LISTENING TO MUSIC (or, trying to) Part III

Recently I borrowed from my brother, who himself had borrowed it from the Fitchburg State College radio station, a copy of the soundtrack to the documentary Rise: The Story of Rave Outlaw Disco Donnie. Disco Donnie was a major figure in the New Orleans club scene, and he was also the first person to be indicted under the RAVE (Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy) Act, which allowed club owners to be prosecuted if anyone was caught using rave drugs in their clubs. The money raised from album sales would go to funding Disco Donnie's defense as well as to EM:DEF, the Electronic Music Defense Fund.

While the CD has its share of big names (The Crystal Method, Leftfield, Josh Wink) and a few great tracks from lesser-known artists ("Freak Frequency" by Vigi & Flip, "Hip Hop Phenomenon" by Tsunami-One, "I Feel Good" by Charles Feelgood), it also feature a few clips from interviews from the film. The one that caught my eye in particular was one entitled "Jesus Preached PLUR (Peace Love Unity Respect)".

It's short enough that I can post the entire thing here:

"Jesus...Jesus preached PLUR, you know, Jesus wasn't, like, a white guy, sitting around, you know, like, being perfect...I mean, Jesus was a North African, you know...he had long dreds; he wandered around and probably smoked bud. He, uh...preached PLUR. He wanted everyone to love each other."

Now, to break this down in detail. Leaving aside the obvious problem of overloading a simple statement with Likes and YouKnows, my main problem is that the central point of the argument is false. Jesus did not preach neither peace ("Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34) nor love ("If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26) nor unity ("For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law." Matthew 10:35) nor respect (the part of Mark chapter 7 where Jesus refuses to exorcise a woman's daughter, calling the woman herself a dog). These examples are just a few of many that show that Jesus isn't exactly the role model this person thought he was.

Of course, the Bible contains verses that could allow one to make a case either way. I just felt like playing devil's advocate here for a brief moment.

The conception of Jesus as a cannabis-smoking north African nature-worshipper spreading a message of peace among men seems to me like it might make more sense than a Yahweh-fearing Hebrew with little positive to draw from the Old Testament. It's not outside the realm of possibility that making Jesus a Jew was nothing more than a Retcon to serve the early Christians' purposes. (After all, as Greta Christina pointed out, all religion is fanfic.) So this portrayal by this ditzy-sounding clubgoer is just another instance of seeing Jesus how you want to see him; seeing him in a way that advances your own beliefs. In this case, that of PLUR.

I think all I'm trying to say, though, is this: I agree with your message, but not how you're saying it. I can see your rationale for doing so, since so many people agree, wrongly, that Jesus was a bringer of PLUR. If you're trying to get people to your side, you might not want to use Jesus to do so.

Thinking about this distracted me from the main point of the article, which was supposed to be about electronic club music, but somehow moved onto another topic completely.