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05-16-2007, 07:56 AM
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DOUG TENNAPEL ON BLACK CHERRY
 by Michael C LorahDoug TenNapel has been an influential creator in virtually all facets of young-adult entertainment. He created the popular Earthworm Jim video game and is the mastermind behind Nickelodeon’s Catscratch cartoon series. He’s also written and illustrated five graphic novels, with the most recent, Gear, being a collection of his very first comic book series. Mixing fantasy, adventure, sci-fi and coming-of-age themes into a unique style, TenNapel’s comics have been critically acclaimed consistently. His next book, Black Cherry, is due out in July from Image Comics. Telling of a low-level Mafioso who steals a dead body from his own boss, Black Cherry is a change of styles for TenNapel. We asked him about it. Newsarama: Doug, although your previous books have tackled some pretty challenging themes of faith or responsibility, they’ve always been adventurous stories with plenty of humor. Black Cherry seems to be the first book you’ve done that is specifically aimed at adult readers. What prompted this change of tone, or do you even see it as a change?  Doug TenNapel: It’s a deliberate change of tone in order to properly swim within a decidedly seedy genre. I thought it would be criminal to take a steamy genre like crime-noir and baptize it with conservative Christian culture; that’s what the Christian ghetto does in all forms of media today. I don’t go into genres and say, “How do I Christianify this story?” because it degrades both the literary history of the genre as well as what the Christian enterprise should be. So making Black Cherry “safe” was not on the table. At the same time, I have a duty as a man who follows Christ where my understanding is that I’m not to just camouflage myself with my culture and bury the light of Christ so that it’s indiscernible from that which is non-Christ. I’m not hiding anything faith-based in my writing either. That’s also not on the table when it comes to my stories that address religion (and I love to take a break from telling stories about religion whenever possible). NRAMA: What can you tell us about Eddie Paretti, the protagonist of Black Cherry? DT: Eddie is one of my favorite all-time characters. I say that about all of my characters while I’m working on them because they are the freshest, most vibrant and most alive as they come off the brush. Like most Catholics I know, he is an ex-Catholic. He was raised in a faith he simply rejects as an adult. We can assume something went wrong at some point in his life, because he’s currently working for his uncle who is a mob boss in L.A. He is a dirt-bag in that he screws women just to grift their cash when they aren’t looking. He also has stolen money from his own Uncle and mob boss…so that even among criminals he has no honor. He’s about as low as he’s been in his life.  This is where the classic Noir structure came in handy: take a blue-collar Joe and just keep screwing him into the ground. It’s a grim view of the world where a guy loses everything and even if he repents, there is no redemption. That’s Eddie. He’s screwed.Eddie also has these crime cultural icons that are extensions of his person. He’s got this lucky Zippo lighter he believes sends him messages via the size of the flame, he drives a convertible Malibu that just plain makes him look good. He has a little problem with women in that they are just something I think he sees as a drug to get him through the night or a potential con to get him money to pay back a debt. Something happened in his past where he fell in love with a stripper named Black Cherry, and he’s never been the same since. He was just about to pop the question to her when she left the business and vanished, effectively breaking his heart and hardening it against all women in general from that point forward. NRAMA: Faith and mentors seem to be big themes in much of your work, and it looks like Eddie has both in Father McHugh. Why do find these themes continually inspiring? DT: Ask any person about what they think about God and you will get an amazing story. It won’t just be any old story either, it will likely cut straight to the core of who that person is. It’s so bizarre to me that this most personal, dramatic, amazing story device is getting pressure to be removed by story-telling industries…including the supposedly progressive comics industry.  