Godinterest vs. Regular Pinterest

I finally succumbed to temptation last week and joined Pinterest, which means I am now extremely well-informed on how to make furniture from old books, how to garnish drinks in mason jars, and how to spend two straight hours hitting "pin" on gluten-free recipes. Coincidentally, I also received a press release last week for a new site called Godinterest, which calls itself "The Christian version of Pinterest." (Why do you think they didn't call it Goderest? Maybe because it sounds like an order to go to sleep. Or like God has been arrested.) How does this "bespoke Christian media platform" measure up the original? Let's do some basic keyword searches and compare the top results, shall we?

Search for: Food
Pinterest:

Godinterest:

As far as this search goes, Pinterest's "Oreo Pudding Pops" trumps  Godinterest's "Kitty praying for food." In fact, I'm a little disturbed that this kitten has to pray for food in the first place. If she's not getting paid enough for a decent meal, kitty needs to find a new modeling agent.

Search for: Books

Pinterest:
 

Godinterest:

Somebody rewrote the Gospel of Mark as a thriller? I was not aware of this, and now I want to know more. Whereas Pinterest, rather than recommending a book, gave me... a description of the experience of reading. I don't know about this "That Moment" meme. Why would you spend your time pinning a description of the act of reading a book instead of actually reading a book? Point to Godinterest.

Search for: Crafts
Pinterest:


Godinterest:

Winner: Oh, come on, Godinterest, that is not a craft. That is a Mormon music video. "DIY Spoon Mirror," now that is a craft. I mean, I'll spend three minutes and fifty-four seconds listening to that song if you really want, but then what do I do with all these plastic spoons?

Search for: Jesus
Pinterest:


Godinterest:

Here we have two different illustrations: one of Jesus' empty tomb, and one of the second coming. However, it is important to know that the first image somehow got mismatched with the text from a different post. So while the Godinterest picture has the caption "Illustration of the Coming of Jesus," the Pinterest one is called "Powder Room Reveal." It gets even better when you read the description:

I am so relieved to have this room done! I mentioned awhile back that I had no idea when I started this remodel, that the smallest room in the house would be the most challenging. I shared my intentions to makeover my powder room about eight weeks ago...

Obviously I'm now imagining this crafty Pinterest poster re-making her powder room to resemble the empty tomb of Jesus. She could probably make the stone slab out of wood pallets, and the cave mouth from those little bags of rocks they sell at craft stores, and maybe she could paint the sheet with a chevron pattern for a contemporary makeover...

Bottom line, this is a completely unfair contest, because Godinterest doesn't have much content yet, while Pinterest, like God itself, is infinite. If you're looking for religious platitudes and Sunday School inspiration, you're still going to do better on Pinterest. And if you want a praying kitten photo, Pinterest actually has more of those, too.

The 10 Plagues of FX's "Fargo"

Are you watching Fargo on FX? The mini-series, inspired by the Coen Brothers film, is shaping up to be one of the year's best shows. And on Tuesday, things got downright Biblical.

I don't want to get too in-depth with the spoilers, and I'm not sure how the rest of the series will play out yet. But here are some things to think about going into future episodes:

* The connection to the original film, which was slyly revealed this week, hinges on blood money
* Fish are a recurring visual motif, most notably in the poster on Lester's wall. They frequently appear in the background of shots (see clip below).


* Moral relativity is a major theme of the series. The character who seems to possess the least morality also seems the most certain about his relationship with God.
* Another character's personal theology hinges entirely on signs and miracles, which is not working out so well at the moment.
* The ten plagues of Egypt are: Blood into water, frogs, lice, flies, diseased livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death of the firstborn. We've definitely seen two of these, and a case could be made that we've seen three. If the pattern continues, I can think of a certain character who may need to watch his back.



That's all for now. You should watch the show.

The Passion of Pete Seeger

What Pete Seeger's views about organized religion can teach believers, today on Religion Dispatches. I notice GodSpam has received quite a few visitors in the recent weeks, so first of all, hi there. Second, I have some exciting news to share very shortly, which will hopefully reward some of you for your patience with this neglected site. And third, I'm going back to GodSpam being one word. Try to use it in a sentence today!

