I can't believe I haven't heard of this. A place where gothicism and Christianity merge? A ramble of the passionate sort...To provide a place of belonging for Christian Goths. We cultivate and nurture groups around the world, places where Goths can gather. And we encourage and support people from whom they can receive care.
To unite Christian Goths, we encourage those who wish to sponsor
conventions and gatherings where we can gather together to worship, pray,
celebrate, learn from and support each other.To provide a presence in the greater Goth community. We make ourselves available and accessible to those that are seeking that in seeking they may find.
To promote, encourage and preserve Gothic Christian culture in all its varied forms. We offer opportunities for the artist and any Gothic Christian venture to share their God given talent.
This brings to mind something that happened at a church I went to long ago. Mother, do you remember this? There was a girl who was a member of the church who dressed quite gothic. You know, the stereotypical type with blue hair and long, black dresses, loud makeup. Some people at the church didn't agree with this and assumed that because she dressed the way she did, something was wrong. How can anyone love God and dress like that? They proceeded to "make her over" and give her a new, more christian friendly outlook on how one should dress. I know they were only doing what they thought was best and meant no harm, but there are so many people out there, Christians or not, that are seriously misguided about what really matters to God. The heart.
I didn't know that girl personally or know if there were other things going on in her life that suggested she might be headed down the wrong path, but if her only sin was dressing in funeral garb, what's up with that?
I don't think God judges us by what we're wearing, and I certainly don't think he has a bag of labels he throws out like we're all in some eternal high school. People shouldn't assume that the ones who enjoy things of the darker variety have pentagrams nailed to their walls and pools of blood they swim in whilst chanting demonic prose.
Same thing goes for all this Harry Potter hocus pocus. Remember when there was a huge uproar about the Harry Potter series being unfit for Christian children because it = witchcraft? There's a difference between having fun with your imagination and serious witchcraft. I've loved all things fantastical and faerie like for years. Does that make me pagan or wiccan?
Christianity gets a bad rap because of things like this. No one ever sees or meets the Christians who actually get it and that's frustrating. Anywho, I'm off the soapbox now.
Your two cents?
3 comments:
I completely agree with you! I am a Christian, and enjoy some gothic touches here and there..my entire wardrobe is black! (I don't do the whole black hair black lips look, though) But it's frustrating to be stereotyped all the time.
Heard a great interview on NPR a couple of years ago between Terry Gross and Daniel Handler (nom de plume, Lemony Snicket). Daniel's books for kids--A Series of Unfortunate Events--received Harry Potter-like treatment in some circles. At a book signing, a woman upbraided Daniel for his forthright, plain-truth content and style, said she was a librarian, and proudly admitted that his books had been banned in her library. Why? he asked her. Because of the absence of Christian values, she said. For example, she went on, the characters in your stories tell lies. So, he asked, there are absolutely no circumstances in which it is okay to tell a lie? No, absolutely not, she said. His response to her: Nice sweater.
LOL re Daniel Handler! Christian values, my foot.
A few weeks ago, we read the Biblical account in church, right out loud too, the part where the Hebrew midwives lie to Pharoah's face TWICE: first to promise that they'll kill all the Hebrew baby boys, and second to assure him that the only reason they hadn't killed the babies was because those Hebrew women were so much STRONGER than the Egyptian women that darn it all if they didn't just keep popping out those babies all by themselves, before the midwives could even arrive.
Does God throw brimstone at the ladies? No sir! Says right there: "And God HONORED THE MIDWIVES."
I bet those Hebrew midwives were totally Goth, as well.
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