Newsletter

Online worship is back in the discourse

Also, Citipointe chaos forshadows religious freedom debate

Rohan Salmond

Feb 2, 2022 • 5 min read

This edition is looking quite full already, so I’ll keep this intro short. I may change my regular publishing day to Thursday for a while, because the BBC has very unhelpfully decided to publish Drag Race UK vs The World on Wednesdays (why???) so I’ll be watching that on Wednesdays from now on sorry.

Also, a reminder I am preaching this Sunday on Luke 5:1-11. You can watch live on the Leichhardt Uniting Church Facebook page from 10am, or catch up after.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus begins by speaking to God

Last week I wrote about the religion-flavoured mythology inspired by Twitch Plays Pokemon. Since then, Pokemon Legends: Arceus has released, and I was fascinated to discover that instead of starting the game by speaking with a Pokemon professor, you have a conversation with God.

Curious that God asks me for my name and my gender, but regardless it’s nice it has included me in its plans.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised considering Arceus is effectively the creator deity of the Pokemon universe. From the Pokemon Platinum Pokedex entry:

It is said to have emerged from an egg in a place where there was nothing, then shaped the world.

It doesn’t matter that you can catch it a Pokeball and force it to battle for you, or store it away in your PC - it’s still God and its signature move is Judgement.

God… I mean Arceus. Image: Game Freak / Ken Sugimori

Please enjoy this snow fight outside Al-Aqsa Mosque

Online worship debate

I have a confession: I do not subscribe to the New York Times and so I have not read the article about online worship that dominated the discourse on Christian social media this week. From what I can gather, the author Trish Harrison Warren says that while digital worship was a temporary necessity, it is now vital that in-person worship resumes.

Religion News Service published a few articles in response, and AP published this article syndicated to the ABC and RNS about a virtual reality/metaverse congregation. There was also a deluge of tweets, mostly about how online worship is accessible for people with disabilities - but I liked this one.

I’m very interested in how social media, the metaverse, etc has influenced the way Christians are ‘doing church’ and what that will look like in a post-pandemic future (whatever that means).

To that end, I’d like to recommend this piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune, which was published on the same day as the NYT piece and includes this lovely paragraph I think my clergy friends will love:

The congregation showed me how to call the church home, even before I had ever set foot in its physical space, and helped me build a foundation to continue asking questions on, where everything was based in love.

Hat tip to Luke (@l_melo_h) for tweeting that one.

We may have another online grave robber on our hands

Ryan Broderick has a theory that every online community produces at least one human remains scandal .

I don’t know if that’s what’s happening here, but someone stole two skulls from Footscray General Cemetry in Melbourne and now Channel 7 is claiming there is a Satanism link.

I know, I know, I don’t really believe it’s Satanists either. Apparently the theif left “a crucifix, candles and letters addressed to Satan”? No idea why a Satan-worshipper would have a crucifix so I’m like maybe it really is an internet thing? I guess we’ll see how it all shakes out.

Uighur lofi hip hop chill music

While searching Ryan’s newsletter Garbage Day for the thing about grave robbing above, I found a link he posted to this video called “Uighur lofi hip hop chill music | ئارام ئېلىش ئۈچۈن ئۇيغۇر مۇزىكىسى” and I’ve been listening to it while I finish writing.

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Citipointe chaos

It’s not really my intention to cover religion news here unless it directly relates to some pop culture phenomenon or artefact. Today I’ll make a small exception, because there’s been a bit of discussion in the Modern Relics Discord about Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane introducing an “enrollment contract” which would effectively ban LGBT students from attending. The contract was sent to parents at 4:58pm on Friday 28 January, three days before year 12 students were due to begin the school year.

Citipointe Church is a large congregation in Brisbane which owns and runs the school, and is the flagship of what is effectively an independent Pentecostal denomination called the International Network of Churches. They have 11 locations, including in Auckland, Bulgaria, Nashville and Northern Colorado (I don’t know why some are named after cities, states and countries - it’s what’s on their website).

This is in the lead up to the Australian federal government’s proposed religious freedom bill, which would allow religious groups to have certain exemptions from certain anti-discrimination legislation. Now there’s a push from within the government’s own ranks to ensure these exemptions do not apply to schools.

Also, a group of Christian parents from the school are claiming the enrollment contract is actually a violation of their religious freedom because it is their Christian belief that God doesn’t discriminate against anybody. Also, a teacher has already resigned in protest.

It’s become a national story, and the pushback is so strong the school has extended the deadline to sign the contract by two weeks. Meanwhile, the Queensland state government thinks the contract violates state anti-discrimination laws and has referred the school to the Non-State Schools Accreditation Board.

In short: A mess! Imagine what the full religious freedom debate is going to be like.

Presented without comment

Christian chair memes

Anyone who has set up and packed down for youth group knows, the best way to get your crush to notice you is to carry as many chairs as humanly possible all at once.

An account called @TeddyRaccovelt tweeted this image which reminded me of August 2019, when the dank Christian memes subreddit was obsessed with carrying chairs. Luckily, I saved some from that time.