Titles are hard and so is piracy

This is Throwaway Relics. Please subscribe - it’s true I do this for fun, but regardless I like to see the numbers go burrr.

Chick tract in the wild!

A small thing to begin - my neighbours (who are also my brother-in-law and his husband) got a Chick Tract in the mail!

But I didn’t get one! I can’t believe the pamphleteer would put my eternal soul at risk like that! Extremely poor form on their part.

We are the pirates who (try, yet fail) to take over the Southern Baptist Convention

If you haven’t heard, the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting is on, and it’s making… uh… waves… on social media? Anyway, there are pirates involved.

The church has found itself in a crisis, as conservatives battle ultraconservatives in a fight for the soul of the USA’s largest denomination. Serious allegations of sexual abuse have arisen, and several prominent members have left in explosive fashion over charges of institutional sexism and racism. Unsurprisingly, the church has been hemorrhaging members for years and is likely to split.

The ultraconservative faction are calling to “take the ship”. As an outsider, I had no idea why a group believing themselves to be doing the morally correct thing would brand themselves as murderous corsairs but according to the New York Times:

Those hoping to ‘take the ship’ maintain that piracy is nothing more than a brutal metaphor for a dry, democratic process. Still, the beautiful images took hold. There are “Take the Ship” T-shirts and pirate car flags, GIFs and memes; many fans attach a pirate flag emoji to their Twitter handles.

Oh is that all? Phew! I love brutal metaphors.

But the take the shippers had to walk the plank when they failed to seize the presidency - Ed Litton, a pastor known for racial reconciliation, won it instead. Also, every evangelical Christian knows that pirates don’t do anything anyway.

RNS have been covering the annual meeting in detail (their Christianity feed has most of the SBC annual meeting stories at the moment).

Thank you to Blake Chastain, who gave me the context for all the pirate tweets that suddenly appeared on my timeline.

Beth Moore is having a great time though

Sorry, I’ll stop writing about the SBC. Here’s a good tweet

I’ve heard of dunking on people but this is insane

I don’t know where the idea of ‘masculine Christianity’ arose, but I think it went mainstream with Mark Driscoll, who was once pastor of Mars Hill church until his implosion and its dissolution in 2014. But whatever - if you can believe it, in some circles there’s a lot of hand-wringing over whether Jesus is too feminine.

This week, a guy tweeted that “Paedobaptism [ie: infant baptism] feminizes the Church”, and it Caused A Lot Of Discourse.

In response, a video surfaced of a baptism like I’ve never seen - a pastor violently dunking and tackling people into the water (although the font appears to be coffin-shaped which is very historically and theologically appropriate!)

The original tweet has been deleted by its author, although this version overdubbed with WWE audio, remains:

I can’t really judge, because I was very ostentatiously baptised in Tallebudgera Creek like it was the River Jordan, although I did not risk a debilitating neck injury while doing so.

Baa baa doo baa baa

This video has understandably been going viral on Christian Twitter this week. Also, in this metaphor, Jesus is extremely hot and very charming. If your minister doesn’t use it as their next sermon illustration, walk out.

There’s a new biopic about Christian evangelists and it’s obviously, incredibly my shit..!

Marvel’s Christian superhero

It won’t surprise you to learn RELEVANT’s Tyler Huckabee has unearthed that in the 90s, Marvel and Christian publisher Thomas Nelson teamed up to create a Christian superhero. Read the article it’s really interesting.

His name is the Illuminator, and unlike other Christian superheroes like Nightcrawler, his powers are directly linked to his level of faith in Jesus.

And yes, I do want to read these comics quite badly and I’m mad that Disney won’t (or can’t) release them. I say let’s bring the Illuminator back with a gritty reboot where he’s a deconstructed exvangelical.

Okay, so the whole thing is kind of cringe, but it’s way cooler than Bibleman.

If you comment or email, you might end up in the letters section!

Catherine points out that Jerry Falwell Jr’s reference to black water isn’t a total non sequitur. She writes:

First of all, EXTREMELY honored to be included in the #MementoMori Vibes. Secondly, while he is totally lying about *his particular* glass, black water was a real fad there for a minute.

Linky-poos!

• We continue to Stan Semler (video)
• Worse than calling your teacher ‘mum’ (tweet)
• The ancient religion and unsung artists behind Pokémon cards (article)
• Good thing that, in Noah’s time, the British maritime authorities were not permitted to board the ark and subsequently drowned (article)
• Confess and get the fuck out (image)
• Check out this extremely cool shape note hymn (video)

If you’ve been enjoying this newsletter, share it around, or put it on your Twitter or Facebook. If you have a tip or a post I should see, especially about a religion you don’t hear about all that often, please email me: rohansalmond@gmail.com. Also, follow me on Twitter: @RJSalmond.

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