I guess the obvious joke is: Aren’t most energy drinks faith-based?

PITCH: America‚s First Faith-Based Energy Drink

I thought the readers at [REDACTED] might like to hear about America’s first faith-based energy drink ˆ one that energizes your body and soul! Not only does the combination of pomegranate and grape make for an abundant taste, but 1in3Trinity also serves as a high-powered energy drink to give an extra boost any time of day. I’d love to send you some samples to try it yourself, and if you’re not the best contact for this can you let me know who is?

1in3Trinity is made of a special blend handed down from the flourishing vines and trees of the Holy Land mixed with B-vitamins, Vitamin C, herbs and antioxidants. With only 10 calories and 3 grams of sugar per serving, 1in3Trinity still manages to pack mighty flavor into every heavenly sip.

Taking its cue from Galatians 5:22, the 1in3Trinity product line is designed to empower Christians to be bold in their faith and reflect the Fruits of the Spirit to the world with confidence. For more details and high-res photos you can download, visit: www.ultimatepresspicks.com.

Please be sure to let me know if you’d like me to send you samples.

In March, as winter fades in the mid-Atlantic, I will head northward to enjoy my last chances of the year to get frostbite.

March 5 through 7, I’ll be at Booth College in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for the college’s conversation series. It’ll be two nights and two days’ worth of me yakking about the book, Christian culture and criticism of both.

March 30 & 31, I’ll head back to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., for the biennial Festival of Faith & Music. I wrote about the last one in the book, and I’m looking forward to, among other things, uncomfortable dinner conversation with David Dark. I’m going to present a workshop (working title: “Ironic Mind Meets Literal Mind: Does pop culture owe Christian culture anything?”)

I stole the precolonic idea from Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great , an advance copy of which I’m reading and the title of which is self-explanatory. With the success of Sam Harris’ books and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (No. 17 on Amazon!), the appetite for these books seems to beg for a cover story in Time, at the very least. At my paper we’d give it a headline like “Creata Hatas,” but I’m sure they’ll do something classier.

Hey, I’m sorry if your comment hasn’t shown up, or if I deleted it accidentally; this blog gets about 50 spam comments a week, and I try to stay on top of it, but sometimes the “mark all as spam” button gets pretty tempting. There’s an email address here if you hunt around; please let me know if I inadvertently blocked you.

Hey, maybe you had something better to do the day my interview on NPR’s On Point was broadcast back in June. Well, good news for you: It’ll be rebroadcast on a day nobody has anything going on, which is to say Christmas Day, from 10 to 11 a.m. EST. Chuck the turkey in the oven, liquor up grandpa and set in for a rousing discussion between me, host Tom Ashbrook and Randall Balmer, which included an answer that I gacked so badly I felt the need to blog about it. Mostly, though, it went fine. Ho, ho, ho.

Update: Thanks to Tony for noticing that I originally scheduled the interview to run for 13 hours!

These parodies of the Mac vs. PC ads, featuring a schlubby, cool “Christ Follower” in the former role and a straitlaced, dorky “Christian” in the latter, aren’t as awful as they sound on paper. (I’m partial to No. 3, which tackles Christian rock.) Still, I can’t imagine them changing anyone’s mind–they seem more geared toward reinforcing “cool” Christians’ feelings of superiority toward their matching-belt-and-shoes brethren (come to think of it, Mac users–of which I’m one–are an amazingly apt comparison, smugness-wise).

The Irish Times‘ Aengus Collins writes about two of my all-time faves: Christmas music and Alan Sparhawk.

My contribution:

Perhaps I’m wrong about the musical difference Christian belief might make. For instance, when I ask Andrew Beaujon, a journalist with US magazine Spin and author of Body Piercing Saved My Life, a book about Christian music in the US, he says he sees no correlation between Christianity and great Christmas music. “The greatest Christmas song of all time was written by a Jew,” he notes, referring to Irving Berlin’s ubiquitous White Christmas.

A couple months ago, I did an interview with Harp magazine about my book. I wasn’t entirely comfortable about it because I proofread Harp for a spell in 2004, and it didn’t go well. The reasons why aren’t important; still, there were some bad feelings lingering on both sides, and I had to admit I was surprised the magazine decided to do a feature on my book.
Read the rest of this entry »

A group called People Against Fundamentalism will be protesting against Mark Driscoll on Dec. 3. It doesn’t sound like an opportunity for dialogue, but to be fair, neither do most of Driscoll’s blog posts. Dan Savage fisks the latest one, in which Driscoll equates women preachers with “fluffy baby bunny rabbit[s].”

Is Driscoll pulling some sort of Ann Coulter-esque performance art here?

From yesterday’s comments field:

radosh says:

Please no David Crowder. It will confirm everyone’s worst prejudices.
11/07/06 06:05 PM
DanGibson says:

I only guessed Crowder because of Beaujon’s musical crush on him in “Body Piercing”. I still have a hard time imagining anyone outside the CCM echo chamber enjoying his music.

Sorry to confirm your suspicions, but Crowder is in fact among the MP3s I chose for today’s post!

Speaking of Christian culture, anyone see this?

Let’s move on from Mark Driscoll’s macaca moment for the time being and turn to more important things, like selling enough copies of my book that I can go back to blogging at my old schedule! The good people at Idolator were kind enough to plug Body Piercing Saved My Life today, and they’re offering three absolutely free MP3s of early Jesus People music chosen by and with comments by yours truly.

More tomorrow–who will it be? Pedro? Mute Math? The commenters want to know! (And, as usual, they’re calling for Daniel Amos and the 77s.)