The fact that Superman was born and raised in Kansas by conservative farmers yet he never even talks about the Bible stinks to high hell to me. It’s idiotic and it ends up making these characters less human instead of more. Superman has exactly dick to do with any “Smallville” I’ve ever been to. This is why I actually LOVED the Red Son Superman so much; they finally gave us a contrast of what would happen if Superman didn’t carry Kansas in his worldview. More of this! Less of draining worldviews and philosophies out of comics! Especially worldviews that are considered “anti-comic” like certain conservative ones. It is the pulp nature of comics that makes is such an incredibly powerful medium. I don’t think you could get funding to make a Red Son Superman movie with a 250-million-dollar budget, but you could do a limited-run book series to explore a philosophy…no harm done. It’s why I laugh so hard at a vocal minority in comics that just freaks out if my characters bring up Jesus Christ. They don’t freak out if a character says the word “____” or decides to be gay in a series, but if Spiderman ever converted to Christianity these critics would have a period. I thought we were farther along than that in the discussion and debate department of comics. I’m shocked at the level of groupthink within a medium that should be anything but a monolith of worldview. There should be a robust debate of worldviews within comics…it’s why I so look forward to Frank Miller’s Batman vs. Islamic terror. That kind of material should be the norm not the controversial rarity that it is. When I read Tony Millionaire and have him on my shelf next to Jack Chick, it tells me how powerful this medium can be instead of looking at one book as “correct” while the other is “backwards.” I also advocate the general spread of comics into unexplored areas…I’m sorry but we’ve got the porn base covered and then some, but where is the Dr. Seuss of comics? Where is the C.S. Lewis, the G-rated family fare, the mainstream bread-and-butter works that a family in Texas could enjoy together? I didn’t get the memo that said “no comics shall be made for Midwestern families.” If comic publishers are looking to expand readership they need look no farther than outside of their progressive ghetto their living in now.  NRAMA: Ha ha. I think I intended that question more as a lead-in to some background on Father McHugh!DT: Father McHugh is a priest who is dragged into some sort of interplanetary war. He is a good priest...I was really tired of seeing every depiction of a priest as being a scumbag or a child-molester, as if that’s even being ironic anymore. So while I take a few hits at transubstantiation, I don’t go for the easy anti-Catholic clichés I’m used to hearing. Father McHugh performs rituals in Latin and has a very special relationship with Eddie. I think McHugh acknowledges that Eddie didn’t need a “dad” but just someone to take care of him through his teens. We find out later that Eddie was kicked from the monastery because he screwed a woman in the confessional. But fate is strong in my books, and there is no more defining relationship for any man than that with his father or that with his son. McHugh is kind of an adoptive parent to all of God’s lost children. He raised Eddie; he might have even taken a certain stripper under his wing. When a flying saucer scouted the Earth to find our weakest point for an intergalactic attack, the saucer crashed outside of a monastery in Pasadena...the alien pilot was rescued by McHugh. This alien named Harold Mars is converted to Catholicism by McHugh, and now we humans have direct information about a coming alien invasion. NRAMA: I was recently reading Gear and was amazed when you wrote that you were drawing four pages a day, after your animation work during the day! Out of curiosity, how is your drawing speed now?  DT: Speed without losing control is something that comes from expertise, so I get a little faster with each book. I notice a threshold that I cross if I get going to fast, the appeal is first to go and the volume, composition and clarity usually suffers. Gear isn’t my best work by far, but when you bang out four pages a day, you gain in energy what you lose in clarity. I’m the most comfortable doing two pages a day. I get my images up to an acceptable level of quality, yet doing a book doesn’t shut down my life for more than four months. I did rage out on Black Cherry and do 4 pages a day on up to 8 pages a day on some days…but that’s only because I wanted raw energy on the page over appeal. Doing a filthy pulp-noir book seemed appropriate to splatter some sumi around instead of surgically crafting every line. NRAMA: What inspired Black Cherry? DT: The genre came first. I loved Sunset Blvd on through The Godfather and Pulp Fiction. These characters live in a place where the stock and trade is darkness, and it’s interesting to see how moral men survive in that economy. I knew I was going to make the spiritual economy Catholicism…not because I’m Catholic, I’m not at all, but because crime noir is so closely associated with Catholicism. I’m thinking of scenes in The Godfather series that take place during baptisms or contemplations of the Pope, as well as Vince and Jules arguing over a potential miracle. Black Cherry is a crack-addicted ex-stripper who doesn’t know if she is forgivable. She keeps returning to her junk and questions if she is just destined to be ‘bad.’ Eddie Paretti has scars up and down his arms from his dad using his arm as an ashtray…these are the scars left by bad father figures in his life. Father McHugh is the only good dad he ever knew, yet Eddie clearly isn’t cut out to be a card-carrying Catholic. I don’t want to give away too much of the story so spoiler-phobes can just skip the rest of this paragraph, but there is an alien character who also feels like Catholic redemption is behind him because Christ appeared to die for humans, not aliens. There is a common theme in Black Cherry that is the dark side of religion, what about the condemned? That’s why crime-noir became such an important aspect of this story because it often deals with heroes that are too bad to be redeemed. It’s like life has chosen some men to be ground up and left face down in the pool.  NRAMA: Wow. That’s intense. The solicitation says that it may not be suitable for younger readers. Did you set out to create a book with a more mature edge, or was it just how the story developed?DT: I pretty much knew what I was getting into when I pulled the trigger to make Black Cherry. My quandary came when I considered my younger audience and I already know that some stores don’t monitor their material very carefully when there’s a 14-year-old standing there with a 20-dollar bill. Other than that, the mature angle stems from the genre itself. NRAMA: You’re following Black Cherry with a book tentatively titled Flink, correct? DT: Correct. NRAMA: Flink will be more a “family” book, correct? DT: Correct. NRAMA: It’s still early to get into too much detail, but can you give a broad picture of the book, and an estimate of when it might be out? DT: It’s funny that you bring up Flink during a Black Cherry interview because I see those two books as very closely related. After finishing Black Cherry I really needed to “take a shower” by diving back into some more innocent material. I didn’t want my family audience to have nothing to read but a color reprint of Gear this year, so I finished BC and went straight to work on Flink. [b]Flink is a story about a boy who survives a plane crash only to be rescued by a BIGFOOT. It will be published by Image, and I believe it’s coming out this November…assuming we don’t miss the solicitation deadline. If I may, it’s got some of the best art I’ve ever done. I knocked out the 112 pages over the first three months of this year. My Beloved wife knew that our fourth child was coming in April, so she wanted Flink DONE before the baby came. I was back to doing two pages a day, and something just fell into place where my inking really broke through to a new level on most of the book. I’m really happy with it. NRAMA: What other projects are you working on now? DT: I’m writing my next GN for early 2008. I’m really torn because I have three stories I really like, but they are all at the note-card phase. It’s hard for me to turn my back on one story to whole hog into another. I’m not just committing to write the script, but I’m committing to draw a story before I’ve seen if I love it enough to make it. NRAMA: You’ve worked in animation, video games and comics – what do you see as some of the benefits of each field? DT: Animation is best for expanding an audience. My work on Nickelodeon was seen by more people in the world than anything else I’ve ever made. Video games is where the money is. It’s a lucrative business that, unlike television, can offer long-term employment that is pretty dang appealing to this father of four. But hands down, comics is the best story-telling medium in the world. When I sit down to do a book, I never have to consider if I can afford to use a set, a character, etc. I can just tell the story I really want to tell, limitations be damned. NRAMA: And the drawbacks? DT: Animation reaches an audience but often censors your best work out of the production in the interest of bland, broad appeal. Video games are a TERRIBLE place to tell a story because who the hell cares about a story in a video game? I don’t…and neither do real gamers. Comics drawback is that it’s a small, niche industry. Potency is explored, then shuffled off into the corner where selling 10,000 copies is considered a blockbuster. NRAMA: Do you plan to remain active in each of these arenas? DT: Yes. Though my commitment to games is a hard one to keep. That industry has never been more profitable and never been more hurtin’ for a revolution. NRAMA: Do you have any final thoughts for the readers? DT: Yes! Give Black Cherry a try! If you’re under 18 give Flink a try! I really appreciate everyone who reads my work. A performer ain’t much without an audience to perform for. Black Cherry goes on sale July 25 from Image Comics. |
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05-16-2007, 08:24 AM
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#2 |
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Very good article, Eathworm jim rocks, First post again.
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05-16-2007, 08:45 AM
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Tech Jacket, Gear, and all of Doug's work is fun! I order everything he does since he's an amazing storyteller! Can't wait for this!
