This is out of place for a Unius Libri article, but I just want something to move "Goodbye Bernie" off the top of the list so I don't have to see it every time I open the site. It still hurts to be reminded.

And so, I thought I'd trot out something that I would ordinarily put in the "They Said" section. In this "they said", "they" would be Steve Taylor.

If you've read around my site you've seen me quote him here and there as something of a prophet.

Have a look at the following song lyrics and see if you do not see the parallel with today's circus church:

Sunday needs a pick-me-up?
Here's your chance!
Do you get tired of the same old square dance?
Allemande right now
All join hands
Do-si-do to the promised boogieland.

Got no need for altar calls
We sold the altar for the mirror balls
Do you shuffle? Do you twist?
'Cause with a hot-hits playlist
Now we say

This disco used to be a cute cathedral
Where the chosen cha-cha every day of the year
This disco used to be a cute cathedral
Where we only play the stuff you're wanting to hear

Mickey does the two-step
One, two, swing!
All the little church mice doing their thing
Boppin' in the bell-tower
Rumba to the right
Knock knock, who's there?
Get me out of this limelight
'So, you want to defect?'
Officer, what did you expect?
Got no rhythm, got no dough
He said, 'Listen, Bozo, don't you know...

This disco used to be a cute cathedral
Where the chosen cha-cha every day of the week
This disco used to be a cute cathedral
But we got no room if you ain't gonna be chic'

Sell your holy habitat
That ship's been deserted by sinking rats
The exclusive place to go
Is where the pious pogo, don't you know
This disco used to be a cute cathedral ...

Pretty accurate.

And best of all? He was calling this shot in the early 1980's! That's right. This song is over TWENTY years old.


Speaking of this song, later, he wrote in 1994:

"In the heart of Manhattan stands an old Presbyterian church that was converted in the mid 80's into New York's famed Limelight Club.

My on-the-scene investigation began with the required ritual of waiting with the anxious crowd outside the entrance until a neo-nazi type doorman decided my shoes wouldn't scuff up the dance floor. He then escorted my friends and me through the vestibule, past rows of authentic looking crypts, then up to the cashier ringing up fifteen dollar admissions underneath a large cross.

We followed the beat to th sanctuary, just in time to catch a giant video screen being lowered over the pipe organ to show Madonna's latest for the two thousand boogie pilgrims jammed on the dance floor.

My mind began to wander (like it always does during Madonna songs), and I started to imagine it was Sunday night, and that the church elders had devised all this as a way to attract new members.

Most of us, myself included, are guilty of wishing Christianity was more fashionable. But the Apostle Paul's example of becoming "all things to all men" in order to reach across cultural barriers can sometimes be used as an excuse to dilute the Gospel message, and hopefully draw a trendier, more affluent flock."

Very well said, Steve.

Very well said.