How Dare You Laugh?

Stuck in their assumption that if the Bible is literal, inerrant, absolute, unchanging and possessed of only one true interpretation, those who lead believing Christian soldiers onward cannot maintain troop discipline if humor is allowed to flourish.

Get your search engine to look for Christianity, God, humor, soberness, solemnity, etc. and you will find (I promise you) serious and earnest sermons and essays on the evil of laughter.

They may appear extreme and apologists may try to dismiss them as such, but you will find writings and sermons openly critical and condemning of popular Christian writers, speakers and pastors who use and even worse - praise - humor as part of a "godly attribute."

This sort of thinking represents one powerful aspect of why it has been said that Christian humor is an oxymoron.

The blend of this humorless aspect of those fundamentalist-literalist political leaders and preachers was never more aptly portrayed than when former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) went after comedian Bill Maher on Maher's HBO show, "Real Time," within a day or two of the election.

Simpson did not quote the following verse nor probably even have it in mind, but it reflects the post-election sense of smug vindication heard over and over again from prime Christian political movers and shakers and millions of offended Christians in congregations all over the country:

"Has God indeed said...Woe to you who laugh now, For you shall mourn and weep." (Luke 6:25)

How to raise a child blind to the real world, blind to his own spiritual personality and inculcate a mythological world where God has no sense of humor and frowns upon laughing (no pun intended):

I found a sermon complete with an outline entitled "The Christian Duty to Be Sober". (And it's not about abstinence from alcohol.)

" We control our minds by thinking on right things," which teaches perhaps that life is not about spontaneity but rather a life of struggling to control:

We must have self-control to be saved--we must be sober. We do this by...
1) Controlling our Minds
2) Correctly Using Our Bodies.
3) And thus, Nurturing Our Spirits!

... 5. Have you been living soberly?
1)If you are a Christian and have not, then you need to repent.
2)If you are not a Christian, then you need to learn about your own salvation.
3)Hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized."

http://www.preachersfiles.com/self_disci...
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When Jesus spoke in praise of the lilies of the field he was praising their spontaneity, their absolute faith and trust that God would bless them abundantly precisely where they were growing.

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