....-Plays Bagpipes-

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

…...

….......

-slowly raises up the white flag and waves it about-

Ok internet, ok.

You win.

I give up.

You can stop now.

…Please?

Seriously though, there seems to be a disturbing trend lately, of trying to make “cool” Christian parodies of popular songs. (Gangnam style in this case.) The problem is that... well... they are done pretty poorly. And I do not just mean they use things like “Open Godman Style” and try to rhyme Joseph with the supposed word “coatses.” I do not just mean the people in ridiculous afros. Those things are pretty dumb, but hey, no parody is absolutely perfect. Some of them are even intentionally silly. What I mean is, these particular ones do not make a lot of theological sense. The words are just a bunch of nonsense that only vaguely relate back to scripture. And, considering that these are supposedly theological songs, that is pretty important. Look at the lyrics of this song. They make a lot of references, but then they fail to explain them. They mention the story of Jesus's birth, but they fail to explain the significance of it. They barely even touch on it. The only reason it would have meaning is if you already knew the importance of the event, a non-christian watching this could easily become lost. Especially if they knew nothing about the birth of Christ.

“Ok, so they had no inn... he was born in a stable... and they named him Jesus....wait what? That's it? Well... that was kinda pointless.”

The exact same problem comes with the crucifixion verse. If you do not already know the story and significance of the cross and the resurrection, it makes very little sense. They do not mention the salvation that comes with the cross. They do not mention his sacrifice. They do not explain anything. What they do end up doing, is leaving the listener asking “...so what?”

Another problem I have is they use very vague terms. Such as “open Godman style.” ….what exactly does this mean? Are they saying that God has an open style of faith for anyone to join? Are they saying their church practices this style? Are they saying this style is open for interpretation? And what about the verse where God “opened it with his Godman style.” Does it now refer to the power of God? Is it completely unrelated? This catch phrase of theirs, while most likely created to suit the lyrics of the original, gets really distracting. It shifts the attention from the song to the silliness of the lyric and defeats the purpose. Even worse, this is not the only line that has this effect. (...By the way, talk about a misunderstanding. That line “pursing you until the end” is extremely creepy if you fail to connect what they are talking about.)

And speaking of shifting attention, let us now talk about the actual subject of the song. Nearly half the song focuses on the church. Praising their leaders and efforts at evangelizing. Now if you want to make a song about that, that is perfectly fine. Go for it. The efforts of the church are an important part of faith. The problem comes when you either A) try and make the church the sole focus. Or B) try to mesh a focus directly on God with a focus directly on how awesome your church is. The idea would be to try and convey how important it is, and how fulfilling it is, to share the Word of God with someone. If you just talk about how great you are as a church, you sound arrogant. Or, in this song's case, if you try and combine the focus being on the church, and then solely about God alone, it ends up being very muddled and confusing. You start going every which way and it becomes a jumpy incoherent mess. Either keep the focus on God, or find a balance between the two. Preferably without virtual jump cuts in the song.

This is not to say all parodies are bad, and I do recognize the difficulty in making them, but you need to be conscious of what you are making. Simply throwing a ton of theology at the page and seeing what fits is not going to work well.

-BlackFox

(733)

...Again?

Ok Internet.

Enough is enough here.

 I thought we talked about this with Godbaby.

Look me in the eye when I am talking to you Internet.

You are making it really hard for us to be friends.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0S2WlvNTU8

What is this?

Hmm?

What

 Is

This?

I have heard some people refer to it as a parody of “Call Me Maybe.” ….But it cannot possibly be such a thing, because that would imply it was some sort of musical creation. This is….. something else. I do not quite know what yet, but I do know it is not music. Well, I suppose it is a “video” by the Woman’s Ordination Conference. They are a group of female “priests” who are currently working to make ordaining women an accepted practice. (For those unfamiliar, to “ordain” is to give someone holy or priestly authority.) One might be confused on this point, because the song seems to make this concept even more aversive by association.

