Thursday, April 25, 2013

Sexy Virgins, Hipster Jesus, And Other Signs Of The Apocolypse

The end is coming. The end of Christianity, that is. Hopefully. Well, that might be a bit over-optimistic, but according to Amanda Marcotte, writing for Alternet, "The much-analyzed Millennial generation is turning away from religion, especially Christianity, in record numbers."

The main course of Amanda's article,  "Jesus Was A Hipster? 7 Funniest Ways Christian Churches Are Trying to Get Hip With the Kids", is her list, as advertised in the title, of seven, count 'em seven, unintentionally (and therefore all that much more) humorous attempts at cool-ness by would be youth-evangelizers. You should go to the article to get the hilarious details, but here is one especially notable highlight:

"Mark Driscoll is a well-known nutty preacher in Seattle whose entire schtick is trying to dress up old-fashioned fundamentalist misogyny like it’s the cool new thing the kids are doing these days. His main strategy is talking about sex all the time. It’s incredibly important to Driscoll that you understand he’s a sex machine, and to generally imply that following Christ turns men into insatiable horndogs. He published a sex manual for Christians last year, one that portrays Christian marriage as something of a pornographic fantasy of women living in a state of permanent submission and sexual availability."

Of course there is nothing new under the sun. All this has happened before and all this will happen again. I am, of course, referring to the ultimate farcical attempt at Christian youth outreach: The Christian Side-Hug.