Some thoughts by an ordinary radical on "Jesus junk".

I grew up in the Bible Belt. When I became a Christian, I learned I didn’t have to stop buying stuff — I just had to start buying Christian stuff. An entire world of retail spending possibilities lay before me: the Christian industrial complex. There were Christian t-shirts, bumper stickers, even Christian candy — “testa-mints” — peppermints wrapped in a Bible verse. We were taught “secular” was bad, and supplied with charts that countered popular mainstream bands with a Christian alternative. We burned our old tapes (which is what we listened to back in those days) and went to the Christian albums. We were often sadly disappointed. They just didn’t sound like Metallica. As a friend of mine quipped: “All these Christian artists say, ‘God gave me this song,’ and then you listen to it and know why God gave it away.” I later learned that Christian art doesn’t have to be a mediocre counterfeit of the original. And, I learned that Christianity is not about conforming to the world, but about being transformed by a God who is crazy about the poor, fond of toppling the powerful, and raising the lowly … and who I’m pretty sure would feel conflicted wearing a “God bless Rome” shirt or doting an “Army of One” sticker on the bumper of his SUV… I mean, hybrid. I mean donkey. Never mind.

I became convinced that the world will not know we are Christians by our bumper stickers and T-shirts, but by our love.

In light of all the exciting movements addressing world hunger and peace, many with Christians in the forefront, I really believe Christian stores should be pioneers and innovators, rather than chameleons. Selling fair-trade coffee is a good start. But we have a long way to go. I just saw an iPod shaped like a cross. Ugh.

The Christian Industrial Complex - Shane Claiborne

After hearing Shane speak in Winnipeg a number of months ago, I can now read this while imagining his voice.

Jamie Wright's thoughts on poverty tourism short term missions work:

I want to fill a rental van marked “Tourist” with unbelievably rich people and then I want to bring them to your middle-class neighborhood to take pictures of you and your kids and your house and your cars.

I’ll act as the unofficial tour guide to their trip, walking them slowly down the street, pointing out the shocking differences between their lifestyle and yours. “This man,” I will say with a gesture of my upturned palm, “cuts his own lawn.”

“These kids share a bedroom.”

“Many of these families require two incomes… just to survive.”

I’ll tell them bluntly, “Most of these people will never ride in a helicopter, meet the president, or own a show horse.” And they will glance at each other with looks of angst and sadness, they’ll shake their heads at the injustice of it all.

And then I’ll let the details of your simple life sink in as they snap pictures of your no-thrills mid size SUV and your quarter acre lot. I’ll stand aside so they can get pictures of each other, smiling, with their arms around your kids in hand-me-downs. Ooh, and maybe they can take turns helping you cut your hedge or clean your bathroom, and then you could show some of them how to make a sandwich - That would be so great for the video they’re gonna take back to show at the Super Elite Rich People Church.

But don’t worry. There will totally be something in it for you. The rich people are going to paint all of the houses on your block. For real. They’re going to pay for it and do all the work and everything. Also? They’re gonna do a puppet show for your kids, and give them candy and crap.

It’s a win-win.

Are we calling this a "win-win"? - Jamie Wright

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert

So depending on which blogs you read, or conspiracy theories you subscribe to; the agenda advanced by some right-wing politicians in America is to eliminate social services provided by the government. One interesting question to come out of this is how do Christians respond to talk of cuts in social services?

Well one response is to claim that all social services should be the churches responsibility:

A hundred years ago, the safety net, the social safety net in the country was provided by the church.

If you didn't have a job, you'd go to your local church and ask the pastor if he know somebody that could hire him. If you were hungry, you went to the local church and told them, "I can't feed my family." And the church would help you. And that's not being done.

But the government took that. And took it away from the church. And they had more money to give and more programs to give, and pretty soon, the churches just backed off.

-Franklin Graham

It appears that Franklin is suggesting that there is a binary relationship for social programs, either the state or church can provide them but not both.

Besides being utter lunacy, it's brilliant in a way. It manages to satisfy the demands of the small-government conservatives while providing fuel for evangelical Christan empire building. Win win for everyone right?

No so much. The church is an excellent vehicle to administer social programs to church-goers, but this argument completely ignores the needs of those from different faiths. Is the Christian church going to provide jobs for Jews, housing for Hindus, and meals for Muslims?