Now, once we get beyond the… something…. that is “Ordain a Lady”, there is actually some theology to talk about here. This is very a controversial subject for Christain's in general. For centuries, women have been banned from positions of authority in the Church. The women behind this video in fact, have been excommunicated, or forcibly rejected by, the Catholic Church. They are not actually priests, and have no affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church. Although they claim to be Catholic, they were removed for trying to become priests. Obviously, in our world today, this is seen as unfair. Since women and men are equally important, we feel they should be treated equally. However, the Bible also forbids women from taking such positions as these and many wish to go with Scripture as opposed to society. Thus, we get enormous conflict within the church.

And what position do I take? You may ask the female Christian writing before you. Personally, I agree with the Catholics. There is a reason that men are in place of shepherd in the church. Men carry an authority and power that women simply do not have. This is not sexist. It is fact. Men and women are not interchangeable parts. We see the world differently. We think differently. We are simply different. God is portrayed in the Bible as a father for a reason. Traditionally, the father is the one who instructs the child. He is the head of the household. His authority is final. He is both loving and supporting, but strict and correcting. God is not just about love and saving everyone. He is also about wrath and justice and retribution. A pastor needs to be able to portray the love of God, and also the anger of God. It is hard for a woman to have the impact of anger and wrath that a man can have. Men have more authority behind their voice. They carry more power and volume. They carry passion (and also express it,) in terms of anger, rather than sorrow like a woman does. Anger is often more accurate to the voice of Scripture than sorrow. Maternal simply fails to carry the message of the Word. It cannot achieve that sense of damnation and rejection. It cannot convey that sense of anger and wrath. You can call this sexist. You can call it unfair. You can deny everything I say here. But the fact of the matter is, it is true. Life is not fair, but that does not make it wrong.

-BlackFox

(585)

Crashing Through the Songs

AND NOW, in the spirit of the holiday season, I giveth to thee, a random post...eth. Yes it is a word. ..Yes, IT IS. Shut up! You are gonna spoil the moment!

I noticed that a lot of people not only sing Christmas songs, but they parody Christmas songs. Jingle bells for instance, has about five billion parodies. Ranging from batman to Pokemon, crashing to monkeys, there are tons of them! Likewise, the twelve days of Christmas and here we go a caroling are also often parodied. With so many Christmas songs about the holiday, God, and any number of things, why do we feel the need to parody these songs? My theory is that it makes it something special. It makes it more personal and fun. Especially if you make your own version to immortalize memories or events. It makes it something that only the singers share or understand, or something that anyone in that situation can relate to. This is the kind of thing I can really get into. And in fact, I do actually make a lot of these parodies with a friend. However, I sadly can not post them here because very few of them would actually make sense to you. BUT, never fear! As I clearly can not make a post like this and have no original parody of my own, I will make a (cough really horrible cough) new one up just for you guys! Yes, yes, I know. I'm amazing. So, in spirit of the holidays, I present to my fellow Kennedy students: Dismissal Bells!

Dashing through the hall,

The foyer's like a brawl,

It's the end of the day,

the crowds are in the way!

MOVE MOVE MOVE!

You people standing round,

and blocking the front door,

if you don't want us to push past

don't stay there anymore!

OH

Dismissal Bells,

Hear the yells,

Why are you still here?

The reprieve has finally started,

we wont see you till next year!

HEY!

Dismissal Bells,

Hear the yells,

It's all been worth the wait,

everyone's been counting

and it's time for Christmas break!

See you all next year, and Merry Christmas!

(and seriously, stop standing in front of the door you loiterers!)

-BlackFox

(371)

...No. Just...NO.

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/

...No.
No.
No.

No.

just... just no.

Seriously guys.

Just.

No.

I mean wow.

