Book Review: Imaginary Jesus

Given my current blog series and the EPIC series we’re doing (Encounters with Jesus), I couldn’t have come across this book at a more opportune time!

I promise you will like this book. Just go get it!Imaginary Jesus opens with the author, Matt Mikalatos, at his favorite Portland vegan restaurant with none other than Jesus.  They’re chatting about life when a big, smelly guy named Pete walks in, introduces himself and asks Jesus, “What do you want with my friend Matt here?”

Apparently Jesus’ answer isn’t good enough because Pete punches him square in the face and then chases him out of the restaurant.

Matt quickly discovers that Pete is none other than the Apostle Peter and “Jesus” isn’t really Jesus at all, but an Imaginary Jesus.  And if Matt wants to meet the real Jesus, he has to find and face down his Imaginary Jesus.  Along the way, he meets a whole host of imaginary Jesuses, from Men’s Retreat Jesus (whom he must pacify using Braveheart quotes), Magic 8 Ball Jesus (who only gives a few vague, stock-answers to every question) and Political Power Jesus (who gets into a fight with Hippie, Peacenik Jesus).

And as hilarious as Matt’s adventure is, it’s also choke-full of biting critiques of American Christianity at its best and worst.  Matt’s critiques never come across as cruel because he consistently lampoons himself before anyone else, and always with clever, self-effacing humor.

Besides, who hasn’t wanted to see King James Jesus negotiate a hostage situation?

If you’ve tried to follow Jesus for any length of time, then you need to read this book.  At its heart, it’s all about how often and easily we trade the real Jesus – the Jesus we meet in the Gospels – for someone who agrees with us, who won’t challenge us.*

Imaginary Jesus is no joke, and I guarantee you’ll read it more than once and pass it on to friends.  You’ll want to tell them all about your favorite moments.  Mine is the inner-tube race down the side of a mountain between Calvinist Jesus, Armenian Jesus and Open-Theist Jesus (though Matt is shrewd enough not to label them that).

Bottom line: A great summer read that gets you thinking while you’re laughing – it’s narrative theology at its best!

*I’m ashamed to admit that Matt got me several times with some of the Jesuses he encountered.  I was so pleased with what this or that Jesus said I was certain he had to be the real deal.  Curses!

American Jesus!

Jesus 1

A couple of good friends of mine picked up this magnetic dress-up Jesus. I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel that when my friends see this, they think of me and buy this for me.  I am going to use dress-up Jesus over the next several weeks to explore the various types of Jesus we settle for rather than the real Jesus we meet in the Scriptures.

A disclaimer: these images of Jesus are supposed to be funny, so before you get up in arms about them, sit back, count to ten and think about what I’m saying.  Just for a minute or two.  Then go ahead and get mad and burn me in the comments section 🙂

Without any further ado, may I present today’s subject of interest, especially appropriate given that yesterday was July 4.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold American Jesus.

Jesus - American JesusDoesn’t He look ready for some BBQ and Apple Pie?  Maybe a baseball game a little later and then some fireworks?  His shirt, in case you can’t read it, says “God, Guns and Guts Made America Free.”  This is all too often the way we think about Jesus’ relationship to those of us who follow Him here in America.  Jesus died for our sins – was sacrificed for them.  The word ‘sacrifice’ is a religious term – it means to make something sacred or special by giving it to a deity.  Sacrifice is a powerful word, with powerful connections.

So it’s not especially surprising that we try to co-opt the word, to apply it to so many other scenarios, including when a soldier gives up his or her life.  In fact, many within the Church commemorate the service and death of soldiers by proclaiming them to be ‘sacrifices’ (consider this book from a Christian publishing house).

But is this a sacrifice?  The soldier is giving up his or her life for the defense of American interests.  Are these interests always Jesus’ interests?  Uncritically, we immediately answer, Yes, of course!  God is always on our side, after all.

