My favorite line from “Brave New World Revisited” – “Jesus says that He will be present wherever two or three are gathered in His name. He says nothing about goosestepping masses.” I love that, becuase I’ve always felt Christianity is at it’s best when it’s on a small scale and familial. Megachurches have always left me a bit uneasy (And I go to one now, so I suppose that makes me a hypocrite), they’re a bit to institutionalized, a bit too formal. A bit too ‘our way or the highway’, a bit too Roman, even if they’re protestant. Does that make sense?
interesting….I have never found megachurches to be very formal. A lot of them where I am are “come as you are,” and I have rarely found meaty sermons in such churches ( the small groups, I don’t know, so I shan’t judge).
but that’s here–>where it seems it’s all Deepak Chopra wrapped in a blanket of Jesus Saves rhetoric with nary a Bible reading, other than something short from the Living Bible translation, plastered on the big LCD screens.
but then my definition of formal means people that actually wear their “Sunday Best,” a pipe organ and robed choir instead of a Christian version of Green Day on stage riffing on Chris Tomlin, singing the Doxology and, golly, a good old-fashioned formal Scripture reading with a sermon that relates the biblical illustration to your life…. and convicts and moves, rather than point the finger.
Hey, who put Jimmy Roselli in the Amazon ad? My brother sees him around Clearwater and talks to him every now and then. He gave him a lot of his CDs. Even told him the real story behind his feud with Sinatra.
I once took a summer paper which required me to read Jonathan Swift, H.G. Wells, Samuel Butler, Anthony Burgess, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. (Oh, and Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing, too, but they were so obviously there to make up the quotas that I didn’t bother with their novels and just coasted through those lectures.)
The six writers I did read were quite an amazing bunch. Even Swift’s satire is still relevant to our times–and Huxley has turned out to be the most accurate prophet of all.
I’ll have to bookmark Furious D. I have that Roast on DVD and and it’s not as good as some of the others, but Rickles is always great. Those Roasts look like they were all laughs, but there were times when the celebrities on the dais were pissed off at the jokes directed toward them. If you notice while watching a whole Roast, they’ll show the same clips of the celebrities laughing several times. That was to fill in for the parts where they got pissed that had to be edited out from the final show. I think Mohammed Ali and Flip Wilson were a couple that got pissed off at the jokes. There’s a great book called Backstage at the Dean Martin Show that is full of great anecdotes, written by the show’s music director. Even for a used copy of this it’ll cost you over $70. I’m glad I bought it when it was only $35 for a new copy.
Kit, I teach Reading, Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Science to First Graders. This coming school year, on top of all that I’ll be teaching Art K-8, American Film History 7-8, and a sort of after school journalism club of 8th graders which will really be my slave labor to put together next year’s year book.
@ JJ – I didn’t articulate that well. I don’t mean formal in the sense of ‘arrive 15 minutes before the service promptly, and wear black.’ I mean it in the sense that Huxley meant it – in the formal devision between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in the sense that ‘bigger is better and less sucks, so if you go to a small curch, you ain’t crap, and someday we’ll be the biggest church in the area, and won’t that show those miserable people back in Indianna who fired me from the ministry just because the elders found out the wife and I are swingers’ sense. I mean it in the sense that it ceases to be an extended family, and becomes more of a business, less about saving souls and more about prestiege, less about spreading God’s word and more about ‘look how impressive our building is!’ Less about taking care of people’s needs, and more about sweeping that sexual assault case under the rug, less about feeding the hungry, and more about making sure the preacher gets a new $100,000 sports car every year.
Which is an unfair generalization, I know. I’m sure there are a lot of really good megachurches out there, but multiple times bitten, forever shy, you know? I suspect I’m not the only person here who’s had these kinds of experiences.
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Being hinted that Affair McNair may have been a murder-suicide.
By the way,who was it here who said he was reading “The Great Upheaval” by Jay Winik?
Ah,a group of senior clerics in Qum,Iran have flat out called the election a fraud…looks like Khameini’s fig leaf is falling off!
Because the Great, Wise, and Sexy Obama called them on it.
