by VorJack
In my lifetime I’ve seen churches try just about everything to stay relevant with the teenage set. It started when churches got their own house bands and pastors posed with Starbucks cups in their hands. Then it was Christian eXtreme sports and Christian professional wrestling. So I suppose I really should have seen this coming:
Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries.
In the back room of a theater on Beale Street, John Renken, 42, a pastor, recently led a group of young men in prayer.
“Father, we thank you for tonight,” he said. “We pray that we will be a representation of you.”
An hour later, a member of his flock who had bowed his head was now unleashing a torrent of blows on an opponent, and Mr. Renken was offering guidance that was not exactly prayerful.
“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”
Yes, this is from the NYT, not the Onion. Folks, you can’t make things like this up.
Apparently, a number of predominantly white Evangelical churches have turned to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competitions to shore up their declining numbers of young male members. One estimate has it that 700 predominantly white Evangelical churches, out of 115,000 in America, have gotten involved.
However, this is more than just a gimmick to raise their numbers. It’s also a way to man up their members:
The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.
“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent Evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”
So the whole thing with MMA is folded into the general patriarchal theme of the conservative Evangelicals. No matter who they’re in the ring with, these men are fighting the culture war.
What I love about this piece is the steadfast lack of irony amongst those quoted. No one seems to be asking, “Can you really follow the man who wouldn’t raise a hand to defend himself in the Garden by beating the crap out of each other?” Extreme pacifism was one of the markers of the early church, and submitting to martyrdom was a badge of honor. So explain this:
“Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, [...] “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”
Metaphorically, maybe, but the traditions usually depict something quite different.
If there’s a lesson to be taken from this, I guess it’s one about the malleability of Christianity. We can have the Prosperity Gospel, which preaches the virtues of making money. We can have Christian pornography. Now we have official Christian™ violence. Is there anything that you can’t append the label of Christian to?
“We can have Christian pornography.” Do you have the link?
http://www.sexinchrist.com/pornography.html
Because only Christ-centered porn is moral porn. *rolls eyes*
… that’s fake, right? Like… parody?
… please?
If that parenthetical doesn’t scream “parody”, then I’m the Space Pope.
Ooo. Did someone say..punishment? Like with whips, chains? A little bondage, perhaps? Christian porn is so naughty…
Ahh, I didn’t read it; I just overlooked the page.
Phew. I feel saner now.
Have you seen some of the other topics on that site? Excellent stuff, well worth reading. It’s clear that you can use verses from the bible to justify anything you like (including – as they do – oral sex, threesomes, and much, much more). Almost makes it worth joining a church…
I think I’m going to look fundies in a different way from now on, specially female fundies…
“To summarize, we feel a Christian threesome is morally acceptable if it meets these conditions: It must be composed of one man and two women, all of whom recognize and maintain proper sex roles for men and women in and out of the bedroom. All married members of the threesome must consent to the arrangement and have consent from their spouses. And finally, the purpose of the relationship must be that it ultimately strengthens the existing bond between husband and wife and allows all three parties to share and celebrate their love of God together”
About anal:
“Are you saving yourself for your wedding night? The Devil wants you to fail, that’s why he puts stumbling blocks in your way. But God wants you to succeed, and that’s why he has given us an alternative to intercourse before marriage: anal sex. Through anal sex, you can satisfy your body’s needs, while you avoid the risk of unwanted pregnancy and still keep yourself pure for marriage.”
Bondage…
“A BDSM relationship between a dominant husband and submissive wife is actually the ideal of marriage set out in Ephesians 5:22-26 taken to its logical conclusion! Let us explain further. ”
Masturbation…
” However, it’s important to note that these passages say nothing about masturbation being sinful – simply that you must ritually cleanse yourself after ejaculating. So keep some tissues, paper towels, or wet wipes handy when you masturbate.”
I assume it’s a Poe, but it is very plausible!
I remember a survey among religious teenage girls in Israel a few years ago where a large fraction admitted to having anal sex but not regular sex since they wanted to stay virgins until they are married.
I can see their logic. My god is an omniscient god who knows all what I think and can see whatever I do. Let’s try to deceive him!
And rape, and polygamy, and just about every other type of sexual relationship that could possibly exist. See Betty Bower on “Christian Marriage” (youtube).
What a bunch of idiots. Wait till the first idiot dies.
Nobody has died in a sanctioned mma bout. It’s actually safer than boxing.
Yippee. It’s still stupid.
I’m with Bender. MMA is a fairly interested sport with one caveat for me: I want to see a good fight between good sports, like Evans v. Maschida.
