REM has a line from its 1994 song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?": You said that irony was the shackles of youth. I thought about that when reading this strikingly self-accusatory account or a repentant young ironist from the First Things blog.
Matthew J. Milliner begins by criticizing Frank Schaeffer for trashing his parents in "Crazy for God," and reports from a FS speaking event that Schaeffer fils appears to be trying hard to curry favor with the secular left by excoriating Evangelicals. But then Milliner takes an interesting turn with his piece. He writes of being in Dallas last weekend for a conference, and pulling off on the side of the road on the way to the airport to take a picture of the unspeakably cheesy megachurch and production center belonging to the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Milliner, an ex-Evangelical, writes:
This was possibly the gaudiest example of American Christianity in existence, and I was here to see it. As TBN piped into the free cable in the dorms of Princeton Theological Seminary, I had spent years mocking it, as had most of the students. TBN was everything we were learning not to be. I actually called a seminary friend to tell him where I was, and we cackled with laughter. This was the domain of the legendary television preacher’s wife, that woman with the pile of purple hair.
I won't tell you what happens next, but suffice it to say it made the author ashamed of himself. And it kind of made me feel the same way about my own weakness for cruel, shallow irony.
One of the reasons my wife is so great is that right after we married, she became aware of my habit of snickering at facelift aficionado and Prosperity Gospel exponent Jan Crouch blubbering on TBN, begging for money and schmaltzing it up with extreme lack of taste.
"Why do you want to be like that?" Julie said, disappointed in me. She was by no means a fan of the awful Crouches. It's just that she felt there was something cheap and unworthy about setting out to laugh at other Christians like I was doing. And though I hated to admit it, she was right.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
"It wasn't the negative judgment I passed on their ministry that she minded; it was the routine Schadenfreude."
HEY! There is NOTHING routine about Schadenfreude! Besides, how does one NOT enjoy laughing a woman with a real life Marge Simpson hair-do?
;-)
Schadenfreude.
Hey, I had to look that one up. Taking pleasure from others misfortunes. Didn't know there was a name for it.
I'm NOT a schadenfreuder.From what I've seen of life, I Couldn't be.
Maybe that's why I can't listen to the talk radio crowd for more than 2 minutes. Too judgmental and cruel.
Not saying there aren't fools out there. But there are more constructive ways to change things.
I looked up Jan Crouch. It seems like she's raising money for children in Haiti. That's a very important cause. If she's doing it to line her own pockets, people SHOULD speak up and expose it. That kind of heartlessness is unacceptable. But if she's doing it for the children, she's to be commended.
Ok I'll admit it. Last June, for a very short time, I had a blog. I wrote about a worthy group working in Haiti. It's called Food for the Poor. www.foodforthepoor.org
96% of donations go directly to the people who need it.
Here's a link if you want to hear more about who food for the poor helps.
http://tothose.blogspot.com/2007/06/given-that-book-of-james-says-clearly.html
Re: Schadenfreude--here's an Ode to Schadenfreude, to be sung to the tune of the choral movement of Beethoven's Ninth, of course:
We indulge in schadenfreude when the other guy gets screwed,
When the other candidate gets caught cavorting in the nude.
Someone else's team gets faded, someone else's house burns down,
Someone else's bar gets raided, pass the cup of joy around.
There's no "freud" like schadenfreud', it blazes like magnesium,
Dances like the lovely green-eyed daughter of Elysium.
Others cheer while we're down-hearted, we rejoice when others fall,
If it weren't for schadenfreude, we might have no "freud" at all.
Lemme get this straight: Getting a cheap laugh from people who deserve nothing but cheap laughs is a bad thing? And calling your parents hucksters when they're -- well, hucksters -- is a bad thing?
That's right. Christ's Church teaches a higher way: mercy.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.