So I am watching the Daily Show the other night and on comes the semi-regular segment entitled "This Week in God". If you haven't seen the segment it is really funny and always offensive. One of the highlights was about Christianity and how the AFA, among other certain Christian organizations, protested the recently canned NBC show "The Book of Daniel" about a priest with a messed up life. In it he candidly talks to a Jesus figure in certain situations. Well the AFA, American Family Association, called for a boycott of the show because of the realms in which it displayed the priest: dealing with a stoner teenager and a lesbian sister, etc. Supposedly this doesn't happen in real life, so the AFA wanted it off the air. The host, at the end, made the fantastic point that the AFA, a Christian organization, protests a show that displays someone talking to Jesus in their everday life while shows like Fear Facotr are not nearly as protested. I think the exact quote was " Guy talking to Jesus '0', chick in bikini eating pig intestine '1' ". What a lame point of view by the AFA.
Then the next morning the Today show had an interview with Ron Howard and his movie adaption of "The DaVinci Code" starring Tom Hanks. It brought me back to the days of working in a certain Christian bookstore and seeing the surge of utter despair as this best seller was, as many felt, taking Christianity apart. Nevermind it's actually fiction. Nevermind this Christian community has done the EXACT SAME THING with Left Behind. I'll never forget talking with a customer in that store and she asked me about these books because she was so afraid this alternate point of view would make her son question his faith (as if that is a bad thing). I asked her if she read the Da Vinci Code and she said No. She asked if I had read it and I said Yes. She was ASTOUNDED. Her exact words were "You're the first believer I know who has read the book...what is it about???" The Christian community backlashed with so many books about "Breaking the Da Vinci" code, as if Christ needs to be defended against someone's imagination. We just couldn't stand seeing this book which, if you read it, does a very poor job of trying to dismantle Christianity (if that was really the author's intent, a debatable point) BECAUSE NO ONE TOOK THE TIME TO READ IT FOR WHAT IT WAS WORTH.
Here's my point. Christians often us the phrase "Jesus was offensive". True, he certainly was offensive. He offended every notion of what the Jewish society thought a Messiah would be and every notion the Gentile community though a God should be. We use this idea to propogate saying "Jesus is the only way to heaven", not back that up with Christ-like love, and then say it's OK to be offensive because Jesus was. (I'm not endorsing pluarlism here, just making a point). GET A GRIP. Christians can't stand being offended. If we are made fun of on television, we cry discrimination as if we have some sort of rights here to stake or claims in this country. How can we say its OK to offend everyone else but not be willing to be offended ourselves? Part of it is because we attach things to Christianity in America that are not Christian at all. Take Republicans. Some many Christians voted for Bush because he says he is a Christian. That's fine. I don't dispute that he is. But I would also say that there was not a single ounce of political motivation in Jesus' body. But then when someone tries to combine a Christian and a Democrat people SPAZ. When the evil CNN network talks about Bush it must be wrong. So when we attach to Christ that should not be so and they are consequently challenged, we get offended. That is our bad.
God offends me. He offends me because my very nature does not want Him to love. I want to live for myself, find success and pleasure as I see what fit best for me and yet Christ invites me to experience His glory and love first so that those aspects of my life will be focus on Him, not me. This is offensive to me because I want myself so bad, not Him. Daily I seek His control to reverse this dichotomy.
I dare you to be offended by someone else. I dare you to go out and purposely find something that disagrees with your way of life, analyze it, and try and discover why someone else would think that way about you or your idealogies. In fact take the stance of arguing FOR IT rather than against it. If you don't, you'll never be more than a comfortable couch potato, waiting for someone to always agree with you. How boring.
I hope this post has offended you.
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10 comments:
The only thing I would change is that "we will get to enjoy His glory forever." But that is being picky. And I just want to clarify you are not saying it's O.K. when someone says "Jesus sucks!" That should makes us sad for them and because he means so much to him. You are talking about the things that have been attached to him by American Christianity... I will quit speaking for you now, sorry, feel free to erase this... I love you...
it seems love is in the air... ready? ready? "awwwwwwwww!" Seriously, nice post, and good word, Caleb.
