Pod people: Don’t mention the war!

December 20, 2012 By

“Don’t mention the war!” is the catch phrase from “The Germans” episode of the British television series Fawlty Towers. I thought of this episode and John Cleese when I prepared a story for GetReligion on the New York Times‘ and Los Angeles Times’ reporting on the Bundestag’s vote to protect the religious freedom of Jews and Muslims by forbidding courts to ban the circumcision of infant boys.

The two Times were unable to get past the war in their reporting on this story, and ultimately missed the real story picked up by NBC, which was that German objections to circumcision were not crypto-Nazi prejudices but a consequence of the secularization of German society.

In “The Germans” episode, John Cleese, playing a concussed and bandaged Basil Fawlty, insults a party of German tourists dining at his hotel. Even though he warns his assistant Polly, “don’t mention the War”, he proceeds to do so with each line taking on a sharper tone. The comedy reaches its zenith when Basil gives an impression of Adolf Hitler and goose-steps round the hotel.

The humor in this episode comes from the interplay between the slightly mad Basil Fawlty’s attempts at maintaining  bourgeois respectability and his German jokes. The audience also comes to this episode with a common cultural understanding that the Second World War was the fault of the Germans. However, being British, it is impolite to mention it.

This tone of anti-German animus was the topic of this week’s Crossroads podcast with host Todd Wilken, along with a quick discussion of British reporting on the appointment of Tim Scott as South Carolina’s first African-American senator — but the meat of our conversation was on the dastardly Hun.

Germans, like Catholics, remain one of the few “safe” topics of Anglo-American humor, and I find national stereotyping amusing. But when ethnic and national stereotypes blind reporters to the true issues at play, it is a problem for journalism.

My argument in this week’s Issues, Etc., show was that mentioning the war, e.g., alluding the Nazi past when referring to a court ban on circumcision, clouded the issues. As NBC News’ story pointed out, the objections to circumcision arose from the de-Christianized culture of Germany that ascribed no religious significance to the practice, and as such, viewed circumcision as a barbaric cultural practice that should not be permitted in an enlightened European state.

Ignorance of faith, not anti-Semitism, lay behind the circumcision ban. Well, that is what I hoped to have said. Listen — and let me know what you think.

If I blow this gig, could I try my hand at radio?

Filed Under: Islam, Judaism, Podcasts, World Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Have a very merry pagan Christmas

December 19, 2011 By

The Daily Mail loves its crazy American stories — articles that show the quirky (I’m being polite) or bizarre (a little more true to life) aspects of American culture — or the lack there of.  Today’s installment is entitled: “Families shocked to find ‘hate mail’ claiming their Christmas lights honour ‘Pagan Sun-God.”

Yes, the guy who delights in shouting “you kids get off my lawn” has been stuffing mailboxes in Hudsonville, Mich. with flyers denouncing those who have decorated their homes with Christmas lights.

A group homeowners on one street with Christmas decorations have received an anonymous note saying the lights honour the ‘Pagan Sun-God.’

The residents in Hudsonville, Michigan, were baffled by the notes which were attached to their mailboxes on Wednesday night.

The note said the lights have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus, according to ABC News affiliate WZZM.

The letters begin on a warm note by saying ‘Hi neighbour, you have a nice display of lights.’

But it swiftly become serious by talking of how the ‘pagan tradition’ of putting up lights began.

The article quotes an offended homeowner, who found the note ridiculous. (Question. Would the Scrooge of Hudsonville have written Hi neighbour? Adding in the “u”. Just asking.) The Daily Mail‘s stage American displays outrage, independence, Christian piety — and a hint of ignorance.

Miss Hoekman added: ‘It’s a sin to judge other people and to tell people that if they have Christmas lights they are Pagans.

‘We’re not Pagans, we go to church regularly, my kids go to the Christian school.

A “Miss” whose kids go to the Christian school? That would be news. It is a silly story of course. But it does reflect a meme often found in Christmas related stories that December 25 is a Christianized pagan holiday.

Here’s how a Dec 15 piece in the Huffington Post puts it:

Because early Christians didn’t have a specific date in scripture, they chose one with metaphorical significance that also coincided with two preexisting Roman celebrations. December 25th was the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar — the shortest day of the year. Sunlight grows stronger and longer each day following the solstice. Picking a day that represented the transition from dark to light would have been an appropriate symbol for those who saw in Jesus the birth of a man who would lead them to salvation. The Bible abounds in symbolic language of Jesus represented as light, a metaphor found for the divine in every other major religion as well.