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05-16-2007, 09:03 AM
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Obviously I'm not saying it's the same vocal minority, but I don't know what comic book discussions TenNapel participates in because frankly I've never seen a character come out without it resulting in a psycho hillbilly freakout in the forums. That said, I'm not a Christian, but I've highly enjoyed all of TenNapel's previous graphic novels so that's certainly no requirement. I've already ordered Black Cherry for July. (Actually, I've ordered so many graphic novels for July that I'm half expecting the UPS man to punch me in the face when he finally manages to wrangle my July box to the door). Last edited by Michael Mayket : 05-16-2007 at 09:08 AM. |
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05-16-2007, 09:04 AM
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#5 |
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Wow. Could I have said July a few more times in those last couple sentences?
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05-16-2007, 09:43 AM
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You mean, Creature Tech (Tech Jacket is a superhero book by Robert Kirkman) Anyway, can't tell you how stoked I am for this. Tennapel's OGNs are some of the best in storytelling that comics can offer. |
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05-16-2007, 09:45 AM
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#7 |
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Ya had me at Tennapel.
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05-16-2007, 09:52 AM
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Oh come on man, The Neverhood was one of your greatest works! |
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05-16-2007, 11:27 AM
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#9 |
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Doug TenNapel rocks! One of the few creators I order sight unseen. I trust his morals and love how he crafts a story. I just wish Black Cherry came out sooner so I could read it on vacation.
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05-16-2007, 12:13 PM
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Great interview. To the Newsarama person who conducted it: seriously, good job. It gave me a better sense of who Tenapel is than the following article which, incidentally, was written by my old college journalism professor:
http://tmatt.gospelcom.net/column/2007/01/31/ |
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05-16-2007, 01:02 PM
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At least you didn't try to emphasize "In July..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJeZ7...elated&search= =s= |
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05-16-2007, 01:19 PM
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"Christian" entertainment
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I have never noticed any "Christian" messages in Earthworm Jim or Catscratch. This may be due to the comment at the end of the article about animation removing anything vaguely controversial (like peace and love ans stuff), but I think the problem here is the definition of Christian message. "Be nice to people", "Stealing is bad", and "You are not the center of the universe(*)" are all Christian messages, in that they are all good suggestions of how to be good to your fellow man. But most people (And too many Christians) think that all Christian messages must translate to "You must surrender your life to Christ and if you don't you are going to Hell, and I will keep nagging you, which will just make Hell seem like a relief." As soon as one hears that something is "Christian" one (including myself) assumes it's going to be preachy at the expense of entertaining, and for the vast majority of cases, that's true. And far too many Christians will flock (for lack of a better term) to such entertainment, simply because it is labeled as Christian, and it will sell, and there is no impetus to change to appeal to a larger market. (The intuitive among us will see an ironic parallel to the comics industry.) Jonah - A Veggie Tales Movie was one of the best pieces of animated entertainment I saw that year. Willie Ames as Bibleman is just embarassing. The trick is to balance the entertainment and the message. I have never seen that be a problem in your work. Quote:
In this easily-offended world of today, that could easily be read as a dig. (Insert Bart's quote about all the facets of Christianity still being Christianity from the episode of the Simpsons with Liam Neeson in it) I don't know as many ex-Catholics as I know lapsed Catholics. Either due to disagreement with certain dogma and standings of the church ("I believe "Salad-Bar Catholics" is the current term) or just not being able to accept all the stuff said in the bible with the innocent zeal one did as a child, people drop away from the faith they grew up with, but not as many drop away from the morals they gained in such. I went to a Marianist High School; the old chestnut that when you get taught by Marianists you end up either a Priest or a cynic. (I'm very not a priest.) I view much of the bible (particularly the Old Testament) as allegory, as opposed to documented fact. Translation - I believe in the Big Bang and the dinosaurs, but I have no problem accepting a God at the detonator. So my comments are coming from a "believer" but not a rock-ribbed one. Mick Foley had a very nice piece in his latest biography about him finding a new church that helped him become more religious again. Quote:
