SUMMA w/ BUTT JOKES: intro & faq

I can’t take credit for this. Catholic Memes is a funny site, though. You should check it out.

Hi there. I’ve decided to start a new series on my blog!

I know what you’re thinking: Luke? Blogging again? When did this happen? Why did this happen? Hasn’t the world suffered enough???

Answers: yes, yes, just now, why not?, and no.

The truth is, I never really stopped blogging. It’s been nine months, but I never officially quit. I was just waiting for an idea good enough that it was worth doing some unpaid writing for. And I got one. So I’m back.

Maybe you read the weekly column I write for Christ and Pop Culture, “LOL Interwebz.” I was working on a recent one the other day, and I gave myself an idea. I wrote:

You gotta go with what sells, which is why I write a column about the Internet and its endless potential for butt jokes, instead of a line-by-line explication of Summa Theologica.

And then I thought: wait, what if someone did write a line-by-line explication of Summa, — BUT WITH ENDLESS BUTT JOKES???

An announcement for anyone wondering, “Hey, what ever happened to that Luke guy?”

Just thought I would drop this and let the whole world feel it.

Hi guys!

I thought I should post something for all the people who have followed this blog and then realized that I haven’t posted anything since, like, October.

I’ll be honest. The blog has been low-priority for me of late. But it’s not because I’m not writing! You can still enjoy the words I make up in many places around the Internet!

My top priority these days is the weekly column I write for Christ and Pop Culture, LOL Interwebz. That’s right, you can read my uniquely dick-jokey and Jesus-jukey take on Internet culture, every single week! Here are some of the better recent ones:

• Kirk Cameron’s Saving of Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas
• A Letter From Beyond the Broken Internet
• A Post-Postmodern Analysis of #AlexFromTarget

I also write semi-frequent features for CaPC as well. Here’s a recent one in which I helpfully suggest some potential storylines for a sequel to the hit evangelical film God’s Not Dead.

And I’m still an occasional presence over at Cracked. Here’s an article I was blessed with the opportunity to write about Nick Yarris, one of the first death row inmates in the U.S. to ever be exonerated by DNA evidence.

I’m also pleased to announce that I finally scratched the biggest writing itch that was distracting me from this blog — I finally finished my debut horror novel, Ophelia, Alive (A Ghost Story)! Stay tuned to learn when and how you can read it! (I’m not sure about the “when,” but the “how” will probably somehow involve the blood of your firstborn.)

In any case, this blog will still continue indefinitely as the repository for all my thoughts about Jesus, pop culture, butts, and everything in between. So have a happy new year, and a blessed Epiphany, and keep checking in.

Word to your mother.

Prebylutheranism 2nd Anniversary Spectacular! (My Top 10 Posts Ever)

Just because.

The other day was the second anniversary of my foray into blogging, and what a long, strange trip it’s been. I haven’t proven to be the most consistent blogger on the Web, or the one with the biggest following, or the smartest, or the funniest, or the most talented, or the best-loved, but I’m certainly…one of them?

I guess?

But one thing I am sure of is that starting this blog was a good call. Some of the things that have happened since I began it:

• I’ve been published by Cracked a couple of times;
• My work has appeared in Reader’s Digest;
• I’ve scored a book deal;
• I’ve been made a weekly columnist at Christ and Pop Culture;
• I’ve almost finished a novel (which is more of a distraction from blogging than anything, but whatever).

I thought that for this august occasion (which, ironically, is a June occasion), it might be fun to run down my blog’s top 10 posts, along with some of my commentary on them. Unless it’s not fun, in which case, I’m sorry.

A Stand Against Douchebaggery.

Hey all,

I have a new piece up over at Christ and Pop Culture today. It’s a discussion of the meme Feminist Frank and the question of whether Christians ought to be feminists. Check it out now, funk soul brothers.

Buttcracks and Legos: An Internet Full of Me

Hey guys,

Just thought I’d let you know that I have a couple new pieces going up around the web today.

There’s this, my latest ‘LOL Interwebz’ column for Christ and Pop Culture. It’s about buttcracks and Magic: The Gathering.

