We once had a preacher who delivered a Sunday night sermon using hunting analogies. He walked up to the front of the auditorium in hunting cap and vest, carrying a rod and reel, shotgun and other hunting props. I remember sitting in the pew, cringing in embarrassment and thinking to myself: “Just don’t lay the shotgun on the communion table. Just don’t lay the shotgun on the communion table.” He did. That preacher didn’t last long. But apparently, his only problem was that he was just a little ahead his time.

That’s John over at NotesFromACommonPlaceBook on
Sweatin’ for Jeezus … read it all.

And now for something completely different along the same lines, less subtle:

Pullman has, however, never been soft-spoken. In one famous interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, he expressed amazement that Rowling’s Potter books took more flak in Bible Belt America than his own.

“I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God,” he explained.

As for his own beliefs, he said: “If we’re talking on the scale of human life and the things we see around us, I’m an atheist. There’s no God here.

“There never was. But if you go out into the vastness of space, well, I’m not so sure.”

As a writer, Pullman greatly admires Milton’s 17th-century classic “Paradise Lost” …

Meanwhile, evil incarnate has a name in Pullman’s books — the “Church.”

Here’s tmatt’s article on The Golden Compass.