The choice of December 25th also worked for the early Christians because it corresponded with two Roman celebrations centered on the winter solstice. Saturnalia, an ancient Roman celebration that originated two centuries before Christ, began on December 17th and ended on the 23rd. Saturnalia was a celebration of the god Saturn and was marked by feasts, merriment, the hanging of evergreen cuttings, the lighting of candles, and gift giving. … Many Romans in the fourth century also celebrated the birth of the sun god, Sol Invictus, on December 25th, marking the occasion with a festival. As Christianity began to spread throughout the Roman Empire, the Christian tradition of Christmas naturally absorbed elements of these popular pagan celebrations.

This bit of conventional wisdom does not stand up to scrutiny. It will disappoint the crank of Hudsonville no doubt, but he (and the Huffington Post) have it backwards. As Prof. William Tighe wrote in Touchstone magazine a few years ago:

… the Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date [Dec 25] in the year 274 was not only an effort to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of importance to Roman Christians.

In other words, it was the pagan Emporer Aurelian who sought to paganize the Dec 25 holiday of the Christians, not the Christians who sought to Christianize the Roman pagan holiday. For those who are interested in this topic I urge you to read Prof. Tighe’s popular treatment of the subject — or the scholarly study The Origins of the Liturgical Year by Thomas Talley.

I do not doubt that some will dispute Prof. Tighe’s conclusions on this point and reject his scholarship. However, from the perspective of journalism an unthinking acceptance of the conventional wisdom — and not checking sources — is a mistake.

Photos: the holiday home is courtesy of Shutterstock and the disc of Sol Invictus is from the British Museum courtesy of Wikipedia.

Filed Under: Pagans, Pop Culture

The mystery of December 25th

December 23, 2010 By

The other day we looked at how religion news can appear in a review of a museum exhibit — that is, outside of news pages. Last week a reader noted a couple of advice columns that discussed religion. The Oakland Tribune’s “Growing Older” column discussed holidays for people who are not religious. And the Washington Post‘s Carolyn Hax had a religion-themed advice column. Here’s the last question and answer:

Dear Carolyn:

What do you say to a family member who doesn’t want to go to Christmas Eve services with the family because the church is not her religion (she decided she was a pagan a few years ago), but shows up bright and early Christmas morning to get her Christmas presents? I grit my teeth every time she gleefully opens her gifts!

Mrs. Scrooge

If you’re looking to enforce religious purity, Christmas isn’t the place to start. The date itself traces more credibly to winter-solstice traditions than to the birth of Christ. And, American-style Christmas was cobbled together in the 1800s, using Christian, pagan, commercial, literary and various other cultural bits and pieces. If your sister isn’t giving gifts as well as receiving, then you have a case. Otherwise, smile and think generous thoughts (also a Christmas tradition).

Preach it, Rev. Dr. Carolyn Hax! Send forth the decree: Christmas is so not the place to care about silly things like religion. This is not a surprising doctrine to find espoused in the Washington Post‘s sacred Style section. But it’s the second line of her response that I want to highlight. It’s just one of many examples you can find of newspapers and other media outlets advancing the theory that Christmas was given the date of Dec. 25 in order to co-opt Sol Invictus.

This idea was put forth a few centuries ago by two different scholars, one trying to show how the church could Christianize Pagan holidays and the other trying to show how nefarious the liturgical calendar was. The theory was popularized by folks in the latter group.

So is that the end of the story? Is Hax right that the date “more credibly” traces to winter-solstice traditions? The fact is that this anti-liturgical calendar theory is not the only one out there. Associated Press religion reporter Richard Ostling wrote on the topic a few years ago, first describing the theory that says Christians stole a pagan festival for Christmas. Then he cited other research, including Hippolytus of Rome’s Chronicle, written three decades before Aurelian launched Sol Invictus, that says Jesus’ birth “took place eight days before the kalends of January,” that is, Dec. 25. He speaks with William Tighe, a church historian at Muehlenberg College:

Tighe said there’s evidence that as early as the second and third centuries, Christians sought to fix the birth date to help determine the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the liturgical calendar — long before Christmas also became a festival.

