A wry commercial commentary on the Sudan controversy from conservative blogger Bob McCarty.  The ever-informative and engaging Get Religion explores the implications of the controversy for how journalists should draw the line between "Islamic" and "Islamist."

Could something like the teddy bear Mohammed protests arise in the Christian community?  In a way, they already are.  Protests against The Golden Compass extend beyond the movie and books to the potential impact of its merchandising.  Here's a sample objection from a popular Catholic message board:

What if some kids watch that or read the books and decide to name their doll or stuffed animal or favorate pet "demon" or something from the movie? Seemingly harmless things like that can and will open spiritual doors. 

Interesting historical counter-example: last year around this time, Christian protests led Toys for Tots to agree to distribute 4,000 "Holy Huggables" talking Jesus dolls, which TfT had previously rejected on the grounds that the toys might offend non-Christians.

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From Busted Tees:

"Ugh, I was into yoga way before ancient peoples discovered the restorative powers of meditation combined with stretching."

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For more stuff like this, check out the Ship of Fools' Twelve Days of Kitschmas.

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About a block from my office is St. Paul's Chapel, "The Little Chapel That Stood" as the Twin Towers collapsed behind it. One day shortly after I started my current gig I popped in for a moment of reflection and discovered, much to my surprise, that the sanctuary has been converted into an all-out 9/11 tourist attraction. There's not just an exterior display noting the chapel's experience of 9/11; the inside is a veritable 9/11 pilgrimage site, replete with sacred relics and . . .

A gift shop.

Talk to folks who live in the City about the street vendors who surround the pit--as it's not so affectionately known around here by folks weary of the endless construction--and you'll inevitably hear a fair stream of invective against the commodification of 9/11 by soulless jackals profiting from tragedy.

But is it any different when the seller is a church?

Arguably yes, judging from the lack of any objections among the Chapel's visitors. Shoot, lack of objection is an understatement--today I had to stand in line to just to get a look at the display case, and to my left was another line snapping up literally boxfuls of the "The Little Chapel That Stood" children's book personally autographed by the author. The store is a testament to the power of transformative design--a vendor on the street is merely selling things, but a shop in a shrine is not commerce.

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"Deep down, we are afraid we may never be satisfied. An expanding archive of branded myths and icons feeds this fear."

For more on Velema's critique of consumerist iconography, visit DesignerGasMasks.com.

Now, some of you may think that using a gasmask to symbolize a connection between commodified Christianity and the culture of fear is a bit of a stretch. But then you probably haven't seen the logo of the alt Christian rock band Dumbkat, depicted below on a button from its (sold out!) gasmask-branded merch:

How the band explains its logo:

The Guy in the Gas Mask represents the fight of what is around us. . . The fight of what we cant see. . . The fight of everything crashing down all around us. . . The fight from within ourselves. . . It is important to recognize the problems in our lives, and seek a way to fix them. So we thought that this was the perfect way to resemble this fight.

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Christian nightclub--well, OK, evening church--humor by Randy Bonifield. An interesting fusion of sacred and secular style, with a cutting observation on Rapture fashion sense and the obligatory serious sacred turn at the end. HT: Progression of Faith.

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Just got off the phone with a reporter re the fusion of for-profits and charity. Here's one in Nolita, via Gothamist and Page Six:

CALVIN Klein is destroying his own ad in the name of art. To help promote the Dec. 1 opening of the New Museum on the Bowery, Klein allowed the institution's advertisers to drip oozing pink paint over his Houston Street billboard of Lara Stone and Jamie Burke wearing his jeans. The label, along with Julianne Moore andMaggie Gyllenhaal, will host an intimate soiree tonight at the museum, and the hot pink ooze will drip down the billboard until Monday.

One thing that gets me every time I'm asked about this sort of thing is the assumption that this sort of thing is new, that it never happened before. Nahhhh. Five hundred years ago, a wealthy merchant would pay for vestments, sponsor religious artwork and get himself (or his mistress!) drawn into the pictures. Now it's a museum integrated with two half-dressed people pretending to make out, but those are just incidental details.

And it's not as if the religious wasn't replete with naughty bits.

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Jewish and environmentally correct?

Here ya go!

HT: DNR

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Only $39.00! By Mischa Vos, thru Pan-Dan

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These shoes depicting Lord Rama were withdrawn from the market in 2005 following Hindu protests.  The manufacturer did, however, refuse to apologize, unlike a company that had previously sold shoes branded Vishnu and Krishna.

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Click here for the artwork, a nifty holiday image from the online RTTY (Radio Teletype) collection.  As explained on Artscene.textfiles.com, RTTY art, "generated from capital letters, numbers, and punctuation marks," was the precursor to contemporary ASCII art. 

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Over at the Huffington Post, Steven Denlinger has been writing on his movement away from his family's conservative Mennonite faith.  It's all worth reading--especially for someone who, like me, grew up in Amish country--but this story made a particular impression:

WHEN WAS THE PRECISE MOMENT I decided to leave the world of my birth?

