This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is If He Showed Up Now by Scott Cook.
If he showed up now, you wouldn’t know what to do He’d be flat broke as usual, filthy too And the worst thing about it when he comes to town Is the kind of people that he brings around But all of your life you have called him your friend And promised you’d stick by him right to the end So you’d say, do us the honour, have something to eat And he’d say, where were you when I was living on the street?
If he showed up now there’d be trouble, I bet He’d be talking revolution, or did you forget When you told him you’d follow him, he said, if you Were anything like me, they’d kill you too. You’d say, I’ve been calling you, haven’t you heard? I live by your name and I’d die for your word And I’d fight to defend it in every detail And he’d say, where were you when I was in jail?
If he showed up now, would you recognize him? If he came as a pauper when you expected a king Or as an illegal, scrounging for bills Or a defenceless child in the Syrian hills You’d say I’ve been fighting your cause all along I studied your pages and sang out your songs And it was in your name that I closed every prayer And he’d say, where were you when I was sick and couldn’t get care? You’d say, if I’d known it was you I’d have come I fought for your honour and all that I’ve done It was under your banner in the name of the Son And he’d say, where were you for the weakest ones? Where were you for the weakest ones?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Fellas Get Out the Way by Scott Cook.
This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Talkin Anthropocalypse Blues by Scott Cook.
Remember Y2K? Remember what you did that day? Were you scared the machines would turn on us all? Or maybe your phone just wouldn’t work? Maybe aliens would come to earth? Could’ve been a mushroom cloud, or heaven’s bugle call Me and some friends took a trip down south And we were on a beach, hanging out With folks from all over the world, feeling nothing but fine We drank until we got demented Counted down for each time zone represented And partied like it was 1999 ‘Cept it actually was, it wasn’t just a figurative thing And when it turned 2000, well, we kept on partying Getting kinda silly by that point Stumbling around, yelling at clouds The new millennium was looking pretty messy so far
But you can’t always party daily and nightly And not everyone takes those kind of things lightly Some folks got more serious concerns Take William Miller, back in 1818 With all the scripture he’d been studying He got to figuring out when Jesus would return Once he was done calculating He got to proselytizing & debating And within several years he rounded up thousands more They had pamphlets and meetings, the more the merrier Saying God would cleanse the sanctuary or Something like that, October, 1844 And after waiting years for their coming king They started giving away everything Unconcerned with possessions or employment But when the day finally rolled around And Jesus was nowhere to be found They had what was called “The Great Disappointment” Some said they’d botched their calculations Used the wrong calendar or computations And He was still coming, just a few months or years later Some other folks just figured they’d been wrong Figured they’d better try and keep their home And think of a way to explain it to the neighbours And somehow find the wherewithal To stock that pantry after all; Heck, maybe they should even go and see the dentist! But some other folks insisted it really did happen Just not on earth, but up in heaven And they became the Seventh-Day Adventists Now, if there’s any Adventists listening I really don’t want to offend you… Really, I’ve got friends who are Adventists! I mean, I met one one time Besides, we’ve all got crazy ideas of our own For instance, I thought this would be A nice little subject to write a song about!
Back in the first century, off the Turkish coast On a little Greek island called Patmos A guy wrote down a bunch of visions he thought reliable And rather than asking “what’s this guy on?” People named it the Apocalypse of John And 300 years later they decided it was in the Bible And I grew up believing it’d all come true Just when and how nobody knew But God was coming back to get His biz done First time by water, next time fire Righteous and wicked to divide And we’d get a new world in exchange for this one And it was gonna happen soon! ‘Cause things are obviously getting worse There’s no turning it around There’s no saving this Earth Nothing worth saving anyway! You got men marrying men, men marrying dogs, trees… Next thing you know some guy’s gonna marry his truck! It’s just wrong!
Now some cheeky folks offer a service To believers who are getting nervous To ease their mind about their dogs and cats ‘Cause pets don’t get raptured, you see So these folks say, for a small fee They’ll feed and walk ’em in the unlikely event of that And boy, if it happens like they say And all the believers are borne away You can be sure those atheists’ll come around then! Once they find out they lost the bet They’ll take real good care of your pets It might be their last chance left at gettin’ in! It’s written no man knows the day of the Lord, But I saw it on some big billboards! Harold Camping figured it out, and wrote it up high God must’ve thought, who’s this hack? Maybe He was even planning to come back And then didn’t, just to spite the poor old guy! After May 21st went by, people laughed but he stuck to his guns Said it’d been a spiritual event, not a physical one… And the real thing was coming, October 21st, 2011… Poor Harold! He kinda lost his enthusiasm for predictions after that
2012 was gonna be big, right? That shit was gonna be tight! They had special calculations we could rely on This wicked old world’s gotta make room It’s the start of a new baktun According to the calendar of the Mayans Well, those Mayan dudes may’ve been rough But they sure did make some amazing stuff And they really must’ve been rapidly evolving They didn’t waste time with messy elections They put the pedal down on natural selection By cutting off your head if you lost a ballgame But what’d they think 2012 would mean? Would the poles reverse? Would the sun turn green? Would we see the planet Nibiru? Would it destroy Man? Or was it the dawn of the Aquarian Age Our ascension to another vibratory stage Without war, injustice, materialism, or boy bands? Terence McKenna predicted the singularity With all the hard-earned sincerity And certainty that goes with dedicated research See, he made a computer program, threw the I Ching Ate psilocybin mushrooms and some other things And as a result, he was ’bout as sure as anyone on Earth Funny thing about being sure: The more you are, the less I believe you Especially if it’s that crazy-eyed, foaming at the mouth kind of sure The kind where no matter what happens, it still proves you’re right! And if you don’t see it Well, it was just more of a hidden, spiritual thing… Anybody see a pattern here?
We’re pretty good at getting it wrong This song’d be even more stupidly long If I tried to tally up everybody’s guesses One thing in common with all these tales They depend on someone besides ourselves As if we won’t have to clean up our own messes As if we’re the last people on earth As if these times are the craziest there ever were As if we’re not just holding space here for our grandkids As if it’s all gonna turn to black and white And everyone’s gonna see the light And convincing won’t be as hard as it always is Like we won’t have to change minds one by one It’ll just happen, it’ll just get done We won’t have to take time with all the messy stuff Of building bridges, loving people in Realizing when we’re wrong even And learning how to stop when we’ve had enough Sounds like a pretty tall order, right? God help us, you say? Or what? It’s gonna take a miracle to save us from ourselves, right? What if we’re the only miracle we’ve got?
This world has gotta end This world has gotta end It’s on us to make a new one my friends!
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