So he's saving the world almost daily, but the fact that he isn't proselytizing means he's not a good Christian? I think that right there is the crux of this biscuit. For many people, that endless need and desire to insert the Bible into every discussion is what turns people off to listening to Christians. Superman is a great role model; does the fact that he doesn't add that he is a Christian make him less of one? I prefer the Jewish method, where you're not supposed to proselytize to non-Jews, but you can talk current Jews into being MORE Jewish. Quote:
With almost no exception, when a particular viewpoint, lifestyle or issue is brought up in comics, it is because it is going to be Addressed. As in belabored, beaten to death, and rammed down the reader's throat. And it is very rarely entertaining. Ben Grimm is Jewish. They've never belabored the fact, they've never done a "Pro-Jew" story, he's just Jewish, occasionally irt gets mentioned, and that's it. It's part of what he is. Daredevil is Catholic. His being Catholic is a vital part of his story (or at least it was made one) but it's not like he goes around leaving tracts with the guys he captures. I don't recall Spidey's faith every being addressed, so I wouldn't be surprised if he were Christian, just due to the law of averages. But if it doesn't affect the story in any way, is there a need to mention it? I say no, you seem to say yes. I have an interview with Shooter I did once that addresses this very issue. Maybe I'll pull it out and re-quote it if there's interest. But the gist was, if a character has a lifestyle or a belief and it comes naturally from the story of the character, that's content, it's a good thing. But if a character trait suddenly appears for no reason other than the writer wants to get his political/moral belief across, that's not good, it gets in the way of the story. And again, because of the tone and quality of much of Christian entertainment, as soon as it's brought up in any form of entertainment, it's gonna turn people off solely becasue they don't want to hear a sermon. And LOTS of people freak out is a character decides to be gay in a series - check out all the anti-Winick threads. Quote:
See earlier comment about parallels to comics industry. It is always a challenge to try to sell to a new market in any area. Plus, alas, if comic stores try to entice the Christians into their stores, there's a more than good chance they'll SEE the aforementioned porn, and the CBLDF has more than enough work, thank you very much. One day soon, a comic publisher will do a deal with Wal-Mart, and their sales will rise above Marvel and DC (assuming it isn't one of them that does it) and the industry will find a way to claim that those sales "don't count", or are somehow bad for the comics market since it takes money from the LCS's coffers. (*)Unless , of course, you are Chuck Norris...or Mr. Blik --------------- EDIT - Here's that Shooter piece about content vs. proselytizing Last edited by vbartilucci : 05-16-2007 at 01:28 PM. |
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05-16-2007, 07:15 PM
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well for one, the assumptions in the above post are good ones but also misunderstood ones. cool link to Shooter's thoughts and spot on really. first, alot of christians already visit comic book stores and I dont see mass store burnings over the comics Chirstians would find "offensive", such as Lucifer, Witch Tarot, et al. In fact I remember an interview with Mike Carey writer of Lucifer, who found a good amount of the readers for Lucifer also practiced a Christian or Jewish faith, and enjoyed the comic because it tested it, but not in an offensive manner. It was intellectualy stimulating, yet still in a comic booky entertainment format. I find with all the comments posted lately by those who disagree with someone like Rev. Falwell, or those who dont agree with the morals & dogma of the Catholic Church, dont really understand what conservative Christians are all about. For instance, Falwell main adversery, Larry Flynt, greatly respected the man. And Falwell never hated Flynt, and he always visited him while in the L.A. area. Doug wasnt saying Supes should be preachy or somehting, just some small acknowledgement by those who produce his works, that Christianity plays a part in his upbringing, especially being from where he was raised in Kansas, and since we know he never had issues with the beliefs of his human step-parents. I thought Superman for all Season's was cool in this respect, showing Supe's at church and getting help from a preacher. Is it a sin for Supes to be shown once in a while carrying or reading a bible for instance? I think ASM 3 as well as in the previous two showed good scenes incorporating religion, so its not all hopeless. I mean, whats so bad showing a superhero of reciting the Kaddish at a funeral, or a Roman Catholic Latin Rite Mass, or a Moslem during daily prayers, and prostrating himself, or a Buddhist performing his rituals & burning insense. So many