Posted: 06/21/07

Beatles/Rolling Stones Bible Study Coming to Your Church?

I don't often give out a Hall of Shame Award at my Christian news blog, Slice of Laodicea, but today, I did just that. I awarded this dubious honor to Standard Publishing for their contribution to the spiritual decline in evangelical churches after the company sent out a press release promoting their new line of culturally relevant "Bible Studies".  Here is what they say about their new product:

"The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Eagles, and George Strait-not exactly what you'd expect to find on the covers of newly-released small group Bible studies.

But with discussions ranging from, 'Yellow Submarine,' 'Hotel California', 'Check Yes or No' and 'Satisfaction,' that's exactly what you do get with the new small group series called Tuning Into God (Standard Publishing, 2007).

Tuning Into God provides four six-week, stand-alone sessions for adult small groups, and is a fun, entertaining way to introduce seekers to Bible study, or challenge growing Christians to develop in their faith by tackling some of life's difficult questions.

Each study uses an album of classic songs from one of four pop icons to prompt discussion of biblical truth.  The Beatles' series, for example, includes a session based on 'The Long and Winding Road,' to prompt discussion of Jeremiah 29 and God's promise of plans for his followers…Other well-known songs used include 'You Can't Always Get What You Want,' in the Rolling Stones-themed study, 'Take it Easy', the study themed by the Eagles, and "Living and Living Well' in the George Strait-themed study.

Here's the real kicker line in the press release.

Although the topics deal with serious subjects, the studies also include fun elements such as background stories on the writing of each song, a page of 'Fast Facts' about each group, and ice breaker questions.  Each book features website lists for locating Bible study tools, information on each band, and sources for obtaining the music.

It's really come to this, hasn't it?  Prostitutional, profit-driven publishers are polluting the Word of God with the cultural filth and spiritual rebellion of groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. In an act of breath-taking spiritual whoredom, Standard Publishing quotes the Bible on the one hand and gives "seekers" information on where to get the music these bands produced on the other.  The spirit of anti-Christ and the decades old historical record of the moral and spiritual condition of the Beatles and Rolling Stones matters not. Who cares if John Lennon called Jesus Christ a "garlic eating bastard." The Beatles will help us sell our cool new group studies, they say. Who cares about the sexual perversion and degeneracy and the occult involvement that the Beatles and Rolling Stones lived and promoted? So what if the Stones had "Sympathy for the Devil"? There's money to be had.

Instead of opening the sacred pages of the Word of God and teaching from it, Bible study leaders can do fun quizzes and teach "fast facts" on the bands involved. I can only imagine what that sounds like at your local church small group meeting.

"Ok, Ok, quiet down everybody. We're starting our church Bible study on the rockers of the 60's off with a quick quiz on the Beatles and the Stones. I hope you're ready. Here goes!

1. How many members of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles suffer from venereal diseases due to the serial fornication they boasted about?
2. How many times did Mick Jagger use LSD within a two-week period in 1968?
3. What names of Hindu deity did George Harrison refer to in his hit song "My Sweet Lord"?
4. What famous filthy and blasphemous name did John Lennon once call Jesus Christ?

What an amazing thing "Bible studies" are these days. Evangelical pulp mills are foisting this trash on the public and they can't seem to go downhill fast enough. The publishers have apparently graduated from the Andy Griffith/Mayberry, and Beverly Hillbillies "Bible studies" to Beatlemania and Rolling Stones Bible studies fairly quickly. I would make a crack about Desperate Housewives Bible studies but the pastors are already doing sermon series with just that title. I would suggest Spiderman 3 Bible studies but that's already being done, too. Shrek as Christ figure? Already been done at a megachurch in their Blockbuster Summer sermon series recently. Satire simply cannot outdo reality today when it comes to the evangelical church. If you don't believe me, a week reading my news blog should do it.

What kind of churches would tolerate this kind of material  in their small groups? This is not a rhetorical question. The answer is, just about any of the evangelical churches in existence today that have been swilling the church growth poison. That is to say, most of them. May the true Bride of Christ come out of such churches and separate from this apostasy.

The precious Word of God, paid for by the blood of the martyrs, has always been sufficient for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. The Holy Spirit of God is as alive today as when the flames stood over the heads of believers at Pentecost. But unbelief, idolatry of self and spiritual rebellion have denuded such churches of any spiritual power. They have nothing but the culture's pig swill to offer a starving and lost world. They have given up the crown jewels of Scripture and instead cling to the trashy rhinestones of secular culture as their only possession to attract non-believers. Standard Publishing and these blasphemous "studies" represent a Christianity that truly is fit only to be cast out and trodden underfoot. (And you can quote me on that!)

By Ingrid Schlueter Email: vcyproducer@aol.com Click here for bio and archived articles