Casting Stones at Paula Deen

Did you guys see that Today Show interview with Paula Deen? The one where she looks directly into the camera and urges us to throw a big stone at her head and kill her? Yeah. I think we need to talk about that.

Let he who is without butter cast the first biscuit. (Photo credit)

Here's what Deen, who is hemorrhaging money in the face of revelations that she's kind of a big racist, actually said. "If there's anyone out there that have never said something that they wish they could take back. If you're out there please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me. Please, I want to meet you. I is what I is, and I'm not changing."

The celebrity chef is a Baptist, and she's quoting (sort of) John 8:7. This is the story in which Jesus tells an angry mob to stop stoning a woman to death for committing adultery. Except he doesn't tell them to stop. What he says is, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." And one by one, they walk away.

There are quite a few interesting things going on with this passage. First of all, it should be noted that many scholars don't believe it was part of John's original text. There's decent evidence on both sides. It's possible, though, that this story was apocryphal, taken from another source and applied to Jesus. It's a pretty tidy anecdote with a good punchline. You can almost picture it popping up on the ancient Middle Eastern version of Snopes.

Nevertheless, it's one of the most-quoted things Jesus ever said. The phrase "cast the first stone" is still in common usage, alongside with its secular descendent, "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." 

I say it's one of the most-quoted things Jesus ever said. I should clarify: we actually don't know everything that Jesus said in John 8.

Before and after he says the thing about stones, Jesus is writing on the ground. In fact, that's his immediate reaction to the situation: he bends down and starts writing with his finger in the sand. The men then start "questioning" him, according to John. Eventually, Jesus stands -- or just looks up, depending on your translation -- and questions whether they should be throwing stones. Then he goes back to writing, and the dudes decide to leave the poor woman alone.

What was Jesus writing? Nobody knows! This is the only time in the Bible we see it happen. Some scholars believe he is drawing, not writing, since a peasant from Nazareth would probably not have known how to read. (Depends how much time you believe he spent in the temple, I guess.)  Often it's suggested that it's the act of writing that's important, not the content; it denotes divine authority, much like God inscribing the Ten Commandments. Another popular theory: he was re-writing the words of a prophecy, specifically Jeremiah 17:3. The obvious theory, perhaps, is that he was writing down the sins of the men with the stones. Or the sins of the woman, in order to forgive her. Or both. 

(Another important bit of context: we're told that this situation Jesus finds himself in, is a "test" from the Pharisees who are seeking an excuse to lock him up. It was a Catch-22: if he said that the woman should be killed, he would be undermining the authority of the Roman government, because Jews didn't have the right to enforce this penalty. If he objected, he'd be in violation of the Hebrew law -- the law of Moses -- which ordered adulterers to be stoned. But Jesus did something they couldn't have predicted: neither.)

With her plea to the Today Show audience, Paula Deen is casting herself in the role of the woman. (Forgot to mention that this woman is often interpreted as being the prostitute Mary Magdalene. There's no concrete textual evidence for that, though. Back to you, Matt Lauer!) Deen is saying, "I made a mistake. I said something I shouldn't have. If you've never done it, you can cast the first stone." She is begging for mercy. And yet she concludes her statement by saying, "I is what I is and I'm not changing."

What makes me uncomfortable is how heavily Deen is playing the victim card.  In our modern eyes, Jesus stopped the stone-throwers from delivering an outsized punishment, and a judgement that only God could pass down. Paula Deen lost a sausage endorsement after years of racist behavior. Doesn't seem like the most over-the-top punishment to me. 

Also, she didn't seem at all apologetic about using the N-word until she started losing money over it. She still doesn't seem especially sorry for her actions, or aware of why people were hurt by them. There's no forgiveness without repentance. Maybe that's why her apologies all ring hollow.

In another sense, though, the moral of John 8 applies. Jesus is saying that people have no right to judge what only God can judge. As a culture, we are so quick to condemn celebrities who are accused of wrongdoing, and for the most part, we do not forgive. I'm sure Paula Deen is experiencing a fan backlash that's wildly disproportionate to the crime, because that's the norm these days. "I'll never buy a Paula Deen cookbook again" is a reasonable fan response. Tweeting "Paula Deen needs to die" is not. No wonder she's feeling persecuted.

