Today I learned that my post about the “best book cover ever” was deemed offensive by quite a few people. While I don’t usually make a habit of apologizing for what I say here at my blog, in this case I believe the criticism is warranted and that what I said was in poor taste. So, if I offended you in anyway, please accept my sincere apologies. But please know that I was not poking fun at the book because it wasn’t “sexy” or “because she was old” or because the author isn’t “cool,” as some comments indicated.
While I am familiar with BSF, I was not familiar with the book prior to adding the post. I’ve deleted the post, and I’m sincerely sorry for those of you whom I offended.
Thank you.
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You are a classy guy, MPT. Your post did not offend me. Julie S. in Iowa
I love your ‘edgy-ness’. While I truly respect your humility to remove something that has offended some people, I also want to encourage you in your humor. If some don’t like what you write, then they don’t have to read the blog. I know that far more people love your posts than dislike them. You’re one of the only Christian writers that has the courage to have fun with a culture that takes itself way too seriously. I don’t think you’re at all distasteful…if anything you’re a little too tasteful. I think you are most respected by the people who connect with you the most when you speak your mind like that. And you can’t connect with everyone. This isn’t the first post that you’ve apologetically removed..and I didn’t see where you had to ever do that. Your stuff connects with so many more than it offends from what I’ve seen. I think that too many Christians carry offense around like a cross. And instead of asking ourselves honestly, “why am I really offended by this?” we shoot angry e-mails at you, telling you to change. Again, I respect your decision and I’m not in your shoes to make the judgement call that you did. But I’m asking you (as a huge fan and friend of yours) to stay true to yourself. Your sarcastic humor connects with me and reminds me to loosen up and laugh at myself a bit. You cause me to think. I feel more free because of it. And I am saddened when you delete stuff that gives me that experience.
You talk about Michael English getting some, and people are offended. You talk about the BSF lady not getting some, and people are offended.
Apparently, we can’t pick on the people having sex, and we can’t pick on the virgins.
We’ll have to resort to mocking monogamous married couples–a bunch of deflowered folks who aren’t having much sex.
(Brace yourself. You’re about to get a string of comments from married people who feel the need to correct that statement.) 🙂
Not married, but hilarious by far!!! Laughing out loud….
Thanks for being big enough to apologize for something that may have offended others. I wasn’t planning to comment about this post though. I just wanted to say I got my Home Life at church Sunday and was tickled when I saw an article by you in there. One of those, “Hey, I know that guy!” moments. (I don’t really know you, but you know what I mean.) It was a great article by the way.
Oh, and the video of your friend getting his words mixed up has made the rounds through my family circle. We have preachers in the midst and none of them had seen it before, so thanks for the laugh.
MPT, I wasn’t offended by your comments, but I appreciate your willingness to hear correction, consider it and apologize when necessary. A mark of humility, but don’t let it go to your head.
And what the heck is defooped? That’s my word verification today. I don’t know what it is, but I hope it’s not contagious or subject to mocking on any writer’s blog.
Matthew,
I’m one that’s glad you removed that post. I feel bad that now you’re receiving criticism for having removed it…OK, not criticism exactly, but at least some above disagree with your decision.
Sometimes, you just can’t win. 🙂 FWIW, I think you did the right thing. Mostly because of this Scripture passage – I Cor. 10:23-33
I read the following about Mrs. Johnson, and I don’t care what she looked like- I want to be her when I grow up. What a heart for God!
God’s Daily Loving Kindnesses
“What have I come to? Am I to give more to those who already have so much?” Miss Johnson’s heart sank when she was asked to teach the Bible to five women who were already well instructed. She was recovering in San Francisco from her sacrificial years of missionary service in China (1936-1950) when confronted with this request.—Fearlessly Feminine.
Audrey Wetherell Johnson (1907-1984) is the founder of BSF International (formerly called Bible Study Fellowship). She was raised by a believing Christian family in Leicester, England. The Bible was critical to her conversion, and she was committed to its authority and taught it with power. She enjoyed an intimate relationship with God, and she allowed Him—not self—lead her life.
