matrix theology

I can’t help it.  I can’t!  I’m trying, but I can’t.  For the sake of all you Christians out there, I try to keep it quiet but what can I say?

I HATE! HATE! HATE! the fact that the God’s church, Christ’s body is slipping into irrelevancy.  And it’s a fact.  This is not just my opinion; this is not just what I think.  This is the reality of things.  Christians have become so isolated that they are actually creating their own enemies.  People who consider themselves followers of Christ are actually trying to distance themselves from Christians because we have a narrow-minded, bigoted, self-righteous attitude toward the world.  And I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY FRIKIN’ MORE!

99.5% of the people you meet on the street don’t care about the creation vs evolution debate or the merits of the Baptist creed as opposed to the Lutherans or secondary separation or whether your preacher wears a tie, carries the right Bible or spends his Tuesday evenings in a barn chanting OOW BOPADOO.  But we think these things are important.  Somehow, the Christian sub culture has convinced us that this is what we’re supposed to be doing.  We’re supposed to be campaigning for the Republicans, trying to get the Supreme Court to reverse itself, and crush all those who oppose us.

Christians, wake up!  You are becoming irrelevant, marginalized, insignificant.  The faith you purport to believe in is BIGGER than anything in the universe, but you are just a cog on an insignificant gear in the big, huge machine of religion that is going to fall off the face of the earth one of these days and no one is going to miss it.

[ERIK BELLOWS IN FRUSTRATION!]

All my careful writing skills are at a fault.  I can’t embody the emotions I’m trying to vent here, and I apologize.

MY GOD, people!  Don’t you realize that Jesus Christ walked among people.  He didn’t do programs, didn’t run political campaigns, didn’t screen movies or conduct marriage seminars.  He embraced lepers; he made whores into close confidants; he let blind men lead the way.

He called religious people VIPERS, OPEN SEPULCHRES, HYPOCRITES.  He raged against those who commercialized his Father’s House.  He made fools of those who thought they had this whole faith thing figured out.

AHHH!!!!!!! I’m just so frustrated, I don’t even have words.  Why am I frustrated?  Amy Lee.

You don’t know who Amy Lee is, do you?  Of course not.  Amy Lee is the lead singer of the band Evanescence.  She was once a faithful believer in Christ.  She studied classical music; started a band with her best friend, Ben Moody.  They had met at a church camp.

They just wanted to have a band.  They didn’t want to be “Christian rock” stars.  They just wanted to sing about the struggles they face, about the difficulties of living life.  It was at their heart, and the frustrations came out in the music.

But someone decided to sell them to the “Christian” market.  Their stuff was too radical.  People started attacking them because they were honest.  This is what Ben said in response:

We want people to know that your salvation is not going to keep people from hurting you and it’s not going to stop you from feeling pain. But you are not alone. God made you the way you are for a reason. There are other people who think, feel, and dream the same way you do and Christ will never abandon you whether you go through trials or not. I think that’s why we fell into the “goth” category. We’re just emotional and we find that embracing your “dark emotions” and not denying them brings you one step closer to happiness. You’ll never be able to love other people and share the love of Christ with others until you look at yourself through Christ’s eyes and aceept yourself they way He accepts you.

They weren’t trying to hide their faith.  They just wanted to do music!  They didn’t want to be pigeon-holed.  But the Christian subculture said that music that struggles with stuff isn’t Christian.  We have to have pat answers, have to have things figured out.  So, because their music didn’t fit the Christian formula, and because they didn’t sign with a “Christian” label, they were called sell-outs and heretics.  People got all over their case, and so the band distanced themselves from the Christian lunatics.

In 2003, Ben flipped and dropped the F+bomb in an interview because people kept insisting the band was a “secret Christian” band with a dark agenda for converting people to their faith.   He later apologized, but it was enough to get Evanescence’s album, Fallen, pulled from Christian bookstores everywhere.

Eventually, Ben left the band.  So did David Hodges, who actually plays with a Christian band now.  But Amy Lee, the talented singer and tormented soul at the center of Evanescence, stayed.  She went from struggle to struggle, and now, she claims to have been “freed” from what was holding her back.

[BELLOW AGAIN!]

Was Christ holding her back or were Christians with their thick-headed, blind-eyed hatred of all things chaotic?  These people just can’t accept that people can be Christians and record on “normal” record labels.

Of course, I’ve never seen a plumber who plasters “Christian” all over his truck.  Have you?  You know why?  CUZ HE’S A PLUMBER!  Yes, he’s a Christian, but he’s a plumber.

If people would have just left Amy alone, how would this most recent album have been different?  She was struggling with stuff, publicly.  And the Christian scene cut her to ribbons!  I would walk out on them too!  Who needs a faith that critiques you for being honest?

The tortured soul is part of our Christian tradition – or have we not read Ecclesiastes and Psalms recently?  Ecclesiastes is about as GOTH as you can get.  Graphic language is as integral to the Hebrew of the Old Testament as praise language is.  This is stupid; this is foolish; this is DANGEROUS!

For crying out loud!  Break some STUPID RULES, love some UNDESIRABLES, and finally MATTER to the world you’re supposed to be bringing hope to!  Stop picking fights with people who see things differently and get some work done.