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This weekend I found myself in need of another Bible. I’ve got several, but they are all filled with specific study notes – and I needed one I could record all my peace and reconciliation thoughts in – and it also needed to be one of those thin-lined ones that can easily be carried. Some of my Bibles are large hardback models that weigh about 5lbs each! And, since I’m doing more ‘inter-faith’ work, I wanted something that wasn’t an ‘in-your-face-I’m-a-Christian’ looking book – you know, big cross on the front, gold stamped pages, expensive leather that would buy an entire starving village a meal.
The downside to all of this was it meant I had to make a trip to the local Christian bookstore. This is not a place I frequent, and for good reasons: it’s too depressing. This time, however, I was happily surprised. Not because it wasn’t filled with the typical commercialization of Jesus [which made me want to flip over a few tables just to see if anyone ‘got it’], but because I think I came away with a couple good blog posts in mind! So that made it more bearable.
I found what I was looking for and then took a few minutes to peruse the latest in what I call ‘Jesus goes tacky.’ There were the T-shirts with the usual gambit of offensive and divisive in your face statements to clearly let the world know that Christianity is still clinging to the illusions of those who are ‘in’ versus those who are ‘out.’
It had the usual tidbits and trinkets, signs and jewelry. There were aisles filled with the latest books and gimmicks for living the good life, the best life, the ultimate life. There were books on how to love, how to forgive, how to budget, how to get rich. Some stuff was good and others seemed extremely out of place. It seemed a veritable bazaar of religion and spirituality, of stale dogma and sweet revelation. Truly a mixed bag.
But it was still all so commercialized. And it reminded me of the worse commercialization I have ever seen, which was an entire line of products being marketed under the banner of “Smiley Cross”. That’s right, crosses on cups, shirts, trinkets and bibles that were in the form of a smiling cross. How delightful. Now the cross smiles. And people buy it and wear it and communicate it to a watching world as if the cross were a pleasantry for Christians; something to smile back at, or maybe something to muse about over a warm four dollar latte.
THAT is sick. Parts, segments of Christianity really need to wake up.
The cross I see is forgiving, but far from smiling. It’s the ultimate form of refusing the way of violence that humanity might come face-to-face with its inclination to mock, to scourge, to kill the voices of peace and unity and love. It’s the ultimate choice-point of how far one is willing to go in the name of justice and mercy, of compassion and truth. And when the harsh and bone-crushing sounds of nails being driven into the arms and feet of the servant laying down his life are ringing out in the air, mixed with blood and groans and weeping, I can envision people vomiting, but not smiling.
And vomiting is what I want to do when I see some of the ways Jesus is being portrayed today. The Jesus I know deserves better. And if our world continues missing the signs of the Prince of Peace, and instead continues mixing religion with violence, our future will not be something to smile about either.
11 comments to “Jesus Goes Tacky”
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I would LOVE to see someone go in and tip over some of the tables. That would be a riot!
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Well thanks alot Tim. There goes that “precious moments” praying Santa I bought you for Christmas, out the window. You can forget that.
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Tim, I know truely what you speak of here. I am truely saddened how the so called Christian church has misread what Jesus came to do. In recent weeks I have had a debate of sorts with one person in paticular on face book. And to me it is just really sad that people that say they Love God in one breath and then in the next spew such hate for those that they deem not worthy of the same things they have been afforded with. But I do know where that mentality comes from and unfortunately folks have been drinking this koolaid and not seeking for themselves how it has been made!!
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And to think, it used to just be “TestaMints” that got me riled. All bookstores are filled with swag these days: Check out B&N: cards, lap desks, journals, coffee, mugs. But somehow it’s more forgivable there. What really got me is the new “Your Best Life Now” board game. I’m serious. http://bit.ly/4A4Joh
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I dont know if you know Richard Green and the Keystone project but I spent a week with him and 32 other people this past week…it was a great time.
Anyway he can not stand christian bookstores…and has a few word of his own about the book stores…but it was his birthday so we knew exactly what to do.
We got him a zebra wrist band with a cross on it…a mood ring…and another trinket I can not even remember…but what was precious was the look on his face when we presented it too him…
I will say we took it all back because we did not want him to remember us by those trinkets or for him to use them in future teaching moments….
GO MOOD RINGS
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Good one, Don!
“And vomiting is what I want to do when I see some of the ways Jesus is being portrayed today.”
I hear ya, Tim. It is sad. The cross, for me, is not a symbol of suffering (or smiley faces) but of hope. I am surrendering myself to the center-point of the cross and resting here while God works on me for a spell.
I feel a deep need to rest here in the intersection, the cosmic axis where two become one, and let this symbol remind me (as Trevor reminded me today) that it is here I can best serve others. Coming to the cross and using it as a reminder to serve others, placing myself in the center, but as second, gives me comfort, peace and the will to serve those I love to the fullest.
Thanks for this post, Tim. Bless you!
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This why we don’t sell Jesus at Exodus. Couldn’t have said it better. The only thing we sell is a plate of fried chicken on Sunday.
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Oh my thanks for this post, Tim. Never heard of an object that can smile and remain at once a symbol of hope, grief, life and death. How would that not be blasphemous.
Yet the controversial Piss Christ was banned, cutting too close to the quick as an expression of the pathos that the cross is.
Oh what cross-purposes we work at in our expressions of the significance of the cross!
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Hi Katherine,
“Never heard of an object that can smile and remain at once a symbol of hope, grief, life and death.”
Yes, I should have also mentioned the cross being a symbol of dying to one’s selfish ways. I was reminded again by my dear friend that we can most effectively serve others by placing ourselves “on the cross” daily, surrendering our desires and egos for the sake of another. In doing so, aren’t we in service to all beings everywhere.
One reason I avoid the “Christian” book stores anymore, but most of the local ones have closed up shop, because most Christians are now ordering on line. IMO a blessing not to have the stores that were promoting the wrong Christ.