Posted by giveawayboy on September 28, 2003 at 23:18:26:
This is something I originally posted on a Xtian Goth site, but since it's close to Hall-O-ween and since both Jenkins and LaHaye have recently come out with new books this has been on my mind again. Not to mention, I think it might be interesting to a few of the people who read this board, who may have at one time, or still, been into Goth. I'm not into any particular music scene. I like all kinds of music, so I do not consider myself a goth, although I overlap w that world alot.
What always got me was that the Goth Fundamentalists seem to acknowledge a kind of spiritual reality that Goth suggests, yet, they don't demonstrate it substantially. What I mean is that they seem to be pointing at something far off that can only be realized in abstract experience, and not concrete reality. They seem to be pointing at something far off, just as modern evangelical fiction seems to do. It is almost as if the fullness of their 'goth' world is a promise waiting for 'one fine day' when they will 'fly away'. In the meantime they exist as a denial to everything their Gothic identity suggests. The only thing truly Goth about them is the veneer, the clothes, the CDs, perhaps some books or a movie, yet they still perpetuate this bland and abstract type of Christian experience which is devoid of fullness, empty of substance, lacking form. It seems that at once they would dress up in a cloak to chase the gargoyles away. They might tend to read Poe or Stoker (which puzzles me) but not get into that rich world from which those good things flow. I recall once talking about Hall-O-ween on a supposedly Christian goth site, only to be assailed by ignorant warnings from young 'goths'. It seems that to them anything that touches 'paganism' is unclean. I don't see how this needs to be the case. Would they burn down a church if a Greenman were staring down at them from the sculpted arches? In the Hall-O-ween season we are not dealing with cases of food sacrificed to idols. We are about the business of honouring of our beloved dead, which point us to a very real great hope.
By the way, this is in no way meant to bash any particular person. If you are self-described as an evangelical this is not necessarily meant for you. I am talking about the rigid fundamentalist type of Goth, which would most likely turn their noses up at Gormenghast or Hopkins but would rejoice in LEFT BEHIND. This is not even meant to bash them, but it is more like a befuddled wondering out loud. I just don't get them. They manage to be Tolkien readers and they all love Lewis, who was purgatorial, who was haunted. I just don't get it.
Well, there is so much more I could say, about measuring and throwing out. About wasting the dough and complaining that there is little bread. About promising things that you don't believe can be delivered in our current time and space. About proclaiming a deep, dark, wonderful, rich and visceral world, about proclaiming a cold stone, and warm velvet world, and then delivering a batch of badly interpreted cliches and scriptures taken out of context. This is about me hoping that people will realize I'm not directing my anger AT THEM, but at the spirit of this age which keeps them bound. Don't accept a narrow Christianity which militates against the Cross. Don't accept an empty abstracted faith which deemphasizes romance and reality. Dont accept the store-bought, spiritual fads of the month. Instead, let your world take root in the ancient faith. Let the winds that blew on Galilee and for Saint Brendan rip wildly through your hair. Don't paste a fish on your car unless you can see leviathan, cast in stone, churning and shaking the waters and cracking through the fountains of Europe, and realize that he is there precisely because he came w the Christians. Don't reinforce cheesy Christian concepts while separating yourself from the Church of all times and places. Don't despise the presence of the Virgin and child, in the name of the Child. Don't divorce yourself from the saints in the name of the Holy One of Isreal. Don't throw out good Friday since it doesn't look like Thomas Kinkade. Don't throw away the skeleton that supports you. Don't despise the family of God for God the Father. Don't forget the waters that flowed out of Christ's side if they happen to pass through marble fonts. Don't claim to be 'goth' which has roots, when you partake of a faith that does not. Don't claim to be 'goth' which is poetic when you have forgotten the hymnody that is. Don't reject the bread that came down from heaven for the leaven of the pharisees. Don't claim to be Goth and then throw out the crucifixes. Don't claim to be 'goth' which is historical when you have cut off the communication with the past. Don't claim to be 'goth' which is mystery, when you have accepted a faith devoid of wonder.