Ignatius

A satire on evangelical pop outreaches to youth. It’s 10 minutes long, but I promise it’s worth it.
h/t: C. Michael Patton at Parchment and Pen.

Comments

Ignatius — 29 Comments

  4. So, I’ve had virtually no contact with evangelical outreach, so I don’t know how close-to-life that “Ignatius” is, but I have been around a lot of so-called motivational speakers with my work in the drug prevention field. It is sad how much like Ignatius some of these people are. It is even sadder that they are totally serious.
  6. My favorite part…
    Ignatius: Sex is a beautiful gift from God. It’s designed to take place within the confines of marriage. So for you guys, sex is wrong, but for me and my smokin’ hot wife, it is so right!
    *cut to Kelly the Ministry Assistant*
    Kelly: It’s been some time since I’ve heard so explicit an account of marital relations, especially from the pulpit. Ignatius makes Song of Solomon look like Dr. Seuss.
    —————————–
    Hear that? That’s the sound of Katie Langston frantically loading the video…
  7. Well dammit, Jack, here you got my hopes all up and it was nothing more than a pantomimed striptease.
    I’ll tell you what though, I’d attend that sermon any day of the week. Boo-yeah!
    My other favorite part was when he made the fat kid with dirty thoughts stand up in front of everyone. It reminded me of growing up in Utah, when we Young Women would hear these terrible rumors that over in the Young Men’s class, the leaders would bring in some sort of chemical that would turn your hands green if you had…ummmmm…”enjoyed your own company” a little too much that week.
    Of course it was a chemical that just turns everyone’s hands green. But they didn’t tell you that for a few minutes. So you better believe there were some nervous young teenagers trying to inconspicuously sit on their palms.
    My big question: who has the money to make something like this?
  8. Katie, I infinitely prefer the parable of the licked cupcake.
    I wasn’t a licked cupcake when I got married, but I think I’d had a few sprinkles picked off my frosting…
    I’m horrible. I’m going to bed now.
  9. I fear that if I showed this video to some of the Christians at my college, about half of them would want to see if we could bring Ignatius to campus.
  10. Did they ever try the cake-and-motor-oil metaphor on the young women of your time?
    It’s actually very cheap to make something like that video these days, especially if you’re a youth minister with all the equipment and volunteers (employees?) already there.
  11. Did they ever try the cake-and-motor-oil metaphor on the young women of your time?
    No, but I’m dying–DYING–to hear it now.
    I wasn’t a licked cupcake when I got married, but I think I’d had a few sprinkles picked off my frosting…
    Jack, LOL. I sat here for about 3 minutes trying to come up with some sort of witty response…but failed. That was funny.
    I think I’d like to start collecting these analogies. What a hilarious folklore project! I could totally submit it to the Fife Folklore Archives at Utah State University. I’d call my exhibit “Don’t Lick the Cupcake: Chastity Metaphors for Mormons” or something like that.
  12. OK, OK. Bear in mind that since I went through the young men program, I’m getting this second hand. And no one I know or trust has ever used it.
    You know about the metaphor, right, where a teacher will bring in a cake and offer someone a piece of it.
    When he gets a “yes” to his offer, he digs his hand in the cake, grabs a fistful, puts it on a plate, and says, “do you still want it”?
    The object lesson there is that presentation matters, no matter the topic. I’ve seen it used in teacher improvement scenarios to showcase the fact that the preparation matters.
    OK, take that metaphor, and abuse it for a chastity lesson. Fistful-of-cake becomes a symbol for immodest dress or borderline behavior.
    Fistful-of-cake topped with motor oil becomes a metaphor for a young woman who gave away her virtue. “What man would want that piece of cake, ladies?”
    Of course, you can also apply the metaphor with a neatly sliced piece of cake, which could be useful for describing the outward-Molly-Mormon who gave away her virtue. As long as you top it with motor oil.
    It’s a horrible abuse of a cake, I tellya. (Not to mention the hash it makes of repentance doctrines), especially if you then serve cake with a caramel topping, at the end of the fireside event. Need I go on?