So WWJD about Paula Deen? In the story, he tells the adulteress that he doesn't condemn her, saying, "go, and sin no more." If I were Paula Deen's shoes, I'd take that as a cue to cut my losses (go) and rethink the way I treat other people (sin no more). But I'm not a diabetic Southern chef, and that's why I don't plan on picking up any stones.

How to Explain Crucifixion to Your Kids (And How Not To)

Today, I have a post up on Mom.me about the challenges of explaining the Easter story to kids.  While I was researching ideas for teaching the Passion, the Crucifixion, and all that fun, I came across a couple truly terrible suggestions from Christian parenting bloggers and teaching sites. Here are some of the most memorable (with links omitted to protect the innocent):

1. Parading around the backyard with your family, reciting prayers while taking turns carrying a giant wooden cross. Not included in the post: suggestions for where to buy a giant wooden cross.

2. Have the parents pretend to be Jesus and Pilate, respectively, while the kids yell "Crucify him!" No mention of the 39 lashes, thank goodness.

3. Make a "Stations of the Cross" coloring book. Okay fine, I'll link to this one.

For God Spam-approved talking points, go to Mom.me. Happy Resurrection!

How Popes Get Elected (In Movies & TV)

In honor of the election of Pope Francis I, I've written a post for Vulture about conclave conspiracy theories in pop culture. Check it out here.

Is That Funny Christian Video Real? Here's How to Tell

"Rappin' for Jesus" is a hoax, everybody. Yes, I know it's hilarious to watch middle-aged white Republicans use hip-hop slang. But the rapping pastor dropping n-bombs in Dubuque is not a real person, even if approximately 1.4 million viewers say otherwise. (Watch the video below, but be warned, it's offensive.)


It's a very well-executed hoax, complete with a phony out-of-date church website. Here are the four dead giveaways that it's fake:

1. There's no internet record of an Iowa pastor by the name of James Colerick, outside of this video. That's an immediate red flag.

2. An actual Dubuque pastor has confirmed the nonexistence of the church to The Christian Post.

3. That supposedly defunct-since-2004 site was updated in January. (The YouTube video was uploaded in February.)

4. As The Daily Dot smartly observes, the word "swag" wasn't in common use in hip-hop until after 2010. Do your parents even know how to use it in a sentence? What are the odds that this guy, were he a real person, would have said it before 2004?

Those are the facts. But for me, the biggest tip-off is that it has no real message. This is the most reliable test of a Christian viral hoax: would an actual Christian have a good reason to make this? Does it tell people how to get saved? Does it reference the Bible? Or does it just make Christians look like idiots for no apparent purpose?

For comparison, here's a legit Christian rap from the Georgia megachurch 12Stone. It's about tithing.



Here's another one, uploaded in 2008 by a guy named Matthew Fisher. It tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, and there are self-mocking elements, I'll stake my reputation on this one being the real deal.


You'll notice that the fake video got a lot more views than either of the real ones. Not surprising: people (seemingly) making idiots of themselves attract more attention than people trying to do something from the heart. If you associate Christianity with the kind of clueless, culturally tone-deaf ignorance displayed in "Rappin' for Jesus," then you probably didn't question its authenticity. That's what makes it an effective parody -- it strikes a chord, and one that should make mainline Christians very uncomfortable.

Incidentally, if you want to see what the more over-the-top Evangelicals were actually teaching their youth groups 2005, the documentary Jesus Camp is worth a look.

Why Is Chuck Norris Predicting A Thousand Years of Darkness?

Now there's a headline I never thought I'd write.

Image source:greatwhatsit.com

As you no doubt know, 72-year-old former action star Chuck Norris has filmed his own unique endorsement for Mitt Romney, in which he and his wife urge Conservative Evangelical Christians to vote against the coming Obamapocalypse. If Christians do nothing, warns Norris, this great nation is facing "a thousand years of darkness." Watch it below, or look at the transcript here.


Man, that "thousand years of darkness" sure sounds bad. Also, very specific. Where in the Bible, you might wonder, is it prophesied that free health care will switch off the lights for a full millennium?