THE MOMENT OF DECISION, the emotional Rubicon I crossed, occurred during a conversation with a Muslim girl in London, England in April, 1989. I was attending Richmond College, living on the Kensington campus. I was 25 years old.

I don't even remember the young woman's name. The two of us were standing in the common room, waiting to collect the day's mail. It was almost the end of my year abroad. A classmate from my Chaucer class had just introduced us, and we were having one of those random conversations that suddenly goes deep. She had asked me about my world, and reciprocated by telling me about her own strict and loving father and her own birth world.

Although she was dressed like any Western girl, my new friend told me that when she returned to Egypt, she would take off her clothes and put on the garb of her father's culture. The demands of modesty she would face made the women's apparel within my own Amish-Mennonite world look positively slutty. And then, as I listened to her describe the patriarchal world of her birth, it finally hit me.

I realized that although the trappings of her birth world were different, and the theology read in a different language, the religious principle that put men in control of her world was the same.

That moment caramelized all of my questions. Suddenly, my life changed, forever.

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The atmosphere in front of the FAO Schwarz flagship toy store in New York was tense. No one spoke. It was September 14, 2006, and artist and sculptor Ken Goldman had flown to the famous store from Israel to compete in the annual toy audition. Carrying the prototypes of his three new Kabbala dolls - Blue Sansoni, Orange Samonglif and Green Sanoi - Goldman took his place in line with crazed toy inventors from around the world. . . .

While most of the inventors were granted three minutes or less, Goldman had over 30 minutes to present his dolls and explain their connection to a ninth-century Kabbala text.

When he finished, the CEO and head buyer at FAO Schwarz told him to just leave everything with them. Now, a little over a year later, the dolls are being mass-produced and sold all over the world.

. . .

But although the three dolls' shapes and names are taken directly from a Kabbala text, Goldman notes that they are designed to be gifts that touch upon an old tradition of protecting children with an object; they are not meant to make a statement about the mythology surrounding Adam, Eve and Lilith, who is sometimes referred to as Adam's first wife. In the original drawings of the amulets that Goldman used as a model, the Hebrew text above loosely translates as: "Adam and Eve: Lilith aside."

According to Christopher Witcombe, author of Eve and the Identity of Women, Lilith appears as Adam's first wife in midrashic literature. Lilith, a figure often celebrated today as the first feminist, abandoned Adam to go and live near the Red Sea. In the Zohar Lilith vanishes from Adam's side after saying the unspeakable name of God. Adam then beseeches God to bring her back. Upon his request, God sends three angels - Sanoi, Sansoni and Samonglif - to Lilith. Nevertheless, despite their threats, she refuses to return, insisting instead upon harming newborn infants. She does, however, promise that no harm will come to any baby wearing an amulet with either the names or images of the three angels.

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"Our model for presentation of ministry is Dr. Billy Graham."

Or, more accurately, Superstar Billy Graham!

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On last night's Project Runway, designer Elisa Jimenez prompted a fair bit of laughter and derision by spit-marking her fabric to imbue "it with energy and essence." 

As new agey as that may sound, the puzzled and skeptical responses actually speak volumes about the disconnect between contemporary culture and the ancient world.

Case  in point:  biblical accounts of healing by Jesus Christ.  If one thing sticks out to me in today's depictions of Jesus healing, it's the hygiene.  Everything is so clean--a clean Jesus puts his clean hands on clean people, in an unconscious fusion of the gospel narrative with today's antiseptic medical environment.

But the reality was far different.  Not only was dirt everywhere--hence the footwashing and the ubiquitous water and cleansing metaphors--but bodily fluids were an integral part of spiritual transformation. 

In fact, the gospels mention three distinct incidents in which Jesus healed individuals with spit.  Spit on the tongue, spit on the eyes, spit mixed with dirt placed on eyes--not exactly standard procedure on House.  In Christ and Culture, theologian Graham Ward describes the significance of this as follows (p.64):

The body of Jesus is also situated within various fluid operations. . . . He is connected to flows of water, bodily fluids like blood and spit (Mark 8:23) and a force, authority or spiritual strength (dunamis) that passes through him. 

When Elisa spit on the fabric to infuse it with spiritual energy, she was not on some solipsistic "happy planet," as another contestant described her.  She was living in the fusion of spirit and earth that gave rise to our world's leading religions. 

And hey, at least she didn't spit in anyone's eye!

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CNN has an article exposing "horrid" conditions at a Chinese "sweatshop" where women make crucifixes for sale in the U.S.

Glue, glitter, numbing hours sifting through boxes of junk--is that a sweatshop or my old Sunday School?

THE BAD OLD DAYS DEPT.:  The working conditions of Chinese tchotchke manufacturers has received attention before, most notably in this documentary.

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As in the Prophet's versus the Pope's, not Prada's versus Tiffany's. The Times' Ruth Gledhill explains the significance of this choice for the future of Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

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Apparently based on a true story, this home-made sitcom portrays the star's ability to see and hear her guardian angel.

