Head full of sermons, mouth full of spiders.

The New York Times Magazine (second only to the Simpsons on the list of worthwhile Sunday distractions) has an interesting article about Jay Bakker, son of Jimmy and Tammy Faye. He seems like an interesting man. He's covered with the tattoos and piercings that you'd expect to see on the progeny of any televangelist, and he's got a bone to pick with mainline American Christianity.

He's apparently been quite effective at corralling converts in punk rock circles on the West Coast, offering an alternative to the ever-increasing number of megachurches and miscellaneous Fallwellian idiocy. Bakker describes the M.O. of his organization thusly:

'I'm not saying something's right, something's wrong,'' he said. ''I don't have a right to judge. God's called us to love people no matter who they are or what they've done. . . . You can't change people. You can for a little while, but eventually they'll rebel or be hurt or realize what's going on. I'm not in that rat race. I'm just in the game to say, 'This is who Jesus is, he loves you for who you are and hopefully you see that in my life and you see the positive things that are coming from it.'''

I can't help but be a bit wary of all this emphasis placed on 'love.' It's not that I deny the primacy of love and its centrality to Christian living and ethics. Rather, it seems like the kind of love getting kicked around in this circle is little better than the platitudinous John Lennon groove-in type of love. You've heard that song "Love is all you need, la la la blah blah etcetera..." I think that's how it goes.

Anyways, the world isn't going to improve if Christians embark on a big "bed-in." Sitting around in our pj's and writing vapid songs isn't going to change shit. Effective Christian living calls for lots of love, yes, but also political action, critical thinking, accountability and discernment between right and wrong. I'm not sure that Bakker's conception of love leaves room for these qualities. It encourages us to love each other for who we are, implying we don't need to change who we are. He's got the "love each other" part right, but maybe he should drop the "for who we are," and attach a "for who we can be, if we are nurtured and held accountable in a healthy community based on fidelity and grace." I dunno.

Much of this reeks of the gushy sentimentality that seems to plague youth-oriented Christianity. How does that praise chorus go? "You're all I want, You're all I need..." That's the gist of it, at least. Personally, I "want" a bowl of cereal in the morning. I "need" to pay the phone bill. In fact, I "need" and "want" lots of things while I'm contemplating the divine. You wouldn't know it if you heard me singing that song, though. My time would certainly be better spent poring over something by Isaac Watts.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of most of what Bakker is doing. I'd just like to see him embark on a more sophisticated understanding of what God requires of us. Perhaps he's already doing this. Certainly the act of setting himself apart from mainstream Christianity implies more than the wishy-washy love stuff he articulates above. Still, his "I don't have a right to judge" waffling leaves me unconvinced.
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Speaking of John Lennon, did anyone see that celebrity benefit concert for the Tsunami victims last Saturday night? If you didn't, you missed Madonna bleating her way through "Imagine." The song's pretty melody disguises it for what it really is: an adult nursery rhyme, a coarse chuckle of an idea put to music. Consider this line:

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky...

Madonna, you don't really mean that - I've seen your Kabbalah bracelet. And don't you think that an affirmation of atheism in a song performed for the 'benefit' of people located in one of the most profoundly religious regions of the globe may be just a bit offensive? Please go back to bathing in Evian and spare us your nonsense.

Then again, maybe I'm just crabby today. A little incoherent, too.