June 14th, 2009, 8 Comments »
I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it, but I quite like this explanatory video about The Book of Mormon. The creators are liberally borrowing from (or, less charitably, ripping off) Lee and Sachi’s excellent approach, but at least they’re executing well.
I’ve never really know much about this particularly unorthodox branch of Christianity–now I know a little more.
February 22nd, 2008, 6 Comments »
I just listened to a pretty riveting interview on CBC’s Tapestry with John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopalian bishop and the author of over 20 books. The book he was promoting is called Jesus for the Non-Religious. From the book’s blurb:
Spong invites his readers to look at Jesus through the lens of both the Jewish scriptures and the liturgical life of the first-century synagogue. Dismissing the dispute about Jesus’ nature that consumed the church’s leadership for the first 500 years of Christian history as irrelevant, Spong proposes a new way of understanding the divinity of Christ: as the ultimate dimension of a fulfilled humanity. Traditional Christians who still cling to dated concepts of the past will not be comfortable with this book; however, skeptics of the twenty-first century will not be quite so certain that dismissing Jesus is the correct pathway to walk.
I don’t know much about him, but he certainly has some provocative and heretical ideas about Christianity and the church. He was also an extremely eloquent and thoughtful speaker. He occupies some fascinating middle ground, I think, between traditional Christians and atheists. His Wikipedia entry refers to his call for a ‘new reformation’, which (among other things) calls into question all of the miracles–from virgin birth to cosmic ascension–of Jesus’s life.
I’d recommend the piece to believers and non-believers alike–the theological thinking felt very fresh to me. But, then, I’m no Bible scholar.
On a vaguely related note, this Reddit thread has some very civil discussion about growing up religious, and when it becomes indoctrination.
September 28th, 2007, 4 Comments »
My friend Gillian linked to this engrossing story of the Miracle Theater in Pigeon Forge, “a stunning musical recreation of the life of Christ told in epic proportion”. Check out the video, this thing is a seriously epic show (and, like so much of Americana, ripe for parody). Speaking as somebody who’s directed the (very) occasional play, I think it’s tacky to have Jesus sing on the cross, particularly in a post-Life of Brian world.
The folks at the Miracle Theatre have a mighty beef with comedian and actress Kathy Griffin, for something she said while accepting an award at this year’s Emmys:
That beef is apparently worth US $90,000 of the theatre’s money, which they used to take out a full page ad (PDF) in USA Today arguing that “Enough is Enough” and scolding Kathy Griffin for her outburst. Griffin was also criticized by the Catholic League, to which she replied “am I the only Catholic left with a sense of humour?”
Before I proceed with the main point of this meandering post, I should observe that this has been a win-win for everybody involved. The Miracle Theatre blows some money on a big ad, but gets a bunch of spin-off attention in the mainstream press. Kathy Griffin, a self-professed ‘D-list celebrity’ gets attention reserved for, well, B-list stars, and plenty of pictures in the paper with her clutching an Emmy.
Here’s what I really wanted to reference: Phil Cooke’s elegant, thoughtful, moderate response to the whole affair. According to his bio, Cooke is “a working producer in Hollywood with a Ph.D. in Theology.” He needs a Wikipedia entry.
In our media culture, the extremists get all the air time. The media rarely wants to hear from the moderates, they like their sound bites O’Reilly and Garofalo-style. The church figures we see on TV and in the newspaper tend to be radically conservative. Based on his response, Cooke doesn’t seem to fit that mold. Go read the whole thing, but here are a couple of bits I like:
Does standing on a street corner holding posters of bloody, aborted fetuses, change the minds of people considering abortions? Or does it make the protestors look like radical fundamentalists?
Does Pastor Fred Phelps, who created the God Hates Fags website, actually draw homosexuals to the faith, or does he make all Christians look like intolerant jerks? I’m sure he’s a sincere guy wanting to reach the gay community, but does that make it OK?
Er, I haven’t read enough of Cooke’s material to know whether this is sarcasm or not. I hope it is.
Some responses from people have sited [sic] Jesus turning over the tables in the temple as an example that we should be confrontational with the culture. But we often forget that the money changers Jesus tossed out were the religious people. There’s no record to my knowledge of Jesus confronting the non-believing culture. He didn’t go into a Roman guardhouse and turn over the tables.
But for me, the scripture that drives my thinking on the issue is Paul’s note in I Corinthians 5:12 - “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”
My favourite ammunition for confronting religious nutters and extremists of all creeds is their own text. I’ll keep that last quote handy.
September 18th, 2007, No Comments »
One of our guests asked this question, and I had no idea what the answer was. We live within spitting distance of Ta Pinu (though, you know, I wouldn’t dream of spitting on it), a basilica that’s a popular pilgrimage destination.
Wikipedia to the rescue. Apparently there are both architectural and ecclesiastical differences. First, the basilica:
And here cometh the cathedral:
Another of life’s small building-categorizing mysteries solved.
March 22nd, 2007, 8 Comments »
In the past six months, I must have gotten pitched with a half dozen travel video sharing sites over at Geeky Traveller. They all did more or less the same thing, and they were all battling YouTube for a chunk of the video action.
The other day, James sent me the cleverly named Yaaway (a play, of course, on a Hebrew name for God). I gather that they still haven’t officially launched, but here are some initial impressions:
I started wondering how many such sites there were, and (courtesy of BlogMinistry) found three more: GodTube (”Broadcast Him”), Jesus Clips (his toenails?) and iQuestions (somebody will answer for that name in the hereafter). GodTube and Jesus Clips both emulate YouTube’s functionality. The former seems to be the big player in the space, while the latter features some downright scary stuff.
In truth, the whole thing could be a well-devised prank. The top viewed video on GodTube is farcical in its argument against atheism. On the other hand, these Apple parodies aren’t bad.
iQuestions is the most liberal of the sites, as far as I can figure. They’ve got a whole intimacy section (get your questions answered by old white dudes in sweaters!) that is, as these things go, fairly provocative.
I imagine that there are dozens of emerging video sharing categories. There are also regional video silos, like Video.ca. What else have you seen?