Re: "A thought on suffering and the call for Christians"

In response to the post A thought on suffering and the call for Christians.

I like your friend Tom’s message very much! I wish that all christian organizations could embrace it. The world is full of suffering gone ignored, and in some cases intensified, by so many christians. But indeed helping to alleviate suffering, going to where it’s found and doing what we can, is something that christians and non alike should be doing. But there’s more!

An example: why that calcuttan baby was dying alone in the alley? Let’s say, for the sake of the example, that the baby is an AIDS orphan. The question then is where was Mother Theresa when that baby’s parents should have been educated about safer sex; learned that condoms effectively prevent the spread of HIV?
Now I know that is a hypothetical, but it’s not an outlandish example, and it serves well to illustrate my point. That point being that suffering shouldn’t just be dealt with, it can be precluded.

What a wonderful challenge that would be! Instead of simply feeding the poor and visiting the sick we could prevent the poverty and the disease.

We could create inclusive environments for all children, so they don’t end up hanging from the rafters in their grandmother’s barn because too many of their peers called them a fag. We could support the aforementioned safer sex education (even if so many churches don’t – I’m looking at you, Vatican), so that there are less orphans. The list is exhaustive.

I’ve noticed this trend with christian charity. Lovely and kind and thoughtful as it often is, it’s too often a bandaid and not a vaccine.

re: Christian Apps… “There’s an App for That”

In response to Christian Apps... "There's an App for That", 


The question of authenticity here is a moot point.

In class we questioned the sincerity of Gaga and Bieber who are combining their christianity (and a christian message?) with their music. If they have a mission to preach through their music, then the means (Gaga's sexuality and sexuosity, for example) and their rampant financial success certainly shed doubt on true motives. Unilver was also mentioned in one response to this post. They are another good example of questionable sincerity. In selling Dove products they are selling a message of female empowerment. But they also sell axe products, which was selling a message of extreme misogyny with commercials featuring vapid, slutty women tripping over themselves to be near men with a "nice" smell. To be fair to unilever, however, the more recent commercials feature both women AND men acting like vapid sluts.

The sincerity of companies like Surgeworks, whose goal is clearly not to missionize, but simply create and sell quality applications, can't be be called into question. Simply, they are a company with a goal to sell. To comment on the high price of their application I would hazard to guess (after a cursory glance at the product description on their site) that the application itself just costs more to produce. Dictionaries are in a similar vein, and they are in the same price neighbourhood. That's a publishing industry thing (thank you copyright?).

As mentioned by one respondent, the "confession" app is really interesting. It is reminiscent of the "indulges" given by the Catholic church. Rich sinners could pay the church and receive the slips of paper absolving them.. those who could pay could sin in abundance and still gain entry to the glorious kingdom of heaven! Clearly capitalist christianity is no new phenomenon. 

Indulgences fun-fact and sidenote: the printing press, was initially harshly opposed by the Church. At least until Gutenberg had the clever idea to print the previously handwritten "indulgences", which meant that the Church could produce more in less time (and cash in, exponentially).

"It's not a museum for good people.."

A very interesting and fitting YouTube video by rap musician Jeff Bethky was recently discussed on the NPR (Yay, NPR!) podcast on Pop Culture.  It's entitled "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus."


Take a moment and have a look (also download all the NPR podcasts now!)...

Amazing.  Even I was touched in some way.


Also notable is that this video (at the time of the writing of this post) has nearly 20 million views.  According to the NPR podcast the video was viewed 2 million times overnight with an additional 4 million views the following day.  It has also spawned over 200 response videos.


Why has this video been so popular?
I like to think that it's because there are lot of (young) christians who agree with Bethky.  Religion is not working for them but they love Jesus and his message (as they see it). I would take this as further proof of what I've discussed in my previous post and response that christianity has changed.


While many might question the sincerity of Gaga and Bieber, as we all did in class, Bethky claims that religion is like "spraying perfume on a casket", that "there's a problem if people only know you're a christian by your facebook".  Religion, to Bethky, is a "man made invention", it's the "infection".  This is no new idea, of course.  The culture wars of Reagan did, as we saw in class, polarize society; since the 80s denouncing religion has been a popular activity for pop culture and its icons.  But Bethky isn't just denouncing religion, he's promoting Jesus, who is "the work of God" and "the cure".  It's a meeting of two formerly separate camps.


As with Gaga's (oh how she dominates discussion!), this is a christianity that accepts flaws and sins.  Akin to her claim that "Jesus is my virtue, and Judas is the demon I cling to", Bethky's christianity is only the love of Jesus and his forgiveness. As he states: "Now that I know Jesus, I boast in my weakness"; there's no need to "hide my sin, 'cause it doesn't depend on me, it depends on him [Jesus]". Perhaps the most appealing part of his declaration is that "salvation is freely mine and forgiveness is my own, not based on my merit, but on Jesus' obedience alone... he took what we all deserve [crucifixion], I guess that's why they call it Grace."


It's as though the new christianity has had the epiphany that humanity is weak. All people are sinners; they are flawed, sexual, and abusive to themselves and others.  Even as "God's enemy and certainly not a fan," God still "looked down and said: 'I want that man.'"  As I've previously argued there's a clear reason for this change.  Aforementioned cultural polarization nurtured the development of a popular culture of sex and drugs and sin, and that popular culture in turn nurtures the growth of a christianity that can accept it.


Of course, being on the frontier of this neo-christianity and fully immersed in Corona's "hypermodernity" it's still very easy to doubt the authenticity of these neo-christian acolytes like Gaga, who appear to be, first and foremost, profiting.  And not missionizing.  Further, it would be negligent not to consider that this neo-christianity is appealing to a younger audience, which study after study has shown to be increasingly narcissistic. This "me" generation scores exponentially higher on the Narcissistic Personality Index than any previous generation.  They like anything uniquely created for them alone, exemplified in L'Oréal's change from a slogan of "Because I'm Worth it" (delivered by a beautifully coiffed Morgan Fairchild) to one of "Because You're Worth it."  The draw to a Jesus who "when he was dangling on that cross he was thinking of you" to a "me" generation is clear.


But that is a discussion for another post.


Truly I don't mean to promote Christianity per se, but it would be (as I've said before) thoughtless to ignore its potential.  And whatever the reason for its appeal, this neo-christianity is hopeful. If "religion says slave, Jesus says son," the real message of Jesus to love one's neighbour shines through.  Moreover, however imperfect we might be, "Grace is water, the church should be an ocean." This new christianity really can be a "a hospital for the broken."