Recently in Christian Category

Via STFUBelievers

The Illinois Lottery has received a fair amount of attention in recent years, from its connections to disgraced former governor Rod Blagojevich to the state's controversial plan to sell the lottery to private investors. Now, for the holiday season the Illinois Lottery has launched a new ad campaign using the Christian hymn "Joy to the World" to flog its scratch-off games, a move that has led at least one Christian to complain to the Chicago Sun Times:

In Monday’s paper, columnist Lewis Lazare notes that Energy BBDO has created a series of holiday television commercials using the song “Joy to the World” to sell—of all things—lottery tickets! The new lyrics and retro music may be captivating and clever, but are the people at BBDO familiar with the original words to this Christmas hymn? Or do they care?

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!”

Or is Linus the only one who still understands what Christmas is all about?

Dan McGuire, Bensenville

It's a paradigmatic case of cultural appropriation, with one community's traditions used to promote ostensibly contradictory values. And as MultiCultClassics observes, the campaign doesn't stop there--"It’s gone from blasphemy to Black clichés."

The "Jesus is my nightlight" trope has seen its fair share of oddball expressions over the years, from the stocking stuffer pictured above to the following Christian viral video, which concludes on a rather cheeky riff on the metaphor of a heavenly throne.

In sacred writ, the streets of heaven are said to be paved with gold. What this Facebook post illuminates: this golden hue comes from an infinite supply of free large fries from Rally's.

And so the heavenly choir will sing: "In heaven, everything is fried . . . "

Coming soon from Michiel Cornelissen, "a bit cross":

With its combination of symbolical and practical strength, it’s hard to think of a situation where this pendant would not have you covered.

A mural inside the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.

Via Animal NY & MocoLoco, a sublime transformation of counterfeit toys:

China and its many meanings are explored in Ena Macana's new China Collection. A selection of toys made in China are re-made in Barcelona in a provocative way that inverts the counterfeit process often seen in China - transforming the toys into fashion accessories. . . .

Other pieces have more complex compositions, the arrangement and repetition of each icon like the military guns cross that give us a new reading, generating new icons, a cross, from the primary one, a military gun.

The Sundance Chanel notes that this new Wisconsin monastery may be "the greenest building in the US."

The <a href="http://benedictinewomen.org">Benedictine Women of Madison</a>'s new home features "Geothermal heating and cooling; solar panels; windows that open and natural lighting in all occupied spaces; rain gardens; roof gardens; tankless water heaters; and a slew of reused furniture including a renovated organ..." The sisters believe their new building has a "high probability" of receiving 63 of 69 LEED points, which would beat out the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center (also in Wisconsin), the current top dog of the US green building scene.

. . . The sisters have a long history of environmentalism, and note that "Reverence for creation is a deeply-held Benedictine value." Since 1996, the order has been involved in prairie restoration efforts around the Madison area, and other conservation and restoration efforts.

As I've noted in other contexts, monastics and religious congregations were social entrepreneurs before the term became trendy.

  

From today's PostSecret.