No more "Jesus Christ Superstar" at the Kennedy Center. Marco Rubio calls it an attack on Christianity

[eppur_se_muova]

19. At the time (yes I'm that old) I saw an attempt to present the Gospels to a younger generation, the "flower children"...

who, having rebelled against so many norms in the society of the 50's and 60's, were unsatisfied with the norms forced on religious practices by their parents' generation -- traditional Christianity was for "squares". IMHO it appealed to a lot of teens and twentysomethings who might have had little to do with religion otherwise, or dabbled in Buddhism or Hinduism -- far from "attacking" Christianity (you have to be a total putz to believe that) it helped bring a new generation into the fold. It made Jesus cool* , and was a much bigger success than, say, a rewrite of the Bible which tried to do the same (I can't even remember the name of that -- I guess it didn't last).

Already an atheist at the time, I kind of resented that. But the tunes stuck, which is part of how successful propaganda works. Waiting for my voice to change at the time, I envied the basso who sang Caiaphas (though I never knew the name before today):

Tell the rabble to be quiet, we anticipate a riot.
This common crowd, is much too loud.
Tell the mob who sing your song that they are fools and they are wrong.
They are a curse. They should disperse.

I heard these pieces played over and over and over (not by me) and they are still in my head. I sometimes sing:

Puddy tat
Puddy tat
How did your butt get to be so fat

I remember a big article in Life magazine (remember that ?) about JCS -- lots of stuffy, old-fashioned, narrow-minded Christians found it offensive somehow -- and I particularly remember a picture of an old woman (a genuine "Church Lady" ?) with a protest sign saying "Father forgive them they know not what they do" ... which I found laughable, as they most certainly did know what they were doing. They were using the performing arts to encourage belief in a particular religious dogma, which is what almost every church has always done (the ones that don't tend to die out pretty quickly, for lack of interest/appeal).



*"One thing I'll say for him -- Jesus is cool." was in the actual lyrics.