The New Testament Gospels say the Crucifixion happened at the Jewish Passover season. The “integral age” concept, taught by ancient Judaism though not in the Bible, held that Israel’s great prophets died the same day as their birth or conception.

Quite early on, [William] Tighe [, a church history specialist at Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College] said, Christians applied this idea to Jesus and set the Passover period’s March 25 for the Feast of the Annunciation, marking the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would give birth. Add nine months to the conception date and we get Dec. 25.

And the reason why the Eastern church celebrated, and some still celebrate, Christ’s birth on January 6 was because they were using different calendars. You can read more about this theory in Tighe’s essay over at Touchstone.

Anyway, the point is not that one theory about Dec. 25 is right and one is wrong but that journalists should not decide from the pulpit that one theory is right and ignore the other.

Filed Under: Academia, Catholicism, Godbeat, Journalism

LA: A ‘political’ archbishop arrives

April 13, 2010 By

As you would expect, the editors and reporters at the Los Angeles Times have been trying to do some heavy lifting following the announcement that Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio would soon be arriving in the City of Angels.

The most obvious result was a two-day series about Gomez, starting with his roots and ending up — of course — in a discussion of his politics. The newspaper is struggling to pin a label on this man, other than “traditionalist,” or words to that effect. The Opus Dei connection has been a minor problem.

The headline on part one was laugh out loud funny and, thus, perfectly captured the challenge facing the newspaper staff. How could they be warm and welcoming to this historic Latino leader and, to some degree positive, while making sure that readers knew all about his, well, scary Catholic beliefs? Check out this double-deck classic:

A young priest’s passionate calling

Jose Gomez felt the pull of the Catholic Church early on. In Los Angeles, the stern traditionalist with a genial disposition inherits an archdiocese much different from the one he led in San Antonio.

But enough about that church stuff. Let’s get down to the business of news, which means politics. How did this man affect the real world? Forget confession booths. How did his actions affect people in voting booths? Thus, the headline on part two proclaimed:

A leading voice in the Catholic Church

As a bishop in Colorado and Texas, Jose Gomez did not hesitate to use his pulpit as a platform for both social justice and raw politics — causing, on occasion, considerable strife.

Now, when average readers see the word “politics,” what do they think? Do they think of battles about issues in public life or do they think about party politics, the stuff of who wins and who loses? This is an important question, for those anxious to pin one consistent political label on a man like Gomez and his work.

But the Times runs into problems right from the get go, in part two. Here’s a key piece of that report about his San Antonio days:

For a quarter-century, the archbishop was Patrick Fernandez Flores, whose remarkable journey — he was the seventh child of migrant farmworkers and a high school dropout — resonated deeply. The city had gone through a painful shift from electing City Council members at large to creating districts, a change that opened the corridors of power to Latinos. It had fallen largely to Flores to navigate those tense and troubled times.

When Archbishop Jose Gomez was installed as Flores’ successor in 2005, he picked up the mantle.

For example, he has joined forces with an organization that works on behalf of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, fighting for road improvements, libraries, parks and streetlights. Last summer, Gomez co-sponsored an immigration summit. Most critically, said a summit organizer, Jorge Montiel, Gomez has not only taken on economic inequality as a mission but sold his initiatives to other religious groups and the business community.

That seems to be acceptable. However, the Times immediately sounds a note of warning — even when writing about issues that are completely predictable, from the viewpoint of Catholic social teaching.

Next winter, Gomez will become the archbishop in Los Angeles, taking the reins of the largest Catholic community in the United States. He has already shown that he will not hesitate to use his pulpit as a platform for both social justice and raw politics — causing, on occasion, considerable strife.

As a bishop in Colorado and Texas, two often-conservative states, Gomez was unapologetic about his support for immigrants’ rights. He wrote regular treatises, published online and in newspapers, criticizing in sometimes caustic tones lawmakers who sought to strip those rights.

But wait! Gomez isn’t a consistent progressive.

Gomez also was not shy about plunging into national politics. He signed a letter endorsing a federal constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage, contending that “the danger [same-sex marriage] betokens for family life and a general condition of social justice and ordered liberty is hard to overestimate.” This spring, he assailed President Obama’s healthcare reform package, largely because he felt it would increase the number of abortions. And when an Indiana bishop refused to attend Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, Gomez wrote a letter saying he was “in total support.”

