armchair cultural observation since 1995

Old things become new

chalk

This Should Keep Us All Thinking. Perhaps you’ve heard something about a video with this title on the Web lately. I successfully ignored it for a couple days despite the urging of a lot of earnest Christian friends. I should have known better to expect 1. An actual video and 2. Something original.

Back in 1996 there was this new fangled thing called e-mail, which gave birth to the digital chain letter phenomenon known as e-mail forwards. This in turn gave birth to unoriginal pastors and youth pastors everywhere regurgitating as truth everything they read in their e-mail. The “Dropped Chalk” story is an example of this.

I first heard it in a sermon at church camp told as a true story. It was an inspiring story then for me so I can see why it would inspire kids today. I just don’t like the fact that these things so commonly get passed off as truth in the Christian world. Do Christians not know how to use Snopes.com?

Jesus’ best stories were fiction. We readers of the Bible like to call them parables. This is a parable. I just wish it would be presented as such.

Rant over. Add to the 8.3 million views below if you like and see the Snopes entry linking the legend back to 1920s Pennsylvania HERE.

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1 Response »

  1. i didn’t know about snopes.com

    thanks for this post.

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