Here's the funny thing: nowhere in the Bible is there a reference to "a thousand years of darkness." It sounds just like something from the Book of Revelation. But it's not.

So if Chuck Norris isn't spouting Biblical prophecy, what the hell is he talking about?
 
First, it's important to note that Chuck and his wife aren't using their own words in this part of the ad; they're actually quoting Ronald Reagan. Reagan's "thousand years of darkness" rhetoric originates with a speech he gave at the Republican Convention in 1964, before he was President, before he was even Governor of California. Here's the full quote:

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

What's Reagan talking about here? He's talking about Barry Goldwater defeating Lyndon B. Johnson, for one. To some extent, he's warning against government programs like Medicaid, which Johnson would sign into law the following year. What he's mostly referring to, though, is Communism. This speech was delivered at the height of the Cold War, when those atheist, Socialist Russians seemed to pose a serious threat to American values. If one believes that Obama is ushering in a new age of Socialism, as Norris apparently does, then the parallel makes sense. ("Makes sense" being a relative term these days.)

But that still doesn't explain where Reagan got his thousand-years calculation. We know it's not from the Bible. Why does it sound so familiar?

Here's the irony. The phrase "a thousand years of darkness"  was originally used in the 14th century to describe the European Middle Ages, a period when science and learning were in decline, war and famine were rampant, but the church was thriving. It wasn't Christianity's finest hour -- the church was divided, corrupt, and with the exception of some noteworthy individuals, generally a mess -- but it still managed to exercise a tremendous amount of power over people's minds, hearts and wallets.  Sounds like Chuck Norris's personal Disneyland to me.

In continuing with the "irony" theme, agnostic astrophysicist Carl Sagan adapted the phrase for his 1980 miniseries Cosmos. For Sagan, "a thousand years of darkness" described the period following the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, the ancient world's great archive of knowledge. He was using this as an example of the dangers of fundamentalism, or in his words, "submission to national, religious or ethnic identifications."

Back to Walker, Texas Ranger.

 

It's a safe bet that Chuck Norris didn't spend a whole morning Googling "thousand years of darkness" (ahem) in order to put Reagan's words in context.  He chose to use the speech; it resonated with him. And it resonated because it really, honestly sounds like something from the Book of Revelation. Norris is talking about the End Times here.

And that said, most of what Christians believe about the Apocalypse doesn't actually appear in the Bible at all. There are a thousand different "timelines" of the events of Revelation (a decidedly non-linear piece of writing) that one could pick and choose from. Most agree that Christ will reign for a thousand years of harmony prior to the Final Judgement. Perhaps there are some who believe that the anti-Christ will also reign for a thousand years? For symmetry?

Anyhow, if Lyndon B. Johnson did usher in a thousand years of darkness when he was elected, then we are currently in Year 48. Only 952 to go!

The Last Supper, This Time With More Grenades

Welcome back everyone! It's been a while since we've God Spam'd together, and there's so very much to catch up on. Chick-Fil-A. Hollywood Bible movies. The first Mormon Presidential candidate and the first Mormon-themed Broadway musical! It's all a little much to jump into at once, so let's start with something simple.

This movie poster. (Larger version here.)

This is the new promo image for The Expendables 2, modeled after Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper. Interesting choice, seeing as there's no food at this table; just semi-automatic weapons, bottles of booze, and artfully arranged platters of grenades. On the other hand, there are twelve action stars flanking Sylvester Stallone, just as twelve Disciples surrounded Jesus in the original artwork. (It's far too early in the morning to address the Sly-Stallone-as-Jesus issue.) Which makes the arrangement seem kind of inevitable. You can just imagine the art department at Lionsgate scratching their heads, going, How do we fit 13 stars equally into one eye-catching image? And really, no one has come up with a better composition than Leo did 500 years ago.

The weapons thing is disturbing, though. Maybe I'm just extra-squeamish after the Dark Knight shooting, but adding Uzis and machetes into the Last Supper (a moment in which Jesus chose self-sacrifice over violent retaliation) feels so very wrong. Then again, it also demonstrates how far removed that Da Vinci image has become from the Biblical context. Last Supper homages have become so common that they're more like parodies of one another than references to the original work. A few of the better ones:

The Sopranos, Vanity Fair photo shoot

Battlestar Galactica, promo art

The Simpsons, screengrab

In contrast, here's the very first Last Supper parody in pop culture history (as far as I know), from Luis Bunuel's 1961 film Viridiana. The film, a satire of Catholic hypocrisy, was banned outright in Spain, with this scene being the most controversial. It's clear that Bunuel chose this particular scene for a reason -- not just because he had thirteen actors who needed to be aesthetically arranged.