It beats watching baseball.
I’m not “bashing” MMA…I’m criticizing the galactic stupidity of a group of Christians who think that mixing MMA with their death-cult is a good idea.
And by “stupid,” I meant to say, “galactically stupid.”
All that means is that the risk of dying is too small to be measured from the existing dataset. Your statement might be true, but it’s not more logically valid than “No-one has ever died while eating the sun; therefore eating the sun is safe”.
I respectfully beg to differ. By now there have been probably hundreds of thousands of MMA bouts. It´s one of the fastest growing sports in the world (and also probably the oldest in existence). The dataset is large.
Ah, and apparently your “no death in a sanctioned bout” statistic is somewhat out of date.
–Cite
There have been a few deaths and some terrible injuries, all of which are tragic. However, i assume that most people who participate, are aware of the risks of a sport that gives enormous pleasure and health benefits to probably millions of people around the world. Here i´m talking about the people who train and compete in MMA, not the ´Tapout´ wearing morons who watch it on tv.
…health benefits? I am curious as to what “health benefits” might attend to MMA? The training, sure. Clearly a person who engages in that kind of training is going to have greater stamina, less bodyfat and increased muscle mass than the person who is sedentary. However, what health benefits are to be gained from actually participating in MMA?
Well I guess the health benefits are those that you´ve just listed. The competition is the thing that gives you the motivation to do all the running, lift the weights and do all of the martial arts training that give those benefits. Not only that, you might decide to give up smoking and/or reduce your intake of drink and drugs. Then there are the psychological and social benefits; confidence, respect for others, camaraderie and the opportunity to just get off the sofa, meet new people and punch their faces in.
Haaaahaaahaa!!! If they really wanted to be a “representation” of Jesus, they’d turn the other cheek. And then their opponents would summarily hand their asses to them. Then they’d heal each other. And then go hang out with prostitutes. And tax collectors. Yeah.
From the days when I did (predominantly) Thai Boxing in a local MMA group to where I lived, I can tell you that turning the other cheek would probably get you hospitalised!
*hospitalized
*I’m speaking and typing ENGLISH, not American English. It’s spelled with an s.
IT’S OUR LANGUAGE NOW!!!!
And when Jesus finally does decend from the clouds, riding a dinosaur and firing his AK-47, that is exactly what the history books will show; That the language of “English” (henceforth to be known as “American”), originated in the good old U.S. of A.
We didn’t originate it, we just fixed all the mistakes…
This is why I don’t even try to correct the spelling of others and I don’t pay attention when they try to correct my spelling.
A safe policy. I must admit to the odd cringe at uses of “you’re” and “your”, “too” and “to”, “there”, “they’re” and “their” – and I fully admit to being an apostrophe Nazi. Spelling in general doesn’t worry me (dyslexia and fast typing are both my downfalls) – but people who spell “ridiculous” as “rediculous” should be lined up against a wall and shot without trial.
I thought it was spelled “religulous”. I stand corrected.
that’s the problem with the English, they don’t know how to speak the language we stole from them.
It is the language of mercenaries and bankers. If it sounds good, I’ll nab it.
“But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter.” – some guy who led Germany during WW2.
Godwin’s law?
HITLER WORE PANTS! That means you’re just like Hitler!
I saw the picture of warrior jesus on a t-shirt once. He was holding an AK-47 and riding a T-Rex.
Yes, but have you seen “the Lord’s Gym”?
http://www.lordsgym.org/
Enjoy!
Those fundie priests, hey? They can always find some kind of excuse to surround themselves with semi-naked, sweaty young men.
This is fantastic! I’m going to join up and kick some theist ass.
— Sunny “Internet Tough Guy” Day
The whole thing is so butch. It would be kinda fun to watch MMA sessions at gay recovery camp.
This reminds me of back when I was in highschool, and a few churches had stuff like ‘karate for christ’ or a few pastors teaching Tae Kwon Do.
I still see signs around a couple churches advertising free Tae Kwon Do lessons in the church…
Amongst martial arts ´skeptics´ like the ´bullshido´ crowd, Tae Kwon Do is considered the ultimate in bullshit martial arts. They are renowned for teaching ineffective unrealistic techniques, charging massively high fees, have tons of belt ranking levels for which you have to pay extra for the exams and pushing expensive merchandice on their students. Their schools are referred to as ´mcdojangs´. So it seems logical to pair it up with evangelical Christianity.