Shocking. He even disagreed with, and disbanded, an advisory commission of lay people when it took a stance that clashed with church teachings on gay marriage. Then again, the archbishop was merely “telling the public what he believes church doctrine dictates.” You see, it is not possible to know what the Catholic catechism actually teaches about gay marriage — the bishop was merely stating his own personal beliefs about what “church doctrine dictates.”

Now, it’s one thing to quote people who agree with and then those who disagree with what the Catholic church teaches about marriage. That’s journalism. Go for it. Carry on.

I’m asking another question. Do the rules of journalism require that the details of the actual teaching — the words on the catechism page — be somehow blurred into opinion?

It gets worse. Gomez also thinks that practicing, faithful Catholics should attempt to live according to the church’s teachings. You can hear the gasp in the newsroom.

In speeches, he has decried a society that believes there are “as many truths as there are individuals.” In a 21-page treatise he wrote in February, he critiqued “cultural Catholics” — modernist, Catholic-lite worshipers who view Catholicism as “a personality trait … that shapes their perception on the world but compels no allegiance or devotion to the church.” He scolded Latinos in particular, exhorting: “Somos Catolicos!” “We are Catholics!” …

Gomez pointed out in his treatise that the first Mass in San Antonio was celebrated 320 years ago, making it the place “where the Gospel was first preached in America” and evangelization itself “took root in the hearts of our ancestors.” He contended that America has been “de-Christianized” by an “anti-Gospel.” He called for a “new evangelization” and suggested that American society had suffered because “our nation’s Christian heritage” had been excised from schools, the media, “our laws and public policies.”

Now, it is completely accurate — and necessary — to then leap to another question: How will this unashamed approach to Catholic doctrine fly in Los Angeles?

This leads us to a huge gap in this big package. The team at the newspaper needed to ask another question: How will this doctrinal approach work for someone charged with following in the footsteps of Cardinal Roger Mahony? The Times calls the exiting cardinal “a well-known power broker and public persona.” Traditional Catholics would use other words. If the newspaper was trying to be tough and critical, then that angle urgently needed to be pursued.

Stay tuned.

Filed Under: Catholicism, People, Politics, Race, Social Issues, World, World Religions

Holy Day Whack-a-Mole

December 30, 2006 By

whackamoleMerry sixth day of Christmas to all. We have commented previously on some of the downtick in War on Christmas media hype. I noticed there were also fewer stories claiming that Christmas was created by Christians to replace pagan holidays. And then in a really interesting and important piece by The Washington Post‘s Shankar Vedantam, the allegation rose again:

Perhaps the earliest claim on Christmas was the strategic decision by the early church to Christianize non-Christian festivals that occurred around the winter solstice.

“In the early centuries of the church, they debated whether they should fix a date to celebrate the nativity,” explained [Jack] Santino [who studies folklore and popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio]. “They chose December 25: ‘People are celebrating the birth of the sun, and we should convince them to celebrate the birth of the Son.’”

Now I have no idea how far along in his studies Mr. Santino is, but both he and Vedantam should know there is more to the discussion of how Christmas came to be celebrated. As I wrote last year, I realize this belief about Christmas’ pagan origins is a popular notion. But it should not be inserted into stories on blind faith. The theory is only a few centuries old, created and widely trumpeted by those who thought the liturgical calendar was pernicious. But the important thing is that there is another, older theory. I’m not saying one theory is right and one theory is wrong, but reporters should not just pick one theory and run with it.

Associated Press reporter Richard Ostling wrote about it a few years ago, first describing the theory that says Christians stole a pagan festival for Christmas. Then he cited other research, including Hippolytus of Rome’s Chronicle, written three decades before Aurelian launched Saturnalia, that says Jesus’ birth “took place eight days before the kalends of January,” that is, Dec. 25. He speaks with William Tighe, a church historian at Muehlenberg College:

Tighe said there’s evidence that as early as the second and third centuries, Christians sought to fix the birth date to help determine the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the liturgical calendar — long before Christmas also became a festival.