Even in the worst possible conditions, Miss Johnson’s primary memory was of “God’s daily provisions and loving kindnesses.” While in China in 1942, she was interned in a prison camp during the Japanese invasion. She was forced to live with other prisoners in a former horse stable. Eighty-nine cots, six open toilets, and two wash-basins filled the crowded hut. Her diet consisted of a one-inch cube of meat and a little rice.
Even in the worst possible conditions, Miss Johnson’s primary memory was of “God’s daily provisions and loving kindnesses.”
After a brief furlough in England, Miss Johnson returned to China to teach in the Bible Seminary in Shanghai. Although she had every intention of staying there to train teachers for China’s unreached millions, the communists put her under house arrest for eighteen months. She was finally forced to leave China permanently in 1950.
Miss Johnson found herself in the U.S., and she poured out her heart in prayer about the invitation to teach these five women. Suddenly, she remembered Jeremiah 45:5. “Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not.”
By agreeing to teach these ladies, Miss Johnson unknowingly founded BSF International, which has become an interdenominational worldwide ministry. Hundreds of classes meet for in-depth study each week. A. Wetherell Johnson firmly believed that through careful and prayerful individual study, many people would come to know, trust, and obey the great God of “daily loving kindness” to whom she had committed her life.
Maybe the point of all this is, having a quality book cover can only help, not hurt. At least, that’s what I was thinking when I saw it. Sometimes it hard to appreciate a good book, when you can’t get past the cover. Just bein’ real.
It isn’t necessary to sneer at and mock individuals to have fun with a culture, and making fun of people for their appearance is hardly something that the world needs more of. I appreciate that you took the post down.
wow…sure is a lot of hoopla over a little comment about a book cover! “while the world goes to hell…” lets make a big deal over a simple funny comment. Come on people, really?
to have a sense of humor is a GOOD quality… don’t lose it out of others getting ‘offended’… i didn’t get the impression you were making fun of HER, just that the book cover seemed funny (which it was)…
and dammit, don’t apologize for it either!
out of curiousity… would you, MPT, have a problem if someone used your own book cover as a joke? (like if there was a picture of lance bass’s head on the “churched” cover boy?)
i think not being able to laugh at ourselves shows more about us than we want to admit…
Matthew, I appreciate your taking it down.
I don’t mind laughing at myself. Even if “myself” means contemporary Christian culture.
I didn’t get the post. It was an old lady. She wasn’t ugly or dressed hip and it wasn’t great marketing if you want to sell a book about her to young Christians, but I doubt that was the publisher’s niche market anyway.
What I saw was not people laughing at a culture, but people making fun of an old lady. She’d old so she’s not getting any? She’s old so she looks funny? She’s old so she’s not hot?
It was tasteless. And that more people would be upset about “erring” on the side of tact and taste than they would about an old lady who is dead was being mocked simply for looking like an old lady does say a lot about ourselves.
It says we have zero respect, that we have a long way to go to figure out what it means to treat each other as better than ourselves, as Paul says to do.
Thanks again, Matthew.
Peace
Thanks, Matthew.
I appreciate your show of public decency here. I know there’s a lot of bad stuff going on. But it’s precisely the attitude that “Well, *this* is just a drop in the bucket, so I might as well join in” that makes for a slippery downward slope.
Thanks for a step back uphill.
Take care & God bless
WF
not everything in life has to be so deep … it was a hilarious post that i sent to all my female friends … esp. the single ones & we all cracked up … esp. the virgin ones … oh and we all love Jesus too … amazing huh, we laughed at something shallow & we love Jesus, it is possible to do hahaha 🙂
as always, appreciate you being real and not in a glass house
we all go too far sometimes :o) didn’t offend me, but then again, I’m a reformed drinking, whoring, sinner… so not much does! Being able to admit who you are and when you’ve gone to far is a good thing — you go boy!
I agree with Liz completely. I really liked the post and if people do not like it then they have the choice not to read it.
However, I respect that you admire and respect your blog readers and sometimes you just cannot win.
Becca xxx,
geez, some people need to lighten up