Irreverent and Religious in the 21st century

     For some reason, I'm finding christian subculture hilarious today.  Perhaps it was a posting on failblog.org that I noticed last night, or just my general irreverent demeanor lately.  Everywhere I look I'm reminded of how absolutely ridiculous our ways of reconciling culture and religion look to anyone with a little common sense.  
Now don't take me for an atheist, because nothing could be farther from the truth.  Let's just say I'm a lover of mythology and religion, any more and you'll have to buy me dinner.  But the degree to which we take ourselves seriously makes me laugh.  I'm reminded of the South Park episode entitled: Christian Rock Hard, where Cartman starts a christian band called Faith + 1.  Now, I'm not the biggest fan of the show, but occasionally it is ridiculously spot-on.  In the show, for those who haven't seen it, they attempt to get a platinum record (or "myrrh" in the christian industry) by writing songs about being "in love" with Jesus...physically.



     The episode is beyond funny because it highlights one of the essential problems with a religious subculture - it claims to be different from "the world" or secular society, yet it uses the same apparatus to transmit its message.  Now, I grew up in a Baptist household so I'm particularly well-versed in the Christian alternatives to the big, bad secular options(e.g. Petra, the Christian option for Van Halen-style, guitar-driven hair bands) but I see this problem in basically every religiously conservative system around today.  Postmodern fundamentalisms are not afraid to use the system to spread their sectarian messages: twittering absurd thoughts to the faithful, calling media conferences to announce book-burnings, and injecting vitriole into social networks.  This is not your father's fundamentalism; this is a particularly postmodern enigma.  The irony is that this is the way so much of the world works today.  We are sorely lacking reason and consistency, favoring whatever hodgepodge of religion, technology, and culture that gets us through the day.  And I have no problem with it, as long as they understand that I'm going to mock them - and blog about mocking them.  
Here's one last stab at the ridiculous, sorry if you had Jesus painted or digitally added into your family portrait, but you earned this one: