Sunday, July 27, 2014

I Don't Know If I'm Right, But I'm Dead Sure You're Wrong

I like the song 'Extreme Ways', which is played over the end credits of all the Jason Bourne saga films. I was listening to it on one of my movie soundtracks albums, and I felt the whim to read a little bit about its composer, Moby.

I was interested to learn that he considers himself a Christian (sort of), but that-- of course!-- he abhors the Religious Right. What I find interesting about this is that he is, theoretically, rather disarmingly anti-dogmatic about his own beliefs, or inclinations towards belief. He even says "I certainly wouldn't crticize anyone else's beliefs". Except the religious right. That goes without saying.

If I have to choose between the church-going Christian whose life is in flagrant defiance of all he professes in church, and the solo Christian who is convinced he knows what Jesus really meant and everybody in 'conventional religions' is wrong, I would choose the first without a moment's thought. There is far less pride at work in the first case.

Here are the relevant paragraphs from Wikipedia:

In a 2003 BBC interview, Moby spoke about his encounter with the Gospels: "In about 1985 I read the teachings of Christ and was instantly struck by the idea that Christ was somehow divine. When I say I love Christ and love the teachings of Christ, I mean that in the most simple and naïve and subjective way. I'm not saying I'm right, and I certainly wouldn't criticize anyone else's beliefs." In an interview with Amazon.com, Moby said, "I can't really know anything. Having said that, though, on a very subjective level I love Christ. I perceive Christ to be God, but I predicate that with the knowledge that I'm small and not nearly as old as the universe that I live in. I take my beliefs seriously for myself, but I would be very uncomfortable trying to tell anyone that I was right."

In a September 20, 2006 audio interview with Sojourners magazine, he says, "I read the New Testament, specifically the gospels and I was struck at their divinity, feeling that humans could not have figured this out on their own. We're just not bright enough."[74] He also discusses his faith on his own blog. On January 19, 2007, in his reaction to seeing Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God, a film about evangelicalism in the United States, Moby writes, "The movie reminded me just how utterly disconnected the agenda of the evangelical Christian right is from the teachings of Christ."[75] At times, he has been reluctant to use the word "Christian" to define himself, due to its ambiguity, but has self-identified as a Christian in interviews related to his faith.

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