In “Are We Still Buying a New World with Old Confederate Bills,” Lillian Smith writes, “The Devil knows that if you want to destroy a man, all you need do is fill him with false hopes and false fears. These will blind him to his new direction and he will inevitably turn away from the future and destroy himself and those close to him.” … Read More The Violence of Fear in Evangelical Christianity
+ christianity, howard thurman, jesus and the disinherited, lillian e smith, punk, religion, strange fruit
I don’t remember the first time I heard Regan Youth’s “Jesus Was A Communist” (also titled “Jesus Was A Pacifist”), but I remember the impact it has had on me. On the song, Dave Rubinstein sings, over and over again for four verses, “Jesus was a communist/Jesus was a pacifist/Jesus was a communist/Jesus didn’t like the rich.” Reagan Youth pointed out the intersections between … Read More Christianity and the Manipulation of Power
+ american literature, georgia literature, lillian e smith, Literature, race, religion, strange fruit
Over the past week, I’ve been reading Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream for my Women in the Civil Rights Memoir course and her debut novel Strange Fruit for a book club at the end of January. If memory serves, this is the third, maybe fourth, time I have read each of these books. However, I have never read them at the same time, moving back and forth between the … Read More Lillian Smith and the “Sex-Race-Religion-Economics” Tangle
During college, I wouldn’t bat an eye at driving four to five hours one way for a concert then driving back home the same night. We’d drive to New Orleans or Little Rock to see bands like the Juliana Theory or to Lake Charles to see acts like Pop Unknown or Baton Rouge to see The Gloria Record. On a trip to Lake Charles, … Read More Mineral’s “The Power of Failing,” Birth, and Death
During the late 1990s, I was a undergrad in college and heavily involved in the “Christian” hardcore/punk scene. I started in this scene while in high school when I found out about Tooth and Nail Records during youth group events. The promotional material would compare bands on the label to “secular” bands, saying for example that if you like Smashing Pumpkins you’d probably like … Read More Christian Punk/Hardcore and Evangelicalism
Interminable Rambling 