sweasel.com

As ever, The Weasel doth speak da troof.

I find this a hard one to comprehend, let alone expain. I am not a Christian. No, let me put that another way. I am not a Christian. And I was even less of one when I walked out of that travesty of a religious service, yesterday morning.

I have had a greater sense of the numinous from watching an episode of the Teletubbies.

So what’s a non-Christian doing, getting married in one of the Nazarene’s regional offices?

It’s just the lesser of several evils. Put to the comfy chair, I’d probably decsribe myself as some sort of animist in that Dylan Thomas ‘…force that through the green fuse…’ sense. That makes me closer (if only by a single degree) to the church than it does the awful, seedy, state-owned, state-sanctioned, alternative which, when it comes down to it, is all that is on offer in this benighted country.

Marriage in one of those damned places means nothing at all.

Then again, there are also questions of permanence, tradition, deep, deep conservatism and a desire to stamp the greatest and most discernible and ineradicable mustelid paw-print on this ceremony that can be imagined.

So… when the vicar says ‘Gowwwdeh’ I screw my eyes up very tight and tell myself ‘It’s only Ra, Lady Sekhmet, Isis, Horus, Astarte, Woden, Diana, Thor, Ishtar, Thoth playing at being ‘Gowwwdeh’ (and yes, I am a bit of a vendantist).

Anyway, that’s how come I came to be sitting in a Christian church, railing against their lack of understanding of basic marketing skills yesterday.

And, if we are spared (not at all certain in view of the preceding) how two, somewhat shell-shocked mustelids will be doing The Church Thing in a few weeks time.

Meanwhile, OK Jesus – I’ll have fries with that, and make it large, will you?

Good
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Better
Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

Best
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.

Voltaire

Religion is in the business of selling ancient, immutable, bedrock, absolute truths. A big dose of the traditions of our fathers, with a touch of the secret answer to absolutely everything. Any time a religion “modernizes” itself, it admits that parts of its creed are negotiable. The honest-to-God secret answer to absolutely everything isn’t going to be negotiable, is it?

As a Christian, I think this is better theological insight than most mega-churches can proffer.

And in answer to your question, no, no it isn’t.

So that’s all right then.

:o)

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

Ahhh, I remember the days when the CofE was The Church.
I was married in a small church outside of Mildenhall in Suffolk.

I am not too fond of state churches. It makes churches quite lax, such that they forget their daily struggle to uplift the masses.

On the other hand, some religious entities are so caught up in marketing that they become less a church and more a corporate entity. Their message is indistinguishable from self-help or motivational groups and speakers. One Evangelical complained, going to see a world-famous pastor and author, that his sermon could have been delivered in a lecture hall or motivational group rather than in a church: there was nothing religious about it.

Some churches have taken liberalization and progressiveness so far as to begin diluting the Gospel. While social justice and rights are great causes, they are not a religion’s raison d’être. Just take a look at the Bahá’í Faith to see this: they have a whole theology and many religious aspects but by focusing so much on social justice, especially in presenting itself to outsiders (that is, they portray themselves are mainly engaged in social justice rather than the usual religious activities), they dilute what they have to offer to the world of religion and, in my personal opinion, short-sell their religion and fail to make as many converts as perhaps they might have.

Anyway, NyQuil is making me sleepy. Rant over for now.

“..the part where we sang the Lord’s Prayer to the tune of Kumbaya. ..”

*boggle*

And I thought I’d heard of every weird, happy-clappy new thing the CoE was into. But I’d not heard of that. Sounds like something from ‘The Vicar of Dibley’!

“Yep. I’m goin’ to hell!”

You don’t even have all your stuff delivered yet and you’re already talking about moving again???

To be perfectly fair, JuliaM, this particular Sunday was the family service, with kids and all. The lady in front of us said it wasn’t usually quite so…informal. Don’t see how it could be: there were two children, and one of them ran up and down the aisle during the whole service (including Communion!) shouting, “don’t talk now, Billy! Don’t talk now, Billy!”

But Uncle B had a look through the whole hymnal and didn’t see a single one he knew.

“…there were two children, and one of them ran up and down the aisle during the whole service (including Communion!) shouting, “don’t talk now, Billy! Don’t talk now, Billy!””

Having just read that the CoE are considering a motion to fix the date of Easter (throwing out a century or more of tradition) so as not to ‘inconvenience’ education authorities setting school holidays, I’m not sure anything could give me a lower opinion of the church. But that just managed it.

