Don’t forget you are going to die
Also, a few stories about the Religious Right
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Memento mori
We all know that Christian Twitter, much like the rest of Twitter, is a nest of vipers - conflict is inevitable and practically encouraged by the platform. But there’s one fact that brings together even the most hardcore trads, post-Christian exvangelicals, Religious Right dominionists and sexually liberated progressive Prots: We are all going to die.
Memento mori is Latin for “remember you will die”. It isn’t a single viral post, but a meme in the truest sense. The pre-Christian stoics loved it, it was embraced by the early church and it really took off during the medieval period.
Today, the phrase has found healthy usage on Twitter, where it’s used by nihilistic Gen Xers, jaded Millennials and gothy Zoomers… and by me. It’s gotten even more popular during a pandemic and climate emergency where death lurks constantly.
It’s grim but kind of nice you know? Like YOLO but not as reckless.
A selection of memento mori posts for you:
Where am I going with this? Nowhere in particular. No thoughts, just vibing about our impending demise.
What am I looking at here exactly
If anyone knows, please leave a comment or send me an email. I cannot parse this image at all.
The Jerry Falwell black water post
This week I’ve been listening to the third season of the Gangster Capitalism podcast, which focuses on Jerry Falwell Jr - one of America’s most high-profile evangelicals. He’s a Trump supporter and the former President of Liberty University, one of the largest Christian educational institutions in the world.
Liberty is famous for its restrictive honour code that prevents students and staff from having sex “outside of a biblically ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman.” Alcohol is also forbidden.
Jerry ruined his reputation through a series of scandals, which are ongoing, the greatest of which is a Reuters piece that alleges that over a period of seven years, he regularly watched his wife have sex with a much younger man.
But it all began with an image he posted-and-deleted on Instagram that lives rent-free in my head to this day.
No, that’s not his wife, but more importantly, what… is black water?? Why mention it at all, or why not just say it’s coke? Every time I have a dark alcoholic drink I think, “black water. A prop only.”
Thank you to @UnrighteousD for tweeting about Gangster Capitalism. MB is one of my favourite people on Twitter, whose posts range from insightful, to hilarious, to hair-raising.
I’m getting ideas for Sister Act 3
It’s time to talk about Milo
Milo Yiannopoulos sure is a figure I was hoping to ignore, but his latest religious conversion has meant a few of his posts from other platforms have come across my timeline.
As of March this year, he’s now ex-gay, and has become a radical traditionalist Catholic. It’s an embarrassing attention grab I wouldn’t usually acknowledge, except his “ex-gay conversion” has been reported uncritically and even enthusiastically by mainstream Christian publications like the Australian evangelical publication Eternity News: “Milo Yiannopoulos gives up being gay to follow Jesus”.
So, what kind of man is he? This photo of a “hotel room alter” posted this week includes a strategically placed copy of The Turner Diaries, an influential white supremicist, neo-Nazi text, next to the Bible.
False prophets in medieval art
I’ve applied to gain access to r/DankChristianMemes
r/DankChristianMemes was great. It used to be the place to go for extremely ironic inside jokes about carrying six chairs at once, but about a year ago, there was a huge drama that saw the subreddit close.
According to u/Gemmabeta, the mods at r/Christianity banned a prominent reactionary who “started posting a slew of KKK dogwhistles on response to the Floyd case.” The drama bled into r/DankChristianMemes and the subreddit shut down. I started following r/ChristianMemes instead, but… it’s overly sincere and not very funny.
Anyway, r/DankChristianMemes technically exists, but is private. Maybe I have romanticised the original subreddit (a spinoff sub, r/DankChristianMemes2 is not great). Also, maybe it’s really closed for good. Anyway, if there’s anything more to say, I’ll let you know.
Please enjoy these posts as well
- Welcome to this house where Our Lady of Guadalupe is queen
- A touching thread about a nun mum. RNS did further reporting on this story.
- St. Augustine wrote about people who are so good at farting it sounds like singing
- (Video) Priests in the break room
Are there religious meme subreddits that are worth following? Or have you noticed a mistake or an omission? I’d like to know! You can email me: rohansalmond@gmail.com
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