The problem with this strategy is that when Christians do provide social services for non-Christians there tend to be some strings attached. "Sure, we can feed you, but listen to this sermon first." The great thing about governments providing social services is that they rarely have an ulterior motive. Jobs are just jobs, housing is just housing, and meals are just meals.

That having been said, everyone has a moral obligation to help the less fortunate. You can't abdicate your responsibility just because someone else is helping now. Churches need to work to complement the services being offer by the government by finding areas which aren't being addressed and filling in the gaps.

It's a long and strange story how I came across this clip, but this is one of the best YouTube videos I've seen in a while.

Two Capuchin Franciscan friars bring the body of Christ (a consecrated communion wafer) into the middle of a town and recite a litany of Christ's titles. Throughout the litany bystanders are encourage to "Come and kneel before Him now.".

I like a lot about this video. The beautiful litany, the delivery of said litany, and the reactions of the public. While I am not a fan of flashy public displays of faith, this carries so much humble sincerity that it simply cannot be ignored.

The full text of the speech is below:

Fred Clark has an interesting blog post about conflict brewing between Rob Bell and what he refers to as 'Team Hell' entitled "The epistemology of Team Hell".

While I don't necessarily agree with all the points he raises, I think he found a fundamental truth. Rob Bell and 'Team Hell' (kind of catchy isn't it?) come at the issue from such divergent viewpoints there is no way that their views can be reconciled. It just isn't that they can't agree on an answer, but what a correct answer would even look like.

I've posted an excerpt below; however he has a number of interesting posts on the issue which are worth reading.

“What is God like?” Bell asks.

Not, mind you, “What does God like?” or, worse, “Who does God like?” but “What is God like?” What do we know of the character of God and how do we know it?

The Christian answer to both of those questions is, as that word Christian suggests, based on Christ — on Jesus of Nazareth, on the story of Jesus of Nazareth, his life and teachings, his parables and parabolic acts, and especially on his death and resurrection. I suspect that much of what has people so angry with Bell is that this is how he seems to be approaching these questions. “What do we know of the character of God?” We know what we see in the story of Jesus Christ. “How do we know what we know of the character of God?” It is revealed to us through the story of Jesus Christ.

By addressing those questions in that way, Bell has inadvertently offended the many American evangelicals who would answer them differently. They would say the Bible is the ultimate revelation and authority for Christians — the only sufficient, necessary and infallible source of certainty and clarity. This is why they’re likely to describe themselves not merely as “Christians” — a term suggesting, again, that Christ is the center — but as “Bible-believing Christians,” which is wordier, but more euphonious than “Biblians” or some such more precise term.

Bell’s question — “What is God like?” — is wholly different from the question they are asking — “What is the source of authority?” And the difference there suggests why this disagreement is likely to get heated. Not only are we looking at two different and divergent inquiries, but two different and ultimately incompatible epistemologies. Disputes involving competing epistemologies tend to get heated because by definition they involve two sides that are unable to agree not just on the correct answer, but on what constitutes a correct answer.

Since they are incapable of not having a project on the go, Jonathon Wilson Hartgrove, Shane Claiborne and Enuma Okoro have authored Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. While I find this project very interesting, it also raises some questions in my mind.

The idea of a book of common prayer is nothing new, and many books have been published advocating an everyday liturgy. Do we really need to brand this with the word 'radical' in order to sell it? I am all for radical-ness; however, it is merely one of many buzzwords used in Christian advertising. Radical should be a concept, not a brand.

Now, knowing what Jonathon Wilson Hartgrove has to say, this book will certainly contain passages that will be radical. I just wish that people would be able to approach a book like this one without a re-branding and marketing campaign.

Last night at Theology by the Glass the conversation veered into the subject of Hipster Christianity. Apparently there is a book out on the subject along with a excellent website and a quiz so you can determine if you are a Christian hipster.

Since I need to admit that I was at a distinctly hipster-ish event last night and attend what could be considered Winnipeg's hipster church, I decided that I should take the test. In honour of MySpace, here are my results:

Your Christian Hipster Quotient: 55 / 120

Low CHQ. You probably belong to the purpose-driven, seeker-sensitive, Hawaiian shirt-wearing Christian establishment, even though you are open to some of the "rethinking Christianity" stuff. You seem to like edginess in some measure but become uneasy when your idea of Christian orthodoxy is challenged by some renegade young visionary who claims the virgin birth isn't necessary.