But if we stop to think for a moment, we can recognize that America has not always been on God’s side – we recognize that the genocide of Native American peoples was a great evil, as was the institution of slavery.  And yet both of those movements were resolutely defended by persons who claimed to follow Jesus.

So how can we be so sure today that Jesus is on our side?

Such a question should at minimum cause us to pause and consider.  Here’s what Rob Bell had to say about the matter:

On the news are sound bites form a speech by the president of the United States.  He’s on the deck of an aircraft carrier, proclaiming victory in a recent military effort.  Not only was the mission accomplished, according to the leader of the world’s only superpower, but American forces are now occupying this Middle Eastern country until peace can be fully realized within its borders.  This puts a Christian in an awkward place.  Because Jesus was a Middle Eastern man who lived in an occupied country and was killed by the superpower of his day. – from Jesus Wants to Save Christians, p 17.

Is Jesus on our side?  That’s probably the wrong question to ask.

It certainly was for Joshua when he encountered the Angel of the Lord in Joshua 5:13-14.  Even though Israel was God’s chosen nation, God did not side with Israel.  Joshua should’ve been asking how he could be sure he was on God’s side, not vice versa.

And there, I think, is the fallacy of the American Jesus.  We assume that Jesus is just like us, and so Jesus can’t challenge us.  And we end up sacrificing to America, our jobs, our families, or any number of other false gods we fashion for ourselves.

And we forget the words the author of Hebrews spoke to us:

Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.  But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” – Hebrews 10:11-13

The only sacrifice we have left to make is of ourselves to God.

Not to America or anything or anyone else.  Jesus did that for us.  He won the victory, and the day is coming soon when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. (This doesn’t mean we can’t talk about soldiers as brave, courageous or honorable; I have several friends who are stationed in the Middle East right now and they are certainly these and more.  I only want to caution us against the misuse of religious language both in the military and in our own lives.)

So the question is: Are you on God’s side?

BONUS: Here’s a preview of what’s to come

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Book Review: PUSH (Precious)

PUSH is a punishing, brutal picture of a person who is a victim of the American Dream.  That person is Precious, a sixteen-year-old girl who at the book’s opening is pregnant with her father’s child.  For the second time.  Rather inexplicably because of this, Precious is expelled from her school (during which we discover that she is also illiterate) and sent to an alternative school.  Here she meets Blue Rain, a teacher who sees past Precious’ rough demeanor and begins to mentor her.

The result is a journey out of the night that has been Precious’ life towards a day of possibilities for her.  She begins to read and to evaluate herself and her life.  She learns to see that she is damaged, that the life she is living is not normal or acceptable.  She learns to protect herself from her parents.

And she learns to remember her past truthfully, to see her Self as fully human.

Precious sweeps us along on her journey, touching on the disembodiment our culture creates.  Some of the most painful moments occur when Precious envisions her ideal Self – skinny, pretty and white, and when she escapes her body as her father rapes her, imaging herself far off and away, detached from the prison of her body.

The miracle of the book is the path we discover along with Precious, a path that surprisingly leads towards hope.  She seems like such a lost cause, a victim of a broken, irredeemable system that destroys innocence, that crushes both the victim and the victimizer without respect for any persons.  But through Blue Rain and the community of girls at the alternative school, the system is overcome and Precious steps onto the path toward redemption and healing.

PUCH is cruel and unrelenting; for ever two steps Precious takes forward she is shoved back.  And the end is no fairy tale (:: ahem :: Blindside).  But for those of us who live in a real broken world, hers is the story we need.

Bottom Line: PUSH asks you to consider what hope and healing look like in the real world.  Do you have the courage to introduce yourself to Precious?

True Story

As of today, I am the Interim EPIC Pastor for my church family at Beavercreek Church of the Nazarene.  Jason, EPIC’s founder and lead pastor is moving to Olivet Nazarene University to become a professor of Church Leadership.

A little background: EPIC as a worship gathering was created about five years ago as a church for the un-churched and de-churched.  Over the past five years, EPIC has grown and changed quite a bit.  I’ve been a part of EPIC for not quite a year and have been helping to lead by preaching, leading in prayers and other stuff.

