Achieving Gospel

There are three ... energy states:

Bourgeoisie is the lowest. Rat race, middle class, plugged into the Matrix, pre-Fight Club, Koyaanisqatsi, yada yada.

Hookers is REALLY EXCITING if you're at Bourgeoisie. This is everything Dangerous. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. Yada.

Gospel is love and forgiveness and shalom and non-resistance to evil. It turns out to be even better than Hookers, though less susceptible of art.

Here are two reasons to move from Bourgeoisie to Gospel:

1. For what it's not (namely, Hookers).
2. For what it is (namely, Gospel).

Reason #1 sucks. Consequently, Hookers remains more or less titillating at Gospel, but also kind of irrelevant. Gospel's attitude towards Hookers is more "Ho hum" than "Hush, hush."

I'm working on a new print edition of the traditional four Gospels designed for the purpose of catalyzing Gospel, because so far the most promising way I've found of possibly triggering Gospel is to read the Gospels in community. (Alcohol helps, and facilitation is not to be denied its role.)

Here's a preview PDF of Mark.

Features and benefits:

• Single column of uninterrupted text to encourage reading in relatively large chunks. This helps readers get the point, because the point of the Gospels is made implicitly through narrative as rehydrated in face-to-face community and not explicitly in isolated sentences read by isolated individuals.
• New "sections" based on the flow of the narrative to further make it feel like an actual story and not just a random collection of verses. This also makes scheduling easier for groups: "Let's read Section A for next week."
• Chapter and verse numbers in the margins to facilitate deeper study. Modern chapter and verse numbers were invented in the 1500s. They don't relate very strongly to the narrative of the Gospels, but they do provide a workable system for getting everyone to the same place on the page in a group setting, as well as for cross-referencing thousands of years of translation and commentary.
• "Page scrolling" to locate passages quickly. This is the tab and chapter number on the right hand side of the right pages. Think flip book.
• Mark comes before Matthew, so that people who are new to the Gospels don't have to start with a genealogy.
• Cormac McCarthy-inspired punctuation for readability and/or fad tie-in.
• The WEB translation for unfettered publication. All other modern Bible translations are copyrighted, so I can't use them without legal overhead.