  13. Rob, that is a little bit horrifying. And what a waste of perfectly delicious cake. I will say this: I’ve always disliked the fistful of cake analogy, and once I saw someone actually eat the darn thing. The teacher was totally flabbergasted. I giggled on the inside.
    I came across this one yesterday on FMH:
    Girls are like apples. The apples are at the top of the tree. Those that want to get “picked” fall off to make themselves easier for the boys to get to, but then they rot. The boys come and most pick apples up off the ground. Even though they don’t taste as good, they take bites because the apples are easy. Occasionally a boy will come along who is courageous and strong and patient enough to climb to the top to pick an apple from the top. It’s worth waiting at the top for those boys.
  14. Ah me. Women and metaphors where women are inanimate, pleasant to the taste, and the best ones are just out of reach.
    This does not describe my wife, mother, any of my sisters, the woman who worked with me in my last job on computers, the divorcee across town I know who fled an abusive relationship, need I go on?
    Shall we abuse the metaphor by putting the boy in a 4×4 hemi with a tow chain in the back, and having him wrap the chain around the tree and pull all the apples down that way? OM NOM NOM, apples!
  15. Wow, Katie. You know what that reminds me of?
    Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples (Song of Solomon 7:7-8)
    Perhaps YW leaders are dirtier than we give them credit for.
  16. Rob ~ Shall we abuse the metaphor by putting the boy in a 4×4 hemi with a tow chain in the back, and having him wrap the chain around the tree and pull all the apples down that way? OM NOM NOM, apples!
    Polygamy?
  18. Wait a minute, WHAT? You mean to tell me the Bible had some hot lovin’ in it all this time and I totally missed it? Damn everyone who told me the Song of Solomon isn’t inspired!
    Yeah, and why IS it that women are always being compared to food–even by women? I’d like to hear an analogy about how a young man is like a piece of steak. The more…*ahem*…”experience” he has, the more the more cooked he becomes. And no one, but NO ONE, likes an overcooked steak.
    Of course, the rare ones will kill you.
    Make of that what you will.
  19. Don’t like the food analogies? How about this: “Girls, you are like objects of sexual gratification that should sit on the shelf until selected by a man.” Not too poetic, but it gets the message across.
    Katie: I was about to invite you and your husband over for a grilled flank steak, medium rare (130F), but now I’m afraid that offer would carry some…implications.
  20. I’ve never been to an LDS YW meeting that covered abstinence, but I have been an evangelical youth leader, and I find all the stories I hear about using food to teach kids chastity to be just… ugh. So you want to impress on young women that sex before marriage might be a bad idea? I’m a huge fan of teaching them the truth.
    /soapbox
    Teach them that female bodies have a greater chance of contracting STDs during sex than male bodies, and teenage women are especially at risk due to having fewer protective antibodies and an immature cervix.
    Teach them that some studies show that hormonal birth control methods (the pill, the shot, etc.) actually increase your chances of contracting an STD.
    Teach them that 1 in 5 people in the United States has an STD and that 1 in 4 new STD infections appear in teenagers.
    Teach them that they’re gonna feel really dumb when they finally meet the guy they want to spend the rest of their lives with and they have to tell him that they have Herpes and if he marries her he’s gonna run the risk of contracting it for the rest of his life.
    Teach them that 8 in 10 teenagers who get pregnant and keep their baby remain at the poverty level for the rest of their lives, and 9 in 10 teenagers who get pregnant and keep their baby never go to college.
    And if they still want to have sex after all that? Well, I believe our youth has the right to make the wrong decisions. I’m all for teaching them about all the different birth control methods out there so that they can make informed wrong decisions. And they need to know that there will be love and forgiveness waiting for them when they turn around and want to get right with God.
    Forget the crap with food and guilt. If the truth doesn’t stop them, nothing will.
  21. Jack: the problem with the STD approach is that condoms are a very good response to most of it. Nevermind that kids will not always use a condom, or use it properly, in their invincible mindsthey will—except when they don’t, of course. But since that’s what you’re up against, what do you say to kids who live in an imaginary universe where STDs and pregnancy don’t happen to them?
  22. But since that’s what you’re up against, what do you say to kids who live in an imaginary universe where STDs and pregnancy don’t happen to them?
