Since joining the blog in June of 2012 (yes, it’s been over a year now and yes, the romance is dead), I’ve often made reference to a mysterious musical figure by the name of “Steve Taylor”.
With the end of Year 2 fast approaching, I figure it’s about time I actually explain who this guy was.
Other than a man with impeccable taste in clothing…
Posted in Christianity, music, religion
Tagged 1985, 80s, 90s, album, Blue Like Jazz, Chevelle, Christian, Christianity, Culture, film, gospel, Grammy, I blew up the clinic real good, I Predict 1990, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, movie, MTV, Newsboys, producer, Robert Tilton, rock, Rock 'N' Roll a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, satanic, satire, Sixpence None The Richer, Squint, Steve Taylor, Steve Taylor & The Perfect Foil, subculture, Tarrot, Taylor, televangelists, voodoo
Yeah, we’re not really gonna be using gifs for this one…
EVAN: Ladies and gentlemen, I realize that the intro to this feature is usually a fairly funny, light-hearted bit, but this time around we’re going to bring the tone way down, because our topic for the week is funerals.
I actually had no idea that we would even have a CWC due to Gordon not being around, but it turns out that his absence was due to the very thing we hope to discuss.
GORDON: Now this is something that Evan and I alike have some experience in. Last year, Evan lost one of his grandparents. Last week, I lost one of mine.
Just a few minutes ago, I got back from the funeral (well, technically it was a “viewing/visitation”- whether or not there’s a difference is something I hope we can cover), so today we’re going to be having a discussion on the subject of grieving, cultural depictions of mortality, and other such stuff. Continue reading
Posted in Culture War Correspondence, family, morality, religion
Tagged burial, casket, cemetery, cremation, Culture War Correspondence, death, family, family members, funerals, life, memories, morality, mortality, organ donation, orson scott card, religion, remains, remember, Speaker for the Dead, tombstone, viewing, wake
Last week I mentioned that I had stumbled across an online publication called Primer, marketing itself as a young man’s magazine for coping with life after college. I noted it bore a lot of similarities to Art of Manliness, and I had stated I wanted to compare and contrast the two once I had read up a bit more.
I’m not going to do that.
Don’t get me wrong, I did read Primer (and re-read Art of Manliness)- it’s just that the differences between the two aren’t going to take up an entire post to list off. Instead, I’m going to be looking over Primer, which is a pretty dang solid publication all around and fully deserving of a post all to itself.
Let’s get started. Continue reading
Posted in internet, religion, writing, Youth
Tagged 40s, 50s, Art of Manliness, class, classism, economy, faith, Feminist, finance, Generation Y, issues, job, magazine, man, Manly, masculinist, Men, millennial, millennials, online, primer, publication, race, racial issues, racism, religion, search, woman, women, writers, writing
I can think of no better way to introduce this subject than with Stephen Colbert’s reaction to the news:
<this is where I would embed the video, if Comedy Central, Yahoo Video, and WordPress would just get along already>
Before I continue I want to point out that the original Captain Marvel was a Kree alien who actually went by the name “Mar-Vell”, and when taking that into account Darlene Rodriguez’s pronunciation actually has a fair amount of validity.
With that out of the way, let’s take a more in-depth look at the young Kamala Khan.
Easily one of the most fascinating aspects about this new character, at least from a writer’s perspective, is how she came into existence. It all began when Marvel editor Sana Amanat, who grew up as a Muslim, began recounting stories of her childhood with fellow editor Steve Wacker. The two moved forward from there, “[noting] the dearth of female superhero series and, even more so, of comics with cultural specificity.” Continue reading
Posted in comics, Islam, race, religion, writing
Tagged Adrian Alphona, Canadian, Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, comics, Dust, Excalibur, Faiza Hussain, G. Willow Wilson, immigrant, immigrant literature, Immigrants, Islam, Kamala Khan, Mar-Vell, Marvel, miss marvel, Ms. Marvel, Muslim, Pakistan, Pakistani, Patty, personal experience, race, religion, Sana Amanat, Sooraya Qadir, stephen colbert, Steve Wacker, TVO
As someone with an unabashed love for pop music there was only one thing to do when I found out that Lady Gaga had collaborated with R. Kelly on the infectious earworm that is “Do What U Want”: listen to it as much as humanly possible. Apologies to the more sensitive for the image featured in the video.
It wasn’t long after posting it to Facebook that my CWR co-writer commented with a clearly sarcasm-laced “Great.” to which I reiterated to her what I just said above about my unabashed love for pop music. Then, of course, she made a comment about the lyrics being worthy of kitten-filled high school inspiration posters and I was forced to look them up. Continue reading
Posted in feminism, morality, music, religion, sex
Tagged Christian heretics, Do What U Want, do what you want with my body, fornication, great, Lady Gaga, lyrics, morality, music, physical, R. Kelly, sex, sleeping around
I’ll admit, going into this all, I hadn’t intended to write more than that first post on the exodus we’re currently seeing in Western Christian churches. That done, I guess I felt that there were some more questions to be asked and issues to be pointed to with Western Christianity as a whole, notably the treatment of theology and “pietism”, which shapes so much of Western Christian culture, as well as the question of biblical inerrancy, which I wrote today.
It strikes me that we really ever only take one of two routes when dealing with religion- we’re either unquestioning or we’re dismissive. I don’t think Christianity is so unimpeachable that it can’t be indicted and I don’t think it’s so unimportant that it can be ignored. Whatever your stance on it, these beliefs, traditions, and values have shaped and continue to shape culture and history in this nation and around the world. It deserves the courtesy of us grappling with it on its own turf- no matter where you’re coming from, I’m hopeful this will have at least offer a venue for some more sincere discussion than we typically enjoy. This series may have ended, the conversation, I’m hoping, is just about to begin.
The three posts in this series are listed below:
I. The End Of The Church As We Know It
III. Biblical Inerrancy
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