Why The Renaissance is Sexier, etc.; One Punk Under God

I posted Georgie Lee Fledderjohn's "Why The Renaissance is Sexier" article on The Brew; it's a look at other fantastical ideas about sex and what is sexy.

Be watching through the end of the month for more articles. I won't be blogging about every single one, since there will be many over the next few days.
Next up is another Jane Doe article on female sexual struggles; then Lonnie Smith's "Talk to Your Kids About Sex, Dammit!". The last one is pretty self-explanatory.

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I love Jay Bakker. I empathize with him. But he is also my hero. He survived a religious catastrophe that never really stopped. He survived a faith that could have surely killed someone else. I could almost say that he survived the church, evangelicalism, the dark side of Christianity, etc.

I moved this DVD to the front of my Netflix queue when I heard that Jay’s mom, Tammy Faye Messner, died from cancer earlier this week. After watching the portions of the series with her in it, it truly is a miracle that she lasted so long. There weren’t many details of how bad the cancer was but what I saw of Tammy Faye disturbed me. Doctors said in the one of the episodes that any day that she keeps living is a miracle. The series was probably filmed last summer, so that could mean that Tammy Faye lasted another year on a who knows how many pills, a portable oxygen machine and Hospice care. And perhaps prayer and faith.

It’s hard to care about someone’s eccentricities when you literally see them dying before your eyes. And that is what you’ll see in One Punk Under God.

You’ll also see Jay do what he can to have a relationship with his dad. This was so hard to watch. The only way that either Bakker was able to communicate to the other was when they were preaching or doing a TV show. Now, naturally, Jay took a lot of initiative to foster a relationship with his famous father, Jim Bakker; but both were so similar in that they almost needed an audience in order to be genuine, open and honest.

I’m always fascinated by anyone’s struggle with their religious identity. I can relate to that. I empathize with that because I do the same. It’s easy for me to over dramatize my struggle for faith, my relationship with my parents or anything else that might be considered hard or traumatic. I’m surely no where near what someone like Jay Bakker has experienced.

But I was completely moved when his dad came to visit the new church Jay started after moving to New York City. I cried when I heard his father say that he was so proud of his son and that Jay was doing what Jim couldn’t do. That was just beautiful.