It is becoming increasingly hard to be either satirical or anti-clerical in a world where both the Pope and a former Ardship of Cambry are going out of their way to give Islam a well-deserved critical mauling. On the one hand, what do you expect from Christian leaders? They go on and on about their 'respect' for other faiths, but in reality, they are quite firm in their conviction that the Mahometans (inter alia) are on a short road to the eternal fire.
On the other, one does find oneself perversely willing them on, since no-one else seems to have the guts to stand up and tell the Muzzies what a crashing bunch of bores and dopes they are.
Having said that, I do despair at the way the Pope's words have been lifted, twisted and turned into a false meme by the idiot press. Anyone with a brain can read what he actually said and see that what he was saying was that the Christian revelation accommodates reason as a facet of its claim to truth, whereas the Islamic one doesn't.
It's hardly less offensive, in its way, but as it is a much more subtle point than saying 'Islam is evil', he probably expected that yer average thicko wouldn't notice it, and we could all go along dreamily ignoring the fact that vast swathes of humanity still subscribe to moronic and essentially xenophobic tribal belief systems. Bad luck, Benny. As the bearded hordes storm the Vatican, you can scream out "I was misquoted".
It will not, I fear, do you any good.
Personally, as one who detests the Catholic Church only slightly less than I detest Islam, I find the whole thing hugely amusing. With any luck, the Christians and the Muslims will slowly annihilate each other over the next century or so, and the rest of us can finally get on with our sinful and highly enjoyable lives in peace.
Of course, we'll have to go and live in Antarctica, but that would frankly be a small price to pay to escape from the asinine, bogus proclamations of those who claim that there is some kind of factual truth to be found in religion.
Which brings me back to gutbucket gospel music, which is my latest 'enthusiasm', and boy, am I mad for it. I am still listening over and over to American Primitive Vol I.
And reading the sleeve notes again, I find some interesting resonances with current concerns. If you checked out the links in the post below, you'll know as much as I do about John Fahey. I'm going to post some extracts from his sleeve notes, and try to comment on them.
Fahey seems to have been an obsessive collector of American Folk Music, with a degree in philosophy and religion. His essay in the American Primitive CD booklet is called "American Quick Fix Religion", and it is a work of great love and scholarship. He notes the following:
".
..in the history of American Folk scholarship, scholars and non-academic collectors as early as Cecil Sharp noted affinity, affection and syncretism between three ethnic groups: (1) people from the British isles and Brittany, i.
e. Celtic France, (2) Blacks and (3) Acadian French descendants of the Huguenots - Protestants- who immigrated to Louisiana from Nova Scotia in the 18th Century".
He notes further that, despite there being extant commercial recordings by almost every ethnic group in the US, "we find specifically religious 'instructional' and/or preaching records only among these few groups: Jews, Negroes and American Whites of primarily British descent who speak English, i.
e. WASPs."
He then pretty quickly narrows down the creators of American Folk Music to the latter two categories (along with the Cajuns), before embarking on a lengthy and fascinating analysis of the sacramental split between Roman Catholicism and 'low' Protestantism.
To wit, he argues that Protestantism "purged itself of tradition and retained only the authority of the individual and his interpretation of the BOOK...
Once authority is vested in individualism - as opposed to studied and corporate interpretations by the educated ecclesia - one man's interpretation is as good as another. No education is required. Certainly, no education, no credentials are required to make religious phonograph records.
.. and so phony preachers such as "Rev" Moses Mason and "Rev" Emit Dickenson could and did make records of a most preposterous nature".
Rock and roll music has always had some tinge of this kind of phony religious mania about it. If you want to see a modern phony preacher in operation, just go to a U2 gig. It's why ludicrous events like Live8 can take place without anybody even daring to point out what a farce it is.
It's why thousands of people sway together to 'Fix You' by Coldplay, holding up their modern candle - the illuminated mobile phone. And it's why the "Rev" Bob Geldof and the "Rev" Bono can pontificate to the rest of us for all the world as if they were bearers of some higher revelation. As Pete Townshend - no stranger to the cult of the phony himself once put it - "we're the slaves of the phony leaders - breathe the air we have blown you".
Phony leaders - they're everywhere. Fahey really hits his stride here:
"Paradoxically, it has always been the Roman Catholic Church which has championed Reason and Religious education. But this was always held in check against Enthusiasm* by the administration and power of the sacraments.
[...
] The nature of the Roman Catholic Church is to make the here-and-now Christ grow and be available to all. The nature of the Protestant Church is to communicate 'cheap grace' - which is no Grace at all - through emotional, exciting, provocative and stimulating entertainment, especially through the twin talismans of noise and rhythm."
So one cheer, at least, for the RCC.
Personally, if I wanted to submit to a church, I'd want my leader to be unyielding and uncompromising. With this in mind, I find I have at least some time for Pope Benedict the whatever. I never sympathised with those people who used to moan that the Pope wouldn't permit birth control.
He's the Pope, for Chrissakes. He's meant to defend the Christian revelation, not be some kind of glorified aid worker. If you don't like it, ignore him - don't expect him to change a 2000-year-old message for the sake of the joy of sex.
And don't, please, expect him to say that believing in Mohammed is okay, cool, whatever. If no man comes to the Father but through Christ, than that is just the way it is. Sorry and all that, but you and your false god are on what AC/DC once eloquently referred to as a 'Highway to Hell'.
Tough titty, infidels. That's religion for ya.
Thankfully, however, I don't want to join a church.
I'm more a fan of 'Enthusiasm', which Fahey glosses thus:
*"Enthusiasm in Christianity is to promote one facet of religion at the expense of all the others - such as promoting excitement and emotionalism without intellectual or infused spiritual restraint."
He concludes by asking if the singers on the record I am endlessly playing are "inhabited by Christ? Do they know him?
"
"I have to say that...
underneath it all I hear pan pipes tooting and a cloven hoof beating time".
Which brings us full circle. Wasn't the Pope talking about the Greek influence on Christianity?
The old gods never died, you see. Not really. We can still hear the songs of Apollo and of Dionysus every time we turn on a radio.
And Pan - he's still out there, too, causing panic and pandemonium. And laughing, always laughing.
Rock on, pop kids.
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