This is yet another “Theme” Church. They are all over this part of Texas I live in. The popular theme here Is Cowboy Churches. there are several here. One near my home has it’s own little rodeo arena. Some Churches like the Cowboy and the Fight Church have exclusive themes but Churches have been doing “minor” themes for decades. They’ve been bogarting mass marketing and other popular media for years. I’ve even seen a Church bogart the “Lost” TV show logo in a window ad in reference to witnessing.
Just curious to know what others that post here think, but could “gay” churches be considered a Theme Church?
You’re about twenty to thirty years too late with that idea, Unladen.
http://www.mccchurch.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
http://www.unityfellowshipchurch.org/site2009/
Whoops, Unladen; I had just reread your post…I thought you were asking about gay churches as though they didn’t exist. [EmilyLitella]Nevermind…[/EL]
So Dobson’s son is in on this? They have been preaching male is head of household, top dog for decades. Yet that is still not working to defeminize the church? So now they have to have men bash each other’s brains in to make their church MORE masculine? Based on whose guidelines?
Their Biblical premise is a failure or these people are morons. Or both.
This is good training for when you need to dominate your wife.
I felt compelled to write about this today, too. It’s amazing what they’ll do to try and stay relevant — or at least appear cool and on top of trends. What else are they going to try?
Christian sexting?
I say this is a good start.
I’d suggest however that on order to achieve a more christ like level of suffering that these fine folks engage each other using 2×4′s with nails driven through one end.
If they really want to pull the guys in I suggest Female Mud Wrestling. It would keep women in their place and they could even keep wearing those 19th century prairie dresses until Communion Sunday when they would naturally have to go all out. I know that women are to keep silent in church but that means actually talking. A few moans and groans would be Biblical.
LOL
Huh. I thought I’d seen it all in my days. Obviously not.
“Now we have official Christian™ violence”
Like Iraq war… but I like this as a parady … http://www.nochucknorris.com/
James Dobson is so, well, “icky”. There’s something creepy and disgusting about him.
It seems like such a sad attempt to appear to be relevant to young men. It’s like a super-geeky guy putting on a cool act. It’s shallow and has absolutely zero substance. There’s nothing wrong with these types of fights, in my view. It’s the lame attempt to disguise the irrelevance of religion that’s disturbing and pathetic.
I have to admit, there are some fundies I would absolutely love to step in the ring with.
I might need to start going back to church.
Think Dobson would give me a go?
I would love going to church if we had fight club. I would have too much fun beating up on Christians. LOL, just joking. It’s not fair to beat up people who are only brain washed.
I am all for the fight clubs. I actually think schools instead of churches, should bring back teaching boxing or marshal arts for gym class. I agree with the churches about the statement “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.” But with this training they need to make sure they are teaching discipline.
Another issue I have with the evangelical churches having a fight clubs is it sounds like they are trying to create a army instead of creating a theme church.
That is a very frightening idea that you presented, tea. I hadn’t thought of that…and now, I’m scared.
Roger you need to watch a documentary about evangelicals. It’s called Jesus Camp.
If you are scared now and you have not seen this, watch it and you will lose your mind!
I’ve already seen Jesus Camp. The difference (at least in my mind) between the crazy kids in Jesus Camp and the crazy meatheads in Fight Church is that the crazy meatheads are already adults (I still hold on to slim threads of hope for the kids) and are just a hair away from forming their own little crazy Christian army.
Get in line.
Sorry, was responding to Ty’s challenge to Dobson. I’ve been wanting to kick his ass since I was about 10.
Sorry again – I wanted to kick Dobson’s ass, not Ty! :)
Sure, sure. You’re true feelings come out.
But if you ever punch me, and I find out about it, there’s going to be trouble.
http://freshfunpics.blogspot.com/2009/01/funny-cool-mud-fights-new-pics.html
Thats Hot
NSFW!!!
Where’s the guy-on-girl action? Can anybody tell me…why mudfights are ALWAYS between 2 women? And before you answer this question, could you please advise as to whether or not I really want to hear the answer to this question. Much obliged.
:D
I actually wanted to post this link:
http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=1458
Change my mind, the former link reminds me of childhood fun, at least to me at that moment.
Ty, I’d pay big buck to see you kick some righteous assh*le butt!!!!!!!!!!!!!
big buck = big bucks. Oops.. stupid typos!
Do it to Dobson’s ass, o babe!
http://failblog.org/2009/07/06/google-maps-fail/
LMAO! On behalf of all the kids whose christian parents bit the sh*t out of them because Dobson said this was a great idea, I accept the challenge (as per the link you sent!)
http://fightpastor.com/2010/02/08/breaking-the-silence-fight-pastor-responds-to-the-new-york-times/
Sounds like the NYT treated you pretty poorly my friend.
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