Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. [...] The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap? - Diedrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
From the
Register article I cited yesterday about the "SWAT Team" kids preaching on the beach. Photo credit to Andy Templeton for this excellent piece of photojournalism. The other pics with the article are good also.
The perfectly scrubbed whiteness of these people - even when they're not white - is alarming. They exist in a perfect bubble of privilege and cultural isolation. Their friends and family are all like them. Their ideal world is a kind of 1903 Tennesse where everyone is inexplicably 2006 "cool": chastity, whiteness, conservative politics, extreme sports, rock 'n' roll music, TV, great new snacks, and women in their place, obediently following behind their husbands even while surfing some massive waves.
The place where dogmatic evangelical religion and cluelessly neotenized teenage privilege meet is the best-gilded turd you'll ever see. But you'll smell it, too. Smell is pretty strong around these parts.