So now I’ll be preaching nearly weekly, at least at first, until we develop a teaching team (which will initially consist of myself, our High School pastor Jonathan and our Children’s pastor Sheila).  We’re excited about the direction we’re taking.

This summer, we’re in a series called “True Story”, in which we’re exploring what it means to be a part of God’s story.  As such, in July and August we’ll be exploring various episodes in the Gospels (pericopes for you nerds) in which a person encounters Jesus and how they’re transformed.

As such, I’ll be exploring various images of Jesus I find in our culture, interacting with them, querying the extent to which those images are helpful and harmful.

So a question for you:

What is your picture of Jesus?  What are his most important attributes and characteristics?

Film Review: Toy Story 3

Go see this. Right now. Why are you still here?It’s become trite to say Pixar can’t make a bad film.  So it’s probably no surprise to anybody that Toy Story 3 is great.  But words really do not do this film justice.  Pixar has demonstrated that its films are starting to mature (remember UP?), and in this regard, TS3 follows suit.  Andy is off to college, the toys haven’t been played with in years and the question is raised: what happens now?  The toys are adrift – if Andy doesn’t need them anymore, what is their purpose?  What does it mean to move on in our lives?  How do transitions change what it means to be a family or community?  Can we learn to forgive, or will we become angry and bitter?

TS3 dives head-long into these issues.  The toys end up at Sunnyside Daycare; it seems at first to be a toy’s paradise, but dark secrets smolder just beneath the surface.  Can the toys escape and make it back to Andy’s house before he leaves for college?  Do they even want to escape?

Meet the new inhabitant of my nightmares.The story in and of itself is beautiful, gripping, hilarious and tragic.   Were this all the film gave us it would still be an incredible viewing experience.  But we get to travel with the toys as they learn what it means to move on, to change and, yes, to outgrow our childhoods.  We learn how important it is to have a purpose and the incomparable power of a community working together.  We see the beauty of friendship and the promise of redemption.  We laugh till our sides hurt and shriek in horror at Big Baby.

I understand that kids will probably love this movie, but don’t kid yourself.  Pixar made this film for adults.  Not because it’s filled with innuendo (::ahem:: Shrek) but because the toys’ journey is the journey of the child growing up.  The student leaving for college.  The parent saying goodbye.  The mentor passing on a legacy.  These are adult journeys that Pixar has treated with the utmost respect and grace.  And somehow they’ve managed to do so while making you laugh so hard you’ll pee your pants if you’re not careful.

Bottom line: TS3 is enjoyable on every level. Go see it. But brush up on your Spanish first.

Trust me on that last part.

Practice Makes Perfect!

For the record: I was way better than this kid.Clichés become cliché for a reason, and “Practice makes Perfect” is no different.  I grew up playing baseball, and you could always tell the teams that practiced from those who didn’t.  My team usually had brutal (to a 10-year-old) 2 hour practices that included such glamorous activities as running laps, playing catch and fielding ground-balls.  Over and over and over.  And over.  But of course we became a better team for it.  Activities that first required concentration and effort became second-nature.  We gained more endurance, became a stronger, more focused team for it.  This is the beauty of practice for a sports team.

I’ve found the same is true for speaking as well.  When I first began to give talks, I did not practice.  I thought that somehow that made my talks inauthentic.  Of course, that’s a real danger of being well-rehearsed.  We can become slaves to the practice, let ourselves become locked into the structures and styles we practiced.  But that is an abuse of practice.  It’s serving the system rather than making the system (the practice) serve us.

Good practice makes for a better talk.

Going over your material, organizing it and understanding its flow is essential to good communication.  Some of what you have in your notes will not translate well into an oral delivery.  If you use any sort of alliteration or physical examples, working through your presentation a few times will help you to get your flow right, so you don’t end up with dead, Listen to yourself. You'll be amazed what you hear!awkward space in your message.  Running through your material three to four times out loud before you deliver it can smooth out your transitions and work out any kinks you have in the structure you have built.  I often rearrange whole pieces of my talk after running through it a few times because I can hear a better way to communicate it.

