…and this is a 
When did "Christian" become a synonym for "crap"?
Category: Books
Posted on: May 17, 2008 7:42 AM, by PZ Myers
One century, you've got Bach, another century, you've got Li'l Markie. Christianity has really gone downhill from its prior status as the font of funding for culture and art and intellectual endeavor to being the being the bottom of the barrel source for kitsch and crap. Case in point: Denyse O'Leary's hideous, horrible, talentless hackery has been nominated for a Canadian Christian Writing Award. Even setting aside the fact that I disagreed vehemently with the content of the book, if you judge it on the quality of the writing, it doesn't deserve recognition, it warrants condemnation — it's probably the worst-written bit of tripe to cross my desk all year long, and that's saying a lot. I've got a few people trying to persuade me to review their Christian apocalyptic fantasy novels, and O'Leary's book is more incoherent than those.
Comments
Lil Markie's no match for Eurovision, which is actually fun to watch.
Posted by: Mark B | May 17, 2008 7:53 AM
Oh, it is rewarding all right!
But what do you expect from people who rely on an old text both for literary qualities (it uncritically contains both high quality low poems as well as kitsch war stories and crap morality texts) and as oracle on facts? That O'Leary's book is listed isn't a sign of an impending apocalypse, it is religious business as usual.
Nice find, it will definitely make a good reply next time "the font of funding for culture and art and intellectual endeavor" argument makes the rounds. But you remind me that I haven't seen it lately. How about that.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | May 17, 2008 8:06 AM
I've been wondering the same thing for years. All I can think is that what the Christianity Cops consider safe & Christian enough is tasteless, tacky tripe: therefore, that's what's considered Christian art. It's like they go out of their way to select only the most insipid, incoherent artists imaginable.
Strangely enough, for people who believe passionately in an invisible magic man, they have no imagination at all.
Posted by: Dana Hunter | May 17, 2008 8:10 AM
Yes, and occasionally Eurovision has bands that are actually good --- like Finland's Lordi, which won in 2006. (Yes, typical Finns look like that.)
But, to not drift off-topic, I guess no-one is surprised that Lordi's participation raised shrill, incoherent and ineffectual cries of protest from various Christian organizations, mainly by the use of the logical shortcut "Looks different => Is evil".
Ah well.
Posted by: Masks of Eris | May 17, 2008 8:11 AM
When did "Christian" become a synonym for "crap"?
When Darwin published "On the Origin of Species...".
Posted by: Richard Harris | May 17, 2008 8:14 AM
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.
They obviously don't have many "popular" writers to choose from.
Posted by: tacitus | May 17, 2008 8:23 AM
The fat guy & Li'l Markie seem to figure that their god-thing's got their lives planned out. How so how do they explain how it screwed up big-time on their personalized diet & exercise plan?.
Posted by: Richard Harris | May 17, 2008 8:27 AM
Anyone who hasn't been following the Slacktivist's reviews of the Left Behind books has been missing out. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see the rare and elusive left-wing Christian (he used to be a fundie) in great form - his criticisms are insightful and belie a true knowledge of the writing form and how to turn a phrase. He points out not only the literary but also the theological problems with the books, and it's been enormous fun following him through the psyche of LeHaye, Jenkins and their crappy troupe of completely unbelievable characters in their terribly written glory.
It all started around Oct 2003, and the first entry is around the middle of this page:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/page/20/
New entries every Friday (or approximately so). Highly recommended.
To Fred's credit, he's made me realize that there ARE intelligent, (truly) caring Christians who realize the ludicrous nature of the current crop of fundies and are striving to show that belief is truly personal and nothing to be afraid of - that may be anathema to some atheists, but it taught me that I should have respect for him, and others like him. They are good people, even if I don't agree with them.
Posted by: Dave | May 17, 2008 8:27 AM
I have no examples. but I presume that in addition to Bach and other christainity-inspired greats, there was an even larger number of christainity-inspired drecks. Some of whom, I also presume, were considered greats in their own time; just as some people we now consider greats were very probably considered drecks in their own time.
Of course it's not a binary great/dreck division, nor does everyone have the same opinion. It's a continuum with great at one end and dreck at the other; and there is some sort of a distribution of opinions along that continuum. The most popular opinion (the concensus, if you will) can and does shift over time.
I assume that o'leary will slide, over time, further and further towards dreck and eventually fall off the edge of world.
Posted by: blf | May 17, 2008 8:36 AM
As for the decline in the quality of music - One century, you've got Bach, another century, you've got Li'l Markie. - it's a consequence of who commissions it. It used to be the intellectuals, now it's the masses. I don't think that we can blame that on Xians. It's just one of the downsides of capitalism.