The New Testament Gospels say the Crucifixion happened at the Jewish Passover season. The “integral age” concept, taught by ancient Judaism though not in the Bible, held that Israel’s great prophets died the same day as their birth or conception.

Quite early on, Tighe said, Christians applied this idea to Jesus and set the Passover period’s March 25 for the Feast of the Annunciation, marking the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would give birth. Add nine months to the conception date and we get Dec. 25.

The point of Vedantam’s piece is the relationship between commerce and Christmas. In his excellent book The Sacred Santa, religion professor Dell DeChant shows how Christmas is a holy season in this country but it’s not Christian. The liturgical season extends from Thanksgiving — or earlier — until after the last post-Christmas sale. Worship centers are not churches but malls and Santa is the incarnation of our consumerism god. We even take children to the worship centers to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him their hopes and dreams. And we keep icons of him at home.

Here’s how Vedantam characterizes the change:

Business magnates who had once protested that holidays such as Christmas were a drain on the economy spotted the business potential of Christmas and encouraged the idea of gift-giving among family. Where Christmas gifts had once been primarily about charity, advertisers and marketers encouraged the notion that Christmas was primarily a family celebration and stressed the importance of reciprocal gift exchanges for friends and relatives. By the 20th century, American marketing geniuses led by Coca-Cola had seized on the advertising potential of Santa Claus. Although Santa’s ancestors in Europe and Asia had various religious connotations, the modern Santa is an American invention, with growing appeal in Europe and around the world.

German immigration had quite a bit to do with the uptick in Christmas, of course. Germans celebrated Christmas both as a religious day and family day. The hearth and home aspects were a bit too alluring to reject, even if the religious aspects are regularly dismissed. Still, it’s a great and important idea that Vendantam explores.

Photo via Flickr.

Filed Under: Academia, Catholicism, Godbeat, Journalism, Religion

Enough of the war on calendars

December 22, 2005 By

December CalendarI am glad Young Master Pulliam cited the story below, which properly states that the “War on Christmas” was — and is — waged most furiously by some Calvinists. But there was a doozie of a problem with it:

Although no one knows when Jesus was born, his birth was celebrated on Dec. 25 in Rome as early as AD 336 as an ascendant Roman Catholic Church preempted the pagan celebrations. Most Eastern Orthodox churches later accepted that date too, although the Armenian church retains Jan. 6.

“It’s the way Europe got Christianized. The pope would write letters to the bishops saying let them keep doing what they are doing as long as they change the name,” said Stephen Nissenbaum, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts and author of “The Battle for Christmas,” which traces the evolution of the holiday.

I realize this is a popular notion. I realize this is a widely held belief. But it should not be inserted into stories on blind faith. The theory is only a few centuries old and widely trumpeted by those who thought the liturgical calendar was a bad thing. But the important thing is that there is another, older theory. And one that explains, unlike the Saturnalia theory, why the Eastern and Western church have similar but different dates for Christmas. Here’s the Associated Press’ Richard Ostling from last year, thankfully still online:

The New Testament Gospels say the Crucifixion happened at the Jewish Passover season. The “integral age” concept, taught by ancient Judaism though not in the Bible, held that Israel’s great prophets died the same day as their birth or conception.

Quite early on, [William] Tighe [, a church history specialist at Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College] said, Christians applied this idea to Jesus and set the Passover period’s March 25 for the Feast of the Annunciation, marking the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would give birth. Add nine months to the conception date and we get Dec. 25.

And the reason why the Eastern church celebrated, and some still celebrate, Christ’s birth on January 6 was because they were using different calendars.

Sorry to go off on this, but this Saturnalia theory is just one of those things that belongs more in a Dan Brown novel than a news story.

Filed Under: Academia, Evangelicals, Journalism, Judaism, Religion

Malcolm Gladwell on Intelligent Design

October 19, 2005 By

TimeOct24This week’s issue of Time features a wide-ranging discussion that links to its cover theme of “What’s Next?” The participants, identified by Time as “some of the smartest people we know,” include author Malcolm Gladwell, techie lecturer Clay Shirky, New York Times columnist David Brooks and author Esther Dyson.

On the opening page of this discussion, above a photo of Gladwell, comes this teasing callout: “In the future, we’re not going to have the kinds of arguments about religion that we have today.” Well, that certainly grabs the attention of people who enjoy arguing about religion (and I happily count myself among them).

