JUDAS: A POEM FOR EASTER

A kiss, a crime?

by Colin Liddell

@cbliddell

For many people Christ's Passion is a deeply moving and spiritual event, or at least an inspiring parable denoting God's love for mankind. But, for me, it is also an expression of the theological contradictions and sado-masochist tendencies of Christianity, with Judas as a pivotal figure. Theological musings such as these would be ponderous in any other medium besides poetry, so listen up...

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUFFERING GOD

An excerpt from the essay "The Suffering God and the Culture of Death," published in volume 2, issue 2 of The Christendom Review in 2010, an essay now included in Andy Nowicki's  2015 book Notes Before Death: Three Essays.

What are the full ramifications of the notion of God suffering as a man?

by Andy Nowicki

How to begin to describe the ramifications of this strange and moving idea (the Incarnation), which is the essence of the Christian faith? One is at a loss, because the profundity of the concept is beyond all words, and this is ironic, since it is all about a “Word” (in Greek, “Logos”) allegedly “made flesh.”

What does it say about the human race that God would consent to take human form? What does it say about human suffering that God became man in order to suffer the humiliation and grief, the mental and physical pain, the ignoble punishment of a common criminal, being flogged, stripped, and nailed to a cross to die?

Let us consider the full implications of the Incarnation in Christian theology.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUFFERING GOD

An excerpt from the essay "The Suffering God and the Culture of Death," published in volume 2, issue 2 of The Christendom Review in 2010.

What are the full ramifications of  the notion of God suffering as a man?

by Andy Nowicki

How to begin to describe the ramifications of this strange and moving idea (the Incarnation), which is the essence of the Christian faith? One is at a loss, because the profundity of the concept is beyond all words, and this is ironic, since it is all about a “Word” (in Greek, “Logos”) allegedly “made flesh.”

What does it say about the human race that God would consent to take human form? What does it say about human suffering that God became man in order to suffer the humiliation and grief, the mental and physical pain, the ignoble punishment of a common criminal, being flogged, stripped, and nailed to a cross to die?

Let us consider the full implications of the Incarnation in Christian theology.

SEXUALIZATION AND ASSHOLISHNESS

Sexualization and assholia: bosom buddies?

                         

by Andy Nowicki

(The following is an excerpt from "Welcome Back Chaos," Andy Nowicki's upcoming memoir/manifesto.)

At the age of 12, I still clung to my own innocence with a desperate tenacity. Still, I knew on some level that it was a lost cause. During the summer of 1983, as a rising seventh grader, I recall one incident at the neighborhood pool which somehow put things in a queasy sort of perspective.

Earlier in the day, my friend and I had taken in the summer popcorn flick WarGames—featuring young, mop-topped Matthew Broderick and stern, middle-aged, mustachioed Dabney Coleman—in which a cocky teenage genius manages to hack into a national security computer system, and in so doing nearly sets off World War III. The movie, with its fantastic premise, appealed to our still-childlike sense of wonder, while also tapping into a certain budding anxiety, wherein adolescence is synonymous with chaos and catastrophe. 

ANTEDILUVIAN FANCIES: DARREN ARONOFSKY'S "NOAH"

"It's gonna rain..." Noah (Russell Crowe) guards the Ark against raiders.

by Andy Nowicki

As audacious, ambitious, heterodoxically-conceived Biblical epics go, Darren Aronofsky’s new movie Noah somewhat recalls The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese’s 1988 adaptation of the controversial Nikos Kazantzakis novel.

Both films were subjected to a pre-release drubbing by conservative Christian groups, who in each case complained of disrespect for Scripture and overall theological untenability (though the deluge of condemnation rained down upon Temptation—which featured a doubt-plagued and carnally-tormented Jesus—easily drowns out the contemporary Noah imbroglio, a fact which I daresay ought to demonstrate to right-wing pagan critics that Christianity, far from being a radically “egalitarian” monstrosity, is hardly without its hierarchy of heroes).