Sometimes people come up with interesting stuff when it comes to God. Take Kelsey Grammer:
Kelsey Grammer, who suffered a near-deadly stroke and heart attack in May 2008, told the New York Post his longevity has been determined by a higher power.
"One day I asked: How old am I going to be when I die?" he tells the newspaper. "And I had the Bible in front of me so I just closed my eyes, opened it up to a page in the Book of Job and I pointed. There was a reading that said when I die I am going to be 140 years old. And I like that."
I'm not big on the Ouija Bible myself, but I'm sure Kelsey's just having fun.
Speaking of having fun, it seems a church in New Zealand decided to get some tongues wagging with this billboard:
A billboard sponsored by a local Anglican church that shows Joseph and Mary in bed has set tongues wagging in New Zealand, with the Catholic Church condemning it as others found it funny.
The controversial billboard, erected by St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, shows a dejected-looking Joseph under bedcovers beside a sad Mary. Underneath the image, a caption reads: "Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow."
...
Church archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the billboard was intended to lampoon the literal interpretation of the Christmas conception story and highlight the real significance of the festival.
"What we're trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about," Cardy told local media.
Honestly, I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to do that, but it seems the church is having no trouble finding cash for billboards.
They must subscribe to the belief out there that Jesus was rich. This line of thought has been around for awhile, and although I don't have an opinion on the matter (it really doesn't matter if Jesus was poor or rich), there never seems to be more than apocryphal evidence:
Each Christmas, Christians tell stories about the poor baby Jesus born in a lowly manger because there was no room in the inn.
But the Rev. C. Thomas Anderson, senior pastor of the Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona, preaches a version of the Christmas story that says baby Jesus wasn't so poor after all.
Anderson says Jesus couldn't have been poor because he received lucrative gifts -- gold, frankincense and myrrh -- at birth. Jesus had to be wealthy because the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for his expensive undergarments. Even Jesus' parents, Mary and Joseph, lived and traveled in style, he says.
"Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey," says Anderson. "Poor people ate their donkey. Only the wealthy used it as transportation."
You would think this would be a time the Bible could have spelled things out a bit more, but there's always someone that wants to fill in gaps that may or may not exist.
It seems like people had a lot to say toward the end of the last year. It makes me wonder what the new year holds in store.
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