"How Many More Gay People Does God Have to Create..."

A beautifully simple argument against the Minnesota gay marriage ban by Representative Steve Simon, now a viral video hero. Sadly, it wasn't enough: the amendment passed the House earlier this week.


During his speech, Simon mentions a "member of the clergy" who testified that "sexual orientation is a gift from God." I dug around the Internet (including the Minnesota State Legislature archives) for a while, but was unable to figure out the identity of the pro-gay clergy member. There is a "Being Gay is a Gift from God" campaign going on at a Methodist church in Ohio, but I assume that whoever testified is somebody local. Perhaps it's the super-awesomely-named Obadiah Ballinger, a Minnesota pastor who's married to a fellow Minnesota pastor? (Okay, really no evidence that it's him -- I just wanted to share his adorable YouTube video, which I have now dubbed When Harry Met Gay Sally at Yale Divinity.) Whoever you are, mystery pastor -- God Spam salutes you.

Evil Priests, Blasphemous Preachers & Dolph Lundgren's Crucifix Dagger

Here's a list of the Nine Most Heretical Onscreen Priests that I wrote for New York Magazine's Vulture website. To narrow it down from a long, long list of film and TV's corrupt holy men, I limited it to those who explicitly quote the Bible -- and was amazed at how few actually do.

To wit, here's a partial list of the bad bishops and perverse preachers who didn't make the list because they never say a word of Scripture onscreen:

Jonathan Pryce's evil priests in both Stigmata and The Affair of the Necklace
Pope George Carlin in Dogma
F Murray Abraham in In the Name of the Rose
Ewan McGregor in Angels and Demons
Bishop in Caddyshack
The Bishop of Aquila in Ladyhawke
The Bishop of Bath and Wells in Black Adder
Reverend Brian Darling in Dirty Sexy Money
Father Phil Intintola in The Sopranos
Bishop Anthony in V for Vendetta

Then again, maybe I wasn't watching closely enough. Did I miss any passing Bible quotes in these films? Who are your favorite un-holy men?

Lady Gaga and the Fake Religious Controversy

If I'd been more on top of things, I would have set up a Religious Controversy Countdown clock the second Lady Gaga announced that her new single was called "Judas." Of course, we wouldn't have been counting down to a real religious controversy, the kind where people are thrown into crises of faith and forced to look at their own beliefs. No, the countdown clock would be ticking down the hours until some media outlet made up a story about how Lady Gaga was making religious groups angry. And by "religious groups," I mean Bill Donahue, the guy who calls himself The Catholic League.

Here's the headline from The Hollywood Reporter, posted one day after the release of Gaga's single:

 

Rather than waiting for an actual controversy to brew, HR took advantage of a statement Bill Donahue conveniently released to the media one week before the single dropped. Does that mean Donahue was reacting to a song he hadn't even heard yet? Yes. Yes it does.

So here's Donahue's statement, made on behalf of his official-sounding one-man crusade, The Catholic League: I find Gaga to be increasingly irrelevant. She thinks she is going to be groundbreaking. She is trying to ripoff Christian idolatry to shore up her talentless, mundane and boring performances. Another ex-Catholic whose head is turned around. This is a stunt. People have real talent, and then there is Lady Gaga. Is this the only way to jet up her performance? This isn’t random, we are getting closer to Holy Week and Easter.

He's right about one thing: the release of "Judas" right before Holy Week is no accident. It is a stunt, and it's a good one, because Lady Gaga excels at getting attention. I'm going to keep saying it: religion is the new sex. If a pop star wants to make headlines right now, talking about Jesus is the fastest route.

