dropping out of institutional church attendance…but not necessarily dropping out of the faith.

They still believe, but maybe they’re tired of the corporate/country-club mindset, or of being asked for money, or of the reduction of the Gospel message to a 5-step “How to Be a Better You” sermon.

Anyway, the comments below the iMonk post are pretty interesting. Feel free to add your two cents there if you want, but I’d also invite you to comment here. I’m interested in your experience. Are you still involved in regular church attendance? How often do you attend? If you no longer attend, what are the circumstances or thoughts behind that decision? Obviously this will be anecdotal, but have you seen evidence of younger generations dropping out of church?

Watch out, America. The stiff-necked, unbelieving buses of England are coming to the streets of our nation’s Capitol. Like its marketing-savvy counterparts in the British Humanist Association, the American Humanist Association debuted its own there-is-no-god ad campaign this week. Also like the British campaign (“There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”), this one delivers a fairly happy, optimistic message:

And also like the British campaign, they’re meeting with some opposition from Christians, like American Family Association president Tim Wildmon:

“It’s a stupid ad,” he said. “How do we define ‘good’ if we don’t believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what’s good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what’s good, it’s going to be a crazy world.”

I don’t know. It’s kind of a crazy world already, isn’t it? What with original sin being what it is? It’s not like everything was all cupcakes and butterflies until these ads showed up. Besides I’m pretty sure there are at least a few ways to be good that aren’t expressly mentioned in the Bible. Like the time when I helped my grandmother install her new flatscreen TV. I don’t see much harm in telling people to be good, even if they’re just being good for goodness’ sake and not for God’s sake.

But, then again, the humanist group has motives other than goodwill toward men. Their spokesman, Fred Edwords, told the Associated Press that they’re not exactly trying to change people’s minds about the existence of God, but “we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people’s minds.” Hang on. Rational thought? Critical thinking? I’m not sure those are bad, either. At least not in themselves.

This is getting complicated.

So, the conclusions I draw are as follows:

1) If Christians can campaign to keep “Christ” in Christmas, then atheists can campaign to leave him out of it. It’s only fair, and I don’t think God is too threatened by it.

2) God is always on the side of people doing good regardless of the reason — or even for no reason at all — even if the American Family Association isn’t.

3) I think God is also on the side of “rational thought and critical thinking,” since he created our brains. Is he therefore on the side of the American Humanist Association? A straight-up logical syllogism would say “yes,” but I’m not smart enough to parse that one all the way through.

4) When did buses become the leading edge of the war between atheists and Christians?

The ad campaign directs people to this website, if you want to go there. Just don’t pay attention to anything happening there because it will inevitably lead to a crazy world. You’ve been warned.