Charles Savidge and the End Times

*this is part two of the indeterminately ongoing "Charles Savidge Stories" series*

On April 16th, 1892, Charles W. Savidge's father (Charles H. Savidge) took the pulpit at his son's People's Church in Omaha, Nebraska. His sermon topic was summed up nicely by the Omaha World Herald the following day: "Only Seven More Years: This Sinful World Will Then Come to an End, According to Dr. Savidge."

Yeezus Christ Superstar?

I read Edward Blum and Paul Harvey's fascinating The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America last year, and ever since, I've been thinking about the place that our images and perceptions of Christ have within American pop culture. So when Kanye West announced that his new album would be titled "Yeezus" it immediately caught my attention...not because it was a surprising title, but rather because it fits in so seamlessly with the regular appropriation of Jesus' name within rap culture.

Charles Savidge - Urban Revivalist

With the first post in this series on Charles Savidge, there is no better place to start than with the dour-looking fellow below.

Yes, the gentleman above is none other than the second greatest revivalist of the late-nineteenth century, Sam Jones.  For the purposes of this post, we'll ignore Jones' racism and New South political activism, and instead focus on his reform methods and connection to Savidge. Until the ascendance of Billy Sunday, no revivalist besides Dwight Moody could rival Jones' national reputation. With his quick wit and humor, Jones took the U.S. (and even Canada) by storm with a series of revivals in major cities in the 1880s.

Charles Savidge Stories

Charles Savidge was as a church planter, pastor, matchmaker, entrepreneur, revivalist, author, and social worker in Omaha from 1882 until his death in 1935. To date, he has been largely forgotten by historians, but his life certainly did not lack for excitement. To list just a few of his more interesting activities: he left the Methodist Church to start his own independent People's Church in the slums of Omaha; performed over 6,000 weddings and launched a matchmaking bureau; started a home for the elderly that is still in existence today; attempted (and failed) to merge his People's Church with a People's Church in Spokane; published four books; initiated an ill-fated campaign to cast the demons out of notorious pickpocket nicknamed "Fainting Bertha"; and received newspaper coverage from the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Call, and countless other newspapers across the country.

A Religious Leader Attacks Socialism, Ignites Rebellion

Oh, and this 1960s religious leader was a Yemeni Muslim.  But before we get into that story, let's get the background first.

The modern state of Yemen is located on the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula, just a plank-walk across the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea from Africa

Until 1990, Yemen was divided into two independent states: North Yemen and South Yemen. Both states were established in the late 1960s...before that, North Yemen had been an independent kingdom, until it was upended by a Nasser-led civil war that began in the 1960s. South Yemen, formerly known (in part) as the protectorate of Aden, had been under the control of the United Kingdom (it was one of the last, flickering lights of the glory that used to be the British Empire).

Now that we've differentiated between the two Yemens, forget all about the South. North Yemen is the setting for our story. 

Bracket Strategies From Your Favorite Evangelical Gurus

Even though Easter is just around the corner, America's leading evangelicals can't resist setting down the sermon research for a quick dip into the world of March Madness.  If the President of the United States has time to fill out his bracket, then surely evangelical pastors across the country can spare a moment or two (unless you're John Piper...we must assume that dude is re-reading an obscure text from Cotton Mather and cross-referencing it with his Theodore Beza collection).

So here's a few strategies...it's not too late to adopt one of these and convert your bracket from the darkness of defeat into the light.

*just to be clear: all quotes below are fake.

Songs Only an Atheist Could Love

The title to this post is actually a lie.  I am not an atheist (not even an agnostic!), and yet all of the following songs have gotten serious airplay on my burned CDs iPod spotify playlist. 

It is very difficult, of course, to label a song an "atheist" song.  For one, some Christians would probably claim that any music that does not promote religious beliefs and values, is, in fact, secular or atheist.  That, to me, is a bit too inclusive.  I am a Christian after all, and if the national media has taught me anything about my beliefs, it's that I like my labels to be a little more exclusive than that. (*Cue Jon Stewart holding hand to fake-earpiece bit*) "What's that? We're supposed to only be exclusivist when it comes to who is on our team, but broadly inclusive when it comes to who is outside? Oh." (*and scene*)

There's also the difficult issue of knowing what the musical artists actually believe...if an artist is an atheist, does that mean every song they make is also atheistic?  Or does a song have to specifically promote or express atheistic ideas about life, god, purpose, the afterlife, etc? (I tend towards the latter view).

With that in mind, and with the caveat that this is not an exhaustive collection, but is rather a very subjective and personal list, I present the following list of five of my favorite atheistic songs (whatever that means).