When it comes to American beliefs and spirituality, i’m morbidly fascinated by “My Name is Earl,” which i try to watch every few months just to see where the show is in relation to its appointed shark vaulting appointment. As far as i can tell, this is a shark-proof series, since they made ludicrous plot turns central to their message from the beginning.

What has me watching, as a clergy dude who works with the near-homeless/homeless and socially maladroit most weekdays, is the whole mythos around “Karma” and the other characters, besides Earl, who all have a fairly vital sense of spiritual forces at work and an awareness of movements and influences beyond the immediate, physical, and visible. I can see where some of an atheistic bent would watch and say “THIS is what i’m talkin’ ’bout,” and that a little common sense, rationalism, and understanding of science would go a long ways towards improving their quality of life and choices therein.

And yet. Not only do i think “My Name Is Earl” fairly accurately captures the generic state of American religiousness on a day by day level (pastors of all sorts, take note, i’m talking about your congregation and what they *really* think), but there’s a very real desire to make sense of larger, wider, deeper forces at work in everyday human interactions that pure materialism just doesn’t answer, and misses the test of lived reality.

Karma coming back to bite you, or run you down in the street, cursed objects (Vista, anyone?), destiny pushing people into situations that retrospectively look like a chain of events with a purpose, and all of this being studied, considered, even “prayed over” to try to make the best, the right decision in a clouded situation right now — that’s how the mass of people i meet talk about their lives. They talk to deceased relatives and see signs and follow leadings, sometimes to make choices i disagree with, but often to work out hard realities that i can’t see entirely from my comfortable situation.

I still think, in that context, Christianity can be a lens that makes more sense rather than less out of life and choices, not rose colored lenses to pretty up a grey mush, and corrective lenses as opposed to some of the fun house mirrors i see people looking into (“I’m hopeless, I’m a loser, I’m the center of the world”). But i think “My Name Is Earl” shows us the view through the prescription worn by a near plurality of our fellow citizens.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#31613039

Death is not necessarily a barrier to making a buck. According to the Forbes list of the earnings of dead celebrities, the estate of Elvis Presley took in $52 million last year.

I was rather taken with Dawkin’s account of a double-blind experiment on the effectiveness of prayer. Patients in a hospital were divided into two similiar groups. One group had their names given to a church to be prayed over. The other group was no prayed over. Outcomes for the two groups were identical. Prayer appears to have no effect on patients survival rates. On the other hand a similar experiment divided patients into two groups. One group was told that they would be prayed over by a church, the other group was told nothing. The people who believed they were being prayed over had better survival rates.

Dawkins concluded that the first experiment proves that God does not exist. Then again it’ssaid that God Is Not Mocked. So maybe He did nothing solely to confound the atheists.

On an unrelated note. I’ve seen to ads by Billy Mays since his untimely death, so I guess he will continue to be America’s Salesman long after he’s buried.

Me, I’m way past impatient waiting for Catholicism and, oh sure, Islam and Judaism and one or two stray synods of Protestantism to reform their institutional structure, (yes, I think I’m agreeing with Jeff here), which manages to do an amazing amount of, uh, not-good while they’re out there claiming good works.

as a protestant tot, i had lots of fun at VBS — which sometimes involved homemade ice cream — so when my youngest expressed interest in the VBS at his friend’s UCC’s church, i said sure. he lasted about an hour; broke his collarbone during a sack race. that was the end of VBS for us.

My argument, in a public sense, is with what feels like a growing insistence that the senses & sensations of the moment are all; yep, Mark Sanford tries to put some religious lipstick on that . . . wait, we can’t use that metaphor any more, but Sandra Tsing Loh and Richard Dawkins and Janet Jackson all seem to be singing the same song — do what feels good, try not to hurt others, and make your choices based on your “heart”, whatever on earth (or in heaven) that is.

But there’s very little to do with organizational or structural religion i feel the need to defend, and more often i’m happy to hand over my crowbar to the wreckers, due to a toxic overexposure early on to Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard. If you actually read more than a few second-hand quotes of SK, it’s hard to take anything about institutional Christianity seriously, which is not conducive to a successful career in the clergy. Jesus, on the other hand . . .