Archive for April 23rd, 2007

Christian Behaving Badly… part 36 trillion

I stopped posting about what I like to call “chrisitians behaving badly,” but today I must post again (pedophile pastors and swindling sextons get a little old after a while.)

At the American Repertory Theater down in Cambridge a monologue was interrupted by a surreal act of “christian” [cowardice, avarice, malice, spite, bad taste, mass-hysteria], I don’t even know what to say, except I’m sorry. A group of “christians” walked out on a Performance of Mike Daisey’s invincible summer, but did so in a most disturbing fashion.

From Mike’s own blog posting (comments on the ART’s blog):

Last night’s performance of INVINCIBLE SUMMER was disrupted when eighty seven members of a Christian group walked out of the show en masse, and chose to physically attack my work by pouring water on and destroying the original of the show outline.

I’m still dealing with all the ramifications, but here’s what it felt like from my end: I am performing the show to a packed house, when suddenly the lights start coming up in the house as a flood of people start walking down the aisles–they looked like a flock of birds who’d been startled, the way they all moved so quickly, and at the same moment…it was shocking, to see them surging down the aisles. The show halted as they fled, and at this moment a member of their group strode up to the table,  stood looking down on me and poured water all over the outline, drenching everything in a kind of anti-baptism.

FYI, there’s some foul language in the clip, if you’re so inclined to avoid that, please do.

Thanks to BoingBoing

Thoughts from The Apostolic Fathers

For when outsiders hear the sayings of God from our mouths they are astonished at their beauty and greatness. Then when they discover that our actions do not match our words, they turn from astonishment to blasphemy, saying that our faith is some kind of myth and error. For, on the one hand, they hear from us that God has said, “It is no great accomplishment for you to love those who love you; it is great if you love your enemies and those who hate you.” And when they hear these things they are astonished by their extraordinary goodness. But when they see that we fail to love not only those who hate us, but even those who love us, they ridicule us and the name is blasphemed.

Second Clement 13:3-24

note: The letter known as second Clement is overwhelmingly considered to not have been written by Clement of Rome and was more than likely a simple homiletic exhortation to an Egyptian Christian community sometime in the second century. It contains a strong emphasis on works, coupled with mysticism of the flesh that could indicate the presence of teachings that would eventually be associated with gnostic movements later,in the second and third centuries.

Any postings from outside of scripture do not mean that I endorse the reading of these materials as supplemental to scripture, in this case they are informative of early Christian thought (would one want to think of what would happen if Joel Osteen’s books were the only surviving Christian material from our era?)

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