What the hell is wrong with people? Had I tried that in a restaurant, never mind a church, when a child, I probably wouldn’t have sat down for a week…

Weasel, I couldn’t agree more with Joan. I was wondering if I could have your permission to use that Ronald graphic and quote you. I appreciate what you’re saying and as a pastor I think that if the church had the courage to be itself like you suggest, there would be far less trouble in the world — people would understand what the church offers and accept it or reject it on its own merits. The marketing aspect of religion has always seemed manipulative to me, like we’re trying to trick people into church somehow.

The hardest part of any Catholic service is the handshake interaction with other humans. I can only imagine how many C of E practitioners cringe at the thought and just stay home. I hear the percentage that still goes every week in England is in the single digits? It is probably 40% here in the States. Obama will raise that to 60% in no time.

I can relate to your attendance. I’m born, bred and raised Catholic, but now on the outs a bit since I’m divorced and remarried. My wonderful guy was born, bred and raised missionary baptist in a church in Appalachia – no snakes as far as I know. He’s agnostic now – due to being force fed religion constantly once his father “saw the light” and quit running a pool hall.

We have attended his church twice in the past few years to appease his mother – once on Christmas and once on her birthday. I have never seen a more ignorant preacher in my life – bashing Catholics from the pulpit, etc.

We will never go back.

We were married outdoors last August by a Justice of the Peace and I wrote the ceremony. God was mentioned once. The Great Spirit had the opening line.

I warned my mother about that ahead of time so she wouldn’t have a fit and collapse on the spot when the ceremony started.

Being Christian myself, and strongly so and of an extremely conservative bent thereof (perhaps even moreso than most Catholics), I think anything I have to say here is likely to get me hurt ( 😛 ) so I’ll only add that I agree 100% with Joan, and the part of Weasel’s rant she quoted.

Matt, mi graphic es su graphic. I nicked the base graphic off the Mickey-D people at extreme risk of being lawyered at, though, so bear that in mind.

Not to worry, Nicholas. We occasionally serve your kind here 😛

It’s a lot longer than a century or so, JuliaM. The date of Easter was fixed at the Synod of Whitby in 664. Amusingly, it falls (in the western tradition) on the first full moon after the Spring equinox.

Nothing pagan there. Oh, dear me no!

Still, we mustn’t let stuffy old tradition stand in the way of chaaaaaaaange, must we?

Still, we mustn’t let stuffy old tradition stand in the way of chaaaaaaaange, must we?

Seems to be the way of the world lately. Hopenchanje!!

Though, I’m not sure I have room to talk. I don’t celebrate Easter (or Xmas!) as a religious holiday.

Thanks, I’d think that what you did with the graphic would be considered like making a collage which is fair use. That being said lawyers and cops always make me a bit nervous….

Thanks again

lol @ Machinist

I hate the process of moving.
That’s why I never do it.
I’m a sedentary old crone.

🙂

I’ve worked out why the CofE is bleeding customers…..

Religion is in the business of selling ancient, immutable, bedrock, absolute truths. A big dose of the traditions of our fathers, with a touch of the secret answer to absolutely everything. Any time a religion “modernizes” itself, it admits that parts of its creed are negotiable. The honest-to-God secret answer to absolutely everything isn’t going to be negotiable, is it?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

And why other religions are bleeding customers and other’s are gaining them.
We want a bedrock of truth and absolutes, not noodlespined-how-the-wind-blows-bullshit.

If you don’t want to call it the word or God or Gaia, there is wisdom in those books (Bible) of what the ancients observed of life and people and consequences that they tried to pass down as guideposts or warnings to those who came after.

Jill,

I don’t think “crone” means what you think it means, or you set the bar awfully high. I saw your picture. As for “old”, sigh! I have almost a decade on you.

🙂

I still consider myself a Christian but in all honesty it is Christians themselves that have driven me away from church.

I had the extreme displeasure of watching some of the vilest hypocrisy and most un-Christ-like behavior amongst the church leaders – almost all of them – stuff I rarely if ever have seen in the “unwashed masses” or “heathen” world.

Nobody is perfect but I expect people to at least have the grace to be repentant about terrible behavior when called on it.

The idea of shaking hands with everyone because it is expected has always felt very strange to me. I’m not a touch/feel/hug kind of guy and it seemed rather affected and un-genuine.

This had to be noticeable to newcomers and would certainly explain why folks might be turned off to “organized religion”.