    Brian, I know you were asking Jack, but I’ll weigh in here because I actually have very strong feelings about this and have thought about it a lot. I hope to teach my kid(s?) healthy attitudes about sex and sexuality; that their sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, that it’s a gift from God, and that it is a wonderful, natural thing.
    I will also emphasize that because it’s so special, God has commanded us to be careful with our bodies and reserve sexuality for the bonds of marriage.
    I’ll make occasional sex jokes in front of them and be open and laid back about it, so hopefully they’ll feel like they can talk to me about stuff. And if (when? let’s be honest, most do) they make a mistake, I’ll be supportive and help them get right with God.
    If I ever get a chance to serve youth (which I would LOVE to do; I love kids aged 11+), I hope to be the same way…though if it’s in a church capacity, I’m sure I’ll need to be slightly more judicious with the kinds of jokes I’d tell… ;)
    What I REALLY want to avoid is giving them a guilt complex. I would honestly rather have a kid mess up but grow into adulthood with a healthy attitude about sexuality than to wind up terrified and have problems with intimacy in marriage or what have you. Of course, I might throw in some STD talk just to put the fear of God in ‘em, too. :)
  23. Katie, I can attest that some kids actually choose to feel a guilt complex about sex. We took that approach with my oldest daughter, who so far has taken the stance that the whole idea of sex is simply disgusting and scandalous, and she never wants to do it. She’s 13. Point is, the jokes backfire.
  24. I never wanted to talk about sex until I’d actually had it. Now the only thing I like more than talking about sex is sex!
    You know, when I first began debating LDS apologists on the Internet as a 16 year-old, I remember I brought up how I thought it was icky that Mormons believe in sex in the afterlife. And you know what the 40+-year-old male LDS apologist said to me?
    “I like sex. Don’t you like sex?”
  25. Rob, point taken. Of course, it’s probably not too unusual to be grossed out by sex at age 13. Hopefully, your honesty and good naturedness (word?) about it from the get-go will pay off down the line when the thought of it becomes less gross. Of course, I could be wrong. I’m only 27 and my kid is 2, so you obviously know more about it than I do! :)
    I never wanted to talk about sex until I’d actually had it.
    It must be my background in theatre, where the person with the naughtiest jokes typically = the most popular…but I have always enjoyed talking about sex. I felt guilty about it once. That lasted about a day.
    In college, I lived in a house full of theatre majors. It was overwhelming, but really funny sometimes. Did you ever do the thing with your roommates where, if you kissed a boy, you had to bring ice cream? That’s a real Utah thing to do. Anyway, as I recall, we made some serious modifications to that concept: if you held hands you had to bring M&M’s, if you kissed you had to bring ice cream, if you made out you had to bring Moose Tracks–and if you had to go see the bishop, you had to buy everyone dinner out on the town.
    No one ever bought dinner, but I’m pretty sure it’s because some folks refused to ‘fess up. ;)Anyway, not trying to bore you with college stories…it was a good time, though…
  27. I did the ice cream thing for my roommates when I first kissed Paul. It is a good feeling to wake up in the morning and tell your roommates, “There’s some Rocky Road for you in the freezer if you guys want some” and let the implication of that linger.
    My roommate Alisha, who sometimes comments here, was one of my favorites. We used to call each other “filthy Mormon whore” and “raunchy non-member slut” as regular greetings. Those were good times.
    Oh, and you know Katie? I have heard some awfully descriptive evangelical sermons about sex, and some really good sermons preached from the Song of Solomon. I wish I could send you a tape or something, you would probably love it.
  28. Yeah, bringing ice cream to the roomies is a really, really good feeling. :) Honestly, I don’t know if there’s anything better in this whole wide world than your first kiss with someone you really like, when you’re all giddy and happy and stuff. *sigh*
    Oh well. Got the ol’ ball ‘n’ chain now. That’ll never happen again (assuming all goes according to plan). At least sex is legal now. I s’pose it’s a fair trade-off. ;)
    Maybe you should record your own Song of Solomon sermon and do a podcast or something. I’d even pay up to $4 to hear it.
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