"Like punk, Weird Christianity has its own, clearly defined aesthetic. Many Weird Christians across the denominational and political spectrum express fondness for older, more liturgically elaborate practices — like the Episcopal Rite I, a form of worship that draws on Elizabethan-era language, say, or the Latin Mass, or the wearing of veils to church.... One Weird Christian is Ben Crosby... a student at Yale Divinity School.... Raised Lutheran, he was unprepared for what he found as a first-year undergraduate at Yale in 2009 when he attended an Anglo-Catholic parish. 'I walked into a service and it’s a big, beautiful, 19th-century neo-Gothic nave, clouds of incense wafting up toward the ceiling, candles everywhere,' Mr. Crosby told me. 'It was like nothing I’d experienced before.' Likewise for Rod Dreher, a senior editor and blogger for The American Conservative magazine.... [W]hen he was 17, he told me, he visited Chartres Cathedral while on a group tour of France and he found himself moved by the majesty of the Gothic architecture. 'I think this is why a certain kind of person really is drawn to the older, ritualistic, aesthetic forms of Christian worship,' he said. 'It speaks to something deep inside us, and, I think, it is a kind of rebellion against the ugliness and barrenness of modernity.'... This sense of rebellion — of consciously being at variance with modernity — permeates Weird Christian politics no less than its aesthetics.... [F]or plenty of Weird Christians, their faith is a call to a far more progressive politics. Like their reactionary counterparts, they see Christianity as a bulwark against the worst of modernity, but they are more likely to associate modernity’s ills with the excesses of capitalism or with a transactional culture that reduces human beings to budget line items, or anonymous figures on a dating app.... Weird Christianity represents an alternative to 'both more liberal and conservative forms of American Christianity,' said Mr. Crosby.... In the age of lockdown, when so much of life exists in a nebulous digital space, a return to the Christianity of the Middle Ages — albeit one mediated through our screens — feels welcome.... Like the hipster obsession with 'authenticity' that marked the mid-2010s, the rise of Weird Christianity reflects America’s unfulfilled desire for, well, something real...."
From
"Christianity Gets Weird/Modern life is ugly, brutal and barren. Maybe you should try a Latin Mass" by Tara Isabella Burton (NYT).
I'm not getting the use of the word "weird" here. Burton makes it sound like she's involved in coining (and promoting) the term: "Many of us call ourselves 'Weird Christians,' albeit partly in jest." But she seems to be calling
Episcopalians weird. Maybe I'm a little too close to the experience, but to me, Episcopalian is the least weird religion. Yes, the aesthetics are good, and high-quality aesthetics are appealing. But what's weird? You could find all religion weird, but I don't think "the older, ritualistic, aesthetic forms of Christian worship" are particularly weird. In fact, the purported "weirdness" of the aesthetically appealing form of worship is a shield from the real weirdness in religion:
true belief.
It's funny. I'm reading (rereading)
a novel that has a character whose problems are initially revealed in terms of an inability to say that anything is "bad." She "would only say that this was very 'weird.'"
... Patty was incapable of going past “weird”... the worst she would say aloud... was that [something] was very weird....
The reliance on "weird" is a tell.
Here's the place in the post where I look up the key word in the Oxford English Dictionary. It's the older, ritualistic, aesthetic side of me. "Weird" originally meant:
Having the power to control the fate or destiny of human beings, etc.; later, claiming the supernatural power of dealing with fate or destiny.
Later, in the 1800s, there was:
Partaking of or suggestive of the supernatural; of a mysterious or unearthly character; unaccountably or uncomfortably strange; uncanny.
It seems that religion is inherently
weird. It's weird to think you're saying something special by calling your little corner of religiosity
weird. What is the motivation to call your religion "weird"... and then back off and say that's "partly in jest"? People who call themselves weird... what's up with them? Especially, when all they're doing is Episcopal Rite I. Are they doing it partly in jest? Is it "weird" because they fear it's only cushioning from "the ugliness and barrenness of modernity"? Or is it weird because they find they truly believe?
Posts
128 comments:
"the real weirdness in religion: true belief"
Right. Everybody's got ritual. Not everybody has God/Man Jesus and His resurrection.
But weird is just somewhat-traditional Christians being defensive, still accepting prog hegemony as the default.
"people from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies — who represent as much as 80 percent of study participants, but only 12 percent of the world's population — are not only unrepresentative of humans as a species, but on many measures they're outliers..."
Weird Christianity? That would be earning/working your way into heaven rather than trusting in God.
It's not a direct lineage, but they've clearly co-opted it from Weird Twitter.
One must dree one's weird.
Interesting how Christ gets into the counter-culture. When hippies discovered Christ they were called "Jesus freaks."
There's a song called Jesus Freak
The band wrote a book, too.
“I'm special.” She really wants to say, esoteric, for the special few.
