Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Nobody’s gonna slow me down

Nobody’s gonna slow me down

Last updated on: March 31, 2020 at 3:07 pm by Fred Clark

Nobody’s gonna slow me down 2020-03-31T15:07:34-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Here is your open thread for March 31, 2020.

Maine Sen. Angus King turns 76 today, but since Sen. King didn’t write and perform the guitar riff in the song below, we’ll go with Angus Young, who turns 65:

This song scared the bejeebus out of Sketch Erickson and all the other anti-rock guest speakers who toured my church and private Christian school and youth group retreats when I was growing up fundie. That’s a measure, I think, of the song’s artistic success, as it upset just exactly the sort of people it was intended to upset. All of those anti-rock guest speakers indignantly went on to repeat every outrageous urban legend about the band and its name, that left the moral high ground to the band itself, since they at least weren’t piously bearing false witness against their neighbors.

In any case, I’ve come to embrace this song as a head-banger’s version of Huckleberry Finn’s redemption, the moment he declared “All right, then, I’ll go to Hell” and thus was born again.

Two infamous sermons were delivered on March 31. The first of these was given by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in 1146, kicking off the promotional campaign for the launch of the Second Crusade. The abbot then traveled throughout Europe, repeating variations of this sermon to raise support for the crusade. The armies Bernard helped to raise for this crusade mostly never even made it to the Holy Land, getting crushed by the Turks along the way. Bernard thus became something like Colin Powell, a previously respected man who obediently sacrificed his integrity to drum up war fever for a foolish and unnecessary invasion of the middle east that turned into a historic debacle.

Bernard’s frenzied calls for war — “Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood” — led to violence in Europe as well, inciting pogroms and the mass-murder and torture of Jews in France and Germany. To his partial credit, I suppose, Bernard traveled around to condemn the pogroms, trying to put out some of the fires he himself had started. But the bottom line is that there wouldn’t have been a Second Crusade without him, and the only thing the Second Crusade produced was thousands of dead Jews and thousands of dead crusaders. So, I guess, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

The other notorious sermon delivered on March 31 (although, of course, I’m sure there have been many others over the years) was preached by Benjamin Hoadly, the Anglican bishop of Bangor, in Wales, in 1717. It was a sermon on “The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ” and it was about church polity, which is to say about the form and source of churchly authority. It was thus also, by analogy, about politics — about the form and source of political authority, and the firestorm that followed — the Bangorian Controversy — involved a host of both politicians and churchmen arguing about democracy, representative government, and the divine right of kings all while scrupulously pretending to merely be arguing about the role of bishops and archbishops. In a strange-bedfellows twist, the British king, George I, wound up defending Hoadly’s implicit attack on his own claim to be the nominal head of the church because he saw it as ammunition against the bishops in the House of Lords he saw as his political foes.

(This admittedly obscure affair is right in my wheelhouse given that I’m an American and a Baptist and an American Baptist. Baptist church polity is, after all, much easier to reconcile with the idea of democracy — while also serving as a perennial warning of its deficiencies.)

On March 31, 1899, American armed forces seized the city of Malolos, thus crushing the First Philippine Republic. The people of the Philippines — like the American colonists a century before — had thrown off the colonial rule of Spain and declared their independence. They established a democratic republic and proclaimed their own constitution in January, 1899, thereby instituting the first democratic, constitutional republic in Asia. America declared war on the Philippine Republic the following month, replacing the constitutional republic with the United States Military Government of the Philippine Islands.

On March 31, 1913, a riot broke out a a rock concert — wait, no, I’m sorry, at a classical music concert — in Vienna, Austria. 1913 was a rowdy year for fans of classical music.

The Motion Picture Production Code went into effect on March 31, 1930. This is why people kissed like they didn’t know what they were doing in Hollywood movies made between 1930 and 1966. The code was bonkers — simultaneously forbidding any depiction of “miscegenation” while also prohibiting “willful offense to any race, nation, or creed.”