The thing that separates Lady Gaga, though, is that she's actually interested in religion. Her use of Christian imagery in "Judas" is very deliberate, and while it doesn't always make sense, it feeds into her message of cultural change through art -- which, of late, has included a lot of talk about reforming religion. The way she's going, it's entirely possible that Lady Gaga could spark some genuine religious controversy. But we'll never know, unless the media learns to tune out Bill Donahue's ranting and actually pay attention.

Video: The Devil Weighs In On The Westboro Baptist Church

And who better, really? From the weekend's Miley Cyrus episode of Saturday Night Live.

Will The New Yorker's Scientology Article Win Converts?

The New Yorker's recent essay on Scientology by Lawrence Wright is getting a lot of attention, and with good reason: it's well-researched, uses solid insider sources, and has some bombshell revelations. (Although if you've been following Scientology reporting for any length of time, it's the same sort of shocking stuff you already know.) But J.C. Hallman, who has also written extensively about Scientology, has an eye-opening criticism of the piece on Killing the Buddha. Specifically, he believes that Wright's journalistic objectivity gets in the way of portraying Scientology for the truly scary thing it is. Here's the kicker:

The funny thing is, "The Apostate" is exactly the kind of article that might get someone interested in Scientology. There’s just enough doubt thrown in, just enough caveats and deniability and dropped threads, and just enough intrigue to make it all seem like a grand adventure. If you’re frail and needy, and if you’re a seeker, then you’re not going to listen for what Wright is suggesting between the lines of this piece, when he appears to be writing not for readers but for a judge and jury. Instead, you’ll listen to the quiet evangelism that Scientology knows creeps through all accounts like this, and is the only reason they’re willing to sit down with The New Yorker.

Read the whole argument here. And for extra credit, read The Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard -- the biography that the Scientologists pretty successfully suppressed until some nice person decided to put the entire text online.

This Is My Body, Spiced With Cool Ranch Seasonings for You

So Doritos has decided not to air this Super Bowl ad, in which a desperate priest revives his congregation by adding trans fats and artificial coloring to Holy Communion. Here's the commercial:



I doubt that Doritos ever seriously intended to air this (it's among a number of potential ads they placed on their website and rejected, including 2 gay-themed ones), but it's still a piece of work. First off, notice the ways in which the filmmakers took care to cover their asses: they never say the priest's denomination. They never say they're serving Holy Communion, despite the recognizable aspects of the ritual. They know that most audiences will assume that the troubled church is Catholic, and that they're swapping out the wafers and wine during the service.

And part of me admires the sheer gall of that. But obviously, this commercial is incredibly problematic for anybody who respects religion. Let's look at a couple of the not-so-funny things that are being mocked here:

- Lack of church attendance. This is a major issue in many Christian churches throughout the country, especially when we're talking about mainstream Catholics and Protestants. (The mega-churches are doing just fine.) In terms of the Catholic church, the problem of shuttering churches is directly tied to a drop in faith and funds after the molestation scandal. Ha...ha?

- Holy Communion = Dullsville. See, here the thing -- Holy Communion is a ritual. It's not supposed to be exciting, it's supposed to be contemplative. The whole reason that Catholics use those wafers in the first place is to emphasize that Holy Communion is not about food, but about something greater. It's also a sacrament, based directly on Jesus's last act before he was tortured to death for humanity's sins. Go on, laugh.

The group that created this ad doesn't think they're making fun of churchgoers, but they are. I'm all for finding humor in religion, but not for mocking a two thousand year old ritual that harms no one, has given great comfort to many, and encourages deep spiritual contemplation. American culture, as a rule, does not encourage spiritual contemplation. That is part of the reason that more people don't go to church, and part of the reason why more people should. (Side note: for a contemporary look at Holy Communion, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles is an incredible meditation on the subject by an atheist-turned-Christian.)

Incidentally, here's another rejected Christianity-themed ad, this by a guy named Richard Belfry who sells shirts that say "Jesus Hates Obama." Yep, that's his whole business: selling shirts that say "Jesus Hates Obama." Why does Jesus hate Obama? His website doesn't say. In fact, Belfry has been making the press rounds, saying that of course Jesus doesn't really hate Obama. Lighten up, people! It's a joke! It's funny because Jesus obviously has the same political beliefs as you! And if Jesus was here today, he wouldn't be healing the sick and lame -- he'd be protesting Obamacare!



