I went to church in a suburb today

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well technically yesterday now...but anyway feels kind of odd. I wanted to check out someplace new but obviously still youthful and I knew of such a place with a 7PM service...but it happens to actually sit in a suburb. Within walking distance of the Minneapolis city limits...but still. Although interestingly it's actually a mostly Jewish suburb, meaning you'd expect almost all the people there to not be from there but rather Linden Hills yuppies or the Uptown crowd, which was quite obviously the case.

But regardless that and going to a show in a suburb earlier this year feels weird as f[inks]. Oh well it's a nice place. I might go back sometime.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well technically yesterday now...but anyway feels kind of odd. I wanted to check out someplace new but obviously still youthful and I knew of such a place with a 7PM service...but it happens to actually sit in a suburb. Within walking distance of the Minneapolis city limits...but still. Although interestingly it's actually a mostly Jewish suburb, meaning you'd expect almost all the people there to not be from there but rather Linden Hills yuppies or the Uptown crowd, which was quite obviously the case.

But regardless that and going to a show in a suburb earlier this year feels weird as f[inks]. Oh well it's a nice place. I might go back sometime.

BRTD, I'd be thrilled if you dropped all this Christianity nonsense, but it's nice to see you experiencing immediate suburbs.  I live in one, you can walk down the block and see extreme Northeast Philadelphia over the river, and it's not bad at all.  The only drawback is the need for a car if the bus ride to Camden (about 40 mins) proves to be too much. 

The problem is that Northeast Philly sounds pretty boring based on Phil's descriptions. To live in the cool part of the city I'd have to be well within city limits.

FWIW though this suburb gave us Al Franken and the Coen brothers, so it's quite a bit unlike the rest of them.

Which suburb?

I thought it was kind of easy to figure out. Though I basically gave it away in the response to HockeyDude above.

RIP Jewish suburb. Used to be such a nice place.

Huh?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also something kind of ironic but that I certainly have no problem with, this place basically looked like a strip club. As in it no normal overhead lighting, just a bunch of neon lights around and a couple hanging from the ceiling. They were probably aiming for a look more like a rave or at the bigger music venues I go to, but the actual lighting colors was more similar to local strip clubs. Heh.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But to elaborate a bit to HockeyDude:

The thing with this suburb (still not naming it since it should be REALLY obvious by now) is that it's actually about equal distance from "cool" part of Minneapolis as I am, and actually has a lot of new urbanist design and pretty walking friendly (not true of just it, but also the area right to its south, it seems that's a big thing in the southwest metro in general.) However it's also probably at least 25% more expensive across the board than if you just lived in the city. Where I live is perfect since it's basically where the border between the "hipster area" and the ghetto gets blurred, so it's overall pretty cheap, is not too dangerous (whether its the ghetto or hipster filled depends on who you talk to I've noticed, no one except the people who live here seem to realize it's actually an interesting mix of both) AND has easy access to both uptown and downtown Minneapolis. I can walk to both comfortably 9 months out of the year and have easy bus access as well. Living there would mean being far from downtown and paying more. I suppose it wouldn't be bad if you had the money and cared mostly about all the upscale stores to shop at and luxury apartments instead of the concrete box style that I live in but it's not really for me.

It is however a good reminder of something I said earlier about how rich Democratic areas have better aesthetic taste than rich Republican areas. A bunch of luxury condos in immediate walking distance of a shopping district of overpriced clothing and jewelry stores isn't exactly my thing, but I'll take it any day over a bunch of trashy McMansions sprawling around in an area where you have to drive a half hour to go shopping anywhere.

Also I'm still confused by memphis' comment. Said suburb isn't going anywhere or making massive changes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I was trying to see if anyone would get it. Since as I noted, it was pretty obvious.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So I went there again today. I have to say I'm quite happy that I did because despite being technically in a suburb this service was TOTAL SJW to the max. The sermon series for Advent is about reconciliation, and the speaker (who was actually the band leader) opted to talk about reconciliation in race, and talked about Michael Brown and the protests, brought up the CIA memos about torture and how people might try to justify such violence because of violence against us in 9/11 and at one point said "There are five things about me that give me great privilege: One is that I'm male, two is that I'm white, three is that I'm straight, fourth is that I'm American and fifth is that I'm Christian" and that most of those probably applied to most of us in the all white room. Remember when I brought up church sermons that resemble Upworthy videos? This was like PURE Upworthy and if I recorded it it could probably easily end up on there. "What This Worship Band Leader Has To Say May Be Hard To Hear For Those With Privilege, And That's Why You Need To"

Dammit if only Bushie would go to a place like this. Alas they probably don't exist in Oklahoma.

