Friday, February 01, 2008

The Latest From My Stupid Christian Files

I have just had a full-body Swedish massage -- not that I'm rubbing it in or anything [rimshot] -- so you need to understand that I'm posting this, not in a state of irritation, but in a state of wonderfully flexible, pain-free relaxation that has sparked a spirit of merriment.

After the masseuse left and I sat all fragrant and rejuvenated, luxuriating on the sofa, the thought occurred to me, This feels so good that there must be Christians out there who are against it. So I did a little Googling on Christians and massage.

Interestingly, there are lots and lots of practioners and practioners' groups that advertise themselves as Christian. If you read a bit further, you find out that these folks have a need to differentiate themselves from the dangerously heterodox other massage therapists out there, who may be into "New Age" or "Eastern" spirituality and liable to lead the gullible astray.

But soaring completely over the top of this predictably paranoid/xenophobic stuff are two websites, here and here , that certainly make one wonder about the biblical assertion that believers do not live in a spirit of fear. These people are frigging terrified of everything from yoga to -- gasp -- contemplative Christianity.

When people start insinuating that people like Henri Nouwen and Eugene Peterson are the devil's own tools, I start knocking off their IQ points by double digits.

4 comments:

zorra said...

I've seen that Lighthouse Trails site before. It left me speechless. So sad.

Crimson Rambler said...

Yep...it do boggle the mind!

Anonymous said...

I'm with you all the way. Those sites are scary.
I do yoga and fancy myself a faithful Christian. The list of dangerous thinking is so long on the first site it cuts out just about most intelligent people.

LoieJ said...

ha, ha, not. Our church has someone who does massage on Mondays and Tuesdays. We had yoga, but the teacher now has her own studio. We also had karate for awhile. No body got upset. You could get more upset about gossip at a bible study.