It was just a few weeks ago that I blogged about the interesting piece Daniel Radosh wrote for the New York Times on what he thinks are the top ten Christian songs. Then I read a review of the self-proclaimed secular, liberal Jew's new book, "Rapture Ready" over at Slate, which intrigued me enough to order it off of Amazon immediately. While it occasionally slips into snarkiness territory, "Rapture Ready" is overall an insightful book that examines Christian pop culture in a way that sadly too many Christians too often have not taken the time to do the same.
Radosh's book is at its best when he is dissecting the crass commercialism that permeates the Christian subculture. He is aghast-- rightly so---at the lengths Christians will go to market Jesus and make him fun and accessible to teens, tweens, and anyone else with a little extra cash.
Less impressive are his commentaries about his visit to the massive Cornerstone Festival (the whole examination of Christians at a Christian music fest has been done) and his snide interview with Stephen Baldwin in which—surprise!— the actor comes off sounding pretty foolish. (As a Christian, I have to say that any Baldwin comment is now met with a yawn of resignation.)
Even more disappointing was Radosh's treatment of sex within the Christian subculture. A mention of someone like author Lauren Winner, or dare I say it, Idol Chatter's own Donna Freitas, might have brought balance to his commentary.
Still, this book is well-researched for the most part, and deserves to be a great discussion starter in Christian circles. The best question Radosh poses is when he ponders how effective all of the razzle dazzle of Christian pop culture is to bring people to a relationship with Jesus Christ, even though it may be creating a more likable image of Christians. Equally important are his observations on Christian gatekeepers who keep the subculture going at all costs. (However, he fails to mention Hollywood's desire to also keep the Christian subculture alive through creating special studio brands to market DVD schlock to the churched masses.)
So don't read this book if you are an easily-offended evangelical or if you own a "Jesus is my homeboy" T-shirt. But for anyone else, this is an intelligent but fun read that will have you thinking twice about what Jesus would buy, watch, or listen to.
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OK, sorry, I should have researched this further. The author is a Jew -- albeit secular -- and does not promote evangelical Christianity. However, I still think the writer of the BNet review was very misleading. Also, it looks at the book only from a Christian point of view. The title of the article makes no sense whatsoever. So my question remains, why email this to all the Jews on the board?
Can you all just shut up please? I'm Christian, not Jewish, but EVERYONE gets sick of people who complain and get offended by everything. I realize there are a lot of Christians who complain about everything, but my PRACTICING Jewish friend Jamie always tells me how tired she gets of Jewish people who get offended by everything and try to make everything relate to Judaism. I feel the same with Christians, but it seems much more popular among Jewish people. Jewish people have no right to complain about their beliefs "not being tolerated", considering there is MUCH more political correctness surrounding it compared to Christianity which is politically and socially acceptable to rip apart. In other words, you don't see books titled "Our Real Messiah Ready".
I wasn't offended by the original topic nor did I complain about it, and no, I wasn't trying to "fix a Jew".... I thought this was a forum to discuss the original subject which was a tongue in cheek review of a rather tongue in cheek book... The Greenberg tribe must be the lost tribe...the only one left, it would seem, with a sense of humor...
We are very sorry for the confusion this content has caused, it was an editorial error. Beliefnet in no way wants to convert our lively Jewish readers. Our sincere apologies to you.
I am only addressing the title here.
The term Jew means "chosen" and the only Jews are the remnant "chosen" to survive the end of civilization (Mat. 24:13). The means to survive the end is what I call living, as I do, with one foot in civilization [eating butter] and the other in nature [eating honey] (Isa. 7:14-22). As soon as civilization drops off we will be able to lift our foot off of civilization and place it in nature, to give birth to "the dead in the anointing" (Rev. 6:9-11) diring the millennium (Rev. 20:4). After it we will, acording to Mat. 20:1-16, give birth to "the dead of the world" (Rev. 20:5 with "resurrection" meaning reincarnation) to live in Atlantis (Rev. 21) and be raptured over the 6000 years (days of Genesis' creation) preceding Atlantis.
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