Also in an odd mix, I bet all of DC Al Fine, Simfan and Nathan would be utterly horrified.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Just throwing this out there, but how often does this minister actually preach the gospel?

He's not a minister. He's the leader of the worship band.

As to how often, I don't know as I've only been there twice and he wasn't the speaker the first time. The first time's sermon was far more gospel-focused, but it was also from a woman.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

TWO trips to the burbs? At this pace BRTD will be wearing a sweater vest and a bowtie by 2016.

Send the man his 2016 Republican primary ballot!  

This is kind of ironic in hindsight. The two posters who posted before this post will be voting in the Republican primary this year, and I will not be.

That said, I had a frightening realization today: Most people at church are probably voting for Sanders. AKA they're not voting for my candidate, and I'm associating with people who are voting differently from me in some way. Which is pretty bizarre.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There are also "synagogues" like this, at least in the US. Wouldn't enter them if I got payed big money for it, and that's quite the Jewish dilemma

No, there's actually quite a difference. Said synagogues tend to be very loose in terms of theology too and are more just social clubs for ethnic Jews. But this church and the rest of the emergent church movement like it are pretty orthodox (small "o") theologically and it's really NOT possible for anyone going to be simply "culturally emergent", if you're an adult and you go to an emergent church, you have to be a convert. (Well I suppose it's possible if you're in your very early twenties and your parents were very early adopters of it, but that's a miniscule number of people.) And thus there is not any real connection to ethnic background in numbers either. (well except for being almost all white people) No one goes to an emergent church just because they are "culturally" Christian, it's because they believe in Jesus Christ.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No, there's actually quite a difference. Said synagogues tend to be very loose in terms of theology too and are more just social clubs for ethnic Jews. But this church and the rest of the emergent church movement like it are pretty orthodox (small "o") theologically and it's really NOT possible for anyone going to be simply "culturally emergent", if you're an adult and you go to an emergent church, you have to be a convert. (Well I suppose it's possible if you're in your very early twenties and your parents were very early adopters of it, but that's a miniscule number of people.) And thus there is not any real connection to ethnic background in numbers either. (well except for being almost all white people) No one goes to an emergent church just because they are "culturally" Christian, it's because they believe in Jesus Christ.

I'm actually not sure. While I would agree that many Jews who go to such "temples" do not necessarily believe in the G-d of mainstream orthodox Judaism, I don't think Thomas from NJ would agree with the St. Louis Park church's characterization of the Christian God either. Some Reform temples are, indeed, more ethnic "social clubs" than actual congregations, but in many Reform temples (particularly in the most SJW-like ones), people do believe that it is upon the Jews to be a light to the world and to contribute to repairing the world ("tikkun olam"), and here's where the SJW angle becomes relevant. This is, by the way, theological garbage, as is explained here, but people still perceive Judaism that way and my opinion of this phenomenon is therefore not really relevant, just as Thomas from NJ's opinion of SJW churches' theology doesn't change the fact that there are Christians who do believe in Jesus as an "all liberal, all the time" SJW.

Also don't forget "faith" is much less of a necessity to function in a Jewish congregation than in a Christian congregation to begin with. For instance, I have no idea if the hazzan of my (orthodox) shul believes in G-d (though probably he does), and I'm even less sure about my fellow congregants. It does not really matter.

Your post about the sermon you attended, by the way, immediately reminded me of this.

Well of course Thomas from NJ wouldn't agree with it, but that's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the tendency of some liberal mainline churches to move away from or at least downplay basic Christian theological concepts, like the ones that say "Well maybe the Resurrection is just metaphorical." I remember a guy explaining to me that at a United Church of Christ confirmation, the Apostle's Creed is recited, but the Confirmation sponsors are not only told it's OK but actually encouraged to sit down during any part of that they don't believe in, which strikes me as very silly. I can understand not saying it, but geez no need to make a scene. Basically some of them are just one step away from Unitarianism, and are basically social clubs in a way. Now that is true of the hipster churches, who tend to be very solid on theological stuff and uncompromising, even if they hold to liberal politics. So quite a bit different from Reform Jews too.