It's the NYT, which I despise, detest, and distrust. The WaPoo, too.
Having the power to control the fate or destiny of human beings, etc.
The OED was thinking of "wired." Oops.
Took many typos in my first attempt.
When we first moved to PA, many years ago, I was in charge of picking our church (because I'm the one to whom it matters most). I church-shopped for some weeks, assessing the choral music because that's non-negotiable, and talked to parishioners.
And I ran across actual weird Episcopalianism: a parish in which the priest and his - wife? Or female associate? Sorry, fuzzy on the details now - were doing Druidic rituals during Mass. The diocese was... bemused. Some parishioners were ecstatic; others were up in arms. It was a whole thing.
I picked a different church; we didn't need that kind of drama.
I grew up with Rite I, so it's the opposite of weird to me. I also like the smells, bells, robes, and organ music (which have all, thankfully, remained. Music by a four-piece band, a minister wearing business clothes, and shot glasses of grape juice is in the more "different" category, but not enough to call it weird. I don't start thinking of a religion as weird until they get to snake handling, speaking in tongues, and animal sacrifice. (The last one tends to be non-Christian religions.)
assessing the choral music because that's non-negotiable
What makes a big difference is the hard wood in the pews. If they have soft cushions the music is going to be worse.
Weird is a very popular millennial word used in clickbait catchphrases example one weird trick to reduce belly fat. It's almost as if the word in this context means unexpectedly successful which is the gist I get out of the arctical. When your job is to sell fantasy and delusion to the masses theater is important. Also having the incense is critical because people get emotional responses to odors. Odor detection is the least objective of the senses and the most influential.
Will we now see bumper stickers: "Keep Christianity weird"?
is it strong in the Word, the rest doesn't matter, yes Christianity is countercultural in many ways, Dreher seems to be kind of confused more of the time,
This is just your normal elitist bullshit.
It's "weird" when the affluent and intelligent people (including Ivy League students!) have faith. We expect the stupid, poor, deplorables and bitter clingers to have faith. But an IVY LEAGUE student? Yale? What in the hell is going on?! I can't handle the weirdness!
" This sense of rebellion — of consciously being at variance with modernity — permeates Weird Christian politics no less than its aesthetics.... [F]or plenty of Weird Christians, their faith is a call to a far more progressive politics."
It's just another religious based justification of their political positions. Liberation Theology is a commie-fied Catholicism that motivates the current Pope.
So many places to go with this.
The Evangelical Great Awakening that some people say started in the 1970s has been grinding down for the last few years. For religion to stay ... (some people will hate it if I say "relevant") ... topical, it will assume new forms. And that's what happened in the Seventies: Jesus Freaks, the Bible in Blue Jeans, Godspell and all the rest. So weird or Goth Christianity may not be so weird.
Is Episcopalianism weird? I'd say no. They seem very strait-laced (So did the Unitarians, though, and look what happened to them). There is a kind of "camp" strain in "Anglo-Catholicism" and its excessive love of ritual and pageantry, though. Remember in Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder's cousin warning him against Anglo-Catholic High Church Anglicans. The love of chasubles and cassocks and all things ecclesiastical has been suspect in some circles for a long time.
#RodDreher: I thought it "weird" that people like him joined Eastern Orthodox religions. It's not. It's probably just another next step in the journey that takes other people to Episcopalianism or Catholicism or any other venerable religious tradition. But still, it is pretty out of the ordinary.
#JonathanFranzen: How did he weasel his way in here?
Priest: I can beat you at dominos
Congre: No you can't beat us at dominos
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm's wound up.
For me Humanity is the only religion created by God. All religion around world is working on the same principle.
What makes the biggest difference in choral music, in my opinion as a church choir member since age 8, is repertoire. I've been in choirs with many good singers (or some well-paid section leaders) but lousy repertoire, and it's kind of miserable. And some in which there really aren't many good singers except the paid ringers, but the director picks great music (that fits his group's abilities - it's out there, but it takes a lot of research to find, for instance, unison or treble+men pieces that aren't crap).
Organist ability is important - more important than quality of the instrument. Acoustics are important - but not as important as the choir's rehearsal commitment. And repertoire tops it all, I think. Huge difference between the Jesuit guitar-Mass stuff I grew up on in Catholic churches in the '70s and Friedell or Tallis.
Like the boomers and the lost generation of the 1920s, this new generation is coming to believe that all of their ideas are new. Those older people and people of antiquity didn't really know any of these things. We are special. It's just history rhyming in a 50 year cadence.
In the movie The End of the Tour David Foster Wallace is seen dancing in a church basement with the old people on a Sunday night. One of the big themes of Infinite Jest which I am not recommending that you waste your time reading, was the power of religion, even for people who didn’t believe in it. It didn’t help though, he still still hanged himself a few months after the interview that was the basis of the movie.