Posted by: Richard Harris | May 17, 2008 8:38 AM
Say what you will about C.S. Lewis's beliefs (and in some ways they were quite unorthodox even by the standards of the Christianity he was trying to defend) and the themes of his books, he was a great writer (and a fine scholar, in his field), so as recently as the 1950s there was quality Christian cultural output. I guess Tolkien too, now I think about it.
There is a good Christian humor writer in Britain named Adrian Plass.
I suspect that the commercialization of Christian pop culture has a great deal to do with its poor quality. Often Christian music ends up being a weird copy of secular musical movements except with the words shifted to a Christian theme, which in turn means that key themes of the original music are lost. The worst of Christian culture is thus so much worse in quality than the average secular equivalent, but it receives lots of attention (the truly appallingly bad Left Behind books/films being examples) from conservative Protestant circles because it is seen as being godly, and thus good.
Posted by: Erridge | May 17, 2008 8:38 AM
Thanks for acknowledging that Christianity was at least, at one point, a source of both funding and inspiration for the arts. I won't get into the debate here, but it's probably one of the few defensible arguments for the extravagance of the church. I also agree completely that "Christian" as a descriptor for any form of media is now synonymous with "awful."
As a side note. Don't get to worked up about Obama's religiousness. You're never going to get a perfect candidate and his actual policies don't reflect religious idiocy but moral thought. If he has to pander he has to pander, but at least he isn't shaking hands with Moral Majority members.
Posted by: Kyle M | May 17, 2008 8:44 AM
Lewis!? He wrote a few passable stories of which my favorite is The Screwtape Letters but a literary giant, he was not.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | May 17, 2008 8:47 AM
To borrow from the Bible, man can't serve two masters. Something gets put higher than quality of music. For Christian Contemporary, it's "godliness", for Britney Spears, it's (originally) sex appeal or (currently) that can't-look-away train wreck appeal. But the music is crap because it's ancillary to some other purpose.
I'm convinced that there must be good music being made right now with overtly Christian themes. But it's not what gets on the radio.
Posted by: chancelikely | May 17, 2008 8:52 AM
And for the converse...
OK, a bit later than Bach, but Caleb Simper might be an example. I guess the dreck tends to get forgotten - I'm sure there were many awful composers in Bach's time.
Posted by: Bob O'H | May 17, 2008 9:04 AM
Did PDQ Bach look to Christianity as a source of both funding and inspiration?
Posted by: Ted C | May 17, 2008 9:09 AM
Sadly, the Pärts, Taveners, Lewises, Eliots, Bachs etc. are the exception rather than the rule. More generally, the Christian shift from the edge to its current lazy status might have come, as R. Harris suggested, when The Origin of Species was published (and back as far as the Renaissance)--when people covered their ears rather than allow any compatibility at all between faith and reality.
Posted by: alanmayor | May 17, 2008 9:17 AM
Because with a group of hypocrites like these:...minister from a Dallas-area Baptist megachurch was caught in an Internet sex sting and charged with online solicitation of a minor... You need to have someone tell you how wonderful you, and your religion, is at all times. Since any self-respecting individual wouldn't have any part of it, the field is open for liars, frauds and hacks.
Honestly, I believe that anyone with any self-respect, half a set of morals and any cognitive skills would just shy completely away from all those horrible people. But those that are in it, not only are they amoral, ignorant fools, but actually consider ignorance a virtue and cannot see their amoral behaviors hidden by their brutal, self-serving religion.
Posted by: Moses | May 17, 2008 9:23 AM
His biography at http://www.schickele.com/pdqbio.htm says his inspiration was mostly due to vision, memory, and plagiarism:
And as for the funding:
I wonder if Orac has ever featured P.D.Q.'s Patent Medicines in his Weekly Wacky Woo series?
Posted by: blf | May 17, 2008 9:29 AM
We spend a lot of time on the bad news here, and there is a surfeit of stupidity that needs exposing. However, from this week's Swift on James Randi's site, www.randi.org, a reader points out the the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC is fully supportive of evolution. Go to the description of the Kenneth E. Behring Family Hall of Mammals at www.mnh.si.edu/mammals/ and meet your relatives.
Ciao
Posted by: JeffreyD | May 17, 2008 9:42 AM
When the west was synonymous with Christendom, then everything done in the west was Christian, both the great and the crap. Naturally, we remember the great more than the crap.
Posted by: Russell | May 17, 2008 9:45 AM
Thanks alot for the Lil Markie link. My morning sickness is bad enough as it is, but I now i feel really ill.