Then there’s this, a contrarian piece I wrote for The Erstwhile Philistine. It’s about The Lego Movie and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and why EVERY CHILDREN’S MOVIE YOU LOVE IS A LIE.

By the way, since I have your attention: Christ and Pop Culture has a podcast, and it’s phenomenal. I’m not shilling; it’s seriously my absolute favorite podcast and I listen to it all the time. And incidentally, I’ve had the pleasure of starring in three of its episodes:

• This one (Cash, Cobain, Bush);
• This one (April Fools, #CancelColbert, The Pope’s Confession);
• And this one (Participation Trophies, A Church’s Fake Persecution Stunt, “Average Barbie”).

It’s been a blast. But every single episode is great, and you should listen to them all.

Till next time!

The Overly Attached Girlfriend of Noble Character

Hey all,

Pleased to announce that I’m launching a new weekly column over at Christ and Pop Culture called LOL Interwebz. It kicks off today with a thought-provoking Jesus juke about Laina the Overly Attached Girlfriend.

Word to your mothers.

 

Twestling with God

Just a quick warning that my review of The Twible — in which religion scholar Jana Reiss condenses every single chapter of the Bible into a tweet — is available for your viewing pleasure over at Christ and Pop Culture.

Go read it. That’s an order, soldier.

Me, dusting off my film studies degree

Those of you who are into this sort of thing can go read my latest  for Christ and Pop Culture, Why are PG-13 Films More Violent Than Their R-Rated Counterparts? The American movie ratings system lies in ruins, and someone has to pick through them, so it might as well be me.

Although, grammatically, shouldn’t that read, “it might as well be I”? Deep thoughts, man.

Flesh Like Grass: Flappy Bird, Fame, and the Fall From Grace

Illustration by Seth T. Hahne

Just a quick PSA that my long-form essay Flappy Bird, Fame, and the Fall From Grace is available for your reading pleasure in the latest issue of Christ and Pop Culture Magazine, which you can buy from the iOS newsstand here. It’s a reflective piece on what fame means, why so many yearn for it, and why so many, having experienced it, run from it. The issue has a lot of other good stuff (okay, I admit: better stuff), too, like D.L. Mayfield’s experiences with some of the Somalis who starred in Captain Phillips, and her thoughts on the Twitter flamewar between noted comedian/talking rat Patton Oswalt and RUF campus minister Sammy Rhodes. It’s three bucks, and it’s more than worth it. I promise.

Also, that three bucks goes to pay the writers. Like me. So there’s that.

I’d Like to Say a Few Words About the Oscars.

Hey all,

Quick confession, and then an announcement.

Who’s a smug boy? YOU’S a smug boy! Who wants a punch in him’s face? YOU wants a punch in you’s face! Yes you do!

Confession:

I hate the Oscars. Loathe them with every fiber of my being. Want to punch that Oscar guy in his stupid, golden face.

All the Oscars do is reward movies for being stoic, boring, inoffensive, and released-in-December. What’s the point?

Actually, I hate all awards shows, but I pay more attention to movies than to music, TV, Broadway, or peace, so I hate the Oscars more actively than I do the Grammys, the Emmys, the Tonys, or the Nobels.

(Pulitzer, you can stay. We cool.)

The upshot is that I not only ignore the Oscars, but I try to avoid any Oscar-nominated film. They’re all just boring rehashes of previous years’ winners, so why waste my time?

Oh, sweet Pulitzer. If my daring exposé on how the Oscars are terrible doesn’t win your heart, what will?

Announcement:

Instead of avoiding them this year, I’m going to AMC’s annual Oscar nominee marathon, which is happening tomorrow (2/22) and next Saturday (3/1). I’ll eventually write up the experience for Christ and Pop Culture, but I’ll also be live-tweeting it under the hashtag #OscNomHateWatch.

So, y’know. Follow along on the Twittersphere. Or join in. Or whatever it is you kids do.

Side note:

Because I know someone’s going to ask, it’s not really a hate-watch. I almost never watch something hoping to hate it. I actually hope I like all nine of the nominees. I really do.

But, y’know, if I do hate them, you’ll be the first to find out. Because, what could be more important than what some guy on the Internet thinks of a bunch of movies?

Luke is out.

Peace.