Month: July 2009

Is Brüno Good For The Gays?

Dennis Lim says yes:

Brüno is, in more than one sense, beyond gay. Is any viewer really going to think that this hyperbolically crass and ridiculous narcissist—who wears mesh tops and eye-searing lederhosen, refers to his adopted African baby as a "dick magnet," and drops faux-Teutonic vulgarities about his waxed arschenhaller—represents "the mainstream of the gay community," as one troubled Hollywood "gay insider" put it? And are the gays who anxiously anticipate the mocking, hostile reactions of the unenlightened really that blind to Brüno's obvious counteroffensive strategy, which is to make that mocking, hostile idiocy the subject of his film? The beauty—and perhaps even the moral logic—of Baron Cohen's method is that those who're not in on his joke are invariably the butts of the joke.

David Rakoff says no:

Brüno's homosexuality comes bundled up with a lot of unattractive software. He is an open hydrant of empty, venal ignorance, a fame-chasing, grandiose fucktard, all because he is a cockaholic (his term). The repeated pistoning of sucking dick has scrambled his brains, just as surely as a muddler pulverizes mint leaves. Make no mistake: It is gay sex that has made Brüno stupid. Perez Hilton has the sobriety, moral rectitude and class of Lewis Lapham by comparison.

I haven't seen it yet but will report back.

An Islamist Worth Reading

Marc Lynch highlights a new book:

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, probably the single most influential living Sunni Islamist figure, has just written a major book entitled Fiqh al-Jihad (The Jurisprudence of Jihad) which decisively repudiates al Qaeda's conception of jihad as a "mad declaration of war upon the world." At the same time, he strongly rejects what he calls efforts to remove jihad completely from Islam, and strongly reaffirms the duty of jihad in resisting the occupation of Muslim lands, specifically mentioning Israel as the arena of legitimate resistance.  Qaradawi's intervention has thus far received no attention at all in the English-language media. It should, because of his vast influence and his long track record as an accurate barometer of mainstream Arab views.

Corporatizing God

Joseph Clarke compares the histories of megachurches and corporations: 

Lakewood and America's twelve hundred other megachurches — congregations that draw between two thousand and fifty thousand people per weekend — are not simply vast machines for passive spectatorship. Sunday services are convergences of worshipers who spend their weeknights at prayer groups, Bible studies, ministries, and missionary training sessions. Successful megachurches are like well-run companies, with intricate corporate structures devised to keep each member personally engaged; their pastors are like chief executives, maximizing the productivity of laborers in the evangelism enterprise. Jumbotron notwithstanding, the architectural and organizational tropes of the megachurch are best compared to those of the modern white-collar workplace.

(Hat tip: Kottke)

Which Prophet Are You?

Father Stephen Freeman doesn't approve of how people abuse the bible:

[R]evelations of yet another politician's infidelity offered one aspect worthy of comment (or so it seems to me). That is the use of the Bible as a means for reflecting on one's personal situation in life. There is a long history of just such usage. The pilgrim fathers who came to America read their situation into the Bible (or the Bible into their situation) with the result that white pilgrims were seen as fulfilling the role of the Israelites in this, the Promised Land, while native Americans were cast in the role of Canaanites. Thus generations of Joshuas arose feeling Biblically justified in the genocide of America's native population. Some of that Biblical reading continues to echo in the popular imagination to this day. It was Bad theology in the 17th century and it is bad theology today. Stated in a fundamental way: you are not a Bible character.

(Hat tip: Dreher)

The Inversion Of Christianity

Clint Rainey reports that the "Prosperity Gospel" is back in fashion:

This movement is, if anything, durable. Neither incredulity of its methods nor bad publicity, like the cadre of TBN televangelists under Senate investigation for their Robin Leach-voice-over-worthy lifestyles, affects its salability. After all, Osteen's sunny view is that his message has "increased relevancy in a time of economic uncertainty." His church Lakewood generated $76 million last year, the most in the United States. He says attendance is up since the economy tanked. Hard-on-their-luck audiences are more likely to buy in to the message's fire-insurance appeal–the very "too big to fail" clout that attracted traders to AIG or Lehman Bros. until they failed them, too. For evangelicals, the culture wars trump self-policing; attempts to intellectually defrock Prosperity preachers come episodically from jailbird Jim Bakker, too-nice Rick Warren, or little-known leaders like Frederick Price of the National Baptist Convention, who compared Prosperity boosters to pimps. The signs do not point to a denouement.

 Dreher testifies:

These preachers are pimps of false hope and salvation by materialism. It is a cruel irony — and a testimony to human gullibility — that they continue to prosper amid hard times.

Wanted: Living Kidney Donors

Virginia Postrel explains just how easy it would be to end a huge amount of human suffering:

Since the current transplant system extols altruism, one way to end the list would be to find more altruists. With, say, 50,000 new living donors, deceased donation could easily pick up the slack. Again, the numbers aren’t that big. The Southern Baptist Convention includes 42,000 member churches; the United Methodist Church, whose Web site earlier this year featured the quote, “As United Methodists, we’re life savers,” counts more than 34,000 U.S. congregations. If each congregation produced just one new living donor, the waiting list would disappear. But kidney donation is a more visceral mission than mainstream religious groups want to contemplate. The only sect to adopt kidney donation as a formal cause is a tiny Australia-based group called Jesus Christians; instead of lauding them, critics point to their donations as evidence that they’re a cult.

We can do better.