Zelda’s here and the crucifixions have begun
Also, circumcising cars in Pixar's Cars
You’re lucky I’m here this week. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released on the weekend and I’ve only played like 11 hours of it. I’ve barely scratched the surface! Let alone the sky levels and the underground! But (almost) nothing can stop me from bringing you the latest religion and religion-adjacent shitposts to be found online.
Another thing: The episode of Schmeitgeist I was on is now on YouTube, so if you haven’t had a chance to listen, now’s the time. And yes, that’s what I look like.
Also, I have a few takers for writing guest posts while I am away in June (thank you thank you thank you!) but there is still space if you’d like to throw something together for me. A little piece about your favourite religious meme? A fun little interview? A little reflection about your favourite religious song? Many possibilities! Pitch me and see what happens.
Koroks dying for our sins all over the place
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is also a very good game. The base gameplay is more or less the same as the original, but the main character Link has new powers.
The main one: You can stick almost anything to anything else, making bridges, vehicles or elaborate sculptures. Players immediately made crosses and crucified these little korok guys (who, incidentally, are probably inspired by minor Japanese kami spirits — let’s not interrogate the implications of crossing these particular religious streams).
When I first saw this on Twitter, I thought it was a funny thing one person did. But no, these crosses are everywhere. I haven’t even posted all the ones I found!
In both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, koroks are hidden all over the map in puzzles you have to solve to get more weapon slots etc. There are hundreds of them, and some of the puzzles can be pretty difficult.
Some of the korok crosses are zooming across Hyrule on motorised platforms. Others are being paraded around on horse-and-cart situations as a warning to any korok who might make a puzzle too tricky for our simple gamer brains.
It’s part of a larger meme of taking revenge on koroks generally and posting it on social media, but some Christian players are genuinely just really into making crosses (sans korok torture).
One more Zelda tweet
Mark Wahlberg wants you to stay prayed up
Some edifying articles for you
Saw these posts on Substack and thought you might like them. Have a little read it will do you some good. You can even subscribe to these Substacks. There’s no law against it.
Why is this interesting?: The Sister Irene O’Connor Edition
My colleague Ange Lavoipierre sent me this post from about the re-issue of Australian nun Sister Irene O’Connor’s album Fire of God’s Love.
The album has racked up some serious fans—some of my favorite crate diggers and vinyl archivists, The Avalanches, called “Fire of God’s Love” one of the best Australian albums of all time and the early copies were grails on online forums and used record sites. The album has also been sampled by the likes of James Blake and made some TV appearances.
I am not too proud to admit I didn’t know about the album. The opening track “FIRE (of God’s Love)” rules. You can buy the whole album on Sister Irene’s website. I’d include it on the Modern Relics Spotify playlist but the album appears to be blocked on that platform in Australia.
Clusterhuck: How Nightcrawler Made Me a Better Christian
Loved this from about Nightcrawler from X-Men, who is Catholic but in a fun way.
There’s a lot of Christian representation in America, but most of it is pretty bad and not really recognizable to your average youth group kid. But in Nightcrawler, I found what I was looking for. Here was a superhero who seemed to genuinely like being a Christian and took it seriously, but was also a fiend for a good time, a trusty drinking buddy for Wolverine and flirty to a fault.
He was, in other words, someone I could both see myself in and aspire to be.
Weird medieval guys: Medieval Muslims loved their cats so much
on Twitter is great, but did you know it’s also on Substack? Olivia, who runs the account, posts short essays about the art as well as medieval life and history. Here’s one about cats in the Muslim world.
As well as collective care for strays by the community, a number of sources describe cats’ status as beloved pets for people from all levels of society in the medieval Islamic world. … The keeping of animals for emotional companionship would have been rather taboo for a Christian man of the day. Muslim men, whether nobles or humble labourers, don’t seem to have been subjected to the same stigma surrounding their pets.
It is a longstanding tenet of this newsletter that all cats are Muslim, and I’m glad medieval Muslims agree with me (let me have this).
Do you know who else is Muslim? Mario.
@nathanielrosenbergproving that mario is muslim 🙏 #mario #nintendo #toad #bluemuppets #supermariobros #chrispratt
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Un meme para ti
Circumcision in the Pixar Cars universe
@notarabbiyetReplying to @mattityahu.tenney Here you go, because you’re all so curious #cars #pixar #cars2 #jewishtiktok #jewish #disney #bris #fyp #fypシ
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Ilan Kogan is a rabbinical student on TikTok. Here’s a video where he explains, due to the existence of a Pope car in the Pixar Cars universe, there must also be Jewish cars, which implies there are car circumcisions. But how do you circumcise a car?
Previously in Modern Relics: Can you crucify Cars Jesus?
Jesus jokes with Slunt, the AI lizard
@jordanraskoSlunt and I had a great time on stream tellingeachother jokes #slunt #ai #comedy #streaming
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During COVID lockdown I would often watch comedian Jordan Raskopoulos on Twitch, where she has a recurring character called Slunt, who is her lizard son. Recently I was delighted to find out Slunt has been given an AI brain and can hold a conversation now! Anyway, here’s Jordan and Slunt having a laugh about Christianity.
Thanks for reading. Next week is the two-year anniversary of this newsletter and the last edition before I go on leave ahead of my wedding. But be not afraid! I’ve scheduled lots of content that will hopefully take us through until I get back. So you can defs recommend Modern Relics to a friend!
“Please read Modern Relics it’s a really good newsletter!”
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