Posted by: dave | May 17, 2008 9:47 AM
It's fourth-rate, at best perhaps third,
This New Christian Music I've heard;
It's crap, through and through,
And you already knew
Even Jesus can't polish a turd.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | May 17, 2008 9:47 AM
I thought Amanda Marcotte had a good post on this recently when she argued that mega-church Christianity plays into the same kind of mass cultural appeal as mainstream pop music. I don't quite agree with her position as an Insufferable Music Snob (TM), but I think there's merit to the idea that the music is targetted towards a particular mass audience, and the way to appeal to that audience is to be bland and inoffensive.
Posted by: Matthew Morse | May 17, 2008 9:51 AM
Poor Christianity has been dispossessed for a couple of centuries of its traditional role as the leading authority in society. Even most Christians recognize that, although many do so with an intense kind of fear and loathing. They recognize that the age of reason and science has trumped their ideology. "By their fruits ye shall know them." By that Biblical standard, science wins and religion loses.
Those who just can't accept that God-thinking is now second best have hunkered down in the blasted choirs of their churches. They are reduced to playing a losing game of defense. Since they're playing on God's divinely inspired team (and certain to win -- the Bible says so!), their fierce faith causes them to cling to each other and to accept each other and to praise each other -- no matter what. They can spew bilge at each other and have praise showered upon them for their efforts. Intention becomes everything. If you're well-intentioned, then whatever you do must be great. That is, nothing God-inspired can be awful, so you can write pathetic poetry and have others tell you it's brilliant:
So never quit when you find you're not fit
And don't fall apart, just open your heart.
Get into the right story that's filled with mercy and glory
For you, for me, for all.
That one verse is from a "wonderful" poem that was broadcast on a Catholic radio program. There's more, but perhaps that was enough to give you the flavor. (Gag!)
The losers are spending all their time telling each other they're winners.
Posted by: Zeno | May 17, 2008 9:54 AM
Once again. Two words: Gospel Gangstas.
Posted by: danley | May 17, 2008 10:05 AM
@Zeno#23--
If nothing God-inspired can be awful... do we have any musicians around here?
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-do-i-love-thee.html
I could use a piece of that pie. Or is it pieces of silver? I can never remember.
Or maybe, just maybe, something God-inspired truly can be truly awful.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | May 17, 2008 10:07 AM
I think what's "Christian" has changed mostly due to marketing. Unless it's a ridiculously simplistic propping-up of faith, it not Christian. My sister's a Christian and she buys a lot of "Christian" literature, and most of it is self-help and bible verses thrown into a blender. The music she listens to is worse.
Godly, not good -- as many other people pointed out.
Posted by: inkadu | May 17, 2008 10:16 AM
Here I am, Cuttlefish!
speaking as a music technology major, I can't stand christian music. It's designed to have all the right chord progressions and melodic turns that make people get kind of hypnotized, but I've heard 200 christian songs and they all wash into being the 1 christian song.
Posted by: matt | May 17, 2008 10:24 AM
Xianity being synonymous with crap is the least of its worries.
Thanks to the fundie cultists, Xian is also now getting to be synonymous with "liar", "stupid", "crazy", "ignorant", and occasionally "murderer."
There is a backlash right now against the wingnut faction. Fundie and creo are now insults and, if you call a fundie creo, a "fundie creo", they usually deny it. Hard to say if the backlash is serious and long term, or if we will end up in the ruins of our civilization saying, "I told you they were crazy morons."
Posted by: raven | May 17, 2008 10:27 AM
I'm rather pleased that Denyse O'Dreary is the best Christian writer Canada can offer.
Think how depressing it would be if there were a crowd of lucid, articulate Canadians actively writing and persuading Canadian youth to give up reason in favour of Bensteinery.
Posted by: quidam | May 17, 2008 10:27 AM
I think as atheist media blog may have pointed out at some time, canada's big problem is islam right now.
Posted by: matt | May 17, 2008 10:30 AM
this is an entirely shameless plug, but who says atheists can't also do pubic service announcements? Perhaps my flaw though is being too experimental, though.
www.myspace.com/drifterchameleon
just one song.
Posted by: matt | May 17, 2008 10:33 AM
The best artists and musicians used to have to bow down before Church authority. Now that they no longer have to (thanks to the Enlightenment, the rise of Capitalism, increased contact with other cultures, etc), they don't. Those that remain and do so voluntarily are the mediocre dregs almost by definition.
