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RE: work this

On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, David Armstrong wrote:

> > <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> > 
> > oh yeah - and christians aren't allowed to drink & dance either.
> > unless dancing is under the "influence" of the holy spirit, huh?
> > 
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Absolutely, David!  I also make sure to also give weekly to Trinity
> Broadcasting Network, insist that Sherry wear at _least_ 1/4 lb of makeup
> (gotta pretty up that temple, you know!), keep children from reading C S
> Lewis (he was a heathen Anglican, you know...), send off concerned letters
> to 'Christian rock' bands like Rez and Petra telling them to turn from
> their sin, and keep abreast of who Hal Lindsay currently believes will be
> the anti-Christ this week.  Oh, and did I mention that I'm a regular
> contributor to Trinity Broadcasting Network?
> 
> I _am_ the Christian Sub-Genius and this is my rant...
> 
> Or kill me,
> -Drew J
> 
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> 
> i was about to make some similar statements.
> i just didn't want to appear too "pious".

Well, here's the thing.  I'm usually not sarcastic about Christianity.  
I'm an evangelical Christian and I take belief in Christ pretty seriously.  
However, there's a lot of the mainstream Christian culture out there is
just as Christian as a magic nose goblin is part of a nose.  To me, that
sort of stuff is screaming to be made fun of to show its foolishness.

Back in the old days, I used to call this ideas 'scripture from the Book
of Hezekiah', which comes from a somewhat smug and cruel joke to play on
someone when you're studying the Bible with folks.  You tell them to turn
to the book of Hezekiah, chapter [whatever].  The name _sounds_ right, but
it's not really a book (just one of the kings from the Old Testament), and
so your up-until-then-friend goes nuts for ten minutes trying to find this
book.

Now I just kind of equate some aspects of 'Christian culture' with some of
the teachings of the Pharisees that Christ loved to pick apart (and
really, pick _on_).  This isn't to say that there aren't aspects of
mainstream Christian life that aren't terribly useful.  But quite a bit
just annoys me, especially those aspects where people assume that everyone
does because they're a Christian (as often, two different bunches of my
brothers and sisters have completely opposite ideas about it...).

This nicely dovetails into OtR in this way...their corpus of work
encourages me to notice the richness of Christianity throughout the world
all the more
- when I know there are Christian women in Arkansas who won't wear pants
because they believe it's sinful, Chinese Christians who won't
sing praises out loud for fear of getting caught by the police,
gospel churches spending all day praising, worshipping, testifying and
eating lunch with each other, and folks like Karin and Linford saying
what they do with their work - that's when I really sit back and am amazed
at what God has wrought.

Christianity - it's kickass.

-Drew J

O ^ ^     Drew Johnson - djohnson at snowplow_org - Ld Robert Bartholomew     )
O(_|_) Tengo gusto de comer creyones. -Elian Gonzales, 4/27/00, goats.com  X
O Check out splat.melm.org (monkey at melm_org) & goats.com (drew at goats_com)  |

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