{"id":4479,"date":"2015-02-04T05:32:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T09:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4479"},"modified":"2015-02-03T18:48:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T22:48:49","slug":"4479","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4479","title":{"rendered":"An Indictment on Evangelical Worship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the start of a new semester, I have chosen for my poem of the week a stirring critique of all too common experiences in our evangelical worship services by <a href=\"http:\/\/theologyinverse.blogspot.com\/2010\/01\/indictment.html\">Justin Wainscott<\/a>. We have probably all seen the things skewered here. Let us labor for better.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0<strong><em>An Indictment on Evangelical Worship<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Set the stage and dim the lights,<br \/>\nCreate my mood; abuse my rights.<br \/>\nOut-do all you did last week,<br \/>\nAnd never let the silence speak.<br \/>\nEntertain me, at all costs,<br \/>\nBlur the lines \u2018tween true and false.<br \/>\nSmile and tell me all\u2019s okay,<br \/>\nI\u2019ll believe whate\u2019er you say.<br \/>\nGive me mirrors; give me smoke,<br \/>\nFill me with clich\u00e9s and jokes.<br \/>\nLike an orphan with no story,<br \/>\nCut me off from all before me.<br \/>\nHide the pain and fake the smile,<br \/>\nLamentation\u2019s out of style.<br \/>\nGive me milk and warm the bottle,<br \/>\nMake sure it is the latest model.<br \/>\nNumb my mind with borrowed tricks,<br \/>\nFeed my soul with Pixi-stix.<br \/>\nDon\u2019t confront what lurks within,<br \/>\nOr else I\u2019ll never come again.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0M. Justin Wainscott, \u00a9 2007<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the start of a new semester, I have chosen for my poem of the week a stirring critique of all too common experiences in our evangelical worship services by Justin Wainscott. We have probably all seen the things skewered here. Let us labor for better. \u00a0An Indictment on Evangelical Worship Set the stage and &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4479\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;An Indictment on Evangelical Worship&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[261,332,47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4479"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4485,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions\/4485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}