superhero stories take place in Tibet, yet no one ever goes to a temple to take part in ritual. Ironically the Dalai Lama has been forced out of Tibet by the communists and yet no comic book stories ever address this fact. very sad that this is so ignored. All religions practice a form of meditation yet one mostly sees eastern forms of meditation and never western forms of meditation. what the hell is everyone so afraid of anyway? thats what the BIG PICTURE is folks. Religion is only shown in contemporary society as causing pain with people but for others its saved them. Check out the Killing Fields, and see how the main character's religion got him to keep his sanity and overcome the communist killing fields of Cambodia. Its sad irony that in one scene, where a Buddhist is praying over a dead child, John Lennon's (who I greatly admire as a performer but disagree with many of his beliefs) song, "Imagine" is being played, where John sings that he wishes there was no religion, no countries, no heaven, no hell, as if that would bring peace. Yet it was those without any faith, that killed millions in trying to wipe out all forms of religion from their citizen's souls. Sure there are a--holes in every religion but what about the good people these religions produce? Isnt it a religious point of view not to mention religion as much as it is to mention religion? you would think people would wonder where concepts of humililty, charity, and forgiveness came from. Bu they just dont care to i guess. However, forgiveness doesnt entail weakness. Even societies with extreme forms of religious pacifism have a warrior class as couragouse and fierce as any other ie samurai culture or Shaolin Temple martial arts. I am especially sick and tired how Christians, especially Catholics (me being one) are portrayed by the media. Its bigoted and wrong. But hey, the powers that be dont want any religion or at least they want a fast food religion, that is sweet and simple, and doesnt "cause waves." and yet we are all being broadcasted propaganda about a coming environmental apocalypse, as if it were a religion, and causing arguments wherever you go. Some people are even building an environmenttalist "noah's ark" over the hysteria. and people think Christian Fundementalists are extreme. Right now in the UK, you will be fined or even face jail time, unless you install green saving amenities in your home. why force people to buy into these beliefs? many people dont and yet you are being forced to. Now humans are evil because we produce carbon. wtf? and yet any other form of religious belief is "radical" or "extreme." read some of the crazy rantings of the religion of the green (and its green in more ways than one, BTW, just ask Al Gore). http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1 http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...,00.html?f=rss Last edited by grayhulk76 : 05-16-2007 at 07:23 PM. |
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05-18-2007, 12:05 PM
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The problem is Doug Tennapel's brand of Christianity is fringe extreme, exceedingly conservative and borderline theocratic. Anyone who read his "political blog" on his main site could see that he was prone to tangential, enraged rantings about the Left coming to take over EVERYTHING (the man had the gall to wish a bomb would take out a major city in McCain's home state, simply because McCain voted against torture as an American policy. No joke. If Doug hadn't wiped his site down, it would be a matter of public record.)
So complaints about Doug sugar-coating his evangelism are utterly valid. You should've seen the ____ he used to write, until he wisely figured out that when you spew idiotic right wing vitriol day after day... you might one day be called on it. He's a cartoon wolf in "kid friendly" clothing. |
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05-18-2007, 12:20 PM
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I think you are confusing Doug's political beliefs and his religious beliefs. I know I didn't always see eye to eye with what Doug said or how he said it when he was attacking the left. Too often he seemed to be mirroring the way the left operates when it smears the right. Even if what he said was true it came across in a pretty harsh manner, and I took it to be Doug writing out of frustration in the heat of the moment. I know at times I'm guilty of doing the same. The problem with that type of writing is it is similar to how you argue over points with friends at a bar or coffee house, not a fact checking exercise intended as your final view, just your feelings at the time. Unfortunately because of the way the web works, people treat everything typed as if it was a newspaper article or encyclopedia entry rather than shooting the breeze or blowing off steam. Maybe he had a change of heart and took his site down as he rethinks his approach to political interaction. |
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05-18-2007, 02:38 PM
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#16 |
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No, unfortunately his reason stated for taking down the political blog was that it might affect his career/ability to get new jobs, et al. Strictly a financial concern. Not any 'change of heart' in his views.
