Evangelical Taste

[wolven7]

We were driving by the Atlanta White House, and I realised that one thing I've never understood about the more Earnest forms of Evangelical Christianity is, does it have to be so god damned Tacky?

I mean, what is it about earnest, clean-genitaled god-bothering that makes you lose all sense of style? It's all so gaudy, it's just fucking embarrassing.

Also, how come no one's done an Eraserhead/Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover yet? Because God Is In His Heaven Everything's Fine.

Comments

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

child-like minds admire the stark and obvious. Subtle minds revere subtlety.

[mendori.livejournal.com]

And the Vatican once had the money to do both at the same time, in spades.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

the Vatican may be child-like fundamentalist but most of Catholics aren't and Catholicism abounds with subtle mystery

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

It's a cultural group identity thing. Seriously.

I turned to Nick and said, “never mind the debate about whether the Chief is racist– this stuff should be banned for sheer cheesiness alone.” But I said it sotto voce.

For as I watched and cringed and cringed some more, I noticed that sure enough, people around me were cheering and tearing up. And I began to think, this is as much a cultural divide as a political one, a divide between those with a liberal cringe reflex and those without. Surely, for my fellow Illinois fans, my visceral reaction to the Chief was just the mirror image of their visceral reaction to the Chief – except that mine was defined by what they would see as an elitist, nose-pinching, PC rectitude that symbolizes everything wrong with liberal college professors. I don’t have any problem with the name “Illini,” actually—or, for that matter, with the name “Illinois.” But the Chief and his halftime dance are another order of thing altogether. Please, I thought, let this hopping-and-skipping minstrel show end, and let’s get back to basketball. I didn’t come here to meditate on town and gown – or on what we’d now call blue and red America. I just came here to watch Illinois defeat the culturally innocuous, inoffensively-named Golden Rodents Of Some Kind.

[nausved.livejournal.com]

The Shakers have good taste.