It was that single act that turned my mother away after a lifetime’s fairly active membership of the C of E, Lemur King.

Our church started this handshaking of everyone around you – outside of the ‘sign of peace’ – this past year. I don’t like it. At all. Especially in snot season.

Oh…and here…this is for all of you white, bitter, clingers…..*mind the gap*

http ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zChn5JxdncU

I had the extreme displeasure of watching some of the vilest hypocrisy and most un-Christ-like behavior amongst the church leaders

Not to mention them getting on board with the vilest politicians/social engineering/etc that go against the very fiber of their tenets.

pnb you wouldn’t be referring to a certain pastor who we won’t name… let’s give him a nom de guerre, totally at random, say… Rick Warren… who got in bed with Obama (figuratively speaking), would you?

It’s much the same here, porknbean – the church has become one of the engines of the Left.

LK, no. I would be referring to the Catholic church going ‘green’ – though I don’t think they have invested our moneys with Gore, as the CoE has, yet. I would be referring to Obama supporting priests.

Rick Warren is a pastor? Srsly? I thought he was more of a spiritual guru who wrote a book people went gaga over.

*back later…gotta pick up a book for the kid at the library and Fedex a passport*

Oh no, Warren is a pastor at a megachurch called Saddleback. The reason it is a megachurch is that they have gone to a pure feelgood approach and combine it with mental/social engineering.

There is the other issue I’m having with churches, which is they act like their purpose is in behavioral control. Not so… the church’s purpose is to preach the word of God. Let God change people. Behavior modification as a linchpin of the church is a slippery slope and invites all manner of abuses.

Yes, whatever happened to spreading the Gospel and ministering to the ‘hungry’?
They all holler about separation of church and state when the ‘religious’ stick to their principles and are vocal about it, but do not have a problem when the church actually merges with their own political state-run ideology.
Headache inducing.

There was megachurch outta St. Louis. Can’t remember the gals name, but she got into deep doodoo financially. Her and her family were living in very expensive homes, living the high life, and writing it all off as church expenses. Tax free, baby.

You mean writing that off as church expenses is a bad thing?

Whodathunkit?

I just wanted to say: Gag.

That is all I have to say this day, the 20th of January, now to be known as A National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation.

Shove it up yer arse Obama.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/a_national_day_of_renewal_and_reconciliation/

It has always been sad to me that atheists and non-churchgoers understand so much better than so many churchgoers and people who call themselves Christian what a church and religion is supposed to be about. Christianity is supposed to be intimidating, deep, transcendent, traditional, and reverent. Everything the modern seeker-sensitive church planner despises and fears.

When you trade timelessness for relevance, you lose.

From an Episcopalian, a link:

http://www.ehymnal.com/eternal.shtml

God is timeless, eternal. The sea is ever relevant, it changes all the time, that is its nature. But the timeless can still the relevant.

Man, I’d soooo like to rant about Rick Warren and the change that has been wrought to the Southern Baptist Convention through his “Purpose Driven” books … but, does anyone really care?

(I used to be the interim music director at a number of churches in Maryland, and I’ve seen what happened from the inside.)

Actually glenster, I do care.

Seeker-driven mega-churches have a serious flaw: By the very nature of their approach they consciously presume to manipulate based on psychology. That kind of calculation is the antithesis of “real” and “genuine”. Good intentioned people, to be sure, but it is at it’s heart cynical.

Warren’s approach brings to mind the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia where she feeds Edward snow disguised as candy. Not only did it appear sweet it was even emptier than it first appeared.

I could argue against Christopher’s statement that a church should be intimidating, however. Not a vehement argument but I’d like to think a church could be a refuge.

I’m not sure about intimidating, either. Awe inspiring might be closer to the mark – but that doesn’t have to mean baroque. Some of the plain, stone, getting on for 1,000 years old churches in the middle of nowhere can do the trick.

Until some idiot with a tambourine gets going.

Great comments, all.

There’s a mega church here that we call Six Flags Over Jesus. An apt description.

The son of our nearest neighbor (about a mile away) got married at their home a couple of years ago. We went, and the couple had written their own vows, which were the usual mixture of reeeelly bad writing and tearing-up honesty. That part was adorable; nobody present could have wished them ill.

Then, at the end the ceremony, the entire family of the bride (all whitebread suburbanites) sang a “Native American” wedding song to no discernible tune, and replete with drums and a hollow stick into which someone blew…. I remember thinking that in comparison, the Chicken Dance my wife and I were required to do at our own reception was dignified, stately and gravid with holy significance.