But here's my main point: As stated, there is no such thing as people who are ethnically or "culturally" emergent. No one goes to an emergent church because it's some tradition that's existed in their family for generations because it's too young of a movement for that to be possible. So if someone's going to an emergent church, they obviously believe in God. Plus people doing all that hand raising and shaking and swaying in worship stuff is something that someone wouldn't do if it was only part of their heritage to them.

As far as your second point goes...yeah that kind of proves mine. No one's going to play in an emergent church band if they don't believe in it. It can't be just a cultural thing to them, because it's something YOU have to choose. Imagine a shul that consisted exclusively of converts to Judaism...OK it's not a perfect analogy since the vast majority of people in the emergent church were raised Christian even if a different type, but I think the point is clear.

And the last sentence makes a lot of sense, because hipster Christians tend to love Upworthy.

Actually this sums it perfectly:

Yes. The idea of standing within a tradition that goes back for centuries and being responsible for continuing this tradition. Jews in Europe also get confronted with being Jewish often (more so than in the US, I'd wager) and it seems there are fewer non-religious Jewish events, so people go to synagogue to stay in touch with their roots -- although non-religious reasons are much more important for Jews who go to Reform shuls (which, in the Netherlands, are much more conservative than most Reform shuls in the US) than to Orthodox shuls.

Yeah see, it makes no sense for someone to go to an emergent church to "continue tradition" or "stay in touch with their roots". So it's liberal SJW legitimate Christians. Not liberal SJWs from a Christian background.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

TWO trips to the burbs? At this pace BRTD will be wearing a sweater vest and a bowtie by 2016.

Send the man his 2016 Republican primary ballot!  

This is kind of ironic in hindsight. The two posters who posted before this post will be voting in the Republican primary this year, and I will not be.

That said, I had a frightening realization today: Most people at church are probably voting for Sanders. AKA they're not voting for my candidate, and I'm associating with people who are voting differently from me in some way. Which is pretty bizarre.

Amazing in hindsight.

Just as this church has opened the hearts of many to Jesus Christ, this church opened my heart to another Jewish socialist.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I supported her initially but I never hated Sanders and honestly would've supported him from the beginning if I was voting on issues.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Its kind of hard for a church to be racially integrated when it's geared toward SWPL liberals and has basically zero connection to black church traditions.

We do have some Hispanics and Asians though.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So I went there again today. I have to say I'm quite happy that I did because despite being technically in a suburb this service was TOTAL SJW to the max. The sermon series for Advent is about reconciliation, and the speaker (who was actually the band leader) opted to talk about reconciliation in race, and talked about Michael Brown and the protests, brought up the CIA memos about torture and how people might try to justify such violence because of violence against us in 9/11 and at one point said "There are five things about me that give me great privilege: One is that I'm male, two is that I'm white, three is that I'm straight, fourth is that I'm American and fifth is that I'm Christian" and that most of those probably applied to most of us in the all white room. Remember when I brought up church sermons that resemble Upworthy videos? This was like PURE Upworthy and if I recorded it it could probably easily end up on there. "What This Worship Band Leader Has To Say May Be Hard To Hear For Those With Privilege, And That's Why You Need To"

Dammit if only Bushie would go to a place like this. Alas they probably don't exist in Oklahoma.

Also in an odd mix, I bet all of DC Al Fine, Simfan and Nathan would be utterly horrified.

Wow! He recognized his privilege!!!

It might be more meaningful to have a racially integrated Church than to have white people discuss racial issues.

I disagree that most white Americans are privileged. Just because minorities are mistreated doesn’t mean that all white people have a white privilege card to play. Similarly, I don’t think straight people get special advantages. I think gay people get some disadvantages in some areas, not that straight couples are treated better than they should be.

BTW, we've had had black people discuss racial issues before, by inviting guest preachers.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This church's current precinct is pretty awesome:

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But the old one in the heavily Jewish suburb was better:

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[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Damn, RIP.