This is a blog my dad frequently comments on, and we talk a lot about some of the subjects that come up. Today, we discussed this... monstrosity. I really admire my dad and his opinions, and I actually thought he made some really good points. So I will share with you, his comments, as well as mine.

Ok, two things wrong with this picture that my dad pointed out.

One, Jesus is portrayed as typical Anglo-Saxon. Jesus was Jewish, and therefore should be portrayed as such. He is not some fill-in-the-blank concept for us to use according to our needs. There is not a Japanese Jesus. Or an African Jesus. Or a British Jesus. Or an American Jesus. There is one Jesus and he should be portrayed correctly. He is not something to be molded and shaped to our own preferences. He was a real person.

Two, Dolls are a large part of the imaginary. You associate them with a child playing pretend. By making Jesus into a doll, you create a shift from historical to fantasy. The incarnation of God as a man becomes make believe or fiction, as opposed to historical reality.

My own personal observation.

I am aware that this is an attempt by the church to either A, comment on consumerism. Or B, spark debates about it. That does not make it right or effective. Because the idea is so ridiculous and childish, it does not really give a punch to the viewer. There is no impact or moment of realization. It fails to bring up that challenge in the reader because the concept is so ridiculous. You look at it and immediately think, really? “GodBaby”? Are you people serious? When I first saw it, it took me a minute to realize it was commentary and not legitimate, earnest, or designed to insult Christianity. All it does is generate the opinion of the ad being dumb and kind of offensive. The focus then shifts from the idea of “look how consumerist we are!” to “...someone actually had to green light this thing. Did a church really make this?” You begin to question the church as opposed to your own conduct this holiday season. That is why I say it is ineffective. When the commentary is so blatant, poorly thought out, or followed through, people stop caring about the message and start focusing on the failures.

-BlackFox

(420)

What Matters.

So, seeing as Christmas is just around the corner, I feel like it is proper to comment on the actual point of the holiday. Christmas, as you may or may not know, originally had nothing to do with Santa. There was no naughty or nice list. No happy elves or magic (and slightly judgmental) reindeer. No sleigh or presents or cookies left out near the chimney. Christmas is a time of remembrance.

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a remembrance of the day he made himself flesh and blood. He choose to put aside his deity to become human like you and I. To experience our suffering and feel our needs and hardships. He was not God smushed into the body of a man, he was an actual man. A living breathing human being, who had to live and learn like we do. The only difference between us and him, was that Jesus was without sin. He came as the perfect sacrifice. He became flesh solely to die on the cross for our sins. He came solely to bear our suffering to create a way for us. We celebrate Christmas to remember the day he was born. We celebrate it to remember the miracle and the majesty of Jesus Christ. It was not created as a day to get a ton of presents or to see everyone in the family.

How many of us pull out a nativity set and call it good? How many of us stopped telling the story of the birth of Jesus when the kids outgrew those books? How many of us go to the Christmas service and spend the entire time waiting for it to end? Many of us, myself included, can be guilty of this on Christmas day. We get so wrapped up in the holiday that we forget its purpose. We forget what it is that we are really celebrating. We forget what Christmas is really about. And no, I don't mean the holiday specials that say family and being together are all that matters, or that it's the thought that counts. Those things are true, but they are not the main focus. Now, I am not saying that nothing else is important during the holidays. I am not saying that Christmas is not a time to be with the ones you love. I am not saying you should abandon your traditions and stop giving gifts. I am saying that there is more to the holiday than these things. That there is more to Christmas than being with your family and giving presents. That it is a day to remember what God has done for us.

-BlackFox

(450)

Removed From It All

You will remember that I, in the first of my three weekly posts, mentioned reading the Divine Comedy as part of a school project. It involves analyzing an author and his methods with your own little specific group. Mine is centered around Dante. Now, when we first started to discuss the book, I was very clear and adamant on my own beliefs and how I viewed the bankrupt theology within the pages. It was something I was extremely unmovable on. So one of my group mates made a point of telling me to leave my own beliefs out of these discussions. And my question to you, is why should I?