Where do you practice?  I usually use my office or living room, though I know that some people try to use the actual space they’ll be in.  I’ve also found it very helpful to run through my material in front of other persons (my awesome wife usually hears a sermon I give at least three times) so they can give me constructive feedback – what was confusing, what worked well, etc.

Practice done well frees us to live in the moment of the delivery.

I find that the more I’ve practiced a talk, the more free I feel when I am delivering it.  I can respond to my audience more comfortably.  I can improvise without being afraid that I’ll lose my place.  Because the material has become second nature to me.  The message has become a part of who I am.  So as a consequence, the hours I put into practicing my delivery help me to become more authentic, not less.  And I’m not saying that it’s perfect, but it’s at least a heck of a lot better!

Do you practice for your talks?  What does it look like for you?  If you don’t, why not?  What does your process look like?

Jesus on Fire and Holy Prayer Grenades

Once I preached at a church on worship.  After my talk, we entered into a period of reflection and prayer, and a couple approached the altar.  The husband moved behind the pulpit, reached under it and pulled out a rock.  He placed it on the altar, then he and his wife knelt near it and prayed; they were quickly joined by other members of the congregation.

Needless to say, I was confused – what was the purpose of the stone?  I thought it was perhaps a sign that a person wanted prayer – put the stone out and it means ‘Come pray with me’; leave it hidden and it means ‘I want to pray alone’.

A good guess, perhaps, but incorrect.  After the gathering was finished, the man came up to me to explain that he was about to attend a prayer gathering at a nearby farm – the same farm from which he’d removed the rock.  He told me that he was going to return the rock “once it was good and prayed up.”  Apparently, the man envisioned the rock as some sort of Christian fetish – a religious term for a physical object believed to have spiritual power.

He believed that in some way the prayers with which he and his congregation had filled the rock would enhance the prayer gathering.

I was reminded of the prayer rock last Monday when we found out that the (in)famous “Touchdown Jesus” in Monroe, OH had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground (check out the YouTube footage of the conflagration in progress).

 

The statue was built in 2004 in front of the Solid Rock Church; it stands 62-feet tall and was made of plaster and styrofoam around a metal frame.

Reaction to the flames was mixed – in my circles we mostly laughed about it, but a lot of people apparently found the statue inspiring.  One guy even said, “I think it’s a sign of the end of the world.  If lightning is going to strike God, then there’s no hope.”  Probably the most common sentiment I heard is represented best by the guy who asked how God could strike down the Jesus statue while leaving the billboard advertising an adult bookstore that stood across the street standing.

Everyone wanted to know what God is saying by striking down Touchdown Jesus.  This thinking is still essentially fetish-ism.  Solid Rock Church built a 60-foot tall statue with a metal core.  Said metal core was struck by lightning, and since the material surrounding the  metal were flammable, it caught fire.  This is simple laws of physics.

What it is not is God taking a special interest in a five-year old giant Jesus.

My favorite reaction? A person said, "Thor: 1. Jesus: 0".

The Scriptures present God as transcendent – above creation and separate from it.  The second commandment (you know, in the big 10) is a prohibition against building idols.  But idols in the ancient world were not things people worship instead of God (the way we usually explain idolatry today) – that prohibition is covered in the first commandment, “I am YHWH your god… You shall have no other gods before me.”

Rather, idols were used to bind gods to physical spaces.  Thus, when the Israelites built the golden calf (Exodus 32), they were not worshiping the calf instead of God.  Rather, they were binding God to the calf – bulls were used as mounts for gods in many Ancient Near Eastern temples.  Thus, telling someone not to value his car more than God, or her romantic relationship more than God is not idolatry; it’s worship of the god of Consumerism or Romance (Mammon or Aphrodite, perhaps?)