I know I'm offended by this post...haha, just kidding.
Honestly, that show 'The Book of Daniel' looked stupid anyway and deserved to be cancelled, but not for the reasons listed by the AFA. Of course, we could see what happens if NBC does a new pilot titled 'The Book of Mohammad'
Speaking of the lady from your bookstore, my friend Dave has identified that problem. It's called 'Nervous White Woman Syndrome', and is often found in the suburbs.
Oh, and while I'm on my soapbox, the last book I read that really offended me was a gift for X-mas from a soon to be inlaw. I forget the title, but basically the author stated that Christian based nations have been responsible for pretty much all of the greatest advancements of civilization throughout history.
It blew my mind.
Awesome commentary. You didn't succeed at offending me--I agreed with all of it. BTW, Caleb sent me here.
I think the "Nervous White Woman Syndrome" is caused by a serious case of misplaced fear. I have nothing against someone who skips out on The DaVinci Code because they are acutely aware of their own spiritual frailties (is that a word?) and believe it will be a stumbling block to them. Let's just not make an idol out of the devil and fear him instead of God at every turn.
Mikey,
Let me read that book, I want to laugh along with you.
Ben,
I agree with you completely. My beef is more so with the people who are not so much wanting to protect themselves, but those who think it is this destructive force that will affect everybody so they have their own personl quest to outlaw it completely. If those people really didn't fear the devil, then they;d have no problem reading it.
Eh, it's packed up now. I'll find it after the move. I'm sure it has some good stuff in it though. I was all like, 'Cool, I want to read the chapter on Tolstoy and Dostevsky and their struggles with faith'. But he starts the chapter with that bunk and it all went downhill from there.
That comment wasn't intended to be anti-christian by the way, it was just incredibly ignorant. The truly ironic thing is that most of America's technological achievements have been during times of war, and that's what blew my mind.
Mostly I would have to agree with this, but I would say that there are things we should avoid, and if possible, help others to avoid. For instance, pronography is a really big problem for an awful lot of people. If it were not possible for those people to get ahold of lewd photographs, it would help a lot of them (probably not all, but hey, let's help people if we can). Although I have also read "The Da Vinci Code", and can speak intelligibly about why it's complete bunk, there are people I know who (although they at least claim to be people of faith) would take what that book says as truth. In fact, most of the people that I have talked to about that book seem to belive that there is some truth that it is based on. And there are serious parrallels between the views propounded in that book and gnosticism which is condemned in the Bible.
Regardless of the particulars of any one instance, I would argue that there are a number of things that I think we should attempt to protect people from (mostly themselves). I would view the "Breaking the Da Vinci Code" books in the light of that attempt. That is to say, a number of people (who did read the book by the way) attempted to point out the flaws in the process (that it's fiction, the beginning of the myth about Mary, etc.) so that people would not be taken in by the arguments or the story. I think this is a noble attempt.
All of that aside, I agree with the major tenant. We attach God to all sorts of things that we shouldn't. Then we get offended when those things are attacked. By the same token, when people speak out against Christ, a whole lot of Christians assume that those are attacks against them, and assume an offense from that attack. They more appropriately belong to God, rather than people. If we would let God be God and interact with Him as He desires, we would have a whole lot less to avoid, and we would have an easier way to avoid them.
I'll stop now.
Austin,
I agree with you completely. There are certainly things that people need to stay away from if those things tempt them to be sinful. I probably should have worded my post different in some respects to reflect that as well. And I would never advocate someone to pursue something that leads them away from God.
My challenge is more to those people who refuse to step outside their own sterile Christian bubble. If we never attempt to understand the world that surrounds us, we will never get anywhere.
Dude,
#1 - When you're done with seminary, I want you to be my pastor.
#2 - You know what I call people who don't know a work of fiction when they read it? or buy it in the fiction section - Morons.
I mean, what did they think, that it was an autobiography or something?
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