The question came up a few nights ago.. what would Jesus do-do? Tried to make a twist of the 'b' in gobshite, and failed. Thought everso briefly of the last supper, but it was boring and probably involved fish and bread and stuff, and so decided that instead of properly informing myself, I might as well embellish upon my ignorance with absolute impenitent irreverence. So it comes down to whether or not Jesus pooed in the first place. I'm thinking that'd be a big yes, because why else'd he bother eating? So he didn't seem
too modest? God must take dumps (cause we do, and we were created in his image etc. Unless we're His equivalent to a quick glance into the cosmic toilet before the post-wipe flush [All this makes me want to say: Intelligent Design, my ass. Why is my ass, which poos, so close to (and greatly comprising) my erogenous zone. That really is tantamount to having built a novelty playground over a regularly occuring geyser of feculence, or, in otherwords, STUPID (not intelligent). That's my addition to the debate over the proposed inclusion of ID to scientific syllabi.]) so Jesus definitely must have. Ok, extending that mortal inclemency onto Jesus, it must be reasonable to suggest that He had other bodily functions, such as the urges orgasmic. We had a decent chuckle over this one the other night too, as the obvious question this prompts is, what can the son of God safely yell during climax? "MEEEEEEEEE!"? "DAAAAAAAD!"? Dude was a carpenter, and every carpenter I know can swear the hair right off a dog.. so what was in His roster of expletives? Did He even one day unwittingly anticipate his death? Which lands me right in the middle of my next point, one that bothers me a lot... poor Jesus received his surname from his mode of demise!? CHRIST!!! How horrible is that? Opens up a lot of post-humous appellations though... Jesus Does-This-Lump-Look-Normal-To-You?; Jesus Ran With Scissors; Jesus Aww-Nice-Doggy; Jesus All-You-Can-Eat Chinese Buffet; Jesus Smoked In Bed; Jesus Peanut Allergy and so on. Now, I DO know that the major design of this type of commemoration is to underline the persecution he suffered, but that's really all just marketing, no? If He was such a humble guy, would He have wanted us all to know about it in this fashion? Make an idol of Him? I doubt it. And if He could truly heal the unhealable, then why not just patch Himself up? Too many inconsistencies for my liking. I'm not saying that He's bogus, by any means, just that we've made a real meal of His memory.
OK. And to show that there might be some things worth venerating, I caught on the front page of the Gazette today that
'The Eagle Nebula's "Pillars of Creation" May Have Met Their Demise' but we've got to hold our breath for a good millenium before the fireworks reach us...
5 comments:
yelling orgasmic "DAAAAD"s....hmmm that's a bit of a twist on the oedipus complex, huh??
Yeah, it's the Electra complex.
I'm not a big fan of the hyphenated last name though.
this is brilliant writing - love the stuff that follows inebriation :)
This made me laugh hysterically. Thanks for a Friday pick-me-up!
Sorry to take up so much space, but this post reminded me of none other than...
Mark Steyn - December 18, 2006
In the Western Standard an issue or two back, Ted Byfield was kind enough to mention my latest tome, America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, and its grim predictions of the death of western civilization. "I haven't read Steyn's book," Mr. Byfield concedes, "but from the many published excerpts and interviews with the author, and certainly from similar doomsayers, a single word is always missing. That word is Christianity."
Actually, there's quite a bit about Christianity in the book. And I've done a gazillion interviews with Christian radio stations down south in which I've been quizzed about that aspect of the argument. I'm not sure if Christian radio stations are permitted in the diversified Dominion, but I'd be happy to talk about that angle up here, too, if anyone asked me. I certainly agree with Ted that, looking to the world the day after tomorrow, Christianity will be present, and even thriving. In Africa, China and Latin America, that is. And, in that last, things may be a little more competitive than now: I happened to be down in Mexico the other day in one of those "resort towns" you vaguely remember as a slightly developed fishing village only to return and find it's a sprawling fume-choked metropolis of 800,000 people; and, wandering around, I couldn't help thinking that if the jihad was looking for a smart investment it would dump a whole load of Saudi-Iranian walking-around money south of the
Rio Grande and try to turn maybe five per cent of Mexico's population Muslim, just to add another wrinkle to America's southern immigration problem.
But Christianity in Europe? In the book, I note that the present Pope Benedict likes to cite a line from the original Benedict, the one who preserved not just Christianity but the inheritance of Greco-Roman civilization during the depredations of the Dark Ages. Quoting his namesake, the present pontiff noted: "Succisa virescit." Pruned, it grows again.
