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No Passion for Easter Bunny

An Easter service gone bad...

GLASSPORT, Pa. - First, the Passion of the Christ. Now, the torment of the Easter Bunny?

It may not have been as gruesome as Mel Gibson’s movie, but many parents and children got upset when a church trying to teach about Jesus’ crucifixion performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs.

People who attended Saturday’s show at Glassport’s memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, “There is no Easter bunny,” and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified.

Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. “He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped,” Salzmann said.

Patty Bickerton, the youth minister at Glassport Assembly of God, said the performance wasn’t meant to be offensive. Bickerton portrayed the Easter rabbit and said she tried to act with a tone of irreverence.

“The program was for all ages, not just the kids. We wanted to convey that Easter is not just about the Easter bunny, it is about Jesus Christ,” Bickerton said.

Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman, said Jennifer Norelli-Burke, another parent who saw the show in Glassport, a community about 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

“It was very disturbing,” Norelli-Burke said. “I could not believe what I saw. It wasn’t anything I was expecting.”  As seen on MSNBC.com


Looking for a Relevant Church Experience? Click Here

Church: Only on Easter?

Easter Sunday is one of those annual appointments people make to their local church. Even the un-churched will make it to church a few times a year -- for Christmas, Easter, and of course for funerals and weddings.

What about the rest of the year? Why are so many people staying home Sunday mornings?

Back when I was un-churched, my dissatisfaction was defined in terms like: relevancy, boredom, and monotony. Unfriendly people, weak sermons, and uncomfortable surroundings — The experience was far from appealing.

But there is hope! Click Here

A Savior Has Been Born to You ...

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.’”
(Luke 2: 1-12)

Merry Christmas, dear readers.

Tom Cruise: Evangelist

Tom Cruise is everywhere, promoting his summer film, War of the Worlds. Cruise has given Scientology quite a PR boost too.

By his account, Tom Cruise owes his cool head, defeat of dyslexia and, in a way, his unstoppable stardom to Scientology. I took the constant interviews in stride until I caught an interview on the Today Show the other day.

In the interview Cruise told Matt Lauer, "It's like, you could be a Christian and be a Scientologist..."

I'll give Tom the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he knows Christianity as well as Scientology.

Sure, a Christian could practice Scientology, but two contrary religions cannot be true.  In fact fundamentals like God, man, salvation and death are at odds. Christianity and Scientology stand in diametrical opposition to one another. You can't have it both ways and, by implying that you can, Scientology clearly loses credibility. Don't get swept up in this Hollywood hype.

The Basics

God
Usually the individual Scientologist is free to interpret God in whatever manner he or she wishes.¹

Man
Scientology maintains that in his true nature, man is not the limited and pitiful body and ego he mistakenly imagines himself to be. He is a thetan whose fundamental nature is basically good and divine. He is not morally fallen; rather he is simply ignorant of his own perfection. His only "Fall" was into matter, not sin. .² The PERSON in Scientology is (and discovers himself to be) a Thetan (spiritual being) of infinite creative potential who acts in, but is not part of, the physical universe.... ³

Creation
The universe was not created by a single supreme being ex nihilo (out of nothing), thus having a separate existence of its own. Instead, the Scientology universe constitutes a subjective, mental emanation or "projection" of the thetans, having merely an agreed-upon (and not actual) reality. Thus, the entire physical universe is a Game, a product of thetan ingenuity (designed for escaping boredom) which apparently emanates from an original thetan consensus to "create" in pre-history.⁴

Salvation
This pitiful thetan (person) slavery to MEST and his own conditioned ignorance continued for millennia until L. Ron Hubbard discovered the secret nature of humankind and pioneered a solution to the thetan's misery by developing a universal plan of salvation. Through Scientology auditing, engrams may be neutralized and the thetan made increasingly self-aware or "enlightened." By various techniques a practical methodology was developed to enable the initiate to recognize his (or her) spiritual existence, to separate from the MEST body, and to begin to exert mental control over the MEST universe. In other words, the initiate may eventually achieve a state of "clear" and then, by progressing through numerous levels of "Operating Thetan" ("OT"), increasingly achieve self-realization. (An "Operating Thetan" is one who is more and more aware of and "operating" according to his true thetan abilities.)


Read more
•Christian Research Institute
•John Ankerberg
•ChristianityToday
•BeliefNet

1Hubbard, What Is Scientology? 200. Wallis (112n.) observes that God "does not figure greatly in either theory or practice."

²See L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: A History of Man (Sussex, England: L. Ron Hubbard Communications office, 1961), 12-76, especially 53-60 for a discussion of alleged evolutionary dynamics and their impact on one's current life. Cf. the discussion in Evans, 38-47 and Roy Wallis, The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 103-4.

On panentheism see Scientology: A World Religion Emerges, 21-24; L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary (Los Angeles: Church of Scientology of California, 1975), 429; L. Ron Hubbard, Ceremonies of the Founding of the Church of Scientology (Los Angeles: The American St. Hill Organization, 1971), 41; Reality magazine, no. 121, 3; Hubbard, The Creation of Human Ability, 277; Advance, no. 35, 14-15; no. 36, 6.

³ Scientology: A World Religion Emerges in the Space Age, 21-24.

⁴ Ibid. Cf. Hubbard, The Creation of Human Ability, 9-21; Hubbard, Technical Dictionary, 432; and L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology 8-8008 (Los Angeles: The American St. Hill Organization, 1967), 106-8.