A couple of weeks ago a camp of god-bloggers in the US changed the way faith bloggers debate a bit. They didn’t really, what these posters reminded me of was pamphleteers, be they historically political, religious or cultural.I see the Pyromaniac posters as online Chick Tracts directed at a group of people who are not ‘us.’ Art can be properly subversive. Or not. It can just be mean. Pyromaniacs put a lot of effort into these posters, but they have merely changed the medium from text to graphics.
My response was sadness. Religion is divisive these days, it always has been, we just have more immediate ways of focusing on the walls and cracks, slips and falls, and the other; ‘them.’ There are faith blogs that gleefully foster division, bloggers that thrive on that fostering. Looking at one or two of these posters is like getting caught in a light downpour, looking at them all together is like being in a flood.
Like I said, the Pyromaniac posters grieved me. A tech friend who has prudently walked away from this kind of debate made the one below, and he wisely noted changing the medium doesn’t change anything; this isn’t dialogue, nor is it a correction, it is just making fun of people you don’t like.
Here are Pyromaniacs posters, telling fellow believers we are worthy only of ridicule. Each poster is linked to a blog, (locker room cleverness) deviant, presented as ’motivational’ art.
The intent is just plain sad, no one needs a theology degree to figure that out.
Contrast the maturity in the posters made by people Pyromaniacs were mocking.These posters use theological and cultural terms for the emergent movement Pyromaniacs calls chaos. For healthy interdependent self deprecating humour check out The nakedpastor or Dave Walker’s the Cartoon blog. Not a mean, reactive bone in their bodies or their body of work.
Published 1 year, 5 months ago
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Well said and trés sad, Bene.
There’s a difference between having those sorts of opinions in a private setting, and sending them out across the internet world to set up fellow Christians as a source of ridicule. You never know when a young impressionable person is going to come across them and take a life-changing wrong turn away from Christ and/or Christians as a result.
I think part of the failure to take responsibility for the potential result of these kinds of actions is that some of the hard-core predestinationists think what they do doesn’t going to make any final difference. God will do what He will. They evidently assume this gives them some kind of “immunity” or absolution for their behavior.
Julana:
What an interesting train of thought! The idea that believing as some do in levels of predestination would be taken as licence to sin never crossed my mind. You’ve given me things to think about.
Should we sin so grace may abound doesn’t quite fit this train of thinking does it? It’s like a man made exempt clause.
I confess I’m not in real life touch with people that actually take Calvinism to this extreme, I’ve merely read about it. Thanks for this.
“Should we sin so grace may abound…”
Here I’d thought the Emergent Church movement had eliminated that verse from their Bibles.
I haven’t eliminated it from mine.