It’s fascinating to explore the creative ways filmmakers devised to bend and dance around the strict censorship rules of the code. Watch Elmer Gantry and think about how Richard Brooks and Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons avoided running afoul of the code’s prohibition against “ridicule of the clergy.” Or compare Brooks’ 1958 movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with the original play, considering the code’s prohibition of any depiction of “any inference of sex perversion.” (The code forced Brooks’ script to remove every suggestion of Brick’s homosexuality, but Paul Newman ignored that and, flouting the code and the literal text of the screenplay, played the part Tennessee Williams wrote.)

The code didn’t just outlaw cussing and kissing (imposing a three-second limit on kisses), it decreed what kind of stories movies were allowed to tell. Movies had to reaffirm that crime doesn’t pay, that authority figures are noble and good, that police are always righteous and presidents always noble, that “traditional values” are beyond challenge or question. That’s what ultimately doomed the code, I think, the need to tell and to be told better stories than it allowed.

The Civilian Conservation Corps began on March 31, 1933. I’ve hiked on trails they created and walked over bridges they built. We may need something like this again after the pandemic. Heck, we needed something like this again before the pandemic.

Rene Descartes was born 424 years ago today. This is your cue to make some “I think therefore I am” joke and/or to say something pretentious about Cartesian dualism. Or both.

Joseph Haydn was born 288 years ago today, making him the second greatest composer born on March 31, because Johann Sebastian Bach was born 335 years ago today.

The feminist and abolitionist writer Mary Abigail Dodge was born on March 31 and 187 years later there are still dimwitted men insisting that women can’t be funny.

“The Old Philosopher” by stained-glass master John La Farge, born March 31, 1835.

Boxer Jack Johnson was born 142 years ago. Seeing a black man become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world caused white people to lose their minds. (Maybe not quite to the same self- and nation-destroying level as seeing a black man become president, but still, they lost their minds.)

Labor leader and civil-rights champion Cesar Chavez was born 93 years ago today. He was born the same day as William Daniels. Happy 93rd birthday to John Adams, Dr. Craig, Mr. Feeny, and K.I.T.T.

Shirley Jones turns 86 today. She’s best known as the mom on the Partridge Family, but she also won an Oscar and was pretty terrific in Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The Music Man.

Jazz musician turned industry exec Herb Alpert turns 85 today. Former Rep. Barney Frank and current Sen. Pat Leahy both turn 80. Christopher Walken turns 77, so he’s still young enough to host Saturday Night Live again.

Mr. Kotter (Gabe Kaplan) turns 75 today. Al Gore turns 72 — so he’s still younger than any of the remaining major candidates for president. Gore is still alive, though, and the official rules say that he must continue to be mocked until after he dies, at which point we will finally be permitted to forgive him for having been so very right about climate change so very much sooner than we were prepared to listen.

Rhea Perlman turns 72 today. Ewan McGregor turns 49.

The Church of England honors John Donne with a feast day today (he died March 31, 1631). “No man is an island,” Donne wrote, “because I am involved in Mankinde.” Still wise words, but please, for now, pretend you’re an island and avoid getting involved any closer than six feet, thanks.

In my native New Jersey, March 31 is Thomas Mundy Peterson day, commemorating the vote Peterson cast 150 years ago today in a local election in Perth Amboy. This was the first election following the enactment of the 15th Amendment and Peterson’s vote was the first by a black American under the new constitutional regime.

Right now, in churches and law schools across America, “conservatives” are working feverishly for the repeal, erasure, neutering, and nullification of that same 15th Amendment.

Finally, March 31 is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.'”

Kiss somebody for four seconds. And talk amongst yourselves.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 30, 2020

You got to make me change my mind

Next Post

April 1, 2020 Got some time to search my soul

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What king was known for writing many proverbs?

Select your answer to see how you score.

David Hezekiah Solomon Saul