By Siamang
Jeff Sharlet has a roaring good read about the parachurch organization “Battle Cry” in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.
Listen to this lede:
This is how you enlist in the Army of God: First come the fireworks and the prayers, and then 4,000 kids scream, “We won’t be silent anymore!” Then the kids drop to their knees, still but for the weeping and regrets of fifteen-year-olds. The lights in the Cleveland arena fade to blue, and a man on the stage whispers to them about sin and love and the Father-God. They rise, heartened; the crowd, en masse, swears off “harlots and adultery”; the twenty-one-year-old MC twitches taut a chain across the ass of her skintight red jeans and summons the followers to show off their best dance moves for God. “Gimme what you got!” she shouts. They dance — hip-hop, tap, toe and pelvic thrusting. Then they’re ready. They’re about to accept “the mark of a warrior,” explains Ron Luce, commander in chief of BattleCry, the most furious youth crusade since young sinners in the hands of an angry God flogged themselves with shame in eighteenth-century New England.
Read the whole thing at The Revealer.
Patrick at The Passionate Atheist diagnoses the problem and points to a strong question:
While Flemming and everyone else remain fixated upon the nonexistent “militancy” of the teen BattleCry members, the real problem continues to sit there: theism offers the one and only “viable” alternative to the assault society is carrying out on these young people. Whatcha gonna do, exhort them all to become Atheists? Friends, do keep in mind that our worldview is evil, and NO ONE wants to be on the side of evil. How about humanists? What the hell is that? “Brights?” These fine young people are already “bright,” they’re bright young christians. Agnosticism is a joke, paganism is of Satan, and even the beautiful umbrella term “Freethinker” won’t work because it’s highly likely that these teens are already quite in control of their own minds. They made up those minds to walk out of the room containing the violence and the MTV and the sex. The room they walk into next just happens to be the only room left, and it contains a smiling, loving Jesus waiting to give them all hope.
I said this on YouTube, and I’ll say it here. Don’t like what you’re seeing in the BattleCry movement? Come up with a good alternative that doesn’t involve religion. Until you do, enjoy the freakin’ concerts, they’ll just keep on getting more and more “militant.”
What’s other folks answer or comments on Patrick’s open question?
What’s yours?
-Siamang
04-16-2007 |
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