Jesus Is Coming--Look Busy! (Alessandra)

Oh giant can of wormy goodness let us stick the blade in ... umm yes. There is quite frankly nothing worse than brainwashed fundamentalists of any stripe. The new Christianity of the QVC megachurch variety replete with soft rock albums featuring swaying, sweaty-palmed, sexually repressed teenagers is particularly loathsome because it seems to be pretty well understood that it is license to check any sort of mental vigor or curiosity at the door. These people have the blank stares of hardened cult members for whom all decisions are made. Their minds are made up well before any conversation. They have more in common with the wackjob terrorist Muslim fundamentalists that they are so scared by than they do to the Founding Fathers of the country they proclaim to love so much. But the blue eyeshadow is pretty awesome.

The most truly Christian people I know are among the most normal. They just live their lives as best they can. They show, they don't tell. They don't make you uncomfortable with that vaguely hostile us-or-them vibe that is a constant, nearly malevolent, presence among the brainwashed. So take heart L there are normal, spiritual people out there with a healthy aversions to pastel and ceramic figurines. You just have to look a little harder for them because they're not going to hit you over the head with their holier than thou faux piety. -A


Alessandra, I've tried to make a comment to this post several times, but it won't let me for some reason, so I'm going in head first. I know this to be true, this is why I lean toward the Catholic side of things pretty comfortably. Most Catholics don't feel they have to not listen to rock and roll or drink in order to be a good Christian. I know there are flaws in any organized religion, but I'll take one that gives you real wine at church any day.

Talk about brainwashing. I can tell you from my BB past that when we would go on Baptist youth retreats an inordinate amount of time was spent playing Led Zeppelin backwards to show you the evils that can pollute your mind through the radio airwaves. In college, after going through a minor resurgence, I went to another retreat led by a couple of which the man was a "cured homosexual", I then had to sit through hours of him preaching to us about how your virginity is the sticky part of the glue that helps you bind to another. I felt so sorry for his poor wife, can you imagine how long she has to wait outs in the car at rest stops on long trips?

I do have to admit I know quite a few people now that I would also call "true" Christians and you are right on the money that they don't go around advertising it or trying to make you feel bad about your life. I'm sure, in reality, that woman was a lovely person, but that does not make for a very interesting post...

p.s. You know how to nail it, your descriptions beat all.

-L


I like this format better. Sometimes you have more to say than that skimpy comment box.
Wow those retreats sound frightening. Let's hear more about them! I also wanted to tell you that I think "bringing the QVC" shd be nominated to our permanent glossary. I also just noticed that if you put our blog as an acronym it has TWAT in it...TTWATW!

But yes Catholics. Sin, torment, guilt, big flashy gothic old cathedrals, beautiful art, thoughtful writings, and the best part: the thinly veiled assimilation of paganism. Catholics are much more fun to hang around in general if you can just lay low during the "guilt" phase. Unfortunately as an organized religion they have a lot to answer for, death and molestation and corruption. Icky. I love how the newsletter from our local RC Church, St. Nicholas, went off on yoga; how it is the Satanic practice that leads to utter moral waste. Hmmmm....downward facing dog versus...Spanish Inquisition.... yeah. -A

Scares the BeJesus out of Me (L)

I love facebook, I love finding old friends and connecting with current ones in new ways. However, one weird twist to this for me is that I have a couple of people from my long ago Bible Belt days in Tennessee. It was strange during the election to be timid at first about posting all of my Palin slams (which you know I did) because my southern contingents and their string of friends were clearly McCain fans (as demonstrated by their "I'm a fan of John McCain" newfeeds). I'm betting that they had a prayer meeting in their church basement after the election results. One of them was my best friend from childhood. Getting to know her again and then meeting her in 1995 was amazing, it was like seeing my southern reflection. I was impressed that at such a young age we had actually found in each other true kindred spirits. She was smart and a rebel by southern standards (she has a secret tattoo) and had grown far from the awkward cute girl with braces I once knew, into a beautiful southern woman. I like to think I'd be better looking too if I lived in the south and was forced to keep up with all those standards. We still had an inordinate amount in common, though raised in very different lives.

I just clicked on her facebook "books I'm reading" page and saw a book of raising kids by the Bible and some other girly-too-flowery-even-for-Oprah book. I felt...betrayed, defeated, disengaged. It turns out, there are some girls you can't take the south out of and certainly can't take the Jesus out of.

Recently, I went to a gathering at someone's house I hardly knew. She greeted me and my friend at the door with a sweet fake hug and we stepped into her huge immaculate house filled with candles, angels, china dolls, and hand stitched Bible quotes strewn about like land mines for sinners, and I wondered if I was stepping back into my past. As I scanned for time portals, I studied her closely; she was blonde (fake), wearing baby blue and delicate gold jewelry, her make-up was thick enough to hide her gender, if necessary. Later in the evening, as we sat in her living room that looked like a staging set for a Sears portrait studio, I asked her where she was from originally, thinking here's the answer to it all...When she replied a town further south in Maine, I was scrambling to make sense. Then I realized it was not a southern connection, but a Jesus one.

This, if nothing else, will keep me from another altar call to the Baptist front--because, apparently, when you take Jesus to your heart he brings the QVC with him. Why is this? Is there no such thing as a cool hip Christian with a penchant for vibrant colors and clutter who likes to read intelligent funny literature?

I realize I am judgemental, I'm a judmgental biggotted anti-Christian fundamentalist (it's just the fundamentalists I'm a'gin). If they could read this blog, they'd send their Christ minions straight up here to try to cleanse my sinning soul and place collectible gnomes throughout my house.