Glee Plea

Glee seems to be very popular at the moment. The thing that intrigues me the most about its popularity is the range of different people who seem addicted to it – it appears to have almost universal popularity.
I've seen a few clips from Glee and didn't understand what all the fuss was all about, but I decided to watch an episode to give it a chance. I was very disappointed.
I have nothing against Glee. There is nothing there that offends me. But equally, there is nothing that is particularly commendable. I was firmly indifferent.
This is a plea for someone to explain what all the fuss is about. Two close friends have attempted to explain it to me. Their explanations included the following (my responses in brackets):

• It's very funny (I disagree – from what I've seen, it has the occasional amusing line, maximum. Is it just not my sort of humour?)
• It is an excellent mix between high school musical and Scrubs (maybe – I can definitely see HSM in there (personally I describe Glee as HSM on TV; however, I dislike HSM), and the style has similarities to Scrubs (but then, I haven't seen much Scrubs – of what I have seen, some is genius but much is unremarkable))
• The music is very good (I disagree. The music is not good. It's very much towards the poorer end of 'musical' music (however, part of the problem here may be that the songs are covers of songs I don't even know...having said that, I don't think I'd like the originals anyway))
• The mix of high school drama and random musical-ness is very entertaining (no it isn't, it's just unconvincing... American high school drama is 99% annoying, trashy musicals are 95% annoying, and the mix isn'treally any better - it's just quite silly)
• It's not to be taken too seriously (I understand that, and acknowledge that I have a tendency for hypercriticalness. But I still see no merit in the show.  If it's not a serious show, surely it should be entertaining...many people seem to find it so, but I don't understand why)

As far as I can tell, Glee is just High School Musical in series form. Part of me assumes I'm missing something – am I?
Someone, please explain what all the fuss is about! Although I don't watch things like 24 and Scrubs, I can see why people like them and I can acknowledge their merits. But Glee seems much more like Doctor Who – essentially unworthy of TV time.

Invading the Airwaves

Inspired by fans of Rage Against the Machine, who recently banded together and mass-bought a single to get RATM to Christmas number one, fans of Delirious recently attempted to get the song History Maker to Easter number one (it got to number four in the end).
The initiative was based at www.invadetheairwaves.org.uk, but word was spread mostly through Facebook, where over 70,000 people joined the group. I, a huge Delirious fan, was frequently invited to join, and frequently declined. I had three issues with what was being done.

1. This is a bad way to treat the music charts. The charts are designed to display the most popular songs of the week, based on people buying the songs because they like them. Not because they have an ulterior motive of trying to publicise a band (or song, or deity...more on this below). This campaign was essentially an abusive hijack of the music charts.

2. This is a bad way to evangelise. The organisers hoped that, as a result of their actions, people would hear the gospel and turn to God. This may have happened. But I expect that many more people would have been put off Christianity by what they see as a group of dogmatic obsessives trying to promote organised religion, and messing up the chart system at the same time. This is not a good way to evangelise. It is not a good way to spend hours of organisation and tens of thousands of pounds.

3. Even disregarding the above points, even if this was a great thing to do, the choice of song was very poor. Yes, History Maker is a great song, one of Delirious' best. Yes, it's iconic and inspiring and has an awesome riff. But it has two problems: it is not a single, and it is not good at sending a message to the nation. It is over six minutes long, and therefore the radio cut it after about four minutes. So no-one even heard the whole song! It's not even a new song, it's from the 1997 album King of Fools. History Maker is simply not single material. The message of the song is basically 'I will stand for God'. A good message, but not that evangelistic. As my brother suggested, God Is Smiling would have been a much better choice – it is shorter, catchier, from their most recent album, and the message is 'God thinks we're great, and love can make a difference in this world'.


So, there's three reasons why this campaign was a bad idea. Interestingly, invadetheairwaves.org.uk has now moved on to promote BeBe Vox's new single. ITA seems to be taking this very seriously, and I still think it's a bad idea. I know this is all very opinionated of me (as usual!), so feel free to comment and explain why I am wrong.

Homosexuality

Yesterday I returned from Spring Harvest, where the theme was 'Different Eyes' - all about Biblical ethics and ethical living. One issue under discussion was homosexuality. On night 4 there was a debate about homosexuality. On nights 3 and 5 there were other debates - on War and Peace, and Money.
The homosexuality debate attracted about 3 times as many people as the money debate (I'm not sure about the War one, I wasn't there). This is interesting, given that homosexuality is mentioned 6 times in the Bible, while money comes up, on average, every 8 verses. Discrepancy?

There are a few brief points to make:
1. Christians blow homosexuality out of proportaion compared to other sins, as if it is the worst sin and/or as if it is worse than any other sexual sin. This is not true. Look at the biblical time given to it, compared to pride/greed/selfishness/dishonesty/expolitaiton etc.
2. Homosexuality seems to be a very emotive issue. People think they have a right to sexual activity, and don't like being told that they can't have sex. This is a wrong assumption - not everyone gets to have sex - some are physically incapable, some choose to abstain, some don't find a suitable partner, either as single heterosexuals or homosuxuals.
3. Homosexuality, while getting big press in the media, isn't discussed enough in the local church/small group. It becomes a massive issue, with an element of taboo, and therefore as soon as Spring Harvest offer a debate, it is three times as full as other debates!
4. Homosexuality is treated as a person's identity rather than what it really is - their sexuality. Homosexuals often define themselves as 'gay' and it becomes a central part of their identity. Sexuality should not equal identity. Doing so makes it into a bigger 'issue' than it should be.

Disgustingly lucky

A year ago, I returned from Spring Harvest and wrote a blog about worship

I have just returned from Spring Harvest 2010. Again, I was very critical of the worship during the week. I think part of the problem is that I am dissgustingly lucky to be at a church where the main two worship leaders are superb, and they are just the tip of the worshsip-leading iceberg.

I was also disappointed with the teaching at Spring Harevst this year - again, I am disgustingly lucky to have some amazing teachers at my church.