Link up time is here! I hope everyone had fun making new friends and exchanging goodies in the #bbswap!
Share your "baskets" below and visit a new friend or two!

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter weekend!

We had a fun time in PA Friday and Saturday - we made the mistake of trying to squeeze too much in but still enjoyed ourselves. I went through the camera and realized 90% of them were from the events involving animals. So, if anyone was curious about our priorities...now you know. But they are wonderful creatures and I'm sure you will agree.

We drove up Friday afternoon and stopped at Perrydell Farm in York, PA to meet a PA friend and her two girls for ice cream. They allow self-guided tours, so we walked about to enjoy the cows - particularly the babies. So cute!

Notice this little girl is eating my sweater - she would lick you from head to toe!

This baby girl was born the night before our visit! She had a hard time finding her bottle

Also, the dairy is where the only pic of Sean and I was taken all weekend:

Hope everyone is having an amazing Easter! It's nearly May, and while I'm sitting here hoping mother nature will give us temps to match the calendar, I can at least give some ad space away while we're waiting - 4 spots are still open for the month of May so enter for your chance below!



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I'm making this a 3 on Friday, because these are so awesome, I don't need five!



3. Finally Some us Time! 
Some of you may remember that we had lots of fun trials last year including having to cancel a much anticipated vacation the day before our departure. We're off this weekend for some time together in Amish country! Glad to have a little time away to ourselves :)

What better way to relax than a nice B&B stay?

2. Crazy ridiculous blessings!
I'm halfway through my probationary period at my new job right now. My boss called me in for a closed door meeting and starts talking about HR evaluations - I was terrified! it sounded like she was telling me they were cutting my position. Nope - turns out they thought I needed more money! No complaints here since we're trying to move closer to work!

1. Duh!

It's Good Friday, guys! Without this day and this coming Sunday, our faith would be meaningless. But we know how the story goes and we know that it's not just a story - so we have such amazing hope!

I recently saw the film God's Not Dead, and while I didn't expect the critics to love any Christian film, I found much irony and disappointment in many points of their reviews. They got a lot wrong in my opinion. But, they also got some things right - things that also merit discussion. So, here goes!

• Stereotypes, Oh my! Multiple races are portrayed in this film from the "average American" to a Chinese boy studying abroad to a Muslim who has secretly converted to Christianity. The biggest complaint deals with the second group mentioned - many reviews cite all sorts of accusations about irresponsibly representing other cultures, in this case, making us consider said student a "godless communist." 

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• The text "call to action" is bad Christianity. The final scenes of the film take place in a Newsboys concert where attendees are all asked to pull their cell phones out and text "God's Not Dead" to everyone in their contact list. When the film is over, it asks the actual audience to follow suit,. As one reviewer said: 

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After hearing good things, I went to see God's Not Dead with Sean this weekend. I love the Christian film trend despite the fact that they certainly have a tendency to be cheese fests. In this case, I felt like it was well done: while it did leave some loose ends, it spoke truth and wasn't overly corny.

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In normal fashion, I came home and got online to stalk the actors on IMDB. In the process, I encountered the Rotten Tomatoes page for the film - it scored a 20% rating. Was I shocked? Of course not. I in no way expect for a religious film to convert the whole country let alone any critic or person in Hollywood. I don't expect them to love it. However, I quickly noticed that in comparison, Noah scored 76%. I haven't seen it, but thanks to Matt Walsh' spoiler and other reviews, I am drawing the conclusion that the movie has very little in common with the actual story.

In other words, two Christian movies are in theatres, and the one that tells the truth is rated at a fraction of one that is apparently full of bold-faced lies. Oh, what a world.

So, I got to reading said reviews of God's not Dead and felt my blood boiling pretty quickly. People are certainly entitled to their opinions, but, like in many cases, these opinions seem strictly biased  because of the fact that Christianity is involved. Those darn, intolerant, melodramatic Christians. We certainly can't have that (that statement was clearly dripping with sarcasm in case you aren't familiar with or don't know me.)

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So, here are some favorite complaints of mine along with some rebuttals:

• "Persecution isn't real." Several reviews basically up and say that Christians aren't persecuted in the US, that this whole thing is grossly exaggerated and melodramatic - like this one here that says "stop whining, 80% of the nations claims to be Christian and their thought used to dominate America", or this one that says the persecution theme is a "fetish," or, simply put, this one that just says the whole thing is "unrealistic."

Really? A fetish? A figment of our imagination? Isn't such a scathing review proof that the bias persecution is made of is very much alive? Surely I don't have to bring up the fact that the same people who call Christians intolerant are thus persecuting us by labeling our intolerance the absence of our agreeing with their opinion only- something that sounds strangely like intolerance. And yes, it does become persecution. Think Chick-Fil-A media attacks. Heck, think the dude from Mozilla who just had to leave his job - whether you agree with him or not, it was persecution - he's in America and has every right to hold and practice whatever opinion is his. So yeah, I'd say persecution in the states right now is both relevant and real.

• "Standing up for your faith is immature." In the film, the protagonist makes the hard choice despite everyone else (including other Christians) telling him to take the easy one. Many reviewers agree - "report the professor," "drop the class," "just suck it up and sign the paper." It seems the reviewers agree - he should have shut his mouth and taken an easy way out. Staying firm in your beliefs and standing up for them is clearly the weak and irresponsible thing to do.

• "It's unrealistic" Most reviewers inserted some form of a whine/argument that this situation isn't realistic - either such a professor doesn't exist, or that surely the student would have reacted in another way. In other words, the premise of the movie isn't plausible in real life.

• "The characters are caricatures." The Christians are all Christian and say cliche things, the atheists are all stereotyped - everyone is stereotyped. It's not realistic. It's not fair.

• Hasty Generalizations Everywhere! Because the professor is atheist because of a bad experience as a believer, the film must be saying all atheists are this way. Because the atheists in this film are unkind, we must be trying to tell the audience this is how all atheists are, etc. etc.

Logic was discussed often in this film, and hasty generalization, my friends, is what we call a logical fallacy- the argument that something must be true of all if it is true of one. The professor's story is his alone. It is in no way intended to explain atheism as a whole, it is simply something done in all films - giving a character a background to explain his or her personality/actions. It's a big jump to make such accusations as the ones above - it's like saying that Spiderman accuses all superheroes of  getting their powers from a spider bite - there can simply be no other reason for this information! I think this is especially clear when we flip the script and look at the Christian characters who are all very different - the protagonist who takes up a challenge, the bossy girlfriend who literally tells him she forbids his choice, the pastor who is clearly human and gets discouraged when his car breaks down, the christian girl who is dating the atheist....the film clearly is not judging an entire people group based off of one character. Each person has their own story, and that's all there is to it.

• "It's preaching to the choir." Self-explanatory. It's for Christians more than anyone else.

So? ...really, so? You don't want to be preached at? Fine. But now it's not OK to encourage our own either? I totally agree this film likely has more value to a Christian than to a non-believer. I totally have no problem with that. As my pastor likes to say, church is a hospital for the sick, not a country club for the well - we need the sermon as much as anyone else. We're not perfect, and we can use encouragement and reminders too.  If the film reaches non-believers, it's a blessing, if not, it's still a blessing to the said "choir members" who gleaned any inspiration from the film.
*steps off pulpit* - come back Wednesday to see what I think the reviewers got right!