Just When You Thought Evangelicalism Couldn't Be Any Funnier....
We used to sing a song in youth group that started with a dramatic, anthematic phrase,
"BE a missionary every day!"
(clap, clap, clap!)
This was just the sort of rousing opening we needed to get our evangelical blood pumping. There were roughly three themes that we talked about in youth group.
1.) we are pretty horrible sinners.
2.) but you should see the rest of the World. Try to stay away from them.
3.) unless you have an opportunity to convert them. In that case you can do *ANYTHING* that will round them up into the fold.
(and yes, cowboy terminology regarding the "lost" was actually quite common)
My friend Jay the historian argues that advertising and evangelicalism could never have become what they are without each other and without being here. In America. The assumptions they share are pretty foundational to the United Statesian worldview.
So when I read this blog today...I wasn't at all sure at first whether it was parody or vision casting. Which says a great deal either about the skill with which it was written *or* the context within which I grew up. Or maybe both?
A More Perfect Consumer Church
"BE a missionary every day!"
(clap, clap, clap!)
This was just the sort of rousing opening we needed to get our evangelical blood pumping. There were roughly three themes that we talked about in youth group.
1.) we are pretty horrible sinners.
2.) but you should see the rest of the World. Try to stay away from them.
3.) unless you have an opportunity to convert them. In that case you can do *ANYTHING* that will round them up into the fold.
(and yes, cowboy terminology regarding the "lost" was actually quite common)
My friend Jay the historian argues that advertising and evangelicalism could never have become what they are without each other and without being here. In America. The assumptions they share are pretty foundational to the United Statesian worldview.
So when I read this blog today...I wasn't at all sure at first whether it was parody or vision casting. Which says a great deal either about the skill with which it was written *or* the context within which I grew up. Or maybe both?
A More Perfect Consumer Church
posted by Redbaerd at 5:55 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for the link...it touched on a nerve!
its one of the craziest things about evangelicalism -- that the symbols it shares have so much continuity that all kinds of difference -- geographical, ethnic, cultural, etc... are rendered invisible....
...at least when the evangelicals are "on." If you passed them on the street, of course, you'd never know that they're one of you. Or that you're one of them....
These two distinct modes of identity each invisible from the other.
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