Those Unbelievable Believers:
The Blessed Sounds of
Incredible Christian Song Demos
#09 — "We Are the Champions (of God)" (2:26)
A C A U S T I C M E D I T A T I O N
N O T E V E N B A R E L Y D I S G U I S E D
A S A H A L F - A S S E D I N T R O
( O R V I C E V E R S A )
Despite what one might suppose from even the most fleeting of visits to Deuce of Clubs Dot Com, I'm really not all that experienced in the miraculous. That probably has something to do with my having grown up in Babdist churches, where miracles are thought of exactly how you would expect deeply devout people to think of them: as a serious violation of church bylaws.
Technically, though, so is the Bible, which is run through with tales of miraculous doings. This is a problem for thoughtful Bible literalists of the Verbal Plenary Inspiration Doctrinal Statement You Must Sign school. However, according to recent Gallup poll results I just faked, thoughtful literalists are fairly few in number and less thoughtful literalists don't seem troubled by the subject—that is, until you bring up certain subjects that magically make the Bible a whole lot less literal all of a sudden.
Just yesterday I passed a church with one of those message signs out front, the kind usually reserved for puns righteously swiped from Thee Big Booke of Japing Sermon Titles. But this sign read: "THE 10 COMMANDMENTS ARE NOT MULTIPLE CHOICE."
Now, something is missing there, and I'm not talking about the customary spelling and grammar errors or even the most microscopic forensic traces of a sense of humor. No, I'm talking about 603 commandments—because there are reported to be some 613 in all. Any literalist church not executing witches, non-heterosexuals, and disobedient children would appear to be making a whole lot of multiple choices. And if you ever want a fundamentalist to think of someone else they suddenly need to go and annoy, just start running through the discouragingly short list of people the Bible calls blessed: Let's see . . . the meek, yes, very nice, uh . . . the merciful, sure, sure . . . the peacemakers, obviously, and . . . ah, yes, of course, those who bash in the skulls of living babies.
Strangely, that verse appears unedited in the AV (Anti-abortion Version) of the Bible, but somehow it got cut from the Reggae Version. But here's a bonus cootie protection tip: just using the word reggae is probably enough to scare away a fundamentalist—especially if you happen to have run across one of the extremely few among them who might have even the faintest soap-bubble of a notion of what reggae might be (apart from a word that "just sounds dirty, my goodness!").
Obviously, not all xtian denominations agree on miracles, or hermeneutics, or abortion, or even on the precise list of which words are in fact "dirty." Today, in fact, I heard a radio commercial advertising a "spirit-filled" church. This is interesting in that it brings up two important questions:
1.) Could there be churches that advertise that they are filled with something else—possibly cream, or even jelly? [Note to self: open exhaustive investigation into this.]
2.) Much less importantly: how, exactly, would a church's claim of spirit-filled-ness be verified? In the Bible, it is written that churches proved their divine moral authority by picketing the hilltops where newborn babies were regularly committed to death by exposure and burning the books of Aristotle and others who wrote in favor of the practice.
Just kidding. No, instead it is claimed that these original xtians merely performed miracles. Oddly, dead baby resuscitation is nowhere mentioned, nor, for that matter, is the popular modern miracle of leg-lengthening. (Even more oddly, from our modern perspective, is the fact that the original xtians didn't yell and scream at the heathens, which almost seems the most unbelievable miracle of all.)
If ever genuine signs and wonders and miracles occurred, they all took place a long and safely unverifiable time ago. According to the doctrine of the fundies, miracles did happen, but they are "not for the present age." In support of that daring teaching, the learned among them deftly employ a great number of well thought-out and colorful professionally printed theological charts that somehow still manage to be pretty retarded-looking. Their arguments are far too sophisticated to get into here, of course, unless your IQ pokes anywhere above the 50-ish level and it is therefore painfully obvious that their reasoning and proof-texting have a single source, namely, the inability of anyone to do anything demonstrably miraculous (unless you belong to one of those churches that hold "miracle crusades," where to believe in miracles, one has to put under the heading miracles the sideshow trick of leg lengthening and such wondrous cures as "Well, my headache does seem almost gone, maybe"). All in all, then, it must be said,
T H E M I R A C U L O U S :
P U R D E E D A R N E D C O N F U S I N '.
Also confusing:
M O S T , I F N O T A L L ,
O F T H E F O R E G O I N G.
So let's move on to a far less confusing theological topic closer to subject of the current song:
D O M I N I O N T H E O L O G Y.
Not really. Hardly anything in theology is less confusing than anything else in theology. This paralyzing confusion is the source of its enduring charm. But what is most baffling and least charming about theology is that a band like Queen once had so much clout that even xtian musicians couldn't avoid trying to copy off of them.This xtian prog-rocker would have been better off discarding his Queen records—and better still if he had also discarded the Dominion theology that provoked him to write a hymn of Dominion that inadvertently backhands Dominion Prog-Rock Xtians with the exultation, "we are the losers . . . in our heads we're healed." Still, somehow it all works out and, like Queen, they still get to be "Champions"—but of God. Dood. Hope Captain Prog-Rock never recorded with the Awrsum Drummer Boy. 'Cos, yeahhhh . . . ahhhhh, no.
SO W H Y B R I N G U P
D O M I N I O N T H E O L O G Y ?
Here's a sympati-quo-tation from sherri.curtisclarkministries.net, which you can't visit any longer, because, I don't know, something about Account for domain sherri.curtisclarkministries.net has been suspended. Whatever. But the unsuspended sherri dot curtis no-dot clark page is, or was, on the same theological page as our Champion of God singer. Specifically, whichever page of your preferred translation or amplification or paraphrase that contains the verse John 10:34, in which "Jesus tells us 'you are gods.' It is with the attitude of gods in this world that we are to live. The power of God, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of dominion! It makes one a god. Christianity has the champion consciousness. Being born of God, we are the champions of God. 'As He is, so are we in this world.'"
S U R E . O K A Y.
B U T W H Y D I D Y O U B R I N G U P
M I R A C L E S , E A R L I E R ?
Look, who's the writer here, me, or one of the voices in my head? Sheesh. Though, if I were in the habit of entertaining dumb questions from voices in my head, I could say, if any person is a god, that person ought to be able to do miracles. But here's something more interesting
T O P O N D E R :
Isn't it odd how presumably not-gay arena sports fans have embraced gay anthems such as "We Are the Champions," "Y.M.C.A," as well as the hit by that rockin' child pornographer Gary Glitter, "Rock and Roll Part 2"?
By the night, we pray
By the hope, we stay
By Jesus
By the fortress we kneel
In our heads we're healed
We are the champions of God
Of God
Of God
Here we are alone
Here we are together
We are to take back all God owns
March! March! March!
This is the call
The highest call of all
The call of Jesus
We are the champions
We are the kings and priests
We are the losers
That God raised up
We are the champions of God
We are the champions of God
Even when we wound, we live
We are the champions
Remember to gi-i-i-i-i-i-ive
By the fortress we kneel
In our heads, we're healed
We are the champions of God
Of God
Of God
By the night, we pray
By the hope, we stay
By Jesus
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