Why should I abandon my beliefs? To be more objective when analyzing the essay? During such analysis using your own experiences and knowledge is expected. Different points of view and interpretations are supposedly wanted and create a “deeper” discussion. Also, if it focuses mainly on religion, then discussing how the religious imagery goes against normal doctrine is important in terms of the style and substance of the writer. Wherefore should I deny my group mates the benefit of another view? In terms of being more “open minded” there is something specific I would like to point out about that. If you open your mind to one way of thinking, inevitably it is closed to another. For instance, opening your mind to the concept of truth being what you make it and unknowable, closes your mind to all claims of objective truth. It is simply a fact. This is why most people want to discuss with many others who hold different beliefs, so it prevents a bias forming according to the collectively open and closed perceptions. So again I say, who am I, to deny my group the benefit of another point of view?


And finally, I am not going to ignore my beliefs. I am not going to sweep them under a rug. I am going to stand up for them and question that which contradicts them. Truth is more important than analyzing a 13^th century author with a removed eye. I am not going to leave it behind for the sake of removing myself from such a debate as this. When I go into discussion, I'm taking truth with me.


-BlackFox

(384)

Hell and Demons

Continuing my posts inspired by the Divine Comedy (more specifically the Inferno at present.) I will once again give the warning of a spoiler.


Another thing Dante has set up for hell, is the concept of demons ruling over it. This idea is actually pretty popular. Often seen as Satan and his minions controlling the suffering of the lost souls of the dammed. However, this is actually not so. Hell is not a place where demons reign. They are sinful and evil and just as guilty of punishment as men are. They will not be ruling hell, they will be suffering in hell. God has no interest in rewarding their wickedness with power and entertainment. Demons have one goal, they wish to turn men away from God. In the Bible, such action is specifically condemned, saying one who causes another to stumble is worse than he who falls. When the time of judgment comes, they will be cast into the lake of fire to burn for eternity. Also, demons have no connection to God. At one point in the Inferno, a soul suffering in hell curses and insults the name of the Lord, and is immediately set upon by a demon watching over that level of hell, demanding to know the location of the “insolent blasphemer”. Demons do not condemn or punish such a thing, in fact they actively try to cause it. There is an instance in the Bible, where Christ confronts a group of demons. They ask him, “What have you to do with us? Have you come to punish us before our time?” Here we see they are sinful and oppositional to God. They do not support him, and even allude to the fact they too will suffer. And probably most important, Satan is a bitter enemy of God. There is absolutely no reason why God would not pronounce judgment on the prince of darkness, and no way for Satan to prevent that judgment from falling upon himself. He is powerless before the might of the Lord, and so will suffer like the rest.


Another implication of this system is that either demons are outside of God's power, or that they are his agents. A demon seat of power in hell allows for no alternative. Because a demon is an evil creature of sin, they are subject to the righteous fury of God, and no salvation is allowed -or from the demons perspective even wanted- for them. This means that if they do not suffer in hell, something must prevent God from exacting retribution. The first option is that demons are beyond the reach of God to punish, that he has no power over hell and merely casts down sinners into it. The reason the demons are allowed free reign is simply that God has not the power to punish them. This is obviously ludicrous. God created everything, heaven, hell, and demons alike. Nothing is beyond his power. A creator may do with his creation as he pleases. Now, the other options is that the demons escape punishment because they were created by God for the purpose of tormenting souls in hell, that they were created to be sinful and evil and corrupt for this purpose. This also is not viable. God cannot endure sin, hence the need to inflict justice upon it. He will not allow it to roam unimpeded for all eternity. In any case, He has no need of their services. God does not need a helper to punish sin, he is quite capable of doing this himself. He certainly does not require the enlistment of sinful, evil beings for the task. Ergo, there is no reason for a demon to be spared the fires of hell.


-BlackFox

(627)