Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Days of the Dead

Published by

Matt Stone

2006-07-26

golden_izmel_award Well it seems my mate John Morehead has been coping flack for speaking at the Cornerstone Festival. Now a confirmed heretic. Woohoo.

Actually, it seems Slice of Laodicea have declared all the participants heretics and worked themselves into a quite a lather in the process. Yes, the Days of the Dead theme of Imaginarium sounds a bit out there, but what people need to examine more closely is the whys and the wherefores before jumping to conclusions. Unfortunately premature excitation seems to be a hallmark of Laodicea and symbolic illiteracy follows close behind. What I really find gob-smaking from an Aussie point of view is the tactics used by ‘covert missionaries’ who thought wrapping toilet paper round the tent was a cute form of apologetics. How juvenile.

Anyway, in honour of Slice of Laodicea’s efforts Ive decided to nominate them for the Golden Izmel Award for blogs promoting gentile circumcision. I apologise to my non-Christian readers for the obscure in-house nature of this award, but it basically relates to a controversy in the early church over the wee matter of cultural imperialism, a matter which resulted in Paul (in frustration) telling some conservatives to slice their nasty bits off altogether and let gentile Christians be gentiles.

The izmel is the traditional Jewish implement for ritual circumcision so I think it’s only apt that latter day cultural circumcisers be nominated it.

Readers may also be interested in a related thread on Tall Skinny Kiwi

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5 responses to “Days of the Dead”

Lint Hatcher

2006-07-27

Thanks for fairness of your Imaginarium/Day of the Dead coverage. One correction though: the covert operatives, so to speak, were not responsible for the toilet papering of the Asylum tent. It was an in-joke among Cornerstone folks.
Thanks,
Lint

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Jim from OldTruth.com

2006-07-27

Can you point me to the place on Slice where you or all the participants were called a heretic, please?
Thank you,
–Jim

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John W. Morehead

2006-07-27

Matt, thanks for commenting on this interesting controversy. The negative reaction and intimations of syncretism and heresy by the Slice folks is similar to critiques some of us have received regarding our missional approach to new religions. This indicates that similar dynamics are at work in these segments of evangelicalism.
As to Jim’s query as to where the Slice site labels anyone heretical, while the specific wording is not there, a simple review of the negative posts reveals that Lint Hatcher and myself are considered compromisers who need to repent because of alleged impartation of occult teaching to teens and adults. And this while we claim to be Christians and at a Christian festival. If this isn’t an allusion to being heretical I don’t know what is.

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Matt Stone

2006-07-27

I stand corrected on the toilet paper comment. I still find myself shaking my head at the rest of the proceedings, what with tracts being handed out to Christians and counter cult indulgence in James Bond spy motifs. We just never see that sort of thing out my way, even from the most belligerent Christians, which makes me really sad about the state to which the ‘dialogue’ has degenerated over there.

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Kathleen Lundquist

2006-07-31

Hi there – just found your comments on the controversy. FYI, I also attended the Cornerstone Imaginarium this year, and my reactions to it are posted on my blog (www.kathleenlundquist.blogspot.com), along with a fisk of Dwayna Litz’ original report.
If you’re so inclined, come visit and see what you think. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. FYI, I’m a Roman Catholic, so I come at these issues from a different angle…

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