Where the Heck is Suburbia Majora? -- II

Earlier, I mused (and moaned) over this this ethereal Duchy known only as Suburbia Majora. A brief review will tell us that Suburbia Majora is a swath of humanity, nail salons, tattoo shops, and soul bleeding traffic between Richmond VA and Boston, MA. There, SUV's carry little Justin and Madison off to play dates and other tightly scheduled recreation. When you scratch off the fine veneer of kept lawns and volvos with Kerry/Edwards stickers, you'll see that Suburbia Majora is a subtle dystopia which consumes its inhabitants. For the purpose of this essay, and because it sounds cool, I'll refer to the citizens of Suburbia Majora as Majorans (Ohh, that sounds so Trekish but I digress).

Many Majorans have been condemned to wear a clock the size of a millstone around their necks. I'm speaking figuratively of course, with all deference and props to Mr. Flavor Flav. These Majorans are clock-bound every waking moment of their lives. They wake long before dawn in order to join the procession of lemmings on the interstates. The Majoran knows with absolute certainty that leaving five minutes late could add as much as an hour to their long march to the city. At the end of the workday comes the trek out of the cities and office parks, all at speeds that vary between breakneck and gridlock. Evenings and weekends too are ruled by the clock. Evenings offer scant few hours and weekends require choreography, lest they be frittered away.

When the music stops, the average Majoran simply wants to be left alone in his 3,000 square foot castle. He's nestled behind his privacy fence and the twin garage doors with his HDTV and his DSL connection. She can kick her shoes off and coax a foot rub out of her mate.

This may seem like the suburban idyll, but for humanity, to exist this way is Contra Natura to the way we've been wired. I'll pick up as to why next time.

The Detergent Church -- Part Four

Here's the next installment of Parson Giles' Essay on the "Detergent Church":

Herewith is my last installment on why I believe the church is culpable for our cultural corruption and my top ten raucous remedies to help the church with its mad cow disease. My recommendations are:

• Get men who dig being rowdy back in the pulpit.
• Could we have some sound doctrine, por favor?
• Preach scary sermons (at least every fourth one).
• Get rid of 99.9% of "Christian" TV.
• Quit trying to be relevant and instead become prophetic contrarians, I'm talking contra mundus, mama!
• Put a 10-year moratorium on "God wants you rich" sermons (yeah, that's what we need to hear nowadays, you morons, more sermons about money, money, money!).
• Embrace apologetics and shun shallow faith.
• Evangelize like it's 1999.
• Push lazy Christians to get a life or join a Satanic Church.
• Demand that if a Christian gets involved in the arts that their "craft" must scream excellence and not excrement.

The entire article can be read here:

The Catbird's Political Compass

The Political Compass

• Economic Left/Right 3.5
• Social Libertarian -1.85

It fell close to where I expected it to fall. Click here to have your Political compass calibrated.

Thanks, and a tip o' the Beret to BabyBlue for this one.

The Detergent Church -- Part Three

The Rowdy Right Reverend Doug Giles continues his Essay on the "Detergent Church"...

As much as I think a lot of the American "churches" are about as useful to God as a pitch pipe is to Yoko Ono, I'm not completely depressed by this dilemma. Matter of fact, I'm pretty giddy as the emails have started to pour in from readers from around the globe who are sick of bland Nancy churches lead by lame "leaders" who are driven by cash, carnality, convenience and culture rather than Christ. The revolution could be on, ladies and gents, and more than likely, my beloved, it will be televised.

Read the rest here.

Some meditative Music for a Saturday Evening..

Saturday Night in the Catbird Seat

The Detergent Church -- Part Two

Hello Gentle Reader. Last Friday, I introduced you to a hero of mine, The Right Rowdy Reverend Doug Giles. Doug has provided a definition for what he refers to as the "Detergent Church":

Detergent Church (di-tur-juhnt church) - noun: A church whose sole purpose is to purge the skid marks sin has left on man's soul and our society.

He has also provided us with a trustworthy working definition of Biblical Christianity:

Biblical Christianity (operative word: biblical), lived and worked out in real time, has always been a life-stoking blessing in whatever land it took root (no matter what your long tooth Marxist professor says).

Good stuff. Parson Doug's series continues here...

Thoughts for a Friday Afternoon

Doug Giles is the Very Antithesis of the stereotype pastor. I discovered him over at Townhall.com where he has a weekly column. Pastor Doug is embarking on a series of thoughts entitled "The Detergent Church".

Enjoy...

I was being interviewed on talk radio a couple of weeks ago when the "talent" turned the discussion to my faith and my thoughts on the state of the Church in America. I'm sitting there thinking, "You invited me on your show to talk about school violence and student stupidity, and now we're talking about Jesus? Okay, whatever. God is one of my favorite topics, and as long as I get to plug my latest book, A Time to Clash, 757 times in the next 15 minutes, I'm good."

So, I informed my host that my faith was stonkin' and in my humble-yet acerbic-prophetic opinion I thought a good chunk of the American church was melting like a little Twinkie under the hot sun of assertive secularism.

The Story Continues...

C'mon America, This is just Pathetic

I don't typically quote the Washington Post in this Blog. but here's an interesting little turdlette of news from page A6:

To Date in the 2008 Primarypalloza, the vote count falls thusly:
REPUBLICAN VOTES: 20.5 Million
DEMOCRATIC VOTES: 36.6 Millon

On Tuesday Evening, 97.5 Million votes were cast in the American Idol finale.

We love to piss and moan about the state of affairs, and wring our hands lamenting that the country seems to be going to hades in a haversack. Yet we can't be bothered to get up, get out and cast our votes.

In a Democratic Republic, our vote is our voice. If we don't vote, we've no one but ourselves to blame for the state of things.