RAH had it right: One man’s religion is another man’s belly-laugh.

Lemur King, perhaps the imposing nature of a church is what can make it a sanctuary. I.E. would you rather take sanctuary in a building that looks like a formidable castle or a storefront?

For what its worth Bill Hybels (sp?) the originator of the seeker-sensitive movement at Willow Creek has actually come out and admitted that there are serious problems with that model. For example, most of the members of the mega-churches are received from other churches, not by reaching out and doing good works.

BTW — Six flags over Jesus — very funny!

And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them — therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God

(Alma 31:5, emphasis added)

Preaching changes people; social programs, not effectively.

It can be both a refuge and intimidating. When you are at a worship service of the almighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, the God of wrath against sin, you should have a sense of that. You should also have, in response, a sense of the holiness of Jesus Christ, his perfect sacrifice, and the forgiveness and infinite love that represents. One drives you to the other, and as a result it is like nothing else on earth.

Give that up, and you give up the entire point of a Christian worship service.

This need to trivialize Jesus – when He’s even mentioned strongly suggests the motivation comes from somewhere other than Christianity.

Some of my best friends are Christians.
If everyone who lived in my town went to the same church, it still would not be considered a mega church. I enjoy the handshaking and hugging because I know and truly love the people who I am doing it with.

OT, my husband just told me Wal-Mart was out of 9mm, .40, and .227s. Their manufacturers are backed up six weeks.

OT, my husband just told me Wal-Mart was out of 9mm, .40, and .227s. Their manufacturers are backed up six weeks.

It’s the crunch. Leper Messiah is in the captain’s chair now, and if he holds true to his record – and why would he do anything else – it’s going to be very difficult in the near future to acquire firearms.

I’m going to the range for the first time in my life on the 31st with some Church members [including the preacher, boggle that for a while 😉 ] and hopefully I’ll be able to get something of my own before the hammer comes down.

Matt – I don’t care what my church looks like, frankly. People were fed bread and fish outdoors and that was sufficient. Churches have been in basements, living rooms, auditoriums, businesses… the important part is what you choose to do while there, not where you do it. Imposing nature for me is to think about what I think I know of this vast creation and then realize what I don’t know, and from there, just how insignificant I really am in the face of God and His creation. Ultimately, if a person feels more comfortable in a huge granite church, then more power to ’em. If they’d choose to hold services on a ferry on Lake Michigan, more power to ’em.

For what its worth Bill Hybels (sp?) the originator of the seeker-sensitive movement at Willow Creek has actually come out and admitted that there are serious problems with that model.

I actually have a great deal of respect for Bill Hybels the man. His heart is definitely in the right place – it is the approach that I have difficulties with. I am glad that he is willing to concede that he might not have the only answer.

I think, Christopher, that we’re not necessarily saying different things. I’d maintain that we’ve lost something as soon as we do anything other than things that bring glory to God. All other issues should be secondary. I’m not saying they are not important but if we lose sight of that one thing, we’re missing a boat. That, I believe is what turns so many people off – mucking up the works with a lot of stuff imposed by personal dogma and personal feelings that cannot be supported biblically.

I still think I’d prefer “awe inspiring” versus “intimidating”. Granted, we’re in a semantical discussion here, but as to the rest of your statements I’d agree with for the most part.

Sorry to hijack your post with our religious babbling, Weas, but there’s a lot of folks here with incredibly interesting things to say…

By “appearance” I don’t mean “looks like a cathedral” but more the feel and impression of the church service.

I’m Catholic, and my parish church is a Cathedral, in fact the oldest one west of the Mississipi. Not the building, which Indians burnt down and so it was rebuilt in Romanesque revival splendor, but the parish itself. I love it because it’s totally Old School — old traditional music, old traditional ritual, old traditional prayers, and minimal glad-handing. I recently wrote a blog post about old Old Ritual is better than New Ritual after seeing an incredibly lame article in the paper about secular humanists in search of ritual, and some local atheist turned the comments section into scorched earth. Guy was too dumb to get that I was just saying we have better rituals, not that he’s going to hell if he doesn’t go to my church.

Lemur, I couldn’t agree more. Just wanted to make a point about how sanctuary and church style have been historically linked. Interestingly in America the idea of sanctuary actually has no legal basis as far as I can tell. It would be a public relations nightmare to go into a church to arrest someone, but not illegal.