While I most certainly do not belong to the purpose-driven, seeker-sensitive, Hawaiian shirt-wearing Christian establishment, I am slightly comforted that I have a low Christian Hipster Quotient. The only problem is that as I go through the "Anatomy of a Christian Hipster" section of the website, it is clear that I should have scored higher on the test than I did.

Notice to the readers of my blog: Your homework for today is to take the quiz and post your results in the comments below. Don't worry, I won't make fun of you.

This is final installment in a multi-post series on the week I spent in Uganda doing door to door evangelism. Click here to read all posts in this series.

Uganda was a low point in the program for many people. For the longest time I hated the week I spent going door to door until I realized how much it's helped me.

You know the tired old saying about building character? Well this built no end of character, and also helped shape many views of mine on Christianity and missions work.

In one week I learned vast amounts about myself. I learned just how I react when I am stressed and the situation is going out of control, and I also learned how I can best cope. Looking back that week was truly invaluable. It's never enjoyable to be pushed to the edge, but a lot of good can come from it.

Through first hand experience I developed my views on evangelism, poverty, and aid. The trip raised many questions that I wasn't initially able to answer, but over time I have been able to wrestle with them and find some answers.

Sadly it should be noted that not everyone on the trip has had something positive come out of their experiences. Some people were simply pushed too far and couldn't cope. To my knowledge there is at least one person who left the church and didn't look back, which it truly unfortunate.

This is the chance that was taken when we were sent to Uganda - a week that looking back could be summarized as 'It could make you, or break you.'

This is part of a multi-post series on the week I spent in Uganda doing door to door evangelism. Click here to read all posts in this series.

Probably this most important thing that came out of the trip to Uganda fell under the category of "knowing myself".

Everyone was struggling with many of the same questions that I was and the strange culture did not help at all. Most people in my group were emotional wrecks. We would be grumpy, cagey, and depressed over our situation. The evenings and nights back at the hostel were desperate times. You wanted to leave, but you couldn't. You wanted to sleep, but you couldn't. We learned about ourselves by being pushed right to our limits.

The first nights were especially bad. Kampala had rolling brownouts at the time, so the evenings were spent sitting in the dorm with the lights flickering on and off.

One night I had an idea. I figured that if I set my digital camera on a tripod doing a long exposure, the flickering lights would be the same as doing a multiple exposure picture with film. Easy, in-camera trick photography.

Eventually the guys of the group wandered into the room and asked me what I was doing. I explained the technique to them and showed them a few dismal looking pictures. They thought it was interesting and wanted to join in. Eventually we started using flashlights for light and the results were excellent. This was a terrific mood lifter for all of us since we were able to forget about our situation for a little while and focus on something else.

After that night, we all started coping better. Generally we turned to absurdity to get us through the week. Justin bought a crucifix and attacked people with a bad southern evangelist impression as they walked by. We started dueling with patio chairs in our off time, wedgies were exchanged, and I have many pictures that I simply cannot explain. Basically we figured out how to have fun even when pushed to our limits.

An issue I struggled with was the expected attire. As I mentioned previously Christian were expected to wear collared shirts, nice pants and have a conservative haircut. I wasn't too pleased with this, but also after all we had been through in that week of evangelism, I didn't want to identify with that image of what a Christian was. My hair was getting long and I needed to get a haircut so I decided to get a mohawk.

I told the guys and they were pleased to help. The only cutting implement available was a battery operated beard trimmer from Joe, but it worked in a pinch. We were able to get half of my head done before the batteries died. When it came time to charge the batteries we plugged it into the wall and immediately smelled ozone. I guess we forgot about the difference between 240 volts and 120 volts.

Needless to say I wasn't happy since my hair looked rather odd. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and remembered hat there was a hair salon in the lower level of the building, which would likely have a hair trimmer. Thankfully they let us borrow it and my mohawk was completed. A couple days later it was time to leave Uganda.

When it was time to return to South Africa everyone was ecstatic. I found myself surprisingly happy to be re-entering South Africa and going through customs again. I never thought a foreign border would look as welcoming as it did that day, but it just felt so good to be back in a country I understood.

This story will be continued in two days time, stay tuned.