How did she acquire this ability?

Apparently it's all about the headgear:

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Neatorama spots this intriguing story out of India, in which a man, cursed with calamities after killing dogs years ago, seeks to reverse the curse by marrying a stray dog. This remedy came from an astrologer, which is arguably one reason why I should stop reading my horoscope while I'm ahead ("don't waste time and energy on passing distractions"--ooooops).

Two things about this story caught my eye. One, of course, was the wedding garb: a traditional bright colored sari and garland. The other is the all too Western reduction of the event to sex:

Mr Selvakumar is not the first man to have hit the headlines for having romantic relations with animals.

Last year a Sudanese man was forced to marry a goat after village elders discovered him having sex with her. The goat died shortly afterwards.

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Via The Accordion Guy

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OK, it's not jewelry, but I love this prayer request note on today's Found, apparently from a kid not too happy about having to go to church:

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Spirit writing and mindmaps come together in a new evangelical practice: "praying in color," in which a person visualizes supplication in magic marker. Examples below:

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The typical Flickr image of a photoshopped woman with angel wings is a visual cliche--yes, it embodies the aspiration to rise above their given physical nature, but the typical image is so gauzy and idealized that when you've seen about a thousand of 'em it looks mundane and routine.

Not the one below, which I ran across on a site to which I have become addicted: the design image blog FFFFOUND!  The raw naturalism of this image is true to our innate schizoid fusion of flesh and transcendence.

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The big news in New York today: the confession of the personal assistant who killed celebrity real-estate agent Linda Steiner.

The murder weapon: a "yoga stick" or "Pilates bar." For folks who didn't realize that spiritual exercise could kill, here are a couple likely suspects:

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These beads were found around the neck, but the head was gone. (Courtesy of the Hierakonpolis Expedition)

For proof that archaeologists have a sense of humor, check out Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis in the latest online edition of the journal Archaeology, from the Archaeological Institute of America.

At least I think they're joking . . .

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WXMU has more on this must-see music video from Kabul, featuring Afghanistan's first girl group. I won't spoil anything here, but the sequence starting at 2:20 is stunning!

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Pictured above: a San Damiano dashboard widget for the Mac Dashboard. The designer's description unintentionally highlights a deep current in our religious imagination: redemptive holographic images.

The image of Christ on the Cross of San Damiano came to life and commanded St. Francis of Assisi to rebuild His Church which was falling into ruins. St. Francis went on to become so much like Christ that He was blessed with the stigmata, the wounds of Christ.

Sub Princess Leia for Jesus and Obi wan Kenobi for Francis of Assisi, and bang, ya got Star Wars!

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Source: The Brain Box

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What would Jesus wear ?, originally uploaded by Tampen.

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The violent extermination of the Mandaeans in Iraq--a gnostic sect that traces its origins back to John the Baptist--has been getting some coverage in the mainstream press.  Their situation is also difficult in Iran, where they are systematically being deprived of their livelihood:

One occupation long open to Mandaeans has been jewelry making. However, . . . the Iranian Jewelers’ Association, who exercises control over the issuance of official licenses, has decided in 2003 to issue new job licenses to Muslim jewelers only. Mandaean jewelers were not allowed to apply for new licenses, thus depriving young Mandaeans of one of the few occupations they were allowed to practice.

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In these troubled times, the Serenity Prayer has been enjoying a resurgence in Christian coffee mugs, prayer cards and even jewelry.

What most purveyors of this material don't realize is that the Serenity Prayer was composed by a theologian whose work is also enjoying a bit of revival--Reinhold Niebuhr, whose estate would be considerably richer if he'd secured the copyright. Intellectual property law is different now--copyright is automatic--but even so, if you craft a catchy devotional meditation be sure to document your work thoroughly!

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HT: The Wooster Collective.

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Blind Faith, originally uploaded by timslim1.

The designer's explanation:

"Again reflecting the churches stance regarding homosexuality,and its insane chant of "LOVE THE SINNER, HATE THE SIN"!!!!, the cross over the eye symbolises the ritualised preparation of a corpse!"

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From the Wooster Collective:

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"Manuscripts don't burn."

Many feel that's the greatest line in Russian literature, and I won't disagree. It's also no surprise that someone quoted this line in the comments thread for the blog post that reported the scene below.

The incident: Russian Orthodox nationalists burning Harry Potter books in Moscow.

One enthusiastic book-burner ("The fire's a good thing") described the group as "a holy inquisition" that "will fight against heretical literature." "These aren't little children's books about a heroic teen, but the darkest of dark literature, filling the souls of our children with evil, satanism and witchcraft. Harry Potter books teach the younger generation that through witchcraft and "enchantment" it's possible to achieve positive ends."

From a historical perspective, I can see why Russian Orthodox nationalists don't want books about witchcraft to teach kids to do evil that good may result. After all, isn't that traditionally the province of the Moscow Patriarchate?

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