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eredienI've been reading this piece about the Eddie Long scandal [summary: yet another anti-gay pastor accused of having gay sex with young adults in his pastoral care], and how the idea of the "prosperity gospel" of Long's church feeds into the scandal, over at Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog (the piece itself is written by Coates' friend Jelani Cobb though it's on Coates' blog).
In the comment thread there, people have been discussing the idea, the historical roots and the absurdities, of the "prosperity gospel" idea. For those of you not up on your Christian dogma and theology, this is basically the idea that you should pray to god for literal wealth, which makes you better able to reflect the glory of God to others who see you and know you've got it together because of God, which reflects well on God, etc. This great Chick-tract-esque comic about "Supply-Side Jesus," co-authored by Al Franken, pretty much sums up the whole movement.
Another commenter, Maretha2, summed up a dissertation she'd edited, giving a concise summary of the historical and social reasons why White Christians and African-American Christians interpreted, and still interpret, the idea of the "prosperity gospel" somewhat differently. Of the African-American interpretation of the "prosperity gospel," she wrote, The world says you can't get ahead--but with God you're more than a Conqueror. And the King wants his children to live well--it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful.
And I thought about that, and realized how and why that theological idea,
it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful, was drummed into me as a child in church in terms of clothing and appearance. I've never quite believed it, and always thought it patently ridiculous, but the conflict between this "it reflects well on God if you dress up for church" idea I was taught and how I actually felt is, as far as I can tell, pretty much the entire root of my conflicted thoughts about clothes, and my ambivalence about and joy in clothes, and a lot of my ambivalence and conflicted thoughts about the beauty inherent in my own body. I feel like I've just dug up one huge dandelion, and can see how ridiculously long the root was.
it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful
And this, this exactly, is where I lose the thread of the argument that the prosperity gospel people are making. It's where I've always lost the thread, even as a child, being told that I had to dress up to show respect for God. It seemed to me that God would know respect whether it was dressed in old jeans or sequined gowns, because It wasn't looking at anybody's clothes. It didn't even have eyes to see them: God's eyes saw so deep that they seemed to have a different structure meant for looking at different things, like the eyes of bees, or the eyes of fish in the black parts of the ocean--shining themselves, to catch the light from the dark.
I cannot see why people think that God is always thinking of clothes and how wearing well-made, beautiful clothes to church--or having a beautiful house, or a freshly washed un-dented car, or a boat, is a great way to show respect to God and give It glory. If you read the text, clothes seem like they were man's last-minute, fearful invention to cover up a beautiful God-created body in the first place, in the hope that decorating one's body with a few leaves and standing very still behind some vine would camouflage, literally hide, one's self. And that impulse to hide the body in order to hide the self was new--that's what God starts off asking about. "Who told you you were naked?": it seems like people themselves hardly even knew they had a body, until they had the impulse to clothe it.
That's one reason that I cannot, in my possibly two-sizes-too-small heart, trust Catholicism, although I have trusted a few good Catholics and there are still more out there I am sure I haven't met yet; it seems to me like clothing is more of a necessary evil than something to embroider with the wealth that we are told to leave behind.
Of course, I too am a hypocrite; I care a lot about clothes--especially when they make me feel joyful, more loving to myself, more kind to myself, more my true self in the eyes of other people. And I assume that this is the argument for Catholic vestments; it's part of the argument I've heard for vestments as a Protestant, anyway. And it may be true that those hats and shoes and stoles make my pastor, or the Pope, or the people sitting in the pews, feel more kind and joyful to themselves and others. But I've never yet found any shirt to make me feel as much myself as my skin does; me without thinking or trying. And I've never written a poem about the glow of a streetlight shining on someone's nightgown, or fallen in love with someone because of the way they looked when the yellow afternoon sun caught their jeans just like that.
"Let the little children come to me," he says, and who is poorer or more needy--or more often running around naked--than children?
If God really cares that much about my clothes, he's going to be awfully disappointed; I'm a bit of a messy eater, and the detergent manufacturers' claims about getting out all those grease and berry stains are just not true.
(This post makes me want to be the literal naturist it seems I already am philosophically and theologically, but I'm too often scared about how I look in my own skin, while I have no problem waxing rhapsodic over the skins of other people. And besides, it gets really cold here in the winter).
--
And that is why I am going to get a tattoo of a deep-sea fish on my body, as soon as I can afford it, to remind myself, when I forget, that I am beautiful, until I don't forget anymore. Because I am beautiful, and I deserve to know that.
I might put some of the text in, too, about the bees or about the fish or about "didn't even have the eyes to see them," but I haven't decided on that yet. However, I am definitely getting a fish. I haven't decided which fish yet, though. Can you help me? (Vote is non-binding, since this is going to be on my body and not yours.) :D
Candidates include both glowing and non-glowing fish:
- Lanternfish
- Anglerfish (though maybe not, because damn those things are toothy)
- Daggertooth, which looks pretty awesome (this is a new species of Daggertooth discovered in '08 in Antarctica. The record-setting specimen of the Nettled Daggertooth species was hermaphroditic.)
- A Barracudina
- Rattail
- Tripod Fish [this is a video]
- Coelacanth, a fish of which I am terminally fond
- Stoplight Loosejaw, a kind of deep-sea dragonfish which hunts with a red (essentially invisible) beam of light and synthesizes chorophyll from its prey in order to see [damn!]
Feel free to point me toward other deep sea fish I've missed here (fish only please, no other deep-sea glowy things. Stingrays are ok, since technically they are fish. Also, I like stingrays).
