Hipster Church
We’ve all seen them. They sit in coffee shops with travel case record players. They have old-school telephone receivers attached to their brand new iPhones. The men have lots and lots of facial hair and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Their females ride refurbished, fixed gear bicycles from the 1960s with wicker baskets on them and wear gigantic glasses. They are that new (non-90’s grunge) flannel-wearing subculture and they are everywhere. And now Christian Today has a supportive little list to help you tell if your church is cool enough to be hipster, too.
Find it @ christiantoday.com.
Music
I love the band Attalus. Theirs is a strange kind of melodic rock that appeals to a grown up purple-haired kid from the grunge era. But it’s a lot more complex than that. Their new album is worth every penny. Into The Sea is dense and emotional. It’s a 16-track record and is the first concept album offered by the band. It’s also a lot softer than the last two. Interestingly, Attalus raised $10,000 on kickstarter to fund this two-year recording adventure. So why did this popular trio out of North Carolina have to scrape by on web donations when the last two albums sold pretty well? Oh, I’m glad I pretended like you asked. Because they gave all of the profits from the last album away to help orphans in Uganda. Great music, great guys.
Find it @ attalusmusic.co and 7billionreasons.org.
Gay-friendly Bible?
Touted as “a big, fabulous bible,” the QJB proudly proclaims as their tagline “You can’t choose your sexuality, but you can choose Jesus. Now you can choose a bible, too.” The Queen James Bible (named after the rumoured bisexuality of King James I) is a specially produced version of the King James 1611 version with small changes made to eight specific verses in order to edit out any possible disparaging comments made about homosexuality. This bible also comes with a bright white dustcover with a picture of a cross constructed out of rainbows. Now to be clear, I’m not really sure why this exists. I’m not saying anything particularly bad about it but at the same time, the New Oxford Annotated Bible (fourth edition) in NRSV with apocrypha already exists. It includes left-leaning interpretive choices (much more carefully made) but also includes explanations for the choices in short commentary form. It comes from a minority position but is still the work of theological giants and words are not just chosen at random or cut from the pages like the one above. Plus, it doesn’t have all those tricky thees and thous in it. So why get a QJB? Well, they do say it’s a great showpiece!
Find it @ amazon.com.
Religion?
Psychologist Daniel Kriegman came to the conclusion that humanity should embrace a certain kind of religious-like thought in order to create unity. Inspired by the Linux operating system, he believes that all people are equal and divine as long as they are self-aware and as such all people deserve the right to create their own version of authority. His is a kind of philosophy and is certainly a new kind of religious experiment. Without an ultimate authority (like a bible for example), Kriegman was left with what he calls “open source religion” whereby all participants create their own shared morality as determined by popular opinion. His new religion is an experiment called Yoism where anyone can edit the community’s views and understandings. What is “moral” and what is “not moral,” for example, depends solely upon what the largest numbers of logged-in Yoians currently consent to be true.
Find it @ yoism.org.
