"Would Your Church Host Lollapalooza?" They Probably Already Do!

The band Jane's Addiction hit the rock scene in the mid 80s ushering in the music genre alternative rock.  By 1991, lead singer Perry Farrell organized a farewell tour event for Jane's Addiction called "Lollapalooza."  Over time, Lollapalooza would become a massive annual concert hosting multiple genre's of music: alternative, rock, punk, grunge, heavy metal, and hip hop attracting in excess of 160,000 people over a two day period.  In the early years, Lollapalooza developed a cult following of concert goers that created their own "in-group" that functioned as a musical "Fight Club."  For mainstream America, Lollapalooza was off the radar.  It was an underground concert that thrived off its obscurity.  As the annual event became more mainstream, Lollapalooza became a metaphor for the coming together of various fringe genre's of music and artists.   


Needless to say, this probably would not be the concert of choice for churches to take their youth groups or the genre of music at their next pot-luck luncheon.  And yet, churches host their own Lollapalooza every week when they employ language codes and conventions, socially acceptable practices that bolster their established power rankings, and manage tightly controlled formal and informal membership access to their respective communities of faith.  The concept of "Lollapalooza" did not derive in Jane's Addiction's farewell tour.  In fact, the metaphor of "Lollapalooza" finds its origin in the Bible.

Judges 12:1-6 " Then the men of Ephraim were summoned, and they crossed [a]to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the sons of Ammon without calling us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you.” 2 Jephthah said to them, “I and my people were at great strife with the sons of Ammon; when I called you, you did not deliver me from their hand. 3 When I saw that you would not deliver me, I [b]took my life in my hands and crossed over against the sons of Ammon, and the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?”4 Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought Ephraim; and the men of Gilead [c]defeated Ephraim, because they said, “You are fugitives of Ephraim, O Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and in the midst of Manasseh.” 5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan opposite Ephraim. And it happened when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” 6 then they would say to him, “Say now, ‘Shibboleth.’” But he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not [d]pronounce it correctly. Then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. Thus there fell at that time 42,000 of Ephraim."

Since the Ephraimites were unable to pronounce the specific Hebrew phoneme that was not part of their native language, they were murdered.  The Gileadites implemented a genius plan of identifying their enemies by using a language construction.  The term "Shibboleth" contained a phoneme that Ephraimite people did not acquire as children.  This is no different from the English phoneme "L" that is acoustically heard and pronounced by native Japanese speakers as "R".   

Today "Shibboleth" is a metaphor for ways "in-groups" control access away from the marginalized.  The practice of deploying shibboleth's is more complex than merely how a person pronounces a word.  Instead, shibboleth's are masked in the ways people engage in seemingly harmless introductory conversations with that "new" family or person that comes to church.  The introductory shibboleths goes something like this:

• "Welcome.  So where are you from?   
• "Oh, which congregation or church did you attend?"
• "Do you know brother so and so?"
• "Where do you live in town?"
• "What kind of work do you?"

The more subversive shibboleths take a more sophisticated form that often manifest in Bible classes and one-on-one membership catechism classes or home Bible studies.  These become events of vetting that serve to rank and file people.  Unfortunately, the more overtly messy and needy people fail the Shibboleth tests and are functionally cast away through social alienation and marginalization.  Since it would make for really bad public relations for churches to broadcast that they intentionally disassociate with the very people Jesus has called the Church to gather (ekklesia) for the sake of pronouncing the Good News to deliver hope and healing for the hopeless and sick, the use of shibboleths serve to expiate the guilt associated with "in-grouping."  

By the way, there was a "Lollapalooza" that took place some fifty-years earlier than Jane's Addiction farewell tour that occurred in the Pacific theater of World War II.  U.S. soldiers developed their own Shibboleth to detect Japanese spies attempting to cross over under the guise of a U.S. soldier or Filipino.  The term they choose........."Lollapalooza."  Historian George Stimpson tells the story of the U.S. sentry that asked the question, "Can you say 'Lollapalooza?'" When the Japanese spy uttered the opening syllables "rorr" they were shot on sight.

I am thankful Jesus did not function as a sentry looking for my wrong answers.  In fact, it seems Jesus specialized in asking the types of questions and practicing the types of behavior that targeted the people groups that already failed their respective social shibboleths from the power holders of their day.  The Samaritan woman at the well already failed her shibboleth by allowing herself to be trafficked by the men in her village.  Her social and gender impediment attracted the Savior to share the good news that she no longer had to perform for acceptance and self-worth.  Unlike the access shibboleths that rendered her alone, Jesus gave her living water of hope and eternal value.  Shibboleths were even employed by Jesus' "in-grouping" 12 disciples.  Upon hearing of Jesus' itinerary to travel through Samaria, they admonished Jesus.  Upon seeing that Jesus was interested in engaging the woman at the well (By the way, the well scene was a type scene throughout the Old Testament that implied betrothal. Hence, Jesus' encounter could have been socially construed as a sexual encounter with this already trafficked woman.) they attempted to dissuade him.  Jesus eventually has to send them off into town to go grocery shopping so Jesus could accomplish his predetermined purpose for selecting his socially unacceptable itinerary of Samaria.  As the story turns out, the female disciple who failed the shibboleth test is the first one to share the Good News even before her male disciple counterparts helping to bring converts to the Messiah.  

God has an interesting way of taking those who fail the shibboleth tests administered by the world's power holders and transforming them into world changers.