Hades ascending

Please enter quietly as we prepare to indoctrinate you. . . . I love silent chapels.

It's especially discouraging to me that, after such a thoughtful chapel on Tuesday, on Wednesday we're right back into the old routine. Sorry to tell you, Dr. Jacobs, but there is a good chance that your words fell on deaf ears.

This morning's service contained far too much shit to comment on in one post, so I have decided, in lieu of writing a novel, to select my topics by raffle. I have written possible topics on slips of paper, placed those slips into a hat, and I will draw five of them to comment on. Drum roll please. . . .

One. "You are FORGIVEN. Love, God."

Are you kidding me? Just in case you've forgotten, this brilliant snippet of revelation kicked off the twenty minute slideshow we had the priviledge of sitting through this morning. In the slides immediately preceding this one we were encouraged to repent of our sins, making silent supplication to God to forgive us for the horrible, wretched, sinful lives we lead.

By this point I hope I have made my thoughts on corporate confession very clear. [Here's a refresher.] But this? This is worse than those fucking billboards. This is a whole new level of bullshit. Did God put that Powerpoint together? Did God walk into Brad's office and tell him to add that slide? Or maybe His Holiness isn't to blame. Maybe God added that slide to the presentation himself while it was being projected onto the screens: revelation in real-time! [Congrats, SNU, you are the first people in history to witness a miracle.]

Oh, and apparently God wanted us to know that we are FORGIVEN for those sins, because regular old forgiven wouldn't be enough.

Two. Videology.

The modernist perspective is dead, and I'm not sure if the makers of the first video we were treated to this morning were ever made aware of this fact. Good or evil, right or wrong, loved or abandoned, light or dark, black or white, paper or plastic: these are all false dilemmas that died with the rest of modernism. If post-modernity has taught us anything it is that the complexities of life simply do not lend themselves to such binary classification. Grey is the new black.

Another problem I had with this video was its asking, "Who will rescue us?"

My primary concern with questions like this one is that it invites complacency by implying that humanity is not smart/strong/reasonable/moral enough to get itself out of the mess it's in. But more than that, this question appears to suggest that humanity is somehow inherently in need of rescue, whether in a crisis or not. [Think "original sin."] Gnostic, much? If my reading of the gospels is correct, Jesus came to empower humanity, not strip away its dignity and leave us crying at the sky in hope of the "second coming."

Three. Storybook Apostle's Creed.

Someone was having a little too much fun with Powerpoint this week: pictures, animated text, the whole shebang. Are we so dense that we need pictures of flames to animate the concept of Hell? [Which is not Biblical, by the way. We have Dante to thank for the flames and tridents.] Text dropping from on high to show Jesus descending? Crying Jesus? Clouds of holiness?

Why not just go all the way [that's what she said] and give us a Seussian chapel sometime?

Would you sin within a house?
Would you sin with a mouse?

I would not sin within a house.
I would not sin with a mouse.
I would not sin here or there.
I would not sin anywhere.
I do not like sin or vice.
I do not like them, Jesus Christ!

You can give me that Pulitzer now.

Four. Guided prayer.

Whoever had the brilliant idea that Christians would benefit from someone holding their hand and walking them through a "proper" relationship with God needs to be dragged out into the street and shot. Here's a new idea: how about you leave me and my reationship with God alone and worry about your own divine dealings?

I anticipate that someone might counter this position by arguing that, through guided prayer, Christians are united in their concern for a specific issue/person. Okay, but for what? If the argument is that being united as a church/body/campus is subjectively beneficial for those involved, then I have no problem. [Though at SNU such unity rarely extends beyond the moments of guided prayer, if a feeling of unity is created in such moments at all.] However, if someone were crazy enough to try and argue that by praying collectively for some need that God would be more likely to respond, I would be forced to look them square in the eyes and alert them to the fact that they are a dumbass.

Five. This one is, surprisingly, positive. Mr. Whiteside's presentation of the music this morning was refreshingly honest. It was nice to see a musician on stage who had actually taken the time to practice and memorize his/her music before performing.

Let's end on a high note.

We only have to go to one chapel next week! Huzzah!

"Fill us up and send us out." That's what she said.

"Keep near me and you will be safe."

Daedalus