Of Seismology, Media Messages, and the TV Evangelist Invasion of Berkeley

Of Seismology, Media Messages, and the TV Evangelist Invasion of Berkeley

About once a day, I check out the USGS Earthquake Center and check out what’re today’s twitches on the global seismology network. Kind of a dweeby Ph.D. thing to do, y’think? Can’t help it, I am a dweeby Ph.D. Besides, if you live on the San Andreas fault like I do at the moment, I’m sure you get it. You might be logging on same time I am. Especially if the ground shakes. Which it did three times last week. And I know why. No, it’s not because of the crustal displacement inferred from the moment tensor solutions of each of the three temblors. Yes, that last sentence is in English. It’s because the TV evangelists have landed.

You read that right. The TV evangelists have landed. In Berkeley. That Berkeley. The one in California, dude. Land of the million-dollar gray-haired hippies and the homeless black guys with their shopping carts and the dreaded Jesus Seminar, where they dare to accept evolution and doubt the Virgin Birth. It’s to the Seminary in Berkeley that the TV evangelists have come. At the Seminary’s invitation. To save the liberal priests … from themselves.

Y’see, somebody up on Holy Hill (that’s what they call the seminary, the Graduate Theological Union, around here) finally figured out that the fundamentalists and evangelicals were copping all the action. (What was that you said? Duh? So you’ve been reading the posts on this site too, have you?) How can this be, if the fundamentalist message is so, well, fundamentalist? If it’s not what they’re saying, maybe it’s how they’re saying it? Maybe if we fly them in and pay them an honorarium to teach a class or two, they’ll tell us.

So they did. And the TV evangelists are here. I can just imagine …

“Message Delivery Lesson 1. Bob Dylan and the Beatles electrified music in 1964. It has been electrified ever since. You are not going to get the attention of today’s Christian with an upright piano and an 80-year-old lady belting Leaning on the Everlasting Arms in a voice that would drive the mountain lion to extinction. Hymns? Those tunes were whack when Queen Victoria was a girl. And who reads music these days? You don’t want them singing anyway, shouting’s just fine. Give your ears a break.

“There are Christian rock bands. Use them. There are Christian multimedia shows. Use them. There’s this thing called 'production values'. Learn them. There are times when real people go out. Schedule your services at those times. Sunday morning at 9 AM is not one of them. Everyone not still asleep is hung over, or working. And keep the message simple. You want people to holler, not think. If they’re thinking, they’re not putting money in the plate. Capisce?"

Now I’m sitting there reading all this, and I’m cracking up. Why? Well, go to the author profile and read the number. I remember when these boomers really were hippies. When they discovered the media and turned the various forms to their own devices. What was their mantra? The media is the message. Talk about being strung up on your own rope!

Then I look again. Where have I seen these techniques before? Advertising! Whose message is Stop thinking and buy! Where did advertising learn all its tricks? Propaganda! The message of which is Stop thinking and follow! Who pioneered mass-media propaganda techniques? A spindly, dweeby Ph.D. type with one leg shorter than the other and a massive inferiority complex, who talked of turning little worms into an omnipotent force with his production values.

His name? Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Yeah. That Goebbels. Nuremberg, Sieg Heil, and all that.

Where’s that 80-year-old lady?

- O Ceallaigh

All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

» O Ceallaigh's Felloffatruck Publications |

| 1258 reads

I saw this in the "Last

Submitted by IntricateGirl on October 31, 2006 - 9:30am.

I saw this in the "Last Viewed" section and had to click on it. How odd that it creeps up right now.

A few days ago, one of my minister friends wrote about the U2charist. Bono's songs lead the entire worship, and the message is on helping out nations in poverty that are crushed by AIDS epidemics. Sure it's a great message.

And I just finished reading about a group of "macho men" who gather together in the name of Christ, talk about sex, and sing empowering songs like "Grow a Pair".

And although I joked back and forth with my friend who said she was thinking about adding a "Marilyn Manson Morning Service", this isn't going to be what gets me into a church pew. I can rock out to U2 anytime I want. I can send all my money to starving AIDS-stricken orphans in Africa without a church taking their cut off the top. And church was always my respite when I was dating to convince me that nice, metrosexual, polite gentlemen still exist. I can go to any sports bar during a football game and listen to guys trying to find an excuse for their crudeness (we're a little rabid about sports here).

No, media won't do it. Advertising won't do it. I'm thrilled to death that the United Methodist Church is accepting of homosexuals, and their commercial with the little boy and the kite is cute, but the only reason I have to set foot in a Methodist church is a wedding or a funeral.

The packaging is fantastic, but someday people are going to have to unwrap it and form their own opinions about the product inside.

» login or register to post comments

I don't go for the church packaging either, Intricate

Submitted by o ceallaigh on October 31, 2006 - 10:00am.

But you knew that. Unfortunately, religion is a number's game like everything else, and Christian grunge is winning. Of course, no one's counting the casualties of the U2charist, those who come for the show and then find there's nothing at the end but the credit card bill for the tickets.

I have found, in my life, that about one church in ten, of the ones I visit, actually celebrate the human spirit in a substantial, meaningful way. Who may or may not have a good show (and usually I wind up being part of it), but they always do have real people under the costumes. The ones you can have dinner with, crash on their couches if you need to, cry or laugh on their shoulders, etc. etc. Those are the ones to which I'll return. The ones who have something of a clue who this God dude/chick is. The ones who get Ambrose Bierce's words from the Devil's Dictionary:

The dwelling of a leader of the church is a mansion, or palace. That of the Founder of his religion was a field, or wayside. There is progress.

» login or register to post comments

The cynic in me says that

Submitted by IntricateGirl on October 31, 2006 - 10:15am.

The cynic in me says that such qualities are rare in PEOPLE in general, and that finding a whole group of them together in one location would be even more rare.

My friend that I mentioned above, the Priest, may never have her own congregation. If she does, it is unlikely I will ever set foot in her church because she is moving half-way across the world. But that has nothing to do with her being a minister.

» login or register to post comments

rarity

Submitted by o ceallaigh on October 31, 2006 - 10:23am.

The challenge, IG, is that finding such qualities in people with whom you and I might relate is rare. But the cliche is "each one has a place", and most people find their places, eventually.

The metaphor of the pentecostal "speaking in tongues", um, speaks to this. There are many ways to hear the message. And because we are social animals, and we have survived, rather well I might add, having tripled our population in a mere 50 years, I would say most of us have heard some form of the message.

Now if we could only manage to figure out how to keep the people who hear the message in a different language from mine from trying to beat me up ...

» login or register to post comments

Hear, hear.

Submitted by IntricateGirl on October 31, 2006 - 10:35am.

"Now if we could only manage to figure out how to keep the people who hear the message in a different language from mine from trying to beat me up ..."

In researching an article, I stumbled upon a discussion where a Muslim asked whether they were allowed to use mouthwash during fasting. The answer he received is that not only may mouthwash be used, extra care should be taken during fasting because they don't want to have any issue that non-believers can point to and use as an excuse to hate Muslims. If their breath is so horrid that it causes a non-believer to think of Muslims as being dirty, and they thereby do not associate with them because of it, that does not serve their religion well.

"Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way." - Romans 14:13

Yet if you asked the question, "Which two religions want to knock each other off the face of the Earth", these are the two that most people will answer.

And finally, it's not easy to type about such things as humanity and a common spirit when I'm giggling my fool head off at Pentacostal puns. :D

» login or register to post comments

Online users:

Today's:

Last viewed: