March 17 Flashback: Lady Madonna

Last updated on: March 17, 2022 at 7:00 am by Fred Clark

March 17 Flashback: Lady Madonna 2022-03-16T14:14:41-04:00 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.

Twenty years is, like, six generations in internet time.

From March 17, 2012, “The immaculate connections“:

Dames then continues for 4,000+ words examining very nearly “every single aspect” of Madonna’s career in search of the signs — subtle and oracular though they may be — that support the thesis that the pop star is a key player in the Illuminati’s plans for the End Times. It’s very thorough. It’s very sincere. And it’s utterly, fantastically, dizzyingly bonkers.

It’s so loopy that I’m unable to articulate my response into a coherent whole. Here then are some staggered thoughts.

1. I believe that Stacey Dames believes what she has written. Or, more precisely, I believe that she so fully wants and needs to believe it that she has forgotten that not believing it is an option. But I cannot believe that the editors of the Christian Post believe it. This particular form of wackiness is too idiosyncratic to be persuasive to those not wrapped up in the specific variety of wacky that Dames is trapped in. The folks running the Christian Post have to know she’s nutty. I suspect they know and simply do not care. This is further evidence that they’re running a cynical, disingenuous con game. They don’t publish articles because they believe them to be true or because they believe them to be necessary, helpful or “edifying” (to use a favorite evangelical word). They publish articles because gullible people will read them and the Christian Post can profit from ad sales.

2. Dames perceives herself as an orthodox, mainstream Christian. Readers of this post are presumed to know and to share all of her assumptions about the existence and intent of the Illuminati. This is, to Dames, an essential and central aspect of Christianity — so much so that she sees no need to explain any of her references to this diabolical global conspiracy of occultists plotting to bring about the reign of the Antichrist. That is something she just assumes every Christian knows as though it were outlined in the Apostle’s Creed. Dames’ urgent need to share her expertise isn’t about warning other Christians of this conspiracy or of the “fact” that we are living in Darby’s End Times. In her view, knowing such things is not a matter of expertise, simply of basic, normal Christianity. She has, in other words, been the victim of pastoral malpractice. To use another favorite evangelical phrase, she has been “led astray.”

3. Dames knows her Madonna. This is the expertise she brings to this post. It’s a comprehensive, intimate familiarity with the artist’s entire catalog. She begins by telling us: “Before I was saved by the Lord, I used to be a HUGE Madonna fan. Obsession probably doesn’t begin to describe it. I even had collectibles worth a decent amount that I destroyed after I was pulled from the wreckage by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

The exhaustive survey of Maddona’s career that follows proves she’s not exaggerating there. Stacey Dames was a fan. She loved Madonna’s music and found joy in it. And now that joy has been taken away from her, twisted into a source of guilt and shame. This again is pastoral malpractice. Turning legitimate pleasure into shame is a form of abuse. What some warped pastor did to Dames’ love of Madonna is a sin.

4. Madonna earned the admiration Dames once had for her. The lady is a pop mega-star for a reason. She deserves to have fans and the fans that she has are rewarded. I’m not one of those fans, and I’m not saying she’s Mozart or Picasso, but if you like danceable pop music, she’s a hero. She’s a better-than-average songwriter, a skilled dancer, and a singer who knows what it is she can do with a song. Her real genius as an artist — and here I do mean genius — isn’t so much her music itself as all the trappings that surround it. And I don’t just mean her genius for grabbing attention or for reinventing herself to match the moment in pop culture. Fashion, choreography and music video are all legitimate art forms and Madonna has helped all of those art forms to advance. It wasn’t wrong for Dames to have admired Madonna for all of that. It was wrong for someone to have convinced her not to.

5. Madonna isn’t a threat. Like The Simpsons, Madonna made headlines and was subject to boycotts in the 1980s because of a backlash against her cheeky irreverence. And, as with The Simpsons, that backlash eventually subsided once people paid enough attention to look past the surface at the underlying message, which was actually innocent, positive and optimistic. The message of most of Madonna’s biggest hits is indistinguishable from that of most wholesome G-rate children’s movies: You’re special, follow your dreams, look past appearances, “Open Your Heart,” “Express Yourself.”

If you want to understand the contemporary Comstocks, consider their opposite reactions to Madonna’s videos for “Material Girl” and for “Like a Prayer.” Not a peep about the first — a satire that they approved of because they didn’t perceive it as satire. But the second led to an uproar and a boycott. Praise of “cold hard cash” is fine. A story in which a black man falsely accused of sexual assault is portrayed as a holy saint before being freed from jail — that was perceived as wholly unacceptable.

6. Dames’ post refutes the idea of sensible centrism. Those who promote the Golden Meh — condemning partisanship and assuring us that the truth can always reliably be found somewhere in the moderate middle — are always urging us to seek common ground and to compromise. OK, what would that mean here?

Stacey Dames posits that a global conspiracy of Jewish occultists, liberals and secular humanists a plotting to bring about the reign of the Antichrist and that Madge is somehow playing a vital role in this satanic plot. It doesn’t seem that this view would allow Dames to meet the rest of us half way. But what would it entail for the rest of us to “compromise” or find “common ground” with this idea? Dames’ thesis is full-gonzo loony — should we all become half-gonzo loony in an effort to find common ground?

7. Illuminati, Madonna, abortion, gays — it’s all the same. The real core of Dames’ message here is indistinguishable from the anti-abortion and anti-gay articles that make up the bulk of the content on the Christian Post. She creates her own entry point into the culture war, but every culture-war argument requires this same conspiratorial mind-set, this same belief in a nefarious, global, coordinated assault by secretive, evil, Satanic baby-killers. Nothing Dames says here isn’t also being said by Charles Colson and Rick Santorum: Be afraid; they are evil; they are everywhere; they are after your children; and it’s them against us.

Dames’ particularly loopy variation of this theme just illustrates that the alleged proximate subject of all such arguments doesn’t ever matter much. For Dames, as for all culture warriors, facts are pliable things. Reality is a pretext, not something objective to be learned about and studied. Reality is a blank screen onto which to project titillating nightmares as a context for imagining heroic fantasies. The particular form of the monsters in that nightmare doesn’t matter — bogeymen, goblins, ghosts, vampires, gays, abortionists, pop singers. All that matters is that they are evil, and therefore we are good. They are attacking, and therefore we must defend. They are everywhere, and therefore we must not trust anyone or anything.

Read the whole post here.

Alas, at some point in the last 10 years, linkrot claimed the original Christian Post version of Dames’ epic rant, but most of it was preserved at this now-defunct like-minded blog.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 16, 2022

March 16 Flashback: Infernal subcontractors

Next Post

March 18, 2022 March 18 Flashback: Satanic baby-killers No. 1

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

I refused to bow to a high official and sat at the king's gate, sparking a genocidal plot. Who am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Daniel Haman Mordecai Nehemiah