November 2005 Archives

My recent lack of posts can be attributed to the fact that i'm spending most of my time working on my senior thesis project, about RELEVANT magazine. It's going okay...I don't think i'm going to make my "complete draft by Monday" deadline but hopefully that will be alright. I'm very proud of sections of this project, especially the part about brand identification as expression of faith. Basic theme of the project: the evangelical church is embracing the language of mass cultural fake rebellion just as the mainstream culture which invented fake rebellion is embracing the evangelical church. It's not so much a question of co-optation or appropriation as much as a simple confluence of interest.

In my absence, some fellow UrHo bloggers have been covering the religion beat and offering some really fascinating posts.

I grew up in the United Methodist Church, and I've been feeling really bummed out by recent decisions made by the Judicial Council (sort of like the church's supreme court). Starr Ahrens, writing at her blog Updates cheered me up immensely with her sweet and funny post about teenage experiences with her hometown Methodist Church and the practice of keeping church doors unlocked at all times.

Isn't that the premise of Christianity; trusting your fellow man, providing him with sanctuary for faith, not just at the hours that are convenient for some. Isn't it the way of Christianity to reach out to all walks of life, no matter how downtrodden, and invite them all in to share their faith with each other or just with god? Christian churches, to my understanding, are not supposed to be members only social clubs, but instead community buildings, where people are welcome to come and worship together or separately. Regardless of the nature of my belief system today, I found that in my hometown, churches were accepting places where the community came together. The expectation was not one of conversion, but one of acceptance (read the rest)

Meanwhile Lucie at Overarching is spending time at a Buddhist monastery in Nepal (? at least I think it's Nepal). She finds that contrary to our American romanticized vision of Eastern religion, Buddhism is prone to the same problems that plague other religions–-institutional authoritarianism, scriptural literalism, suppression of criticism, etc--to the point that it feels like brainwashing.

Some of the people who have gone to speak to the nun in charge of the course have been told, upon saying they're not sure this is for them, that they're arrogant, superficial and negative minded, and that they'll never find happiness outside the gates of the monastery.

I guess it will work out well for some people, but I have to be honest with you: if it wasn't a Buddhist program, people would be calling it a cult. Seriously. The way things are presented, the way you're told it's all true, the way they cut you off from the outside world and deal with doubters... it's just kind of troubling. (read the rest)

Yikes. Stay safe over there, Lucie!

Via the reliably weird WFMU:
"Lil' Markie" is the creation of evangelist Mark Fox, who uses his ability to sing in a terrifying "childlike" falsetto to sing cautionary Christian tales.

Start with "Diary of an Unborn Child" (8.0 mb MP3). If you can handle that, go here to download the entire 17 song album. Don't miss the video clips; the voice is even more surreal when you see it being produced by a jolly mulleted man.

edit: Usually I avoid posting this sort of thing. Though often accurate, the whole "What did they do now? Gosh those evangelical christians sure are nutty!" trope is trite and not particularly productive. I made an exception because this was just too crazy to keep to myself.