Atheist Kitsch

Kitsch in the church can be a source of constant embarrassment or humor, not mutually exclusive categories, for my Christian students. Whenever they get too discouraged I point out to them that any large movement will attract all kinds of people.

One should be careful not to be a snob and merely sanctify one’s own taste.Different message styles are needed for different audiences and we should be slow to condemn effective means of communication.

Still some Christian “art” and “product” are so glaringly wrongheaded, bad, and tasteless,  (insert further condemning adjective of choice here), that it cries out for traditional Christian condemnation. Projects like the new “conservative Bible” warrant nuclear measures and justify letting slip the dogs of cultural war .  . . or at least the more inflamed writers in the Reformed blogosphere, the pit bulls of Protestantism.

Whenever I feel too bad about such strange Christian “products,” I visit the web sites of the new Internet atheists. My favorite is that of Dan Barker, new atheist promoter and “song” writer. A former producer of Christian junk music, he has become a producer of atheist junk music proving that the desire for bad music, really bad message music, is not part of a religious gene.

Barker has written songs so bad in praise of nothing that every Calvary Chapel praise band I have ever heard is elevated by the comparison.

Go listen to the electronic keyboard stylings . . . the automatic rhythm setting on . . . and your life is changed. The Pope Polka, which depends on the Know-Nothing tradition, is particularly faith building. If one too many chorus with “Jesus is my boyfriend” lyrics played in your parish has your faith down, listen to Love (“the only bow on life’s dark cloud”) by Dan Barker.

I am in No Hurry to Die was the first time I have ever considered whether suicide from music was licit.

You will appreciate emo-Christian song writing for the only time in your life.

You can get free samples at his site and a few minutes there would always renew my faith in the doctrine of original sin (despite Barker’s plea that I cannot “Win With Original Sin”) and the idea that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Think your local praise band is bad? Bet they are Bach (a believer!) on their electronic keyboards compared to the work of Dan Barker. My children find Barker’s music a source of never ending delight.

The calypso tune Nothing Fails Like Prayer is so awesomely bad that J.P. Moreland and I have been singing it ever since we heard it. The Mr. Rogers-ish cry that “I am as happy as can be . . .” because Barker is our friendly neighborhood atheist (without any horns!) is a decent example of the problem of evil demonstrated in music.

Perhaps we are to blame for training Barker, but he has been an atheist for longer than he was a minister and I see no improvement in his tunes over the years. Nor is Barker alone .  . .  as a search of any infidel web site will show. It is perfectly possible to load up on atheist swag and the graphic quality of t-shirts there actually makes one long for the comparatively excellent stuff one can get in the local Christian book store.

Only infidel tees can make you feel better about the dreadful “This Bloods For You” top. When your product line reached its apex with the “Darwin Fish,” you are really in a small pond of kitsch creativity.

Is there an argument here? Is belief in God so potent that it makes even our junk art superior? But the moment I think such happy thoughts, I remember the painting of Jesus knocking on the walls of the UN and grow less triumphalist.

Perhaps my students are on to something after all. Bad atheist art is not so surprising and the commercialization of everything is hard to criticize on materialist grounds. Christians should know better. It is fundamentally weird to make a profit on the teachings of Jesus . . . and bizarre to market with kitsch a religion that centers on a cross.

Atheist kitsch reminds us that bad art and the desire to market just about everything (Sanger songs!) is part of the Fall. Christian kitsch reminds us that the Redeemed are not sanctified yet. May I reject any religion/philosophy centered on product consumption . . . and use my free market liberty to not buy any “new and improved” Christian swag.