God’s prohibition against idols is a command not to bind God to any created form, not to limit God by any physical space.

And in this way, I wonder if the prayer rock and Touchdown Jesus have become idols to some.  They are not essentially idols – we can use physical objects to help us focus or to draw us towards God in our worship.  But the prayer rock was not being charged with prayers to enhance our worship.  He wanted to ensure that God did more, that God was more present at the gathering because of the prayer rock.  The person who questions what message God is sending with a statue-destroying, porn-affirming bolt seems to think God has some sort of obligation to protect images of Godself (ironic, that) while destroying what the person in question considers obscene.

And that is idolatry.  God is not bound to prayer rocks or giant statues of the incarnation.  And God does not make a habit (at least in my knowledge) of breaking the laws of physics in order to protect our ill-advised mistakes.  I wonder, though, if this yearning to have a physical connection with our faith reflects the extent to which our faith has become interior and spiritual to the exclusion of any affirmation of our real world and real bodies.

What do you think?  Is the burning of Touchdown Jesus a sign?  Can you charge rocks up with prayer?  And what do these ideas say about contemporary Evangelical Christianity?  Most importantly, how should Christians engage in this discussion?

Book Review: Empire (Orson Scott Card)

Don't let the bad photoshop fool you... this is a wicked-awesome book!Anyone who reads Orson Scott Card – the author of the insanely awesome Ender saga – knows that he’s one of the best Science Fiction writers around.  His stories reflect what is best and worst about our natures, and use gripping, thrilling, so-awesome-you-have-to-read-it-twice narrative to do it.

Empire is no different.  It’s the story of the Second American Civil War.

The book feels as though it’s set tomorrow.  Foreign terrorists assassinate the President and Vice President, and shortly thereafter a group of either right- or left-wing radicals take over New York City, declaring themselves to be the liberators of America.  States quickly move to choose sides and the fighting begins.

What makes Card’s tale so compelling is the frightening plausibility of it.  Card’s America is as sharply divided along party lines as is ours, so this war is not fought across the Mason-Dixon line; instead, it’s red-state/blue-state, urban/rural.  The divisive, divided rhetoric could be taken from any number of email forwards so lovingly sent around – not to mention FOX News or CNN.

Perhaps most intriguing is Card’s comparison of America to Rome – not the Empire, but the Republic.

Card argues – through one of his more interesting characters – that America is not an Empire because were we to disappear as a nation today, our culture would not endure in the world the way Rome’s did.  Rather, America exists as did Rome at the end of her republic phase: broken by infighting and divisions, unable to stand strong on the world stage.

Only when Rome was united under a strong leader was she able to become probably the greatest empire the world had ever known.  And so Card begs us to ask, Will we follow those currents of history, ride along in Rome’s wake?

One of the more inflamatory passages in the book sums his probing well: “We don’t want individual liberty because we don’t want individual responsibility.  We want somebody else to take care of us.  If we had a dictator who did a better job of it than our presenty system, then as long as he pretended to respect Congress, we’d lick his hands like a dog.”

Bottom line: A great, quick thriller that will make you rethink your politics.

Bonus!  Card just released a sequel called Hidden Empire.  I can’t wait to read it!

Your Flair

What do you think of a person who just does the minimum?Last week, I wrote about using specific, concrete examples to help your audience better grasp your point.  Today, I want to explore that further.

The best content in the world won’t change your audience if they can’t connect to your message.  That’s why the crafting of your talk itself is as important as the crafting of the content.  With a little practice, you can add flair to your talk that will engage your audience and help them to connect to your content in transformational, worldview-shifting ways.  I want to focus briefly on three:

