Salon.com > Daniel Radosh

Holy sex!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:07:00 +0000

The main sanctuary of Calvary Church, in the cornfields of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, seats four thousand people. On the weekend of April 28, 2006, it was nearly full with women, some from as far away as Canada and Idaho, who had paid $50 each to be there. Linda Dillow, a young-looking grandmother of five, greeted the congregation warmly and began to preach her own brand of the gospel. "What," she asked, "does God really think about sex?"

Dillow knows what many Christians believe. "Because I want to be godly, I can't allow myself to be too earthly," one woman had told her, "I allow myself to experience pleasure -- but only so much." The Calvary Church audience murmured in understanding. "Ladies," announced Dillow, "sensuality in marriage is godly. Just as a husband and wife experience deep joy as they lose themselves and merge into oneness at the moment of sexual climax, we experience ultimate joy as we become one with Jesus Christ in a union that leads to incomprehensible joy. Sexual intercourse mirrors our relationship to God and causes us to worship him for giving us this good gift." Surely it couldn't be a coincidence, she added with a wink, that there is no better time than a long Sunday morning in church to practice your Kegel exercises.

The devil’s music

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 13:00:00 +0000

On the night of Oct. 6, David Ludwig, 18, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Beth Borden, went to church. There was no sermon, though -- at least not a traditional one. David and Kara were at the Lancaster Bible Church in Manheim, Penn., for a Christian rock concert. As the punishingly loud guitars of Audio Adrenaline and Pillar strained the limits of the church sound system, the kids screamed and pumped their fists and banged their heads. "Pillar and Audio A rock my face off!" David wrote on his blog the next day. Kara spent almost all the money in her pocket on a Pillar sweatshirt. She was wearing it the morning of Nov. 13 when, police say, David shot and killed her parents and fled with her at his side.

If your only association with contemporary Christian music (CCM) is Amy Grant or Stryper, you might be surprised at how popular, varied and artistically mature the genre has become in the last 15 years. By some estimates, Christian music sales topped $720 million last year, making it a bigger niche than jazz and classical combined. For every genre of mainstream music there is a Christian parallel: rock, punk, reggae, folk, dance pop, gangsta rap. Pillar, named for the biblical description of God's household as "the pillar and foundation of truth," plays rap-core, a furiously propulsive mash-up of hard rock and rap. Musically, they are as creditable as many of their top-40 counterparts. Their lyrics testify to their faith in Jesus, a faith that David and Kara publicly share.

Harry Potter: The digital remix

Tue, 22 Jun 2004 21:40:00 +0000

On the day "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" opened, as they say, at theaters everywhere, some 50 people gathered in a concrete-walled screening room in Brooklyn, N.Y., that was the only theater anywhere showing the other new Harry Potter movie, "Wizard People, Dear Reader."

Actually, "Wizard People" isn't a movie, exactly. It was conceived as an audiobook that tells the story -- or rather, a story -- of Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts Academy. Creator Brad Neely, 27, recorded narration to be played while watching the first Potter movie, 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," on mute. In the projection booth, Myles Kane of the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, which sponsored the screening along with Stay Free magazine, tried frantically to get the sound and picture in sync using an iPod and DVD player. But the DVD kept starting at the wrong point, or not starting at all. An error message flashed on the screen: "Operation currently prohibited by disc." Stay Free publisher Carrie McLaren chuckled. The screening itself was quite possibly prohibited by law.

Wow! It fits in a box!

Mon, 17 Nov 1997 20:00:00 +0000

After all these years, old media shows no signs of getting over its thing about new media. You know, the "that's-so-cool!" thing. Virtually every magazine and newspaper now features regular reports on the latest Web sites, CD-ROMs and high-tech toys. Nothing wrong with that -- they do the same for movies, books, television and so on. But the journalists and critics who cover movies, books and television rarely behave as if the very existence of these media is so amazing that the particular film or novel or sitcom being discussed is automatically worthy of celebration simply because it exists. (How many times have you seen a newspaper column raving about, oh, how to make travel arrangements using the Internet? No doubt such services can be useful, but the paper has to make it sound exciting, fun, cool. It's almost as if the columnist honestly doesn't know that visiting a travel agency's Web site is just as boring as calling one on the phone.)

Among the highest-profile offenders in the wow-can-you-believe-all-this-incredible-stuff department is Newsweek's Cyberscope page. The name, of course, plays off the magazine's popular Periscope section, but while Periscope's editorial attitude is one of healthy skepticism, Cyberscope gushes enthusiastically about everything it covers.

The New York Times' reefer madness

Tue, 24 Jun 1997 19:00:00 +0000

readers of the New York Times might assume that front page stories are selected on the basis of newsworthiness. Occasionally, however, the paper gives an article prominent play in order to advance a cultural agenda (or, more cynically, to prove that it still has the clout to do so). Last month the Times-manufactured fuss over heroin chic led all the way to a lip-biting announcement from President Clinton.

Last Friday, the Times was at it again with an article headlined, "A Seductive Drug Culture Flourishes on the Internet." To the paper's credit, this topic is at least not hopelessly passi. It is even worthy of serious coverage. But as with the heroin chic story, objective reporting here takes a back seat to middlebrow fear-mongering. Given the confluence of two of America's favorite boogeymen (drugs and the Internet -- together at last!), there is no doubt that this too is a story with legs.

The article, by Christopher S. Wren, begins like this: "Even as parents, teachers and government officials urge adolescents to say no to drugs ..."

Media Circus – Moore is less

Fri, 06 Jun 1997 19:00:00 +0000

what does Michael Moore have in common with Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern? The answer -- I mean the other answer, the one that doesn't include the words blubber or bigmouth -- is Judith Regan. The feisty celebritor's HarperCollins imprint, Regan Books, recently announced a six-figure deal with Moore for a January 1998 follow-up to the director-cum-author's bestselling "Downsize This!" Meanwhile, Moore is trying to arrange overseas financing for a third incarnation of his satirical newsmagazine, "TV Nation."

For most people on the left, Moore is welcome news. Some of us, however, have had enough.

Eight years ago we forgave Moore when he distorted facts in "Roger & Me," his documentary about General Motors and Flint, Mich. After all, it was in the service of a larger Truth, and as progressives (or liberals, as we called ourselves then) we wanted to support a distinctive populist voice. Most importantly, "Roger & Me" was a clever and very funny film.