Posted by: JJR | May 17, 2008 10:42 AM
"You people don't make Christianity better, you just make rock music worse!" -- Hank Hill
Posted by: Tim | May 17, 2008 10:51 AM
Beauregardian woo:
"...I was lying in bed. I was very weak at the time because I was suffering from a particularly severe form of what is now called chronic fatigue syndrome. The experience began with a sensation of heat and tingling in the spine and the chest areas. Suddenly, I merged with the infinitely loving Cosmic Intelligence (or Ultimate Reality) and became united with everything in the cosmos. This unitary state of being, which transcends the subject/object duality, was timeless and accompanied by intense bliss and ecstasy. In this state, I experienced the basic interconnectedness of all things in the cosmos, this infinite ocean of life. I also realized that everything arises from and is part of this cosmic intelligence."
Move along. Nothing to see here. Just another Deepak wannabee.
Posted by: CalGeorge | May 17, 2008 10:52 AM
Well, I'm Christian. That being said and done, I have to agree with what you have said. All Christianity is now is a farce; a pathetic attempt to make everyone feel great about Christianity and the way things are. Blech. I don't go to church because I don't want to listen to a bunch of quacks talking to me about how to worship my God. Or see the old women and old men (with a few screaming toddlers in tow, of course) glare at me because I am apparently not as "religious as them". The music is a whiny sort of complaining, a kind of "make the bleeding in my ears stop" kind of sound. The "Christian Novels" are almost always a joke; I don't need some old person telling me what to think about my life/thought/emotions. If I wanted that, I'd watch Dr. Phil; and I don't watch Dr. Phil. And Denyse O'Leary's book? *shudder*
Quacks like that make me sick. Don't let their horrible writing abilities, coupled with their complete misunderstanding of the neurological composition of the brain, make you think that all Christians are completely idiotic primates who just learned how to make fire. I believe in evolution; you cannot possibly say that all of these different species that have been proven not to have been around since the beginning of time have not evolved from some other species of creature. I believe that the brain is the brain, and that no "spirits" or "higher entities" are included; it's biological. That being said: we're not even close to figuring out how the brain actually functions as a whole. We have neurotransmitters, neurons, and a "map" of the brain. I'm not going to say that the "supernatural powers" of nuns are not feasible (Comic books - a man has to dream). But I know that someday Science will have an answer.
The maddened Droves of Christians seem to attack science at every turn. Every song, every book, almost everything Christian in present times seems to try to counter Science in some way. You cannot deny Science. As soon as the Christians get past "Creationism" (which is sprung from the book of Genesis, the first half of which is PURELY SYMBOLISM and not meant to be taken in a strictly literal sense) we shouldn't have a problem. As for myself, I already made my peace with Creationism; maybe a higher being (God) did "create" the primordial ball of lava about six billion years ago, but that being hasn't shown up since. I just want peace. It seems like the Christians are too busy fighting facts that are irrefutable to actually be Christians.
Sorry about that. My long-winded talk is over.
Posted by: Michael | May 17, 2008 10:56 AM
Atheists make the best music now.
Proof: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mp1TmPo35yM and http://youtube.com/watch?v=SIRUzqHTNh8
Posted by: Copache | May 17, 2008 11:00 AM
I've already copped to liking some Christian metal bands, now I'll admit that I appreciate the Christian art of Thomas Blackshear, whose work was skewered as softcore kitsch in a Harpers article on megachurches. Blackshear's 'The Vessel' and 'The Watcher' adorns New Life Church of Ted Haggard fame. If Blackshear is kitsch it's terrific kitsch. Plus, the angels and holy men and women depicted in his paintings are ethnically diverse. Blackshear is African-American.
Some might be familiar with Blackshear's work through Toni Morrison's book Song of Solomon; some editions use a Blackshear painting as cover art.
Posted by: Colugo | May 17, 2008 11:14 AM
As a Canadian I'm proud to see that our Christians are so wholly out of touch with decency and taste that they have inadvertently relegated themselves to a fringe group in our culture. With this kind of garbage getting nominated for awards, it'll be a cold day in hell before we even get close to producing a Bach here in the Great White North.
Posted by: Steve | May 17, 2008 11:18 AM
I'd pay good money to see a fight between Lil' Markie and Biz Markie.
Posted by: The J Train | May 17, 2008 11:21 AM
What is it with biology writers and Bach? Gould was always banging on about Bach, and he was a misery. The recitatives in the cantatas make you want to slam your hand in a car door, though some of the chorales are pretty good. You want some joyous, bonkers religious music Mozart is your man - his early masses are just fantastic.
The Gloria from the Coronation Mass or the Credo from the Credo Mass are just terrific pieces of music that must have cheered up many a suffering Catholic in Vienna.
Posted by: Peter Mc | May 17, 2008 11:24 AM
About O'Leary: Perhaps her intended readers don't see the lack of quality because when you're defending goddiness, it doesn't matter about the quality. All that matters is that someone wrote something. The fortress is safe again, buy a copy and give it as a gift.