The problem on the Continent is that Christianity hasn't been pruned so much as withered to the point where resuscitation is all but impossible. And, while the Pope understands the challenges very clearly, the leaders of most mainline Protestant denominations remain mired in relativist fatuities. You don't need to look to Europe for evidence of that; try Canada. Remember that story from a month or so back? The head honcho at the CBC who had to resign after expressing his enthusiasm for the pleasure to be derived from bowel movements? One hesitates to suggest that defecation is one of "da Canadian values" but I was mildly taken aback to discover that the CBC guy's not alone. One of my distinguished Australian readers, Hal G.P. Colebatch, drew my attention to a piece in The Niagara Anglican by Canon Tim Smart, which began thus:
"Next to having sex, a good bowel movement rates pretty high on most people's scale of things that satisfy. In fact, as you grow older, a good poop can be as rewarding as a good romp under the covers. You know the relief that comes after having been frustrated for so many days to finally stand proudly before your accomplishment floating in the toilet bowl and congratulate yourself on a job well done."
Er, well, even if we can't all enjoy that sense of accomplishment every day of the week, evidently Canon Smart's satisfaction at completing his article and standing proudly before it watching it float across page six of The Niagara Anglican is a pretty close approximation of thereof. The Niagara Anglican is the official organ of the diocese of Niagara, but you know how it goes: you've a regular columnist who wanders a bit off the reservation, but for one reason or another you run the piece anyway. Happens all the time. I'm sure The Niagara Anglican has run many splendid ruminations by Canon Smart of a less evacuatory nature.
But, on closer inspection, Mr. Colebatch down in Australia was citing a secondary reference: the "good poop" column turns out to be a reprint from The Montreal Anglican. That's to say, the fellows at The Niagara Anglican read it in their sister publication and said, "Wow! We've gotta see if the syndication rights are available." Apparently they read passages like the following and decided it was just too good to confine to Quebec's dwindling number of elderly Anglicans:
"The New Testament tells us that Jesus ate a lot. He went to wedding banquets, to people's homes for dinner and he apparently ate a lot of loaves and fishes. After all that eating and drinking, do you suppose that he waited until he was seated upon the heavenly throne to take a crap? Or, did he squat down behind a bush with James and John, farting and pushing like the rest of us?
"Did Jesus defecate while he was here on earth? Of course he did! I suppose if we knew the exact spot where he laid down his 'load', today a shrine would be erected to remember the event; the Church of the Holy Sh_t."
The Anglican Church of Canada has effortlessly extended Chesterton's famous (if apocryphal aphorism): when men cease to believe in God, they'll believe in any old crap. I'm no theologian, but it seems a reasonable assumption that if God made His son flesh He would give Him a body that was human in all respects, including "bodily functions." However, it's not clear why Canon Smart would wish to dwell on such aspects of Christ's humanity in the most vulgar way possible. But here it comes, the big point he's working up to:
"Did Jesus have sex? Again, like crapping, the gospels are silent on the subject of Jesus' sex life." But hey, why let that stop you? Canon Smart's "personal opinion" is that "maybe later in life, as popular teacher and preacher, he did have sex with some of his women admirers. But I'm just guessing, basing my theory not on anything biblical or scholarly, but on what I know about guys."
I would wager Canon Smart knows as little about "guys" as he does about "anything biblical or scholarly". What does he mean by "women admirers"? That Christ was some sort of Clintonian lounge act taking advantage of the more nubile groupies? You don't have to be a religious believer of any kind to feel pity for a faith reduced to such woefully lame provocations. The Montreal Anglican would seem, very literally, to have hit bottom, though one can find less vivid examples of the phenomenon in almost any mainline Protestant ad campaign or episcopal interview, and, indeed, I cite a few in my book. Whatever the sensory pleasures Canon Smart derives from "a good poop" and shagging women admirers, God's position would seem pretty clear: He created man to be a little lower than the angels but above the beasts of the field--i.e., we are not the prisoners of our appetites, we are capable of rising above them. In his reductio of Christ to one horny crapper, Canon Smart is in effect subscribing to the redefinition of man as a vehicle for self-gratification--in other words, the kind of radical narcissistic self-absorption that has delivered Europe to the brink of the death spiral. It seems obvious that secularism--at least in its Eutopian social-democratic manifestation--is exhausted, and into that barren seam has surged Islam, grim and confident. There are those throughout the West who sense the emptiness of contemporary secularist individualism, seek something bigger, and turn to Buddhism, environmentalism and, of course, Islam. But why would such people choose a faith exemplified by the likes of the present Anglican leadership? A faith that does no more than license your appetites and provide a little pseudo-spiritual cover for modish pathologies.
By the way, in case you feel I'm according Canon Smart greater prominence than he merits, he happens to be Director of Lay Education for the Diocese of Montreal.
As I write in America Alone, "If ever there were a time for a strong voice from the heart of Christianity, this would be it. And yet most mainline Protestant churches are as wedded to the platitudes du jour as the laziest politician." Ted Byfield may be right. Christianity may survive and prosper in the dark days ahead. But the Anglican Church of Canada, the UCC and their ilk will not. In my book, I quote Matthew Arnold's lines from "Dover Beach":
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar .
But even Arnold did not see the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar as the gurgle of a full toilet bowl disappearing down the bend and into the septic tank of history.
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