7 Days with Walter Kirn

In Sept. 2002 GQ magazine had an article about the Christian sub-culture that exists here in America. It was quite eye opening an honestly blunt (or bluntly honest??). The author Walter Kirn spent 7 days emersed in nothing but Christian culture. Christian news service, music, literature, Jesus diets the whole 9 yards. Most of my Nashville friends already know about and have read this article. So to My Nashvilians, the next 7 days will be devoted to this article. Feel free to tag along though!!! It is long but well worth the read. I couldn't find a link to it on GQ's website but I did find it and will dole it out in daily increments. Hopefully this will keep people interested and coming back to Oneproblem. Being a Christian and, at one point, involved in the Christian music industry, what Kirn points out is painfully true and embarrasing. So with out further blabbering here is Day 1:


WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?
BUT MORE, IMPORTANT, WHAT WERE JESUS' FITNESS SECRETS? IF YOU WERE ONE OF THE GROWING MILLIONS OF AMERICANS LIVING IN THE MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR CHRISTIAN ALTERNACULTURE—IN WHICH EVERYTHING IN MAINSTREAM CULTURE GETS CLONED AND THEN BLEACHED OF "SINFUL" CONTENT—YOU'D KNOW. WALTER KIRN SPENDS SEVEN STRANGE DAYS WALKING IN THE SHOES OF THE FAITHFUL.
DAY ONE: RESOLUTlONS
Today I will pray for Jewel, the singer-songwriter, "that Jewel's artistry in music and poetry will draw her audience into an encounter with truth." Tomorrow I'11 pray for Paul Allen, the Microsoft billionaire, "that Allen and others working on the leading edge of interactive media will pursue their objectives with integrity." And later this week, in the manner and order prescribed by Praying for the Worlds 365 Most Influential People: 5 Minutes a Day to Change Your World, I will pray for Michael Crichton, the author/producer; for Jesse Helms, the North Carolina senator; and for Bill Nye, who hosts TV's Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Today I will start reading Desecration, the ninth installment of the Left Behind series, a best-selling fictional treatment of the Apocalypse that pits the heroic Rayford Steele ("original member of the Tribulation Force3 against the cloven-hoofed Nicolae Carpathia ("self-appointed Global Community potentate.) Today I will dine on foods from What Would Jesus Eat? by Don Colbert, M.D., heeding Dr. Colbert's solemn warning that "eating a diet high in salt, low in fiber, very high in fat and sugar, and virtually void of nutrients is not the way Jesus ate. Today I will ask my daughter, Maisie, 3, to pick out a video from the Bibleman series, a live-action superhero saga for kids directed by and featuring Willie Aames of Eight Is Enough and Charles in Charge fame.
Today I will plug in my TVGuardian, a handy electronic chaperone whose "patent pending, award winning technology" filters out "95% to 100% of foul language from TV shows" and replaces objectionable phrases like She's such a #%&#h! and Oh &#!t! with She's such a nag! and Oh crud!
Today I will leave behind the fallen world of secular American pop culture and enter the sell-contained parallel universe of American Christian pop culture, within which I've vowed to dwell, exclusively, for seven days and nights, watching PAX instead of NBC and letting Pat Robertson be my Tom Brokaw. But first, before I do any of these things, I will read from my new prayer book and ask God "to bless Jewel with safety, meaningful relationships" and, of course, "success."

We will continue with day 2 tomorrow.