Hugh Nibley served the same function for Mormons; even when his methods were appalling, no one seemed to mind. The readership was impressed by the appearance of scholarship.
Posted by: Daniel | May 17, 2008 11:33 AM
Doesn't O'Leary call herself a science writer and a Journalist ? I've followed her blog for a while and was absolutely amazed at her lack of objectivity and her systematic biases in favour of her religion.
There's only one thing she's mastered, it's setting up stawmen on non believers.
And this is the person who says that scientists should have an "open mind" ? I'm certainly willing to admit that NDEs are phenomenae worthy of further investigation from which we might learn interesting aspects of the human mind, but to conclude that these are evidences of an immaterial soul, and that this conclusion is what warrants the distinction of open mindendness according to this archi-biased bigot queen, my trust in her is at 0.0000 %.
How can people even fall into this ?
Posted by: negentropyeater | May 17, 2008 11:44 AM
I think Marcotte is onto something about the relationship between Christian pop culture and the mainstream, but makes a major fallacy in her dismissal of "mediocrity."
It's tempting to think that one's own aesthetic sensibilities are the most authentic, tasteful, and sophisticated, but kitsch and mediocrity are relative things. The valuation of anything changes with demographic, subculture, and time.
Are John Waters movies, The Ramones, and Francis Bacon crap or gold? I think they're the latter, but others disagree, and the tastes of not only the masses but cultural gatekeepers (critics, art academics, and not least of all, investors and patrons) changes. Avant-garde undergrounds can turn into mainstream convention and then into hokey kitsch, the same formal properties through the eyes of different observers (or even the same ones with changed tastes).
Heraclitus said that you can never step into the same river twice. I would add that nor can you see the same painting or listen to the same piece of music twice, because the associative network involved in appreciating the work - that is to say, you - has changed (and one way that it has changed is that it has already experienced that work).
Posted by: Colugo | May 17, 2008 11:45 AM
Amen - the only reason the Church ever was the leader in commissioning works of culture and art was solely because they were the ones with the most money. These artists had to do their best - and most expensive - works for the church.
Not only has this led to the misconceptions about many of the artists' faiths, but on the other hand it also led to many of the artists subverting their patron unknowingly by inserting innuendo and suggestion into those very same works. Also, it was the Catholic Church that was commissioning most of this art, and they were not only the one with the deepest pockets, but they held a monopoly on salvation and heaven and still had enough societal weight to ostracize whomever they wanted, non-compliant artists included.
As for why today's "Christian" culture is so comparatively terrible, I think it has something to do with variety. The greats of the last few generations, one example being Lennon, had a variety to not only their rhythm, words, and method, but also in their message. They seized upon the issues that were important to them, but they didn't beat them into the ground, song after song, without mixing it up a bit. Grab a contemporary Christian CD and take a look at its tracklist. Their titles and messages are so monochrome that they tend to make most of us non-Christians put them right back down - I usually get a gag-reflex action when confronted with contrived preachiness on that kind of scale. (Like when those television commercials for the Christian CD's come on, showing a crowd of thousands with their arms up and eyes closed, I can't get to the remote fast enough.)
Christian culture and art today is simply playing toward its existing fan base, and isn't even remotely appealing to those outside that base. The Christian bands that have had some mainstream success, such as Creed, have had to tone down their religiosity in their songs - the preachy, call to worship stuff that makes most Christian music unpalatable to most - in order to get on the charts, but lasting success for a Christian band in the pop culture mainstream today just doesn't seem possible.
Posted by: brokenSoldier | May 17, 2008 11:48 AM
It's not the Christians, it's the Canadians. These people watch curling for Christ's sake.
Posted by: Science Avenger | May 17, 2008 11:56 AM
What's bad about Christian music?
It's joyous! It's free of all those troubling minor chords and self centered, ungodly key signatures that the devil wants us to crave. This frees the music! It allows it to express only that which is true and eternal and inspires one to feel joy, joy in Christ! Jesus in a cloud of glory! Praise God!
And the best part is...it doesn't evolve. If anything, the opposite!
Posted by: RamblinDude | May 17, 2008 12:16 PM
An interesting piece on this topic hit slate a while back:
http://www.slate.com/id/2190482/
Posted by: phisrow | May 17, 2008 12:20 PM
And there I was, trying to figure out what it was exactly that they liked about it...
