Sunday, April 29, 2012

An old fashioned Xtian sing along: Just follow the bouncing spleen


   
Are you walking daily by the Savior’s side?

   Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Do you rest each moment in the Crucified?
 Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?                                                                 “Are You Washed in the Blood?” hymn by
 Elisha A. Hoffman, pub.1878


Nothing seems to make Xtians happier or holier than invoking the gore and grotesqueness of brutal death that is a mainstay of their belief system. What the Mayans and Aztecs did in reality with human sacrifices and beating heart extractions, the Xtians do symbolically in song.

Isaac Watts, was a 18th century writer of hymns. Many were so full of blood and gore that the Methodist Church decided to pull them from their hymnals.

Here are a few selected verses from Mr. Watts:


Alas, and did my Savior Bleed?”
Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, thine,
And bathed in its own blood,
While all exposed to wrath divine


Catchy, eh?

Here’s a lovely little ditty entitled “Blest is the Man Whose Bowels Move”

His heart contrives for their relief
More good than his own hands can do;
He, in the time of gen’ral grief,
Shall find the Lord has bowels too.

 His soul shall live secure on earth,
With secret blessings on his head,
When drought, and pestilence, and dearth
Around him multiply their dead
.


Here’s a bloody one with a little anti-Semitism thrown in for good measure

“Not all the Blood of Beasts”
Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain
Could give the guilty conscience peace
Or wash away the stain.

 But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name
And richer blood than they.

Believing, we rejoice
To see the curse remove;
We bless the Lamb with cheerful voice
And sing His bleeding love.
Watts has over two-hundred fifty hymns attributed to him, and no small portion speak of washing in the “the blest fountain of Thy blood” and other such gory references.

Other devout hymn writers penned such notable titles as “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” “Power in the Blood,” “Hide you in the Blood,” “Covered by the Blood,” “Thank God for the Blood,” and the ever popular “The Blood,” among others too numerous to mention.  Here’s the chorus from “Washed in the Blood”:

Washed in the Blood, washed in the Blood!
Washed in the Blood, in the soul-cleaning Blood.
Washed in the Blood, washed in the Blood!
Sealed in the Spirit true,
and washed in the Blood!


It’s a veritable blood bath...literally ... since having blood pouring out of Jesus’ gaping abdominal wound seems to be a popular theme.

Nowadays many churches prefer to keep the bloodiest hymns out of their mainstream hymnals.  Let’s face it, between promoting the reanimation of rotting corpses;  revering pickled pieces of saint body parts and mummified bodies under glass; images of Jesus with his heart outside his body (and oddly on fire...heartburn I imagine); drinking symbolic blood and eating symbolic flesh -  the imagery tends to make Xtianity sound suspiciously like a blood and gore death cult...which it is. Picture the Thuggee High Priest holding the beating heart of his human victim in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,”... bad press.


So singing about blood baths in church has largely gone the way of the Catholic  “Feast of the Circumcision.”  I guess it was starting to leave a bad taste in their mouth.    

15 comments:

NewEnglandBob said...

Oh my bloody word!

Dromedary Hump said...

Hahahah...indeed.

David said...

Add that to all the old testament violations that call for punishment of death and all the witch hunts and gay bashings they have caused and it becomes pretty hard to swallow the often touted claim that Xtianity is the religion of peace and love.

LaurieB said...

UUuuuggghhh! disgusting but very true.

LaurieB said...

Oh, hey, you guys going to see Jerry Coyne at Harvard on Wed night?

Dromedary Hump said...

Laurie..I rarely venture beyond the camel ranch's compound ;) Let me know how it was.
atheistcamelchronicles@msn.com

NewEnglandBob said...

I will see you there Laurie.

Den!s said...

I doubt that Harvard would allow an atheist camel into the meeting anyway; even if said camel promised that he wouldn't spit at the guests, drool, or otherwise defile the premises.

Chatpilot said...

Hey Hump, are you sure that these hymns weren't composed by Vlad The Impaler by any chance? It sounds like something he could attest to and would love to sing about.

Anonymous said...

Good to know the lord has bowels too. It makes sense, I mean how many times have we heard that he's seated on the throne?

Dromedary Hump said...

You guys are killin me :)

Momma Moonbat said...

Don't forget the Catholic ode to cannibalism - taste and see the goodness of the lord.

Den!s said...

What is the purpose of singing hymns? Is to infuse a sense of guilt and grief about the death of jebus? Was it the church hierarchy that liked the first few and told Watts to write a shitload more of those? Looking at the words he wrote makes me think Watts was nuts, but was he?

creepy stuff, glad it has no attraction for me.

Engineer of Knowledge said...

Hello Hump,
Here is another example of “Stupid Christian” results that will affect us all. The example of what happens when we allow religion to rule the day.

There is great fear tomorrow that the majority of voters in North Carolina will institutionalize discrimination, prejudice, and hate in the state constitution with the expected passage of “Amendment One,” which is endorsed by Franklin Graham, and his distinguished father, the Reverend Billy Graham, who should be totally ashamed of themselves!

I remember well here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland the signs of “White Only and Black Only” over the doors of bathrooms, water fountains, and such…..and as late as 1972.

As I have now gone into my 6th decade, I cannot believe the regressive slide “Back To The Good O’l Days” we as a nation have seen here of late. “You Can Tell We Are Christians By Our LOVE” Franklin Graham’s version must exclude anyone who does not fit into our looks, accents, and Social NIHILISMS!!

As Reverend Billy Graham was once considered a “Good Christian Man,” this latest “Coming to Political Light of institutionalize discrimination, prejudice, and hate,” one has to ask themselves what Little Frankie heard in the privacy of their home when the “Evangelical TV Cameras” were turned off.

One would think we were beyond this in the 21st century, and that we should NOT allow the ignorance of people to become law! It is shameful to let people VOTE on basic human rights. I thought this was all done and settled in the 1960’s. Where I thought we as a nation had come so far with regards to the enlightenment and treatment of our fellow American country men, those whom stepped up to defend and support our country, that we as a nation would even consider much less allow the repressive laws solely directed towards others. How did we allow the “Predominantly Nutty Christian Lunatic Fringe State of North Carolina” regress back to this point? What a sad statement for the legislators of North Carolina. Let’s not just point at North Carolina because if this “Amendment One” does succeed, there will be plenty of other States willing to assimilate with more of their own such laws.

Bring forth a vote on whether people should be denied the right to vote; blacks should be segregated; job discrimination allowed; workers should be denied collective bargaining; and many other social advancements that people gave their “blood, sweat and tears” for; that today it is possible that the masses would vote to deny those basic rights. That is not what a democracy is, to allow prejudice, hate, and discrimination to rule the day!

Today Hump, I truly feel that I have woken up IN a bad dream of some Bizzaro World!!

Dromedary Hump said...

Eng...
I know exactly how you feel. Your assessment is dead on. I could not have expressed it better myself.

They are fighting a lost cause. The tide is changing in spite of the Grahams and the Catholic Church, and the raving lunatic televangelists. What you are seeing is their last desperate gasp to control societal change with an obsolete doctrine.

Even if it passes in NC, it will not last forever. The times they are a changing. Hang in there.