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| courtesy Bad Vestments blog |
Who really cares if the vestment, or your religion for that matter, is 'relevant'? People who want life to be 'relevant' don't want it to be religious because they've already concluded that religion isn't relevant or they would have been religious, and I respect them for their honesty.
What I mean is this: if you want to change the world, occupy Wall Street or save the polar bears or bring in a new economic order or equality for gays or help feed poor children or be nicer to old people or feed the hungry or house the homeless or any other good and wonderful thing--you don't really need religion to do it. Just get on and be a nice, good, helpful change the world kind of person.
If I were a 'good atheist' intent on changing the world, I'd sort of resent the religious people trying to crash my party. I'd say, "You're supposed to be about saving souls from hell and forgiveness and the blood of Jesus and casting out demons and transubstantiation and all that stuff aren't you? Why don't you mind your own business and butt out?"
Let's face it, real religion--that has to do with a transaction with the supernatural, the transformation of souls into glorious eternal beings and their action in the world--that's not immediately 'relevant' for most people, so when religious people try to get relevant they end up being neither religious nor relevant. That's why goofy vestments like the one above pretty well illustrate the vapidity of such an enterprise.
On the other hand, of course, real religion that is timeless and simply tells and tries to live the old, old story of God's mysterious, redemptive love for mankind will continue to touch lives, transform people and transform the world and end up being totally relevant.
So, to stand things on their head, if you want to be irrelevant try to be relevant. If you want to be relevant aim to be irrelevantly religious and you'll end up being relevant despite yourself.
Among Hipsters, the young twenty something trendy crowd, which as much as I try to avoid, I inevitably get sucked in, have a phrase: "Jumped the shark." When something no longer is the up to the minute coolest thing, it jumps the shark. Therefore, Hipsters will literally say it jumped the shark, after it having been popular for a couple days. Just thought this would add to your point here.
ReplyDeleteThe late great Joe Sobran once said that it is awesome and humbling to be part of a Church that is centuries behind the times, and deeply embarrassing to be part of a Church that is always five minutes behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up.
ReplyDeleteAnd anybody who had anything to do with that chasuble is in serious trouble!
ReplyDeleteMy definition of "contemporary" is "something that is conned into the temporary".
ReplyDeleteOra et Labora. It's the works that grow out of the living faith that makes people what to bring about social change. It's the pain at seeing the injustice.
ReplyDeleteI would be doing it whether it was relevant, or not.
Now, those vestments are something all together different. Hopefully someone will accidentally bleach the whole thing.
oh no! Those shoes have got to go! They simply will not do!
ReplyDelete@ Brother Mark: The phrase "jumped the shark" is an even more devastating critique than you've expressed, and is completely appropriate here. It refers to a Happy Days episode near the end of its run, when Fonzie — for reasons I know not, having already stopped following the show when this happened — jumped his motorcycle over a shark in the ocean. "Jumped the shark" means (or at least originally meant) that someone did something so patently and obviously ridiculous or bone-headed that s/he has lost all credibility, and is no longer worth paying attention to.
ReplyDelete