Posted by: brokenSoldier | May 17, 2008 12:21 PM
I just read your review of that horrifyingly terrible book by "neuroscientists". I love how they claim the "molecules of the neuron are replaced 10,000 times". First, to begin with, this sounds like the "facts" that anti-toxicity quacks in medicine spew. Second, of COURSE the molecules of a neuron are replaced! The ions within the membrane diffuse into/out of and are pumped into/out of the cell cytoplasm to generate an electric current. (And being a biomedical engineering student I have the unfortunate task of deriving the equations to describe this, then representing the neuron as an electrical circuit :P). That argument is just silly. To go with your metaphor Dr. Myers, it's not like re-doing the drywall on your house - it's more like the air is moving into and out of your house. Their argument is just bullshit.
Posted by: Matt | May 17, 2008 12:28 PM
I'd pay good money to see a fight between Lil' Markie and Biz Markie.
Markie Post could wipe the floor with both of them.
Posted by: QrazyQat | May 17, 2008 12:32 PM
#38: I'm inclined to say -- you call that music? But ... de gustibus non disputandum, I suppose.
#42: ditto -- though I love both Bach and Mozart.
#34, 46: Bach didn't write because he had to kowtow to his Christian masters. He wrote for the glory of God. Some artists were actually Christians back then, you know.
As for Christian contemporary music I've never liked much of it, but I do have a soft spot for Jennifer Knapp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb2mOuzgf8U&feature=related
Posted by: Michael Kremer | May 17, 2008 12:34 PM
As a punk/new wave fan who is also a folk nerd, I have to confess my love for early American country and gospel. The Carter Family. Hank Williams, Sr. Johnny Cash. Shape note. It's such powerful, raw music, even my atheist self can be moved by it. When I used to get dragged to my fundie relatives' church, I would have given anything to hear some of that instead of the schmaltzy modern christian dreck they insisted on playing.
Oddly, when I lobbied successfully to have "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" played at my grandfather's funeral, they all thought it was very weird and quaint. They don't seem to know down in Mississippi that San Francisco hipsters are all into that stuff now.
Oh, and, uh, Matt? (#33) Please do tell us more about those "pubic" service announcements...
Posted by: Oolon Colluphid | May 17, 2008 12:38 PM
Wow! Lil' Markie's mullet is fearfully and wonderfully made! I think the main reason why this Christopop is so bad is that Sturgeon's law comes into play. The people this music is marketed to have consumed a steady diet of soulless (HA!) commercial garbage out of Nashville and the Orlando boy-band mill, the Christian artists are merely the ones who couldn't make it on the straight crap-pop circuit so they use religious content to lower the bar, and move product. It's just like their "science", in that regard, sub-standard hooey.
Oh, and Mr Kremer, I have a hard spot for Jennifer Knapp.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | May 17, 2008 12:52 PM
Why are there Canadian Christian Writing Awards in the first place ? Why would people even pay attention to them ?
Never heard of French Christian Writing Awards, nor Spanish, nor British... Tried to google for it but couldn't find anything of the sort.
What a mindbuggingly stupid idea. So what are the criterias to enter the competition ?
I always thought Canadians were more rational than their southern neighbour, were I mistaken ?
Posted by: negentropyeater | May 17, 2008 12:54 PM
Brokensoldier writes:
Amen - the only reason the Church ever was the leader in commissioning works of culture and art was solely because they were the ones with the most money.
Also - the church controlled the "whip hand" if you will regarding what work might get you in trouble. I'm sure there was plenty of pornography in the middle ages; it was just carefully hidden - or it manifested itself in the pornographic torture "hell" scenes above church doors. When I was a kid, I had a minor epiphany about that particular topic - I visited the church at Conques, in the south of France, shortly after I'd first encountered the works of the Marquis De Sade. And, there, right over the church door - nude women being tortured: grilled and burned on racks, inside the church - "saints" with breasts cut off, eyes burned out.
Christian hack-work. The damned have all the fun in the lower right:
(NSFW)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Conques_JPG03.jpg
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | May 17, 2008 12:59 PM
You can find the award guidlines HERE.
All you need to do is to submit 40-50 bucks for the entry fee and you too may potentially win dozens of dollars ($200 for top prize) and other great rewards.
Oh, and you have to affirm the Apostle's Creed.
In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power...Green Lantern's light!
Or words to that effect.
Posted by: Dave S. | May 17, 2008 1:11 PM
Oh, and you have to affirm the Apostle's Creed.
Idiots. Ivan Drago killed Apostle Creed in Rocky IV way back in '85.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 17, 2008 1:26 PM
"Christianity has really gone downhill from its prior status as the font of funding for culture and art and intellectual endeavor to being the being the bottom of the barrel source for kitsch and crap."
Hear, hear! I can still get goosebumps over Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, even though I don't share its sentiments anymore.
But then, most (not all) music nowadays doesn't hold a candle to that of the old masters.
Posted by: mikespeir | May 17, 2008 1:29 PM
"I always thought Canadians were more rational than their southern neighbour, were I mistaken ?" - negentropyeater
Yes. Never underestimate the ability of Canadians to be different from Americans for the sake of being different from Americans. Obviously, this would instantly lead one to appear more rational. (how many people can I insult at the same time?)
The central question is: what makes for great art?
Come out of your corners swinging!
Posted by: Jams | May 17, 2008 1:32 PM
At least those days, artists tried to come up with "convincing arguments";
The most concrete description of heaven and hell I've seen is still that of Hieronymus Bosch;
http://www.museodelprado.es/pagina-principal/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/zoom/1/obra/el-jardin-de-las-delicias-o-la-pintura-del-madrono/oimg/0/
(at the museo del prado in Madrid, one of my favourite paintings)
Posted by: negentropyeater | May 17, 2008 1:33 PM
assuming this is not some send up (i didnt watch it all), thats a testament to his audiences general intellectuual and aesthetic capacity.
Anybody who can sit and watch such a grotesque display from such a badly presented person (hes morbidly obese, has a really bad hair cut and dress sense and sounds and talks shit)must be in a severe state of neoteny, most normal kids at age 10 would find that somewhat disquieting, a 3 year old wouldnt know any better.
the audience is pathetic, i dont care what they do for jobs or how 'nice ' they are. Thats one lousy lot of unspohisticated imbeciles.
Posted by: extatyzoma | May 17, 2008 1:54 PM
I haven't gotten to the other links, yet. I'm stuck on Li'l Markie.
What in the... wow. What the hell was that??
Posted by: revulo | May 17, 2008 1:56 PM
'When did "Christian" become a synonym for "crap"?'
The answer, of course, is when certain groups of Christians decided to pull back from mainstream society and form their own book clubs. The main Christian base -- the average people who walk past you on the street, as good a person as your average atheist -- that continued to contribute to the mainstream had their best works embraced by mainstream society. Case in point, the works of C.S. Lewis, and Madeleine L'Engle -- two obviously Christian writers who sometimes have their books challenged in certain schools because of "unchristian" themes (C.S. Lewis has a witch in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", you know, and "A Wrinkle in Time" mentions Jesus and Buddha in the same sentence, favourably).
Posted by: James Bow | May 17, 2008 2:29 PM
I had to watch a lot of this stuff in an evangelical-dominated high school I went to for three years. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was the kind of things fundies actually watch. The moment of clarity came when they showed a movie (or maybe it was a TV series) about a youth pastor that included a scene where he hit it off with some girl (somewhere younger than him but older than his charges). In any normal movie, the parting scene between them would feature -- nay, DEMAND -- a kiss between the two. What actually happened is that she just smiled awkwardly and walked off. Cheese factor aside, the contrived chastity was what broke the whole genre for me -- even more offensive IMHO than a gratuitous sex scene.
Posted by: Brian X | May 17, 2008 2:46 PM
Slate recently published an article about the crappiness of Chrisian pop culture. Here it is from RD.net: http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,2593,Pop-Goes-Christianity,Slate
Posted by: Jackal | May 17, 2008 2:48 PM
I'll second Dave's recommendation of the Slacktivist's series on the "Left Behind" books (search for link above). I really look forward to the L.B. posts on Friday -- snark about the worst books ever written -- delicious.
Posted by: kw | May 17, 2008 2:53 PM
Christians - since the days of Peter - have always had their "own clubs" for everything, including books. In days past, if you didn't conform to the style of art advocated by these "clubs," you'd be excommunicated or otherwise ostracized. Instead of Christian authors pulling away from the mainstream, it has actually been mainstream society pulling away from the overtly Christian market, and society has been doing so for the last few hundred years.
And no one championing C.S. Lewis for his religion would "challenge" his texts as non-Christian. Actually, it is quite the opposite. He is touted - in Christian literary circles - as a master of symbol and allegory, while J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter series is maligned as satanic and unholy. And when you read critics who are not beholden to the Good Book, you find that most consider Rowling's stories to be the ones that use such symbolism and allegory more effectively and come across as more entertaining. While Lewis and Narnia are literary household names, as an allegory, the series is a bit elementary. In the four year course of getting a degree in Lit, I had to read a lot of Lewis, and aside from The Screwtape Letters, I didn't really read anything that was all that distinguished on its own merits.
The difference in the entire situation has a direct relationship to the decline of the power of the Church to make society conform to what it believes is valuable as art. A millennia ago, religion controlled mainstream culture. These days, it has been replaced as arbiter of all things art by those who have actually studied the individual forms they critique - in a word, experts. And now that they do not control the list, they have withdrawn into the demographic where there works get the reverence they seek, which is of course themselves.
