Lark News: "Authenticity is bogus"

Lark News, a satirical evangelical news website, has posted its December issue. A couple of the articles awaiting you:

• "Pastor tries inauthenticity": "'I don't see much benefit in everybody knowing everything about me,' says Bradley. 'Jesus' example is to be guarded and realistic about human nature. I feel good about reserving some of myself for me.'"
• "C&E Christians gear up for holiday season": "But many C&E families who attend church on special days dread the inevitable wooing that follows. Last year Glen and Belinda McMurty of Bakersfield, Calif., 'did everything wrong' during an Easter visit to church. 'Normally we prepare, but this time we got lazy,' Glen says. 'We asked for directions to the nursery, borrowed a Bible and stood around looking confused. We should have just hung a sign around our necks that said "fresh meat."'"

You've heard of a Proverbs 31 woman? Last month Lark News introduced us to the Proverbs 31 man:

MINOT, N.D. — Jack Crocker, a beer-loving machinist and "part-time Christian," finally agreed to read Proverbs with wife Reanna. He's glad he did.

"I'm a Proverbs 31 husband all right," says Jack, then quotes Proverbs 31:6-7: "Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."

"That's my permission to crack open a cold one," Jack says, having a Coors after dinner.

[Read the rest.]

MEANWHILE across the pond, there's a new movement in the Anglican church: Affirming Laudianism. Named in honor of the 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury who attempted to impose a high-church uniformity on both England and Scotland, the movement is not focused on doctrine "but is solely concerned with the externals of religion and including the ambitious." It is affiliated with the "Old Wine Skins" initiative, which believes "that vitality in Church life can co-exist with decadence and hypocrisy." (Found via Tom Gray, who must have been struck by parallels with the old wine skin from which Kirk of the Hills recently burst forth.)