I follow this guy “marc” on Twitter who might be a commenter here, IDK, and I enjoy his posts in Latin for some reason. I have actually begun studying Ancient Greek.
"excesses of capitalism"
How do they imagine that the "majesty of the Gothic architecture" they admire was built and maintained. The new roof for one Brooklyn basilica cost over $100,000 to replace. The lavishness of religious buildings was a way to show off the wealth of a community.
The Twin Cities Catholic Chorale performs traditional liturgical music at traditional Latin masses, with all the bells and smells I grew up with. Students from a nearby Lutheran college attend in order to see what the Reformation was all about.
Weird Christianity is the best Christianity. Faking weird Christianity is the problem. Most Christians forbear Weirdness in order not to be thought of as one of those fake weirdos. The words of scripture never lose their power, but many only see repulsive weirdness in what was written for them. Little Richard’s style was so special because he had no fear of being thought of as weird. And that style attracted many more than it repulsed .
Yes, the phrase "Weird Christianity" conjures up a mental image of a cross between voodoo and Protestant snake handlers. I'm not sure it fits the Church of England aka Episcopalianism. BTW, Rod Dreher will happy to see himself quoted in the NYT, since that's his goal in life.
Did you hear about the streaker who streaked through the church?
They caught him by the organ
I just love it when we get onto the subject of church.
Incense, per comment above - exactly right about the sense of smell's being the most evocative and least amenable to explicit, logical examination. I love the stuff. But it does distress some singers.
Episcopalians: I've heard us called "God's frozen people," and have heard it said that "wherever three or four are gathered in His Name, there's a fifth."
People seem to waver back and forth between an attraction to High Church ritual and the Evangelical simplicity. If you're raised in one tradition, the other always seem new and interesting. But that's all just sizzle, its not the steak.
Like Christians, Covidians have their own set of rituals. Unlike Christians, they are based in science, not beliefs.
Covidians believe staying home, wearing a mask, and staying 6 ft. apart is the key to their salvation. Non-believers in the tenets of Covidianity are evil, and should burn in hell.
Christians tend not to fear the after life. Covidians believe the after life must be avoided at all costs.
Oh, darn. I assigned beliefs to the Covidians again-
Know. I meant to say know. Not very Christian of me to demean others by implying they too have beliefs.
Traditionalguy - "I am a fool for Christ," right?
To progressives, religion as practiced in original or traditional forms is considered weird. (although they see no issue with jumping up and down in circles in praise of Gaia). Conservative thought is noted as 'reactionary'.
Words do have meaning, but the greatest talent the left has is to change the meaning of words to fit their world view. Then impose it on everybody else. Or so Zir says.
Ann, if you're curious about the meaning of "weird" in this context, Rod Dreher has posted about it on his blog, including the full NY Times interview. I find it interesting, although I don't share his perspective.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/weird-christianity-the-rod-dreher-interview/
I doubt Orthodoxy of any ethnic kind is going to be attractive to the vast majority of Americans.
E. Waugh, TS Eliot and some others found the Anglican and Catholic Church gave them something their original churches didn't. In Waugh's case it was the Latin Mass and being part of a 2,000 year old Church. Its hard to imagine anyone converting to either church today for those reasons. The C of E, is pretty much a bad joke, and the current Pope seems to running for the head of UNICEF.
I suppose if you grew up going to mega-churches and listening to modern Christian music then the old, original forms of worship would seem strange. Also, the first Christians were considered weird (in the modern sense of the word) because they rejected pagan culture.
I shouldn't have said original, the first Christians met at each others houses. Basically they prayed, said some hymns, listened to letters sent by apostles, and shared a communal meal.
I went to church every Sunday in bootcamp. I was responsible for marching a squad or so of guys to Church. I ended up going to different one true religions, including Catholic, Protestant and Mormon. The Mormon service was definitely the weirdest. The lay elder who led the service if you can even call that a service was crying his eyes out half the time because he thought he would fail as a father and religious leader and his wife and children would end up in hell because of him. It was really hard to keep a straight face. All of the Mormon dudes that I had marched over there were of course jackmormons and had joined the Marine corps to get away from it. The stress and mindfucking from the DI's had zapped their psyche's so hard, they felt the need to go back to Mommy. Funny thing was they were all out on the Sunday afternoon smoke break I'm not sure that the service convinced them to go back into the fold.
sang some hymns.
Need. More. Coffee.
"Little Richard’s style was so special because he had no fear of being thought of as weird. And that style attracted many more than it repulsed."
That reminds me of what Tom Wolfe said about his white suit. He decided to be authentically weird, rather than "dressing down" to appeal to people he interviewed. Formerly his inauthenticity was a barrier to communication. People could tell he was trying to come down to their level. Once he indulged in his own eccentricities, people opened up to him with honesty and respect.
I went to church every Sunday in bootcamp.
I was an atheist when I went to bootcamp, and I went to church every Sunday too. It was the only break you could get from the DI's.