In short: there's a seriously worthwhile discussion over at Coates' blog; go and read it!
In the comment thread there, people have been discussing the idea, the historical roots and the absurdities, of the "prosperity gospel" idea. For those of you not up on your Christian dogma and theology, this is basically the idea that you should pray to god for literal wealth, which makes you better able to reflect the glory of God to others who see you and know you've got it together because of God, which reflects well on God, etc. This great Chick-tract-esque comic about "Supply-Side Jesus," co-authored by Al Franken, pretty much sums up the whole movement.
Another commenter, Maretha2, summed up a dissertation she'd edited, giving a concise summary of the historical and social reasons why White Christians and African-American Christians interpreted, and still interpret, the idea of the "prosperity gospel" somewhat differently. Of the African-American interpretation of the "prosperity gospel," she wrote, The world says you can't get ahead--but with God you're more than a Conqueror. And the King wants his children to live well--it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful.
And I thought about that, and realized how and why that theological idea,
it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful, was drummed into me as a child in church in terms of clothing and appearance. I've never quite believed it, and always thought it patently ridiculous, but the conflict between this "it reflects well on God if you dress up for church" idea I was taught and how I actually felt is, as far as I can tell, pretty much the entire root of my conflicted thoughts about clothes, and my ambivalence about and joy in clothes, and a lot of my ambivalence and conflicted thoughts about the beauty inherent in my own body. I feel like I've just dug up one huge dandelion, and can see how ridiculously long the root was.
it reflects well on God if his children aren't poor and pitiful
And this, this exactly, is where I lose the thread of the argument that the prosperity gospel people are making. It's where I've always lost the thread, even as a child, being told that I had to dress up to show respect for God. It seemed to me that God would know respect whether it was dressed in old jeans or sequined gowns, because It wasn't looking at anybody's clothes. It didn't even have eyes to see them: God's eyes saw so deep that they seemed to have a different structure meant for looking at different things, like the eyes of bees, or the eyes of fish in the black parts of the ocean--shining themselves, to catch the light from the dark.
I cannot see why people think that God is always thinking of clothes and how wearing well-made, beautiful clothes to church--or having a beautiful house, or a freshly washed un-dented car, or a boat, is a great way to show respect to God and give It glory. If you read the text, clothes seem like they were man's last-minute, fearful invention to cover up a beautiful God-created body in the first place, in the hope that decorating one's body with a few leaves and standing very still behind some vine would camouflage, literally hide, one's self. And that impulse to hide the body in order to hide the self was new--that's what God starts off asking about. "Who told you you were naked?": it seems like people themselves hardly even knew they had a body, until they had the impulse to clothe it.
That's one reason that I cannot, in my possibly two-sizes-too-small heart, trust Catholicism, although I have trusted a few good Catholics and there are still more out there I am sure I haven't met yet; it seems to me like clothing is more of a necessary evil than something to embroider with the wealth that we are told to leave behind.
Of course, I too am a hypocrite; I care a lot about clothes--especially when they make me feel joyful, more loving to myself, more kind to myself, more my true self in the eyes of other people. And I assume that this is the argument for Catholic vestments; it's part of the argument I've heard for vestments as a Protestant, anyway. And it may be true that those hats and shoes and stoles make my pastor, or the Pope, or the people sitting in the pews, feel more kind and joyful to themselves and others. But I've never yet found any shirt to make me feel as much myself as my skin does; me without thinking or trying. And I've never written a poem about the glow of a streetlight shining on someone's nightgown, or fallen in love with someone because of the way they looked when the yellow afternoon sun caught their jeans just like that.
"Let the little children come to me," he says, and who is poorer or more needy--or more often running around naked--than children?
If God really cares that much about my clothes, he's going to be awfully disappointed; I'm a bit of a messy eater, and the detergent manufacturers' claims about getting out all those grease and berry stains are just not true.
(This post makes me want to be the literal naturist it seems I already am philosophically and theologically, but I'm too often scared about how I look in my own skin, while I have no problem waxing rhapsodic over the skins of other people. And besides, it gets really cold here in the winter).
--
And that is why I am going to get a tattoo of a deep-sea fish on my body, as soon as I can afford it, to remind myself, when I forget, that I am beautiful, until I don't forget anymore. Because I am beautiful, and I deserve to know that.
I might put some of the text in, too, about the bees or about the fish or about "didn't even have the eyes to see them," but I haven't decided on that yet. However, I am definitely getting a fish. I haven't decided which fish yet, though. Can you help me? (Vote is non-binding, since this is going to be on my body and not yours.) :D
Candidates include both glowing and non-glowing fish:
- Lanternfish
- Anglerfish (though maybe not, because damn those things are toothy)
- Daggertooth, which looks pretty awesome (this is a new species of Daggertooth discovered in '08 in Antarctica. The record-setting specimen of the Nettled Daggertooth species was hermaphroditic.)
- A Barracudina
- Rattail
- Tripod Fish [this is a video]
- Coelacanth, a fish of which I am terminally fond
- Stoplight Loosejaw, a kind of deep-sea dragonfish which hunts with a red (essentially invisible) beam of light and synthesizes chorophyll from its prey in order to see [damn!]
Feel free to point me toward other deep sea fish I've missed here (fish only please, no other deep-sea glowy things. Stingrays are ok, since technically they are fish. Also, I like stingrays).
In short: there's a seriously worthwhile discussion over at Coates' blog; go and read it!
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