{"id":1447,"date":"2004-07-05T15:06:47","date_gmt":"2004-07-05T19:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/07\/05\/christian-rock-festivals\/"},"modified":"2004-07-05T15:06:47","modified_gmt":"2004-07-05T19:06:47","slug":"christian-rock-festivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/07\/05\/christian-rock-festivals\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Rock Festivals"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

This morning’s Times ran an article on “Christian rock festivals”<\/a>, which I commend to you.  Doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of difference between “Christian” festivals and secular ones.<\/p>\n

Here’s my letter in response.<\/p>\n

In my own youth, I was an evangelical Christian, and I attended events similar
\n to “Creation East”, described in your article.  Much of the atmosphere profiled
\n does not sound like it has changed much in the last ten years or so, which is a
\n tragic stasis of events.<\/p>\n

It still surprises me — although I suppose it shouldn’t — that a
\nsubculture like evangelical Protestantism, which professes to be “in
\nthe world but not of the world,” should be so enmeshed in the
\nconspicuous consumption of our mass culture.  Marketing sounds at
\nleast as important as the Gospel to the festival-goers, as echoed in
\ncomments like, “There’s a quick buck to be made for Christ. But the way
\nI see it, I’m going to make money in a secular way or expressing my
\nfaith,” or the young man who pondered whether he might spend his money
\nbetter on others but had already blown it on CDs.  Festival
\norganizer Tim Landis seems so concerned about being “elitist” that he’s
\nleft his ideals behind. <\/p>\n

Even more disturbing was the shirt that proclaimed
\n“Hetero-Boy.” Defining oneself this way means essentially the same
\nthing as saying “Not Gay” (for why else would one wear a shirt that
\nsays such?).  For gay men like me, raised in the evangelical
\nProtestant culture, such messages only reinforce a climate of hatred
\nand derision, in spite of continued protestations that “Christians love
\nthe sinner and hate the sin.” With mechandising and messages like those
\non the t-shirt, is it any wonder that so many gay men end up hating the
\nChurch and themselves? <\/p>\n

Christ told his disciples that one cannot serve both God and money.  Your
\n article makes it fairly clear that at least some of his followers haven’t chosen
\n very well or convincingly.
\n \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning’s Times ran an article on “Christian rock festivals”, which I commend to you.  Doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of difference between “Christian” festivals and secular ones. Here’s my letter in response. In my own youth, I was an evangelical Christian, and I attended events similar to “Creation East”, described in your article. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rayleejun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-nl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}