When the Twain Meet
Or The End of the Lion
Or Cultured Pearls Before Swine
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

I have already confessed in these pages my habit at the doctor's office. There, and only there, do I occasionally read People magazine. Just yesterday I wrote a piece for our website delighting in my own ignorance of pop culture. Yet, a few times a year, I read pop culture's journal of record. More embarrassing still, like meeting a fellow Baptist in the liquor store, just yesterday I ran into someone I didn't expect, in the magazine. I learned there that William Manchester died recently. It was listed in the Passages column, as if the great historian had once been married to Nicole Kidman, or had led Oprah to an epiphany some time back.

Though it is exceedingly rare, it does happen that high and low sometimes get together and dance. Whether they waltz or jitterbug I cannot say. The collision usually happens like most collisions, by accident. Would your average person recognize the name of the world's most accomplished cello player, were his name not the Stooge-ly funny Yo-Yo Ma? I think not. Does anyone know why Ben Stein's views on the gold standard or the situation in Kosovo are taken seriously? Anyone? Anyone? Right, because he played Ferris Bueller's teacher.

Thus pop culture dies on the vine, unless it sucks the life out of high culture, while high culture doesn't get a place on the map without a reference, and that a knowing one, to pop culture. It's either vultures or vamps.

I don't know whether William Manchester is moving further up and further in, or if instead he is drowning in a lake of fire. But I'm pretty sure that either way he can't wait for next week, when this last moment too will pass into oblivion, and as a new issue is released, he is released from People purgatory. And never again. I trust, shall the twain meet.

Ecclesiastical Advertising
by Joshua Blackburn

Most of us around here received a letter (read advertisement) from "Jimmie", who is a "pastor" (read sheep-stealer). Have you ever thought about the ramifications of mass mailing advertisements in the Bible-Belt announcing the current programs offered by a local "fellowship" (read pseudo-church; not to be confused with para-church which is very similar)? When I open my mail box and receive an invitation to leave my current Church, go eat donuts, sip coffee (several varieties to choose from the letter boasts), have my body gyrated by the thumping pulse of the bass guitar, and hear a series of "messages", the invitation is honest and sincere. "Jimmie" really does want me to leave my Church, after all isn't that why he sent me a letter inviting me to visit his "fellowship?" That's why "Jimmie" is a sheep-stealer. Now "Jimmie" might respond that mass mailing doesn't differentiate between the lost and the found and that the letter was intended for the "lost". Yet, even so please don't send me any communiqué unless your sincere, but even worse I fear that he is.

Gimme Mime Gun
by Dakota Tremayne

There is one good reason why Mormons, Witnesses, and Muslims don't use modern evangelism methods for winning converts, and it's not because they think their methods are more effective—though they are making a killing (should I intend the pun?) at converting. I couldn't imagine what my reaction would be if I were subjected to a whole herd of pimple faced Mormon boys—or girls—dressed up in some silly garb (still wearing their protective super-spiritual underwear) doing a melodramatic sign language dance to the latest hits by Carmen smack in the middle of the mall. If the sheer volume of the music being pumped out of a portable radio at a gazillion decibels doesn't drive me out of earshot—like say, to Mexico—I might find myself in complete shock watching these kids gyrate like mimes with drug issues. The point? It is ridiculously embarrassing.

The last time I was subjected to hormone driven Christian teen-agers doing the obnoxious evangeli-mime thing was at a garage sale put on by a local mission. I don't know what was most embarrassing. Was it the troupe leader—a middle-aged female hippopotamus in black spandex with a group of young people trying to be "hip"? Was it that she and the troupe looked emotionally disturbed by all the contorted faces they were making to the music? Or could it be that the only people paying attention to them—out of the hundred or so people that were there—were the deaf elderly who were too tired to get out, and the people who came with the group? Personally, I thought the most embarrassing part was one of the teen-aged boys, who, while dancing mechanistically to the music, was blatantly staring with drooling lasciviousness at a scantly clad little blond. A little blond, who, go figure, was part of the troupe group. Nobody converted to Christianity that day, yet two bike riding Mormon boys "saved souls." At least the Mormon boys didn't look like idiots.