My favorite line from “Brave New World Revisited” – “Jesus says that He will be present wherever two or three are gathered in His name. He says nothing about goosestepping masses.” I love that, becuase I’ve always felt Christianity is at it’s best when it’s on a small scale and familial. Megachurches have always left me a bit uneasy (And I go to one now, so I suppose that makes me a hypocrite), they’re a bit to institutionalized, a bit too formal. A bit too ‘our way or the highway’, a bit too Roman, even if they’re protestant. Does that make sense?
interesting….I have never found megachurches to be very formal. A lot of them where I am are “come as you are,” and I have rarely found meaty sermons in such churches ( the small groups, I don’t know, so I shan’t judge).
but that’s here–>where it seems it’s all Deepak Chopra wrapped in a blanket of Jesus Saves rhetoric with nary a Bible reading, other than something short from the Living Bible translation, plastered on the big LCD screens.
but then my definition of formal means people that actually wear their “Sunday Best,” a pipe organ and robed choir instead of a Christian version of Green Day on stage riffing on Chris Tomlin, singing the Doxology and, golly, a good old-fashioned formal Scripture reading with a sermon that relates the biblical illustration to your life…. and convicts and moves, rather than point the finger.
Hey, who put Jimmy Roselli in the Amazon ad? My brother sees him around Clearwater and talks to him every now and then. He gave him a lot of his CDs. Even told him the real story behind his feud with Sinatra.
+JMJ+
I once took a summer paper which required me to read Jonathan Swift, H.G. Wells, Samuel Butler, Anthony Burgess, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. (Oh, and Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing, too, but they were so obviously there to make up the quotas that I didn’t bother with their novels and just coasted through those lectures.)
The six writers I did read were quite an amazing bunch. Even Swift’s satire is still relevant to our times–and Huxley has turned out to be the most accurate prophet of all.
Why don’t ya’ll put Furious D on the Blogrool?
http://dknowsall.blogspot.com/
Don Rickles = The King!
He fills his blog with brilliant commentary.
I’ll have to bookmark Furious D. I have that Roast on DVD and and it’s not as good as some of the others, but Rickles is always great. Those Roasts look like they were all laughs, but there were times when the celebrities on the dais were pissed off at the jokes directed toward them. If you notice while watching a whole Roast, they’ll show the same clips of the celebrities laughing several times. That was to fill in for the parts where they got pissed that had to be edited out from the final show. I think Mohammed Ali and Flip Wilson were a couple that got pissed off at the jokes. There’s a great book called Backstage at the Dean Martin Show that is full of great anecdotes, written by the show’s music director. Even for a used copy of this it’ll cost you over $70. I’m glad I bought it when it was only $35 for a new copy.
He does a great job writing about stuff on Hollywood. Scroll down and look at the right side of the screen to see his DEFINITIONS YOU NEED TO KNOW.
Matt Helm,
Who and What do you teach?
Kit, I teach Reading, Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Science to First Graders. This coming school year, on top of all that I’ll be teaching Art K-8, American Film History 7-8, and a sort of after school journalism club of 8th graders which will really be my slave labor to put together next year’s year book.
The Merchant of Venom
@ JJ – I didn’t articulate that well. I don’t mean formal in the sense of ‘arrive 15 minutes before the service promptly, and wear black.’ I mean it in the sense that Huxley meant it – in the formal devision between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in the sense that ‘bigger is better and less sucks, so if you go to a small curch, you ain’t crap, and someday we’ll be the biggest church in the area, and won’t that show those miserable people back in Indianna who fired me from the ministry just because the elders found out the wife and I are swingers’ sense. I mean it in the sense that it ceases to be an extended family, and becomes more of a business, less about saving souls and more about prestiege, less about spreading God’s word and more about ‘look how impressive our building is!’ Less about taking care of people’s needs, and more about sweeping that sexual assault case under the rug, less about feeding the hungry, and more about making sure the preacher gets a new $100,000 sports car every year.
Which is an unfair generalization, I know. I’m sure there are a lot of really good megachurches out there, but multiple times bitten, forever shy, you know? I suspect I’m not the only person here who’s had these kinds of experiences.
I haven’t read a Brave New World in years. Takes me back.