Gladwell’s broader context appears on the final page of the feature, under the subtitle — wait for it — “Getting Religion.” (OK, folks, we enjoyed the phrase enough to choose it as the name of our blog, but please don’t overdo it.)

Gladwell gets the segment rolling with a reference to how evangelicals are adapting to the surrounding culture, and suddenly the panel is discussing Intelligent Design, creationism, designer babies, Down syndrome babies, abortion — in short, many of this blog’s hobby horses.

Here is the spirited exchange:

GLADWELL: One of the big trends in American society is the transformation of the evangelical movement and the rise of a more mature, sophisticated, culturally open evangelical church. Ten years from now, I don’t think we’re going to have the kinds of arguments about religion that we have today. Even the fight over intelligent design, to me, is a harbinger of a trend, which is that the religious world is increasingly willing to put its issues on the table and discuss them in the context of the secular world. Let’s argue about evolution vs. creation, using the framework that secular science has given us.

SHIRKY: That’s wrong. Intelligent design is a stalking horse for creationism against a particular enemy, evolution.

GLADWELL: I disagree. This is part of an ongoing transformation. We will not continue to have this kind of divide between Evangelicals and the rest of society. I just went to an interesting evangelical conference, and throughout, rock bands were playing. The rock-’n’-roll culture within the evangelical world is indistinguishable in terms of the sound of the music from the rock culture that came out of a very different, irreligious secular tradition, except that the words are about Jesus — love and all that. They’re not resisting outside culture, they’re embracing it and kind of making it their own. I think intelligent design and Christian rock are similar. It’s about taking up form from the outside and trying to Christianize it. Does the debate over evolution matter? Isn’t it really a nondebate?

SHIRKY: No. It matters a lot because medicine is starting to become evolutionary, and we want to continue to have doctors who understand that.

GLADWELL: But that’s not being threatened. The intelligent-design debate is about what you teach 7-year-olds.

DYSON: What you teach 7-year-olds matters because they grow up.

GLADWELL: But we’ve already been talking about how great Google is. They can just Google evolution.

BROOKS: I think the debate is unimportant for a different reason, which is that 40% of people in the country don’t believe in the theory of evolution, and yet we seem to march on regardless.

GLADWELL: None of this affects the way science is conducted in this century. Does it change you as a software salesman whether you believe in evolution or not? No — no more than it changes you whether you believe in Einstein physics.

DYSON: You can’t limit your concern to short-term economic impact. This attitude closes off inquiry. It creates an approach to science that I think is dangerous.

GLADWELL: But keep in mind the idea we’ve discussed of the multiplication of identity. We will have more debates and disputes, like the one over creationism. When you’re having 100 arguments at once, no one of them matters the way it used to. It’s important not to use a 19th century moral lens to evaluate the kind of debates we’re going to have in the 21st century. We have to accept that the general noise level will increase, but that doesn’t matter. You can be a creationist at night and go to work in the morning as a pediatrician and save lives.

DYSON: The real challenge is going to be for the next generation of pediatricians who have to design your baby. It’s in the field of genetics and genetic engineering where faith and morality questions will play out. Is it immoral now to abort a Down syndrome baby? In the future, should you use technology to create a perfect baby, finding the right genes? And then you’ll be responsible for what you have created in a way that you never were before. No more “will of God . . .”

The group also includes the musician Moby, who contributes — this will shock you — the roundtable’s first reference to sex. Moby pronounces himself disconcerted about what he describes:

I have a friend whose Swedish mother — she’s in her mid-60s — goes online to meet men. I was with my friend as he drove her to the Hilton to meet a Canadian doctor she’d encountered online, and I thought, How disconcerting. Because it was 10 at night and most likely she was going to meet this guy and stay in his hotel room. Go back 50 years, and she would have been in her Swedish village, depressed, a bit lonely and sad. Instead she’s in midtown Manhattan, preparing to spend the night with a doctor, and her son is driving her to the hotel!

If only someone had thought to ask what Moby found disconcerting about this, because he sounds more impressed than troubled. Was it the horrifying thought of two elderly people who want to <Grandpa Simpson’s voice>have sex? Or that her son serves as the chauffeur for this frisky encounter?

Filed Under: Evangelicals, Science, Social Issues, Web/Tech