Online Religion

This is a blog I was supposed to do while I was sick.

The article of the day is called Online Religion and Finding Faith on the Web: An Examination of Beliefnet.org by Cheryl Anne Casey.

This was about as you can guess, the move of religion into cyberspace. Now I have never really had an opinion on this as I don't know to what extent things are happening. All I know is that with the transition of anything to the internet it can allow for some "dissolving" to happen to content or truth. This can be worrisome of course.

Wikipedia is always a good example of how things can be changed and not many people will notice. What happens when a group of Christian's get together in a video chat room to have 'church' and the person who is being the pastor turns out to be a farce?

The whole idea of religion moving online irks me slightly, not that I think its a terrible idea. I just can see so many things going wrong with it. Though this won't stop emergent groups from jumping online and I say go for it. Just, use caution I guess.

Moving something that has traditionally involved a whole person into a realm that is completely non-physical seems like a huge leap to me. I don't think I could ever get used to it. But I know the move has allowed for some great online material for Christians and so I'm interested to see what will come of it.

It's always gonna be sour grapes with you boy, until you get right with Jesus. Amen!

wow. I really don't know what to say. I am enraged and saddened at the same time. I don't even know where to start so I'll just introduce the article and see where this thing takes us.

Here is the article to begin with. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20278737/jesus_made_me_puke/

This week I have been presented with an alternative viewpoint to our lovely text book. This comes out of the pages of Rolling Stone and the article is called, Jesus Made Me Puke by Matt Taibbi. Initially I figured this would be another article bashing the 'christian right'. Long story short: it was, but this bashing was fully deserved.

Taibbi's mission for this issue was to infiltrate a church and join in with a week end 'encounter' event. Initially as he describes the typical church characters getting on the bus to head off to the unknown my stomach sunk a little as I could see where this was going. Taibbi goes through the events of the week end and at first they seem to be a typical Evangelical event. I was first dumbfounded when it came time for people to split into small groups and share an issue from their past. Taibbi's is second in the circle and so he is forced to quickly think something up.
"'Hello,' I said, taking a deep breath. 'My name is Matt. My father was an alcoholic circus clown who used to beat me with his oversize shoes.'"

The fools fall for his story. I don't understand how people can be so blinded that someone making up such an obvious lie. I am saddened for the image that is portrayed of the poor misguided people who have attended these events.

As the weekend progressed things seem to be the typical strange and shallow TV and political jargon that can be expected from the 'christian right'. Then it happens, an exorcism. That's right, the 'pastor' proceeds to tell the group that all of the sin in their lives is not actually their fault but the fault of demons that are with in them.

"He had cast out the demons of every ailment, crime, domestic problem and intellectual discipline on the face of the Earth. He cast out horoscopes, false gods, witches, intellectual pride, nearsightedness, everything, it seemed to me, except maybe E. coli and John Updike novels."
Some of these notable ones being: the demons of Philosophy and Handwriting Analysis. Since when is my degree minor a demon?

I am angered because this is the view that many people are getting of the church today. What this truly is, is a perversion of the original order, a cult. It is also the most outspoken American group of 'Christians'. How are we as Christians supposed to act when we see this kind of thing? I would find it hard to muster the strength to go up to a preacher and tell the man, 'HEY! YOU! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!' This almost seems to be a potential media crisis that Christians need to dealing with because I get the impression that its leading most of the western world to believe we are crazies.

What Makes Music Christian?

A question asked by many a listener. Terry Mattingly seems to think it sure isn't rock. How dare music show some semblance of talent or a back beat of any kind? Would this then rule out artists like Toby Mac? Strangely the Rock/Nu-Metal group Chevelle was considered to be a Christian band for many years. They were sold under the Squint Entertainment label for their first three albums. Squint is most famously known for the band Six Pence None the Richer. The lyrics of Chevelle sounded Christian, though strangely the never mentioned a deity other than El Diablo.

A sample from The Clincher:
Could we have known,
Never would I, Helped to nail down,
With nothing to gain
Here's the clincher, This should be you!
Now saturate.

Sounds like it could be Christian. SURPRISE! When asked in an interview, the drummer, Sam Loeffler said, "It's something that's probably going to follow us around forever and that's fine. It's pretty simple. We originally signed with a record company that was backed by Word (known for artists such as Amy grant), so the record was in Christian bookstores. It was really an accidental thing. The Band promptly changed labels and lyrical quality the swearing abounded with titles like, Antisaint.

This is just one example. Another would be the band Evanescence. One of their first big hits Bring Me to Life was accompanied by the lead vocalist from the Christian band 12 stones. Stories shot through the roof that there was this hot new "christian" band called Evanescence. Those voices were silenced quickly.

Now we turn to the band Paramore, I have yet to actually listen to them. But they claim be Christians. WAIT! Pause for a second, these guys are signed under Fueled by Ramen. The same company that signed Panic at the Disco and Fall Out Boy. You don't see these guys being sold at your local Christian book store.