I’m a theological, cultural, and political conservative, but I admit that it has become hard, almost impossible, to find the language to talk meaningfully about what it means to believe and act as a Christian.
Actually Rod Dreher is NOT a political conservative. He's a liberal democrat who's also a believing Christian. Which is why he differs from the Leftist party line on some issues. But as shown by his behavior toward Trump, the Covington Kids, Etc. he's mostly a party line liberal most of the time.
He also became a Catholic because he was rebelling against his Southern Protestantism, then ditched the Catholic Church after the abuse scandal. How long he's going to stay with Orthodoxy is anyone's guess. Maybe his next stop will be Judaism.
Death to the World.
I'm just grateful that in God's house there are many mansions. The mega-church experience leaves me cold, but I do understand, at least theoretically, its appeal to many. I get antsy in Quaker meeting but appreciate the idea. I live now in a place with a lot of home churches and a lot of churches that meet in school cafeterias and the like, and I think I get the true sense of family that comes with that experience. But my way in to the heart of my faith is through music, first, and then the rest of the aesthetic. So I'm glad it's available to me.
Exactly Ron. One of the times I was supposed to March a squad of guys to church we instead went to the phone bank and all made calls home. Luckily we didn't get busted.
Rod should publish a talk with Ron Reagan Jnr. the head of "The Freedom from Religion Foundation" - now that would be interesting and unintentionally hilarious.
Ooh, there'a Althouse post on religion. Better rush over and talk about myself. "As an Atheist...."
It sounds like Weird Christianity is one of those religious groups that preach: Thou SHALT Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods!
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Cor. 1:18
Weird
PS I wouldn’t look to the NYT for insights on Christianity.
rcocean said...
Ooh, there'a Althouse post on religion. "
Based on a comprehensive NYT analysis makes it even more delicious.
Organized religion is weird.
I am compelled to take part. I want to. No one is forcing me.
I am a bad Christian.
Weird? I do not care.
btw- Church starts at 10 if anyone wants to join me. on youtube.
Perhaps I'll link?
"For centuries mankind has longed, without even realizing it, for Hula Hoops with candles on them that don't go out or set our clothing on fire, but until technology caught up with our needs and desires, we had to make do with lesser vehicles for the expression of our deep devotion to God so they invented Gothic architecture and stuff and put their candles in there. It worked okay for a long time." - Fred Smith, Weird Christian.
It's pure entertainment, rcocean. Some of us don't want to pass up the opportunity to mess with you lab mice.
Thanks for playing
Speaking of lab mice...
Howard: "When your job is to sell fantasy and delusion to the masses theater is important."
Which completely explains the democrats hoax collusion and ukraine phone call crime hoax sham-peachment.
Which all the usual suspects swalliwed whole.
Including Howard.
I went to church as a child. Forced church. I hated it.
I really couldn't stand the music. to this day I recoil at... Hymns. Eddie Izzard nailed that bit.
In fact, the purported "weirdness" of the aesthetically appealing form of worship is a shield from the real weirdness in religion: true belief.
I love my church. I love all the people in my church. But I went to church for years and I didn't know Christ. I would go to church with my parents, and I'd be bored. When I got older, I stopped going to church. It was boring.
Which is very weird, because Christ is engaging.
He's engaging because Jesus is surrounded by conflict, and conflict is inherently interesting. That's one of the first things I learned in film school--you got to have conflict. Without conflict, a movie just dies.
Law school is conflict. These judges fighting over something. You read about the conflict and try to figure out who's right. Interesting! Way more interesting than school ever was. School is boring. Some "authority" saying something, and I'm supposed to write it down and spit it back out on the test. Boring!
There was a book that was a big influence on me. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters. That was a strong influence on me because that book is all about conflict. Very interesting book, love that book.
I discovered Christ in a Bible study. The Bible study is key, because you are introduced to the words of Jesus, and all the conflicts that surround him. For me, a seminar (Bible study) is way more interesting than a lecture (church service). For one thing, in a seminar you can participate, ask questions, challenge people, and make mistakes. That's how I learn best! Making mistakes in public. You can't beat it for an education.
Anyway, it's not accurate at all to say the Episcopal church is a "shield" from true belief. The service is very ritualized and formalized and organized. We repeat prayers, which is the worst way to learn things. Maybe for doctors it works. For lawyers, that rote memorization stuff is a non-starter.
The Episcopal church is an amazing service if you know Christ. But it's not a great introduction to Christ. If you want to know him, know his words, I think you need to sit down in a Bible study with other people.
@Jame... A fool for Christ? Hmmm. You could say that an all powerful Creator God thinks we are fools when deny Him and refuse His free gifts.
I'd call you a liar sailor boy but I don't want to make you feel bad because of your oncoming dementia. I said the whole thing was a nothingburger from the jump I also predicted that the impeachment would go know where. You are correct though the deplorable wing of the spit flecking Democrat Party loves to be transfixed by the theater of trump hatred. They are your kindred spirits.