Sigh. I just want to be the funny blogger, guys. Why are you making this so hard?

The Birth of Jesus, Told 4 Ways

This Christmas, God Spam is taking a Rashomon-like approach to the Nativity story (but without the rape and murder and creepy fortune teller). Here are four different videos describing the birth of Jesus, as told by...

...Social networking:


...Sincerely adorable New Zealand children:


...Lovably inaccurate American kids:


... And tongue-in-cheek Christian cartoonists:



The Christmas story comes out of years of church tradition and theological controversy, but you can get a nice run-down of what the Bible actually says here. In the words of writer Phyllis Tickle: "The Virgin Birth is so beautiful that it has to be true, whether it happened or not."

Merry Christmas from all one of us at God Spam!

Gotta Have Faith: Lewis Black

"Gays didn't need to ask if they were gay. God told them. And if God told them, that's all you need to know, 'cause He's God and He wouldn't have made people gay unless He thought it was right. How do I know this? Because He's God and He's smarter than you. And if you don't like what I just said, tough. That's the God I believe in and that's the way He thinks. Maybe your God will have some thoughts someday."  

— From I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas, in which comedian Lewis Black expresses a message of divine love and acceptance in the most ornery way possible.  Crankiness notwithstanding, the book actually has a lot to say about the ways in which our culture celebrates and interprets the Christmas season. (And if you're interested, here's an interview I did with Lewis Black when the book hit shelves in November.)

The New Christianity Meets the Liberal Media

Jay Bakker, whose name I shall follow with the obligatory "son of Jim and Tammy Faye," gets an excellent profile in this week's New York Magazine.

Image: Kenneth Cole via Killing the Buddha

 I've mentioned Jay before on God Spam -- he's the founder and New York City pastor of Revolution, a church that seeks to embrace individuals (mainly the young, liberal, counter-cultural variety) who feel rejected by traditional Christianity. Here's how writer Alex Morris sums up Bakker's unexpected ministry:

But as I’m sitting there, close to the back and beer in hand [note: Revolution NYC meets at a bar], it occurs to me that maybe the opposite of faith isn’t doubt. Maybe the opposite of faith is certainty, a comforting belief in your own rightness. To a greater degree than most Evangelicals may care to admit, Jay Bakker’s open-armed ministry is an extension of what his parents created. Jim and Tammy Faye were much more tolerant than other televangelists; in 1986, Tammy Faye famously interviewed a gay minister who had been diagnosed with AIDS. But theirs was a theology of aspiration—believing is easy, and believing leads to success—and it didn’t encourage its followers to doubt their faith or themselves. This, it seems to me, is what Jay is offering: a Christianity that allows for, and is even sustained by, failure.

I'm going to repeat that last line, because I love it: "A Christianity that allows for, and is even sustained by, failure."

Promotional image from Revolution NYC

An interesting detail: Morris refers to Bakker as part of the Emergent movement. I'm not surprised that he says Bakker won't use the term himself; among Evangelicals (of whom Jay, however liberal, is one), "emergent" is considered a sort of half-boast, half-pejorative, like "hipster."* Be that as it may, this is the first time I've seen the emerging church given attention in a major New York City-based publication. I've been wondering when the Emergent movement would start making its way over to the East Coast, and this could be the first harbinger.

* I don't know why this is, exactly, although there's a certain teen-like brattiness that can come with the rejection of the mainstream church. For example, Emergent Church icon Tony Jones once told me in so many words that my lovely Brooklyn church is doomed, because we follow the Presbyterian bylaws and meet in a historic church building. 

**  And yes, if were wondering, "liberal media" in the headline is indeed supposed to be tongue-in-cheek; I have two (non-religion-related) articles in the same issue of the magazine.

This Week, On the Happy Fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy Hour...

Husband Kody's first three wives think his fourth wife is a ho because she kissed him before they were married. God, I love Mormons.

Christine O'Donnell and Eddie Izzard Argue About God

Vintage "Politically Incorrect" clip in which the Senate candidate explains that, if she were hiding Jews in her attic during WWII, God would save her from having to lie to Hitler. And then Eddie Izzard and Bill Maher make fun of her.