So really what makes music Christian? I'm going to agree with Bono on this one and say that, Christian music doesn't exist.

MOM! THERE'S A FUNDIMENTALIST STUCK IN OUR FAX MACHINE!

Let us start this entry by looking at some statistics from the wonderful book we have been following. If you would turn with me in your "U.E.M. Bibles" to page 138, chapter 10, Verse 1. "How Americans Use Internet For Religion."

1. The first stat is that 38% of 128 million users send and receive email with spiritual content. "If you don't reply to this email in 10 minutes you will have bad LUCK."
2. 35% send or receive E-cards related to religious holidays. "HAPPY X-MAS, from the Bay! Don't forget to check out our X-MAS SALE! You will find prices up to 10% off."
3. 32% go online for news accounts of religious events and affairs. "Today Islamic fanatics blew up a coffee shop in the Gaza strip."
4. 21% seek info about how to celebrate religious holidays. "Mom! I lost the instructions for our fake tree! Can you look them up on the Internet for me?"

Don't you just love stats?

Schultze sticks to his guns with his whole teaching, persuading, and delighting schema. In the teaching section he writes about how evangelical churches post their sermons on their own personal church website...viewed only by their congregation... or may be some pastor friends. He also mentions book databases full of "Christian" works and password-protected websites. "Wow look at all of these new Christians we are converting with out brand-spanking-new password protected website!"

Next comes delighting, where evangelicals can go online and spew out their "well informed opinions" to who ever happens to be trolling their particular forum. Thus being teamed up with the whole persuasion aspect and we have a great thing going.

Here are some replies to a comment on Catholic acceptance of evolution:
- "Shut up"
- "What's wrong with monkeys?"
- "The problem is that most of the crazy nutball evangelicals that are fighting evolution in our schools don't even see catholics as being real christians."
- "Also christians are mad stupid. That's a problem too."
- "angels and demons was a pretty good book"
- "Oh my. This is disturbing. Come Jesus. Come Lord. Come take your world from the grip of satan."

Comments found on: www.tribalwar.com

Evangelical Porn for Girls....

Evangelical Romance novels have become vastly popular over recent years. This is because they are considered to be much more "tame" than their Harlequin Romance counterparts. Many claim to have a "Christian" message and focus on the main character's relationship with their god. But being that it is a romance novel what are the characters doing after they pray? The main characters might not be running out to bed the nearest shirtless muscle master, or scantily clad damsel in distress. These books usually show the main couple in ways that could not be described in any words other than "lusty". Christian romance novels do what all other romance novels do: give a false view of human love and intimacy.

This brings me to my main question, what makes a novel "Christian"? In Schultze's book Micheal A. Longinow points out that books written by gay Christians, books with swearing, or books that may be a bit edgier than normal, don't get published. Yet one of the authors of Left Behind isn't even a Christian and his books can be published and sold in all Christian avenues. Does the fact that a non-Christian author can write one of the biggest selling evangelical series not worry anyone? Might I add that many people think that what this story talks about is exactly the way future events are going to take place.

Then there are books like, Saint by Tedd Dekker, where there are but minor mentions of little biblical stories. Hood by Stephen Lawhead is another example the only Christian references in these books are the fact that the characters believe in God and Friar Tuck prays. Yet these are praised as being great Christian fantasy novels. It would seem that this aspect of Evangelical media is focused too much on delighting the reader more than sending a message. Is this even something that Evangelical books can do? Considering the minimal Christian content of these books, could they not be considered secular with Christian influences? They have as much Christian content as some lyrics from Limp Bizkit, but you don't see him being signed to Dove Records.

Buy my frickin prayer cloth or no healing for you!!

As I was reading through the third article in Schultze's collection I got caught on a sentence about a certain television evangelist. "The late TV preacher Jerry Falwell said that 'there's no need for the church of Jesus Christ to be wasting its time gullibly falling for all of this global warming hocus-pocus.'"

First off I would like to point out that "gullibly" is not a word. Secondly I would like to state that I think that global warming is a natural cycle of the earth due to changes in the planet's orbit and axis. But when did it occur to Christians, that just because we might have some conspiracy theory that the world is going to end soon so we don't have to take care of it. Are we not told to be good stewards of everything we have been given? Even if global warming may be a hoax it does not mean that we shouldn't care about the amount of pollution that is being poured into the atmosphere.

The amount of politics that is in Christian media today frustrates me to no end. Not only does it lead to the conclusion that most Evangelicals are as crazy as other religious extremists, but it just seems to be not very Christ-like. Whether a person votes conservative or for those "crazy hippies" from the NDP, this should not have any say on if a person can stay in their church or get ostracized over it. I was under the impression that we were past the days of killing each other over who should lead the church, let alone our "democratic nation".

In closing I will remind you to go out and vote on the 14th of next month.