Just because the Dreher reference mentions Chartres, I am compelled to recommend Henry Adams "Mont St. Michel and Chartres". Read it.
When I was a kid, living on St. Simon's Island (paradise!), I drove by a small Episcopal church one time. I thought, "beach church, maybe i'll like it." So I went to the service.
I was wearing shorts. The priest was greeting everybody at the door. I asked him if my dress was okay. He said it was. (Obviously no relation to Althouse).
So I went in to the service. Very small church. Unlike any Episcopal service I've ever been in. I think they wrote their own music. And when we were praying, people were raising their hands up over their head. That kind of freaked me out. (I was just a kid).
The friendly guy behind me kind of tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Don't let them scare you." But they totally did. I didn't go back to that church. But it's funny how I remember what that guy said, thirty years later.
Howard: "I'd call you a liar sailor boy but I don't want to make you feel bad because of your oncoming dementia. I said the whole thing was a nothingburger from the jump I also predicted that the impeachment would go know where."
LOL
There's a big difference between saying something is a "nothingburger" and saying it never happened at all.
Cuz it didn't. But you still ran as fast as your little feet could carry you with your accusations!
So, yeah, the dems played you for a chump. Which was easy really, since your "religion" is "Democrats" and "Experts".
I don't blame you for walking away from this as fast as your little feet can carry you.
Good luck with that.
What if Christ’s New Testament church fell away from the true way, shortly after the first century AD, and all since has been the philosophy of men mingled with scripture?
Is that too weird to contemplate?
Howard: "You are correct though the deplorable wing of the spit flecking Democrat Party loves to be transfixed by the theater of trump hatred. They are your kindred spirits."
LOL
Howard is consistent.
Like Inga, the more the democrats go crazy, the guiltier the repubicans are.
The more the islamic supremacists whack hundreds, the guiltier Western Christians are.
Anybody discern a pattern here? Does one need to be an expert in AI/Machine Learning to pick up on it?
Manchester seemed to suggest that in his story of the Renaissance, he was really jaundiced about the Medieval period, writing late in life, that's what he had imbibed at Williams in the 30s,
Howard from not that long ago:
Howard: "After the hearings it is important to keep hope alive among the devoted. Since there is sufficient overlap between the Ukraine quid pro quo and Russian interference on behalf of Trump, this is a perfect seesaw Segway to spark uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner conversations"
11/26/19, 9:09 AM
There it is from Howard: both hoaxes all in one, and from not that long ago.
The hoax Ukraine quid pro quo and the still believing in the now definitively debunked Russia interfered on Trump's behalf-Russia Collusion lie!
But Howard, do tell us more about how you were far too wiley and wise to fall for all that "theatre" from your "Democrat"/"Expert" co-religionists.
The people who go to Latin Mass are traditional Catholics. They tend to think that many of the changes brought about by Vatican II were mistakes. As such, they are conservatives, not liberals, and almost all of them are pro-life political conservatives, not liberals.
The ignorance of the NYT crowd when it comes to the lives and beliefs of religious people of any stripe is vast.
@Phil 314
great verse
(a Prov. 25:11)
-----
"To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority,
through Jesus Christ our LORD, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."
--Jude 1:25
Leave it up to Drago to make every thread be about Russia Russia Russia.
As for weird, nothing could be weirder than a fundamentalist evangelical Pentecostal German speaking church in Milwaukee. I often wondered if the German speaking grownups speaking in tongues spoke it with a German accent. Irreverent, I know, my upbringing makes me wonder if I will now burn in hell because I made a joke about speaking in tongues. The God I believe in has a sense of humor, how else could he create the proboscis monkey? At some point the services were made in English, the old German Pentecostals didn’t like that one bit.
Ugh. More form over faith. Shit like this explains why the two Cromwells have become two of my favorite historical figures. Especially Ollie.
“Blogger Inga said...
Leave it up to Drago to make every thread be about Russia Russia Russia.”
Both hilarious and emblematic of the current Democrat Party. I think Inga did that deliberately ‘cause even negative attention is attention.
Thx Ingachuck'stoothlessARM
Just wait until Millennials discover Freemasonry. They’re going to eat that shit up!
It’s what Wordsworth was getting at, BTW.
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
D.D. Driver said..."This is just your normal elitist bullshit. It's "weird" when the affluent and intelligent people (including Ivy League students!) have faith. We expect the stupid, poor, deplorables and bitter clingers to have faith. But an IVY LEAGUE student? Yale? What in the hell is going on?! I can't handle the weirdness!"