  1. The words you use are key.  As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”  Using (but not over-using) alliteration can add a touch of poetic artistry, improve your audience’s ability to assimilate.  If you can sum up your talk in one clear, simple point, repeat it as often as you can in the talk (while it still feels natural).
  2. Be aware of how your body is moving.  Are you walking?  Are you sitting?  What are your arms doing?  Does the way your body moves emphasize or detract from your point?  A great, quick read on this is Malcolm Gladwell’s article “What the Dog Saw”, available in his book of the same name.
  3. Finally, can you use your environment to your advantage?  I gave a talk about Jesus as the light of the world in John 1 and its connection to Genesis 1.  We used the lighting in the worship space to illuminate my point – shutting them off and turning them back on in sequence at specific points throughout the rest of my talk.  It proved to be quite effective in cementing my point in the audience’s mind.  Another time, in a talk on Jesus’ third temptation, I used Guitar Hero as an example.  I used a Guitar Hero guitar on stage and had our worship pastor come out and play some songs to help me make my point.  Don’t even get me started on the adultery smoothie.

The point of all of this is not to create needless spectacle.  Rather, it’s to connect our audience to our content on more than just the aural level.  The more points of contact we created to our content, the more likely our audience is to take what we communicate to them home with us, to make our message a part of themselves.

What concrete examples have you created in your talks?  What strategies have you found most effective?

Book Review: Columbine

On April 20, 1999, I was a senior with less than a month left of my high school career.  Seventh period had just begun when our English teacher came into the classroom with tears streaming down her face.  “There’s been a school shooting, out in Colorado,” she said.  I didn’t know it then, but Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been dead less than an hour, their surprisingly brief reign of terror over almost before it had begun.

The following days bore the fruits of Eric and Dylan’s attacks: all but two of my high schools dozens of exterior doors were locked, forcing most of us to change our schedules.  We all began giving the ‘goths’ second and third looks, fearing that they might be a part of the dread Trench Coat Mafia.  Bullying of any kind was fiercely punished and any student who’d ever made any sort of threats was suddenly given the attention s/he’d been craving.  And all our churches were abuzz with the story of Cassie the Columbine Martyr, who’d told the killers she believed inEric Harris (right) and Dylan Klebold (left) God, and was executed for it.  But for all the supposed safety measures we’d put into place, the general feeling that last month of school was one of confusion and chaos rather than safety and order.  Because no one could answer convincingly that singular, burning question everyone was asking: Why did Eric and Dylan do it?

It’s been just over a decade since that day, and still the Columbine massacre remains the quintessential school shooting for many of us.  In many ways, it defined my generation as much as (and arguably more so than) 9/11.  And all of us have so many unanswered questions, so I picked up Dave Cullen’s book with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I know what I got:

Columbine is a respectful, fair and comprehensive look at an important, formative moment for my generation.

Eric (in white) and Dylan in the cafeteria shortly before their suicide in the library upstairsI was immediately surprised by how many myths Cullen debunked.  Eric and Dylan weren’t a part of the Trench Coat Mafia.  The killings weren’t retaliation for bullying.  Cassie didn’t stand up for Jesus (she didn’t have the chance; the boys just killed her.  Her testimony actually came from another girl who had already been shot, but still claimed to believe in God.)  Probably most surprising was the profile Cullen created of each of the boys.  Dylan was a sad, depressed loner who – according to his journals – desperately wanted to be loved.  Eric was a clinically-diagnosable psychopath who lied to everyone around him and dreamed of exterminating the entire human race.

What truly made the book so good, however, was Cullen’s treatment of the supporting cast – the parents of the victims, the survivors and the investigators researching the big Why question.  Cullen treats each person fairly, and even the boys don’t emerge in his telling as full-fledged villains (well, Eric is pretty close by the end).  The book opens with the shootings but then splits into two narratives: one beginning two years before the event, tracing the boys’ steps to Judgment Day, and the other following the fallout and healing afterwards.  Cullen weaves the two stories together masterfully, so the effect becomes one of fatalist tragedy running headlong beside hope.  And that is perhaps the greatest miracle of Columbine – that the terror of Eric and Dylan’s choices have passed us by.  In Littleton, Colorado, Columbine is the name of a school again – not a tragedy.

Bottom Line: Columbine reexamines an old tragedy through Cullen’s educated and cathartic narrative.