Posted by: brokenSoldier | May 17, 2008 2:56 PM
@#42
Speaking of Canadians, Gould, and Bach...
So You Want to Write a Fugue
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 17, 2008 3:05 PM
And no one championing C.S. Lewis for his religion would "challenge" his texts as non-Christian.
Not so. The book, and "A Wrinkle in Time" have both been challenged by so-called Christians because of what they saw as "un-Christian" elements. Which just shows you how loony those individuals were. The rest of us average Christians were quite happy to read those books alongside J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
Christians - since the days of Peter - have always had their "own clubs" for everything, including books.
Not all Christians. Certainly not this Christian. Yes, I probably don't think the way the evangelical fundamentalists want me to think, and it's possible that they'd shun or excommunicate me if I gave a damn about it, but for my circle of friends, family and acquaintances, which include Christians, atheists, Buddhists and Wiccans, it's the isolationists' loss, not ours.
Posted by: James Bow | May 17, 2008 3:23 PM
"The answer, of course, is when certain groups of Christians decided to pull back from mainstream society and form their own book clubs." - James Bow
I agree. Good art struggles to get out of ghettos, not to get into them. Christian art suffers all the pitfalls of genre art in general. Didn't we just have a conversation about vampire novels?
Posted by: Jams | May 17, 2008 3:35 PM
I always wanted to write a fugue, but, whenever I did write a fugue, I'd have a fugue, and then totally forget what it was I was writing in the first place.
Posted by: Stanton | May 17, 2008 3:39 PM
James Bow @ # 71:
It certainly is refreshing to hear you say that you read Rowling "alongside" Lewis's works happily (though the two definitely don't stand shoulder-to-shoulder concerning their literary merit by any means), but that doesn't change the fact that the majority of Christian critics belittled Rowling for depicting magic and wizardry, and classified her works as unfit for Christians to let their children experience. And these same critics take the Narnia Chronicles and look at them through rosy colored glasses, calling his stories uplifting and symbolic, even despite their comparative medicority in the way he delivers his story. But the fact that you used the word "loony" to describe anyone doubting the Christian merits of Lewis in his works simply proves that the statement of mine you quoted is accurate.
Again with the No True Scotsman argument... It is a plain fact that religion dominated culture and art for well over a thousand years, so the fact that you're more conciliatory than the mainstream church does nothing to change the truth of the fact that the leaders of Christianity kept a firm hold on society's expression, whether that expression be political, economic, or cultural. It's nice that you don't do the evil things that those who represent and lead your faith do, but that doesn't mean they don't happen anyway, because they certainly do.
Posted by: brokenSoldier | May 17, 2008 3:56 PM
I've got a few people trying to persuade me to review their Christian apocalyptic fantasy novels
That's... interesting. Why would an author of such fiction approach a prominent atheist for a review? I'm sure you'd write fairly, acknowledging any positive qualities of the work, but since Christian end-times fiction is inevitably demented and cruel, it's unlikely to be a good review overall. Is this a reverse psychology thing: "this godless evilutionist hated the book, therefore it must be good"?
Posted by: Moggie | May 17, 2008 4:08 PM
I always wanted to write a fugue, to write a fugue I wanted
...........I always wanted to write a fugue, to write a fugue I wanted
.....................I always wanted to write a fugue, to write a fugue I wanted
A fugue...a fugue...a fugue a fugue a fugue...
.......A fugue...a fugue...a fugue a fugue a fugue...
..............A fugue...a fugue...a fugue a fugue a fugue...
.....................A fugue...a fugue...a fugue a fugue a fugue...
But then I thought, nah...
Posted by: RamblinDude | May 17, 2008 4:12 PM
PZ, how in the bloody fucking hell can you even read that shit? I can get through maybe 2 pages before my head starts spinning uncontrollably. (Can't stand to listen to it either. It took me 4 days to get 2/3 of the way through the Infidel Guy's "debate" with Kent Hovind, after which I gave up and deleted it from my iTunes.)
=hugs the stuffing out of Dave @#8 and Cuttlefish @#23= and I'm not a hugger........
I've never made any bones here about the fact that I'm a Baptist. But my kind of Baptists dig real science, vote for Obama, welcome and affirm GLBT folks as full partners (including celebrating same-sex unions and ordaining gay/lesbian clergy), acknowledge separation of church and state as one of our denomination's founding principles (something the Southern Baptists have conveniently forgotten), and serve as escorts for women's health clinics - because of faith. So I suppose I have a warped view of things. I'm even proud to call