To be fair, when I encounter people associated with Yale Divinity School, they generally strike me as being "meta-religious," rather than being "religious." Most of them seem (to me, at least) to be individuals of ambiguous or absent faith who primarily are interested in religion as a social phenomenon, as a tool of social change and control, with ample opportunity for status-seeking and moral preening. I rarely get an impression of individuals with deep and abiding faith in anything except their abilities to run a socially acceptable grift.
Collusion Truther Inga: "Leave it up to Drago to make every thread be about Russia Russia Russia."
Inga is very very very upset that her repeatedly bearing false witness against others for years has been mentioned in a thread on Christianity.
I think we can all understand that.
It's the trust factor of true faith. Progressive religions place their faith, adopt their religion (e.g. "ethics"), and orient their ideology around tangible things, including mortal gods and goddesses ("philosophers", "experts") with secular motives (e.g. redistributive change) and incentives (e.g. emotional indulgences).
"What if Christ’s New Testament church fell away from the true way, shortly after the first century AD, and all since has been the philosophy of men mingled with scripture?"
and that is precisely what happened
Reading Rod's interview, it seems like he still is the bored "slightly louche aesthete" he thought he was at 17. He does recognize the snob factor in his "weird Christianity."
I’ve been at monasteries where I’ve kissed the skull of a long-dead Orthodox elder, and I’ve thrown wax facsimiles of body parts onto the bonfire outside of the Portuguese basilica at the Fatima apparition site. Most people outside my Orthodox and Catholic circles would find that sort of thing to be high-octane crackpottery. But you know what I would never, ever do? Go to a Pentecostal megachurch and raise my hands high in the air. I don’t look down on those who do — it’s just unthinkable for me. Way, way too weird. It kind of embarrasses me to admit this, but Christians like me prefer our religious self-marginalization to be, I don’t know, literary. So I think we have to be aware that there might be some snob appeal in all this. I don’t think it is a significant factor at all — taking the old religion straight, and espousing its reactionary social beliefs, as one must if one is not merely an aesthete playing church, is no way to advance socially.
Dreher may not have advanced so far beyond the aesthetic stage as he would like to believe. The idea of a strict dividing line separating the aesthetic from the ethical and the religious that Rod takes from Kierkegaard isn't quite supported by what he says - and he does appear to have some awareness of that.
My feeling is that the post-war turn towards religious orthodoxy and towards traditional rituals was commendable, but it seems to be too much a part of the style of the time - something hard to recapture or recreate in today's very different world. I would feel like I was imitating Eliot or Waugh or Niebuhr or Barth. In younger people it may feel less like a pose and more like something authentic and their own.
Dune. The "weirding way" is what Paul learns when he lives with the Fremen. Religious, magical, powerful. Herbert must have owned the OED.
"they will hold to the outward form of our religion, but reject its real power". 2 Tim. 3:5
“Bring your worthless offerings no longer,
Incense is an abomination to Me.
New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies—
I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.
“I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts,
They have become a burden to Me;
I am weary of bearing them.
Is.1:13
"Having the power to control the fate or destiny of human beings"
In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the three witches refer to themselves as the weird sisters. In Act 1 sc 3, the dance around a cauldron chanting:
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,...
They ultimately lead Macbeth to his death through different acts of equivocation, lying to Macbeth through omission. This type of lying was not consider a sin in post Catholic England by the Pope in Rome if done to protect the faith or the faithful.
Equivocation became a hot issue in the trial of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators who sought to and nearly succeeded in blowing up Parliament and killing James I and his entire court.
Germans evangelicals speaking in tongues - in Milwaukee?
Well, sure, OK, if you say so.
One thing is true - apparently nobody ever told Inga that it's wrong to lie and believe in lies. She swallows lies like a fat boy at a pie-eating contest.
Dune. The "weirding way" is what Paul learns when he lives with the Fremen.
He and his mother teach the Fremen the "Weirding Way." His mother is a Bene Gesseritt, an order of women who practice the "Weirding Way." Teaching it to a male, even your own son was strictly forbidden. I am such a nerd.
“The Bethel Tabernacle, founded by Hugo Ulrich, served Milwaukee’s German-speaking population. Healed at one of Bethel’s German services, professional violinist Joseph Wannenmacher opened a Hungarian Assembly of God congregation in 1921. In the 1940s, Yugoslavian and Polish Assembly of God churches appeared in Merrill Park and Walker’s Point respectively.”
https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/pentecostals/
Happy Mother’s Day Ann. If you care to, please tell us about your mother.
I am a devotee of Renaissance choral music which is largely contrapuntal, a capella arrangements of ancient Latin Christian texts and their equally ancient chant tunes. For me, the best of this music is imbued with a marvelous sense of spirituality that can be experienced by listening to it and the great composers of this era are visionaries who have seen the light and their great art is the proof. I have a particular affinity for the music of Thomas Tallis, whose music has been in constant print and performance for 450 years.
