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Undertale and the Pope

Also, Relient K said gay rights

Rohan Salmond

Jan 12, 2022 • 4 min read

Welcome to the first edition of Modern Relics of 2022!

The astute among you would have noticed I did not publish anything last week. My Twitter feed was full of very technical theological arguments about the Nicene Creed that did not inspire any memes or relate to other popular culture, so I decided to let it slide. Instead I decided to dedicate that time to one of my new favourite hobbies: drinking wine in the bath. I also got my COVID booster.

A circus performed to an Undertale song for the Pope

On January 5, during a papal audience, a circus troupe performed to Megolovania, a track from the video game Undertale. Here’s the video on the official Vatican YouTube channel.

The Pope seems to have enjoyed it, saying, “this experience puts us in touch with beauty … and is a way to find the Lord.”

This isn’t the first time the Pope has encountered Undertale. YouTuber MatPat gave him a copy of the game while attending a Vatican summit about the internet in 2016.

So anyway, gamers were confused and fascinated; the trads predictably hated it. But as it turns out, circus performances at the Vatican are common and have a long history. Also, there is an official Catholic National Circus Chaplain in the US.

The Pillar explains:

The Bible on cyberbullying

Here’s a funny story

“I hope this still counts”

Christian rapper Lecrae wrote a tweet which could not be better at starting discourse if it was genetically engineered by the world’s best tweet scientists.

“Just did communion at home with wheat bread and apple juice. I hope this still counts. 🤷🏾‍♂️”

I won’t get into all the to-ing and fro-ing this caused - if you want to check it out, the comments on the original tweet will give you a pretty good idea. Basically more liturgical high church folks say no, it doesn’t count.

But Lecrae is a Baptist, and they’re much less strict about what the ingredients are or who blesses them… although doing communion alone, blessed by a layperson, is still very unusual.

It’s sad that Christian communities still have to grapple with questions about at-home communion as COVID continues to prevent physically gathering in churches.

I posted the tweet in the Modern Relics Discord (please join!) and we had some fun. It reminded me of this meme I found somewhere.

Church signs were the original shitposts

Relient K said gay rights

Un-follow me now, this is gonna be the only thing I tweet about for the next week. My fav Semler is going to be opening for Christian pop punk band Relient K on their new tour. This is huge for three reasons:

It affirms Semler’s ‘gamestopping’ the Christian iTunes charts with tangible support from a popular Christian band who has long been part of the industry
Semler is outspoken about their sexuality, gender identity and Christian faith
Relient K was my favourite band when I was a teenager, and I am very Christian and very gay

Several high-profile CCM stars have spoken positively about LGBT people in the last year (I’ve written about Amy Grant and Jon Foreman before), but this is the first time someone has put some real skin in the game and incorporated a queer artist into their shows.

I don’t know if Relient K’s label let them do this, or if they’re no longer under contract. Regardless, it represents a shift in what is otherwise a highly conservative and risk-averse industry.

Like, the thought of hearing someone sing about the pain of coming out and subsequently losing touch with a Christian friend at a Relient K show is mind-blowing to me.

Will Semler sing the one about having a sexual awakening at a youth group lock-in? What about the one that goes, “the mission trips are scams / they do more harm than good / We got fame-hungry pastors / making bank in Hollywood”?

What about the one that goes “I’m fuckin’ gay, thank God for that”?

There’s a real risk of Relient K being completely abandoned by the labels and Christian radio, the same as what happened to Dan Haseltine and Jars of Clay, so I was honestly surprised to see this happen. But several venues (including in Nashville, the heart of the Christian music industry) sold out and they’ve added new shows, which are also selling fast.

So hopefully it’ll be fine?! I’ll be following closely.