Lord, Have Mercy on The Machine

Spring – Wk 1: Spring Equinox | Whiteness as Bio-Waste | Billy Graham Gave a TED Talk? | The Straightest Gay Shit Since "The Origin of Love"

Billy Graham – Southern Baptist Cyborg (Nov. 7, 1918 – Feb. 21, 2018)

Spring Equinox

March 20 — Right on time.

———

Whiteness as Bio-Waste

Nobody likes bio-waste. It’s gross and it’ll kill you. Even aborted babies get treated better than bio-waste. So do me a favor. Don’t call me bio-waste. Don’t call my relatives bio-waste—or half of my friends, or any future children I may have, not even their white half.

We all have problems, but if ya’ll start calling us bio-waste, we’re gonna have serious problems.

———

———

———

Billy Graham Gave a TED Talk?

The fact that Billy Graham was invited to give a TED Talk in 1998 shows you how much tech culture has changed over the years. It's possible he's the last man with a Southern accent ever allowed to open his mouth in Silicon Valley. Upon taking the stage, he admitted:

“As a clergyman, you can imagine how out of place I feel—I feel like a fish out of wa’tah. Or maybe an owl out of the a’yah.”

Before he was done, the good Reverend managed to evangelize the audience without them booing or walking out. Everyone sat and listened, counting 1’s and 0’s.

Those were more tolerant times—at least, among the liberal intelligentsia. Today, the poles have shifted. We went from Southern Baptists burning rock albums in church parking lots to digital mobs deleting “hate” from other people's souls.

———

Aside from Graham's self-deprecating humor, what really struck me was his enthusiasm for the young computer scientists he'd just met in Silicon Valley—for the people behind the innovation. He gushed over their intelligence and their worldly mission to improve the future. He engaged his autistic audience without judgment or suspicion.

The first time I saw Billy Graham preach in person was at his 409th Crusade, held at Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, KY. That was in June of 2001. I remember it being a largely black crowd. There were multiple Christian hip-hop acts onstage before the sermon, and everybody was dancing.

Another thing that stood out was how easy-going and non-judgmental Graham’s message was. He exuded this benevolent masculinity—like he could punch you in the face, but probably wouldn’t. I was there with a cute neo-pagan Unitarian, and even she couldn’t find a reason to hate the guy.

Graham’s TED Talk was much the same. He did his best to meet future technocrats where they were at. In fact, the preacher’s only misstep was trying to drop science on the fly:

“We can probe the deepest secrets of the universe. ... We've seen under the sea, three miles down—or galaxies, hundreds of billions of years out in the future.”

Every nerd cringed, but held it in. The one idiot in the room chewed his nails, wondering how telescopes can see into the future.

———

Graham knew how to disarm a crowd, but he didn't get offstage without mentioning the fundamental flaws of technocracy. He pointed out that King David had also presided over a radical technological revolution in the 11th century BC—the purported dawn of Israel's iron age:

“Israel now had iron plows and sickles and hoes and military weapons. And in the course of one generation, Israel was completely changed. The introduction of iron, in some ways, had an impact a little bit like the microchip has had on our generation.

“And David found there were many problems that technology could not solve. ... And they're still with us, and you haven't solved them.”

Graham warned that, despite all our technical advances, the problems of human evil, suffering, and death have endured. He lamented man's tendency toward hate and violence, and issued a challenge to the room:

“Even the most sophisticated among us seem powerless to break this cycle. I would like to see...technological geniuses work on this. How do we change man?”

Two decades later, technocrats are on the cusp of doing just that. Some want to change man into machine. Others want to change man into woman.

Instead of Jesus multiplying the fish and loaves, we have Bill Gates promoting lab-grown meat.

Instead of reaching for the Kingdom of Heaven, transhumanists like Ray Kurzweil promise to upload our souls to the digital cloud.

Instead of beating swords into plowshares, ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt counsels our rulers to unleash killer drone swarms.

“The problem is not technology,” Graham told his Silicon Valley audience. “The problem is the person or persons using them.”

Exactly. And the better the technology, the bigger the problem.

———

“Our problem is that we are separated from our Cre’yay-tor, which we call ‘God.’ … The Bible teaches that we're more than a body and a mind.” He paused. A woman in the audience coughed. “We are a soul. ... That's the part of us that yearns for God, or something more than we find in technology.”

Agreed. But I wonder—how many reach for God through digital devices?

Even the Reverend Billy Graham, as a cultural icon, was created by technology—from the printed page, to radio, to television, to global transport, to live production, to the good ol’ World Wide Web.

Graham was one of the early evangelical cyborgs—aka “televangelists.” Whole terabytes of his personality have been uploaded to YouTube and other platforms, where he continues to preach from beyond the grave. But he had no time for full-on transhumanism.

“Technology projects the myth of control over our mortality,” he warned the TED crowd. “Marilyn Monroe is still as beautiful on the screen as she was in person. And many young people think she's still alive! … But death is inevitable.”

Until his dying day—at 99 years-old—the minister used every machine at his disposal to spread the Southern Baptist message. Near the end of his life, he said, “I am amazed at the wonders of technology and am grateful for the ways in which we are able to use it to share the gospel around the world.”

Graham's first breakthrough as a global televangelist was at a Los Angeles revival in 1949, after one of his radio appearances had electrified the city. That single broadcast drew hundreds of thousands to his revival meeting.

Years later, his use of the television would set world records. The tech-boosting Christian site Pushpay blesses that electronic medium:

“On June 1, 1957, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association broadcast the New York City crusade on ABC. More than 96 million people switched on their televisions to tune in.”

In 1996, Graham’s team launched billygraham.org with no fear that the medium might become the message. In their view, the Word is the Word—whether uttered, etched in stone, or coded in 1’s and 0’s. Today, the minister’s videos have hundreds of millions of views.

———

As it happened, I was there for Billy Graham's Last Crusade in 2005. It was his 417th. Our team of riggers built the stage out in Flushing Meadows Park, in Queens, NY. Those rusty World’s Fair towers hovered above the trees like antique UFOs as we hoisted fresh decks and hammered steel.

Something like a million and a half seekers crowded the park that weekend. There were people of every imaginable ethnicity, but I was stunned by the number of Asians in attendance.

By a now commonplace miracle, everyone there was able to see and hear the preacher's sermon. His faltering voice was magnified by audio delay towers, and his kind, if withered face was projected onto video screens that our team had erected onstage and across the field. The man of God stood at the center of a technodrome.

After seeing that ol’ Bible-thumper twice in my life, once up close, I have to admit he really did have a pleasant air about him. Billy Graham preached a simple salvation—the salvation of faith. Many found comfort and higher direction in that voice.

You could say he carved a bhakti path to Christ. Who am I to say where that path ultimately leads?

That positive direction aside, I suspect the medium shapes the message far more than the reverse. Just look at Graham’s cyborg successors, who praise the Lord onscreen and count money backstage. In a world where machines are regarded as gods, it's hard to imagine Jesus being too comfortable in The Machine.

———

The Straightest Gay Shit Since “The Origin of Love”

Glenn Greenwald is the bravest gay journalist on the planet.

Fisted by Foucault is a reckless philosopher whose eldritch energies are linked to Bronze Age Pervert.

Their recent interview is straight outta Athens. For whatever reason, it reminded me of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. (The dude with the beard is a chick.)

[A curse upon the hasty editor of this video, and a curse upon YouTube for whittling the selection down to this one.]