I guess I am really weird.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5W67uBRZCo
For awhile the Lutheran church I belong to rented a room to some Hispanic Pentecostals one night a week so they could hold their service. I would be in the building the same night because I was attending a Bible Study. On the way out of the building we could hear them speaking in tongues. Lutheran dogma is that speaking in tongues is a gift that is no longer bestowed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za-2OkE0BVk
All we are saying...
...Is give Gregorian a chants
On topic and topical.
tradguy, absolutely, all us Christians are fools to one extent or another, as are all us humans - Christians are just supposed to be more aware of what we're doing when we don't accept the gift of grace.
But I was talking about St. Francis, his declaration that nobody could stop him through embarrassment from living the life he was called to, because he was already and always "a fool for Christ."
Keep Christianity weird!
If you're going to bring Weird Al into a discussion of Christianity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZLb33uCg
Weird is a term of self-congratulation that no truly weird person would apply to himself.
@Jamie. Nice to hear that fool fo Christ quote came from St. Francis. The wife has his statue in the garden, probably because blessing of the animals which the Episcopal priest does every year. As I recall old Francis was unafraid of public opinion. That alone made him a religious fanatic. But so popular a one that his statues are still best sellers . God really seems to like his religious fanatics.
Lutheran dogma is that speaking in tongues is a gift that is no longer bestowed.
oh?
Drago maybe it all happened and Trump is guilty of everything or maybe it didn't happen and he is pure as the driven snow or maybe it's somewhere in between I don't know you don't know some people do know.
In any event I'm still happy for you to get this great uplifting news to support your motivated reasoning. it's hard work propping up that tub of guts everyday.
He and his mother teach the Fremen the "Weirding Way."
Thank you, I thought I'd lost my mind.
The really weird part was travel between planets but fight with knives.
The Bible study is key
Agreed.
rightguy:"I am a devotee of Renaissance choral music..." Sicut Servus by Palestrina is my personal favorite to sing as well as hear, but, yeah, Tallis is special.
Interesting how Ann's tracing of the change in meaning of "weird" tracks with the spread of hard materialism in Anglo-American culture, and its marginalization of the spiritual. "As the deer longs for the spring, so my heart longs for Thee.." I suppose seems as foreign to most modern ears as the rituals of some island cult.
“Blogger Inga said...
Leave it up to Drago to make every thread be about Russia Russia Russia.”
LOL - "Inga" tell us where you not on that "Russia Russia Russia" train when it suited your political narratives for how many years now?
Inga, although I had never heard of that congregation before (I was sitting in a pew in beautiful St. Josaphat's Basilica at the time, just a few miles down the road) the lies I was referring to do not concern your religious background but your endless capacity to believe political codswallop.
@Paddy O.
I noticed he is ordained in the ELCA. Those guys are all heretics anyway.
People LOVE tacking the word "weird" onto themselves to make them feel special.
I can't get past the phrase "modern life is ugly, brutal and barren". Is it really, especially for the types that are featured, and read, the NYT? I am more inclined to say that life has gotten easier in many ways. If 2020 is brutal what was, say, pre-1900? And before that?
robother
Palestrina is in the Pantheon, of course. I was not familiar with Sicut Servus but now am.
Thanks for tout.
Howard: "Drago maybe it all happened and Trump is guilty of everything or maybe it didn't happen and he is pure as the driven snow or maybe it's somewhere in between I don't know you don't know some people do know."
LOLOLOLOL
Hey grunt boy: we have the transcripts and documentation and messages that conclusively demonstrate that it was all a lie. No evidence russia hacked the DNC. Evidence that Putin and his russki friends favored Hillary. No Trump/Russia collusion/coordination, period.
We even have the testimony that proves no money laundering! No communications between Trump servers and Alfa Bank (we now know that was another Clinton dirty trick).
A hoax dossier without a single verified "fact".
And testimony from the dems themselves that they have veen lying publicly about collusion for 3+ years.
In Howard "Democrat"/"Expert" religion world, that all just means its still up in the air.
Come on now Howard. You are supposed to be a man of action.
Cowardice in the face of the established and verified truth is not very becoming for you.
Let me guess: you want to call it a draw now, right?
LOLxForever.
I think some people say "that's weird" the way Minnesotans supposedly say "that's different." Might be merely eccentric, or it might even be that I, the one who is making this observation is the odd one. Tocqueville said old-fashioned Catholicism would have some appeal in the U.S. precisely because so many powerful tendencies are "democratic," egalitarian, non-hierarchical, informal ("Hi Bob"), etc. Rome used to be, if it is not today, "none of the above." Protestantism in general moved toward about removing "weird" stuff, that might stand for "supernatural" in a movie, but then things like speaking in tongues and preachers who can heal kept coming back. Do Episcopalians put respectability or gentility ahead of piety? More important to be a gentleman than a Christian?
Ron, ha!
I think there are some like him who are missionaries to the ELCA.
