bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Saturday, March 01, 2003 ::

Saturday morning procrastination
I did finish my first eMinistry newsletter in two months yesterday, so I'm rewarding myself with a bit of blog-surfing this morning. Meanwhile, looming are a few other projects I've promised myself to deal with today -- polishing up a brief satire/essay, grading papers, watching the Mizzou Tigers play hoops this afternoon -- so I'll have to keep it brief.

Here's a sampling of what's catching my eye today:

David Hopkins' collection of Jesus figurines reminds me of that classic tune, "Plastic Jesus". Excerpt:

I don't care if it rains of freezes
'Long as I got my Plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car.

Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my Plastic Jesus I'll go far.
Plastic Jesus! Plastic Jesus,
Riding on the dashboard of my car...

Plastic Jesus shelters me,
For His head comes off, you see
He's hollow, and I use Him for a flask.
Plastic Jesus! Plastic Jesus,

Riding on the dashboard of my car ...
Ride with me and have a dram
Of the blood of the Lamb -
Plastic Jesus is a holy bar.

Author Douglas Rushkoff (whose book Coercion should be required reading for anyone concerned about consumerist culture) posts his introduction to a new book about raves and religion. In it, he explains how he lost his journalist objectivity during his early chronicling of rave culture, moving from dispassionate observer to active participant. An excerpt:

There was no way for me to emerge from the experience of rave, however, without becoming both its chronicler and its propagandist. This is your brain on journalism; this is your brain after being dipped into the rave phenomenon. My work of that period is probably more valuable as an example of what people wrote like when they were experiencing the rave reality than what may have actually happened. Or what it was really about. After I was done with my 'non-fiction' book about this culture, I wrote a fictitious novel that was entirely more accurate. ...

If it really is a religion, then I suppose rave is over in some respects. For once it can be catalogued and comprehended, is it still a spiritual experience capable of breaking the boundaries between self and everything else? Perhaps not.

Audio Adrenaline goes against the grain. At a time many Christian rock bands are trying to shed their identity, Audio A is pushing its fans toward overt evangelism. "The worship movement has been huge all over the world, but it shouldn't stop in our church," said Tyler Burkum, lead guitarist for Audio A. "Let's go into this world and worship with our lives." Link via ChristianityToday weblog.

Meanwhile, Delirious? front man Martrin Smith charges contemporary Christian music (CCM) with being "uncreative, money-minded, and dated". He says: "I think it's okay for there to be a Christian music industry because it is led by people who have skills and insight in knowing how to service people that want this sort of music. If you were to run a record label focused on the r&b scene, you need people that are gifted to resource that scene. I think the future is that the lines will become more blurred between the different factions and that there will be more "crossing over" between the scenes and this can only be a good thing." Link via Rockrebel.com.

Losing our religion...gaining our spirituality
Tim Bednar of e-Church posts about a recent Gallup Poll finding that Americans are moving more and more toward syncretism. "We are living in a society that accepts, even seeks spirituality as long as it is undefined," says Bednar. He also provides some links to related topics. Here's one he missed that probably summarizes the state of the spiritual union in the USA, at least among those of us who claim to be Christians: George Barna's seven paradoxes of American faith.

I -- along with many others -- have written extensively about smorgasbord spirituality. Here's an excerpt on that subject from eMinistry:

Many young people today approach spirituality much as they would a buffet. ... Even churchgoing kids are drawn to this mix-and-match spirituality. Mike, a seventeen-year-old from upstate New York who frequently chats about religion with friends on the Internet, says he is "supposed to be a Roman Catholic, and a good one at that." He attends church regularly and is president of the youth group. But he questions the church's teachings on creation, heaven and hell, and other topics, and concludes, "Not only do I not believe that strongly in my own religion, but I can't even come up with a clear definition of 'My religion.'" His online friends "are also completely unsure about religion," he writes in an e-mail message. "Chicorina says, 'catholic with buddhist tendancies' Jester says, 'everything, and yet nothing,' and Yajba is just confused. So there you go. (eMinistry, pp. 71-72).

My blatant self-promotion for the day is over. Read on.

Bene Diction posts some interesting thoughts about Canada's growing anti-Americanism and even likens it to anit-semitism. It's one thing for a U.S. citizen to say that, but quite another for a Canadian. Thanks, Bene. *polite applause*

Today's e-mail from Bruderhof:
The needs of the world are too great, the suffering and pain too extensive, the lures of the world too seductive for us to begin to change the world unless we are changed, unless conversion of life and morals becomes our pattern. The status quo is too alluring. It is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the six-thirty news, our institutions, theologies, and politics. The only way we shall break its hold on us is to be transferred to another dominion, to be cut loose from our old certainties, to be thrust under the flood and then pulled forth fresh and new-born. Baptism takes us there. -- William Willemon, "Repent"

Well, the envoy to Iraq didn't work. So he's trying another tact. Pope to send envoy to U.S. in hopes of averting war in Iraq. According to the report, "The Vatican does not believe an attack on Iraq could be considered a 'just war,' opposes United Nations economic sanctions against Iraq and argues that diplomacy is the only way to settle the dispute." Link via Holy Weblog!

Rant this way -- a wonderful example of how to rant, via Fat Blue Man, whose site is sporting a cleaner look these days.

The troubling truth about Africa's AIDS crisis, via Gideon Strauss. What can I add? Simply to repeat Gideon's closing request: Pray.

:: Andrew 11:35 + ::
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