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Eric Metaxas hated Shrek

Also, Christianity Today defends NFTs

Rohan Salmond

Jan 20, 2022 • 5 min read

Sorry for the delay on this one - I’m preaching on 6 February and I’m spending most of my writing time nailing down my sermon! The service will be live streamed on the Leichhardt Uniting Church Facebook page at 10 am Sydney time.

Also, I am experimenting with taking screenshots of most of the tweets I embed in the newsletter. I’ve noticed many of the tweets from older editions have since been deleted, so this is one way to future-proof things from now on.

If you want to open any images etc, don’t worry - I’ve embedded a link to the original tweet in the image file and caption thusly:

Eric Metaxas Shrek review

Huge thanks to user @foyercoffee whose tweet alerted me to the existence of this review of Shrek (2001) written by dubious Bonhoeffer scholar and #1 Trump fan Eric Metaxas. Truly I did not know my life was missing this vital piece of information until now.

Eric does not like the film, and does not take kindly to its bawdy PG-rated humour. He gives several examples of how disgusting the film is, and certainly not appropriate for children. Everyone in the cinema agrees with him!

But what most offends him is the politically-correct notion that (spoilers) Fiona and Shrek stay ugly at the end:

The brave new moral we moderns are to take home with us is something more along the lines of “appearances don’t matter” or maybe “accept thyself.” What is going on? … Shall the Ugly Duckling accept himself, and all swans turn into Ugly Ducklings, lest feelings get hurt? Shall the Frog Prince stand his warty ground and require the princess to croak and leap into the mossy well with him, ker-plump? Why?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. @foyercoffee has the last word though:

I highly recommend the review, a copy of which can be found in full on Eric’s website. Also, keep an eye out for how Shrek is like Communism.

The review caused such a commotion, CT had to specifically address it in its July 2001 issue:

Of all the pieces we've published this year, none has provoked as passionate a response as Eric Metaxas's review of Shrek. No sooner was it posted on our Web site than the comments began to come in. … [W]hat's striking to me is not only the sheer volume of response—evidently an astonishing number of our readers saw Shrek almost as soon as it was released—but also the degree of engagement.

Unless you’re a subscriber, you can’t read all the letters, but you can read the beginning of this one which opens with, “Eric Metaxas's preachy, indignant review of Shrek forgets that the rose-colorization of fairy tales is largely an invention of the twentieth century.”

In the course of researching this I also learned Eric Metaxas briefly worked on VeggieTales - both the show and children’s books! But he was laid off due to budget cuts. The Big Idea Wiki also outlines how Eric Metaxas fell out with VeggieTales co-founder Phil Vischer in 2019 and then blocked Phil and his wife on Twitter - “Phil felt sad that his friend went through a path that he just couldn't follow.”

Eric has continued to produce work for children, including the extremely cool and normal books “Donald Builds the Wall!” and its sequels “Donald Drains the Swamp!” and “Donald and the Fake News!”

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Toxic trait

This excruciating edit of an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury gets better the longer you watch it

Christianity Today defends NFTs

Christianity Today published this kinda weird article boosting NFTs titled “The Case for Not Treating NFTs as a Scam” - lol. It mostly resembles any other article out there promoting the idea, but it’s significant given the outlet publishing it and its audience. It also contains the phrase “non-fungible theology”, which I think is funny.

Ryan Broderick and James Henessey have both been writing about how NFT/cryptobro subculture already overlaps with neomasculine hustle culture and what Vox calls “A new kind of religion forming on the internet” that “combines Christian ideas like prosperity gospel with New Age and non-Western spirituality”.

So it’s interesting seeing libertarian ideas of artificial scarcity being promoted in such a mainstream evangelical Christian publication.

It all reminds me of these Jesus NFTs I think I’ve mentioned before. I just went to check on them and have found they are almost completely worthless - all but two are still held by whoever first minted them. A month ago they were listed for 0.777 ETH ($2,431 USD) each but have since been discounted to 0.0078 ETH, or about $25 USD. In typical NFT fashion they are… ugly as sin (forgive me!)

I don’t know what makes them inherently better or worse than, say, Cryptopunks, the cheapest of which is currently on sale for 61.96 ETH ($194,780 USD - yes you read that correctly). The art style is very similar and the Jesus NFTs are animated and come with a Bible verse! I guess things are worth what people are willing to pay.

The only notable Jesus NFT that sold is “Burial Jesus”, owned by user BeerHunter. They have listed it for resale for a price of 6.66 ETH (geddit?) which comes to about $20,500 USD. Good luck with that.

Apologies to BeerHunter for right-click saving their animated gif - I will not be paying $20,500 for it.

Steampunk, but make it Eastern

While we’re here, let’s get more neon Catholicism