#219-Monstrous Affairs and Festive Occasions...An Attempt at Cultural Theory

Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers? Why so soft, so pliant and yielding? Why is there so much denial, self-denial, in your hearts? So little destiny in your eyes?
-Nietzsche




Recently, I came to a moment of clarity. But with this moment of clarity, the things that were normally "normal" suddenly appear as horrible demonic monsters.

Kind of like this kid seeing a lobster for the first time:



And this in a nutshell, is how i felt when my friend showed me photos of an Apostolic Birthday party wherein the females in attendance were to wear a costume of sorts (i will refrain from naming the specific costume desired for the party theme as to save the reputation of those therein)...

But it was something....Like this:

Except the "costume party" i am referencing was attended by those in their late teens and early 20's.

Guys were dressed for a formal banquet or something.

Girls were dressed for a game of "dress-Up."

Except with our Apostolic culture, the costumes that would normally be confined to closets only to be worn when girls want to play "dress up" has somehow become perfectly permissible in our circuit to be worn not only in front of mirrors so girls can live in a fantasy world and giggle at themselves in the process, but have afforded the public at large and churches themselves to take part in the laughter at their misplaced dreams.

To clarify, the dress up costumes have gone public, and they were the garb of choice at this party. Glitter, tiaras, plastic magic wands, and hideous broaches that look more suitable for a bouquet set-up next to a casket than in a church, were all in attendance.

And please don't get me wrong. It was a birthday party....I know this...People are more than welcome to be silly and dress up however they want...

But we are living in a movement where the young people want to get dressed up beyond church....

People in the world, from what i understand at least, don't look forward to being formal. It's uncomfortable. They (and yes I am being unfairly stereotypical here) begrudgingly dress up when they have to (e.g. funerals, weddings, church, etc...) and thank the world the moment they can derobe from such unnecessary formalities.

But somehow something has gone terribly wrong....Something awful...

Where being casually dressed is not to be preferred....and rather, being dressed semi-formally or even formally (in the case of the party) is the optimal attire for a good party...

And we are sillly....

Oh So Silly....

Telling ourselves about ourselves through the apparel we are wearing...

And Jesus is here also partying oh so formally with us,...

And somewhere inside each one of us,...

While we are partying, dressed like clowns,

Amening the preacher because we have the truth,

... we hear this strange, subtle, noise inside our soul letting us know, this isn't right, and someone better speak up...



But we don't speak up....And we end up going "hey, at least we are doing all of this in skirts and long hair." YAY!

So we are playing this game.. attending birthday parties dressed in such absurdities that the world can't relate to our manner of dress in terms of it's excess and formalism...

And we can also tweet preacher's quotes like this one from Because of the Times:

"The Emergent Church is Poopie!"

This is anointed preaching for sure.

(And no i wasn't there. I only know this was said because of twitter)

Is not the purpose of the excess formal costumes worn at birthday parties and church conventions reminiscent of the purpose of the Red Carpet walks the celebrities take part in on the way to an awards ceremony or a Movie premiere? At which point the red carpet walk has become "the real show" of socializing and laughing and fancy costumes and the show inside the theater plays second fiddle?
Why is this? Why all the care about what is both on the outside of the theater and the exterior clothing of the actors and not so much about what is on the inside?

Sure church conventions are about church. Sure, the sermons matter. And we will pray. And amen. And laugh at the preacher's terrible jokes because that is what we do.

But we will also flaunt ourselves like a peacock before and after and enjoy ourselves some us more than we enjoyed God.

My question is, why isn't anyone saying anything? Why are we mute to the fact that the most fashionable kids in our movement are the ones who have grown up in it? Is it because most of us are preacher's kids? And most importantly, why and how did dressing up for Church become so fun?

The Shining

There is a scene i studied in film class from The Shining (don't watch it)...

And it reminds me much of what the Apostolic Social scene has come close to looking like...

but in one of the scenes, out of nowhere the main character (Nicholson) is walking through the vacant hotel he is watching over during the winter season and walks into a ballroom packed with people dressed in formal attire from the 1920's. The weird thing is, the hotel is abandoned (outside of Nicholson and his family).



While the scene seems happy, in the rest of the film's context, it's utterly creepy...

By the time this scene plays in the film, it's clear something is wrong with Nicholson...He is either going mad in this scene or he is seeing ghosts....

But the question is why Nicholson, an author and father from the 1970's is experiencing ghosts (or imagined strangers) from the 1920's who are all formally dressed...

And one of my favorite cultural critics, Fredric Jameson, writes of this scene,

"The generation the director isolates is the 1920's, and it is by the twenties that the hero (Nicholson) is haunted and possessed. The twenties were the last moment in which a genuine American leisure class led an aggressive and ostentatious public existence, in which an American ruling class projected a class-conscious and unapologetic image of itself and enjoyed its privileges without guilt, openly and armed with its emblems of top-hat and champagne glass, on the social stage in full view of the other classes. This is clearly a "return of the repressed" with a vengeance: a Utopian impulse which scarcely lends itself to the usual complacent and edifying celebration, which finds its expression in the very snobbery and class consciousness we naively supposed it to threaten."

In summary, the reference to the 1920's in the Shining, is akin to the place of formal dress and wacky costumes that is playing itself in the twenty something generation in Apostolic Culture.....but as the the specific Why's..3 theories:

1. At conferences and conventions, no one can be distinguished from anyone outside of the youth president's and preacher's themselves. So style is used to differentiate the "elite" of Apostolic Culture from the masses.

2. The Truth is no longer a sacred relic in our movement. We can claim full truth. We can say we possess it. We can talk about the One God and the Acts 2:38 experience (all of which, I believe in). But in the past, it was much easier to claim this and really believe it, because our culture and world was easily segregated from the rest of society so our unique truth claims wouldn't be contested within our churches. The internet and the like makes "Our truth" a claim of intense suspicion and skepticism. Only the most detached and isolated can believe the completeness of their beliefs without having to that Mormon's are claiming the Full TRuth as well. Thus the sacred relic of truth, which is now left to the masses to discuss and criticize (and thus no longer be certified true because "the pastor said so"), more relics need to be built....One of the relics being style.... A place where our pseudo-superiority as a religious movement can be worn on our sleeves.... Of course much our style of "high fashion", like in the Shining, reflects a time past (vintage clothing) to a time where one can be innocent of their superior position and claim ignorance of not knowing the intense demands that being Christian in this pluralistic society consists of/

3. Growing up as Apostolics, we were told in Sunday school God was coming back at any moment and we are on the verge of End-Times revival. Well the revival hasn't happened. And God hasn't come back, so what is left to do? Save the world? Naw.....party....



I'm scared to death that I'm livin' a life not worth dying for....
And I know that it sounds mundane but it's a stone cold shame
How they got you tame and they got me tame.