For all of their aversion to the evil in popular culture, fundamentalist preachers still somehow manage to bring it up fairly frequently in their sermons — often in unintentionally humorous ways. For whether it’s a warning against a TV show that went off the air ten years ago or rantings about the evil lyrics of “that rapper fellow, Snoopy Dog Dog,” the fundamentalist pastor rarely gets the details of his target exactly right.
In fact such is the regularity of these mistakes that one almost has to wonder if these flubs are intentional. For when the pastor is too accurate in his observations the obvious question is: “where is he getting his information?” Is there a designated person deemed spiritual enough to spend hours in a bunker deep below the church watching reruns of Will & Grace looking for sermon fodder? If there is no good Christian is watching, listening, or reading this the worldly filth he’s preaching against, then how does he know about it at all? We certainly know that he doesn’t keep unsaved friends around who might fill him in on what’s popular.
If you’ve ever spent 30 minutes trying not to laugh while listening to someone preach against the evil rock and roll of “The Jonah Brothers,” you might be a fundamentalist.
The only fire services I remember as a kid were for rock music records. I attended a few of those.
The BEST Britcom is “Waiting for God” about 2 old people in an retirement home. The woman is an athiest and the man is a Christian. The dialog is sparkling and they say more about God in 24 minutes than most preachers would say in a week of sermons. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s available for sale.
“Waiting for God” is available on DVD and several series of it are on Netflix for download and I agree it’s a very honest and profound program at times.
I love WAITING FOR GOD, though I think the storylines are uneven. Some are brilliant; some are just silly, some are too pointless, and a few are too dark to be truly humorous. But yes, the scenes where Diana’s atheism is set against Tom’s optimistic, traditional Christianity are the very best. And Dan, you can get the whole set at Best Buy:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Waiting+For+God%3A+Complete+Series+(2+Disc)+-+DVD/18416608.p?skuId=18416608&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=18416608&ref=06&loc=01&id=2084150
I’m not obsessed with being up-to-date on pop culture, but I’m better than I used to be. I always have to laugh when people who don’t know anything constantly rant, obviously showing their ignorance. One teacher in my school used to give us “dress code talks” and tell us not to dress like “Brittany Spears or whoever” and I always laughed. Even at the time, Brittany Spears hadn’t been popular in years. It seems that preachers love to preach against something while yet trying not to seem to educated on the matter so that they don’t appear too close to the world.
Loved the hypertext on this one. Jus’ sayin 😀
And totally loved the article too. Jus’ sayin.
@Amanda. oh come now, it can’t be THAT awkward!
@Nathan: yeah, and I think I saw some pigs flying overhead earlier. 😛 Surely you’ve had similar conversations with her. 😉
nthing the Father Ted love. The parody of ‘Speed’ on a milk float is one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
When I was a kid in Texas, those rubber sandals with a strap that goes between two toes were never called anything other than “Thongs.”
It surprised me, years later, to hear younger people talking about it being scandalous to wear “a thong.” I thought, well, usually you wear a pair, but I don’t see anything so shocking about sandals …
Sadly, this new meaning seems to have crowded out the footwear sense of “Thongs,” even here in Texas, so that now the word almost always refers to that underwear thing that includes a permanent wedgie.
I’m convinced that a good deal of these “mistakes” are done on purpose for two reasons. 1. Lame attempts at pulpit humor. 2. Proof of how little notice of or participation in “the world”.
I’m with Darrell on the picture caption! 😆 I think you might even be able to do an evangelistic service with that. Just put “We’re preaching against Twilight tonight” and you might get people to come in who would never come in otherwise! D 😀
But would it be worth the mobs of teenage girls who will inevitably attack the church seeking to defend their sparkly vampires to the (un)death?
I remember a pamphlet that talked about spiritual warfare. The pamphlet stuck with me for two reasons:
1) Everything the author disagreed with was the result of an evil spirit: skepticism, socialism, feminism, etc. Allowing these ‘demons’ into your life weakened your defenses against the ‘disease’ demons they brought with them.
2) An anecdote about a young girl (probably 3 or 4 years old) and a stuffed ‘E.T.’ doll: she reportedly gave the doll a hug and said ‘I love you!’ which the author cited as evidence that the New Age movement was teaching young children to embrace the demonic (according to this guy, aliens are really demons–even though aliens have never been proven to exist and demons have never actually been seen in person, even in the Bible).
My roommates and I had a big laugh over this piece of cheese…
Another one, covering both the ‘pop culture’ and ‘burning supposedly demonic articles’ angles: I was in a rather pointless discussion with someone online who questioned how I could be a Christian and like Harry Potter because it features magic and witchcraft.
When I pointed out that both the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings trilogy were both driven by magic but were highly-respected Christian allegories written by Christian authors, she told me about the time she threw a Ouija board into a fire and it didn’t burn (at this point I figured she was truly out to lunch).
I told her that the reason her Ouija board didn’t burn was because it was made of masonite, which burns at a much higher temperature than cardboard. I also showed her a picture of a chessboard made out of masonite and asked her if chess was demonic?
Never got an answer on that one. She stopped talking to me. Yet another example of why the advice in Proverbs against arguing with fools is always sound. 😉