The claims of Christianity seem weird and bizarre until you compare them to the alternatives like atheism, materialism, or Islam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nx8QqiADyw
the times doesn't seem to have a grasp on any religion, not Christianity, not Judaism and certainly not islam, how they believe fervently onto death, they have an oikophobic loathing for the first and devout members of the second, they consider the last more legitimate,
Sure I want a perfect soul. Just try not to be a creep about it.
Christianity is always been considered weird by its observers. The Romans thought monotheism to be uneducated and backwards (doubly so since early christians were more likely to be in the peasant class, where the Roman priesthoods-especially the most prestigious-were exclusiveto the senatorial class.) that practiced ritual cannibalism, and ancient Judeans found it blasphemous and mostly a bunch of hellenstic social rot. Of course the NYT author wouldn't know this because these days classical civilization is getting shadowbanned from universities for not being sufficiently woke, and the only sufficiently processed history like the NYT super-duper accurate par excellence 1618 project which has never had to retract anything is acceptable.
Howard said... maybe it all happened and Trump is guilty of everything or maybe it didn't happen and he is pure as the driven snow or maybe it's somewhere in between
Give it up Howard. You are starting to sound as clueless as some of the obsessive lefty trolls here.
The evidence is clear that this was a coup attempt, as many of us realized three years ago.
The Democrat fakery was as pitiful as the Kavanaugh sexual assault and Impeachment hoaxes.
Reality calls for the Left. Will you answer the call or will you live in the fabricated Leftist reality?
Rome used to be, if it is not today, "none of the above."
Dreher says as much in his interview. "But from an experiential point of view, contemporary Catholicism is a lot like contemporary Protestantism. That was a hard thing to get used to, but I did it." Those in National Review circles who are still converting to Catholicism see the Church more as what it was to Buckley's generation than what is is today.
I can't get past the phrase "modern life is ugly, brutal and barren". Is it really, especially for the types that are featured, and read, the NYT? I am more inclined to say that life has gotten easier in many ways. If 2020 is brutal what was, say, pre-1900? And before that?
Too far back for most people to remember. The Gilded Age was terrible, and the Dark Ages were worse, but nobody has any memories of those days. Modern sterility was a common mid-20th century complaint. Before that, however bad life was, it was just ... life.
The idea of modern life as ugly, brutal and barren puts me in mind of the 70s, the brutalist architecture, high crime rates, pornography, disco. Things have changed since then, but if you want to be taken seriously as a social critic you can't say that out loud. It sounds hollow or shallow to praise the present day too much.
Maybe [Dreher's] next stop will be Judaism.
That does happen. In his case, it would be orthodox (or ultraorthodox) Judaism.
Oh,yay! And here I thought I'd outgrown being weird when I became a responsible adult. I didn't realize Christianity, or in my case, Catholicism, gave me extra weird points. Guess I'll remember that when I am finally "allowed" by Gov. Herod to return to Mass. And yes, it will be a Latin Mass and I will be wearing my chapel veil, as I did every Sunday before COVID-1984 became a thing.
I got about three sentences into this post before I got bored about the topic.
Christianity has ALWAYS been a transgressive alternative to contemporary secular capitalist culture. Weird punk ain't that. Weird punk is just another trendy expression of contemporary culture.
Zzzzzz.
Drago and Francisco D. I'm happy you are enjoying your soap opera stories. My Granny loved them too.
Howard: "Drago and Francisco D. I'm happy you are enjoying your soap opera stories. My Granny loved them too."
How many soap operas used under oath testimony in federal investigations?
You know Howard, I really didn't expect you to crawl into the Inga Dead Ender cave, but there you go....
I came back completely burned out from trying to persuade Europeans that abortion was bad and went to Mass in my old parish church, a beautiful church noted for its music. So we came to the part where we sing "We proclaim your death Lord Jesus until you come again." But we only sang "We proclaim your death Lord Jesus" in a new, beautiful melody. After Mass I went and told the choir director that it was startling to hear that but I supposed everyone made mistakes. He said yes, and he was sorry, and then he said "But I now leave off last part - "until You come again" - because it disrupts the music." So I went to the rectory and told them what he had said. And he lost his job although I didn't know that because I went to a different parish in order to avoid his "music." But he did lose his job and several months later he found me in the library where I was looking up phone numbers for a list of abortion doctors I was compiling for picketing. He told me I had caused him to lose his job and I was going to die for that. Then he swiftly darted away. Weird, huh? That was twenty-five years ago. As a Catholic I don't feel at all that I have to save the world so I just went on.
I think Vatican II, while dethroning the Latin Mass, indirectly enabled Protestant churches to start adopting some Catholic liturgy and Latin hymns. After all, it's no longer Papism. I can't imagine a Methodist choir, in 1965, singing Donna Nobis Pacem, or Veni, Veni. They can be heard today.
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Matthew 13 [4] And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
Revelation 13 [5] And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
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