If I remember correctly it was because a group of folks he was pitching to asked "aren't you the guy who writes that conservative blog?" and he whipped up some fear that he might not get far in the business if he continued with it (an utterly baseless fear and ultimately a moral cave-in to the 'righteousness' of his views, in my opinon). He was prone to that kind of phantasmagoria a lot, that the evil lefties in the entertainment business made him a kind of target for.... something, I dunno. |
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05-18-2007, 03:35 PM
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#17 | |
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Last edited by stvnhthr : 05-18-2007 at 03:58 PM. |
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05-18-2007, 04:08 PM
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Great interview, by the way. I love how TenNapel goes off the Father McHugh question. Not exactly what the interviewer was asking, but interesting to read anyway. Last edited by blokhed : 05-18-2007 at 04:13 PM. |
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05-18-2007, 04:43 PM
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Given that the political diatribes have been bleached entirely from his site, it's difficult to get any kind of reading, much less a literal one. Ask him the next time you bump into him. If he's honest, he won't deny it. As for his motives, far be it from me to point out the coy evangelism of Tennapel when he freely admits he considers Jack Chick a shelf-worthy agent of the medium or believes anti-Islamic superheroics should "be the norm". Last edited by Ghostbreaker : 05-18-2007 at 04:46 PM. |
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05-18-2007, 06:21 PM
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#20 |
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Yeah, that Jack Chick comment did kind of bother me. As Jack Chick's brand of Evil is everything I fight against when preaching my religion (Christianity)
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05-19-2007, 10:06 PM
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#21 |
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I hate that when ever someone is labeled or claims to be a Christian these days, it automatically means they're a "born again" Evangelical. I was born and raised Catholic, and I consider myself a Christian. I rather label myself an agnostic or an athiest than be lumped in with the intolerent and hate spewing bunch that most Evangelicals seem to be(imo at least).
I know that wasn't the point of this article, but Tennapel sure made his religious beliefs a part of it. As far as the Catholic "bashing", I wasn't offended. It just shows how most "born agains" think. You're either wrong, or you do and say everything the way they do.  It's a shame! I loved Earthworm Jim and I really enjoyed the Veggie Tales music and movies that I saw. I just couldn't continue to support them once I read interviews with the artists behind them. I'm all for family values(without censoring things made strictly for adults) and Christian morals(I'm sure even non-Christians can appreciate the ideals behind them), but I'm not for excluding good people who aren't causing any harm just because they don't "worship" the way you do. |
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10-10-2007, 01:48 PM
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#22 |
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Oh please
Last time I checked, this is a Christian nation. A big, whopping, 800-lb. gorilla of a Christian nation. I live in the South and it's literally Baptist and Methodist churches on every corner and back road, side by side by side. Check out Sunday morning TV -- from 5 am til noon it's one sermon after another. Find one major candidate from either party who doesn't make a point of saying they're more pious than their opponents, or pointing out how the Founding Fathers based the country on the Ten Commandments (they didn't, BTW).
Christianity, whether it be relatively benign or at it's most fundamental extreme, is the de Facto Official Religion of the United States. Try looking at things from the perspective of a minority view. I'm a Jew. My best friends in the world are a Buddhist and an atheist. You think there's no examples of Christianity in Pop Culture? Please. It's already hardwired into the equation. (Lots of Christmas specials over the holidays, no? Not so much for Hanukkah, Ramadan or Kwanzaa. Like Easter? It's all over the place in WalMart. Anything for Passover or the summer solstice? Hmmm...) Something that right-wing "Christians" love to scream from the mountaintops is that they're constantly under attack from all sides ("Liberals! Secular Humanists! Evolution! Homosexuals! AIEEE!") It's a time-tested tactic. Band together against the enemy. Problem is, eventually the whole positive message of Christianity becomes based on not what one is for, but what one is against. And that's waaaay off-message from what Jesus was saying. My problem with TenNapel is when he starts beating the twin drums of religion and politics -- and these days, the two are intertwined -- inevitably the message comes across that "This is the right way, all others are wrong." He may not intend it that way to begin with (although from reading his blog I believe he does) but that's where it winds up. C.S. Lewis knew how to tell a good story and was extremely overt in his religious views, but it never felt like a sermon. TenNapel doesn't have time for that. Why use a light touch when a club will do. |
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