Well this looks, um, interesting….

Losing his religion: Murphy crafts sci-fi ‘Punk Rock Jesus’

By Brian Truitt, USA Today

His new Vertigo Comics miniseries Punk Rock Jesus imagines a futuristic world of 2019 where the birth of a clone of Jesus Christ is the star of a reality show — called The J2 Project— and, as a teenager complete with Mohawk, rebels against the people and system that created him.

“You think about what would they do if they cloned Jesus? The answer quickly came to me: ‘Oh, they’d turn it into a reality show. They’d make it more interesting for better ratings and basically this thing would turn into a giant Super Bowl every day and would just grab the world’s attention.’ It wrote itself, in a sense,” says Murphy, who writes and illustrates Punk Rock Jesus. (The first issue is out now, and the second is available in comic shops and digitally Aug. 8.)

The book covers 14 years in the life of Chris, who is born out of a modern-day equivalent to the immaculate conception: Pieces of DNA are scraped off the Shroud of Turin, fused with an egg and are inserted into a virgin girl found via nationwide audition.

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This is pretty funny.

I assume these tips are also the actual rules for dating at Bob Jones University.

The really funny thing is, I’m only half kidding about that.

Check out their student handbook and see for yourself. The dating rules start on page 22.

I intentionally don’t give much attention to Westboro Baptist and their nonsense.

However, this counterprotest was too amusing not to share.

I’m not sure what the zombie costumes were meant to represent. Maybe it’s a really subtle nod to the resurrection of the dead?

Yeah, probably not.

Earlier this summer I had the chance to take a group of high school students on a mission trip to England.

While we did many of the “typical” mission trip sorts of things, which were wonderful, the highlight of the trip for me, and many of the students, sort of came out of nowhere.

It happened at a church. Go figure. But not just any church. On our first day of work in Dewsbury, England we had the opportunity to attend mass at the local Church of England minster. This particular church was incredibly old. Christian worship has been held on the site since 627 AD. For those of you counting at home, that’s 1,149 years before the United States was even a country.

That’s old.

While the history of the church was certainly fascinating, what made the service so incredible and the moment so memorable was what happened during communion.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve only ever celebrated the eucharist in one of two ways. Either it was brought to me in the form of those tiny little cups and horrendous cardboard wafers, or I stood in line, waiting my turn to dip the bread, or take a swig from the cup.

In Dewsbury, they did something a little different.

When the time came, rather than having us file up to the front row by row, everyone was invited to circle around the table. From there the priest and his associate took the cup and the bread from person to person while the rest of us in the circle watched and waited for our turn.

Now, I realize this is one of those sorts of things that is hard to convey unless you were there, but the pregnant expectancy and hushed awe of that moment while we were circled around the table was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had a church. For me, it wasn’t just a group of people eating bread and drinking wine. It was young people standing next to the elderly, the abled bodied alongside the handicapped, Anglicans joined together with Methodists, Americans side by side with Britons, all gathered around the same table, eating from the same bread, drinking from the same cup in a place where people had been doing this very same thing for nearly 1,400 years.

For me, it was one of those transcendent moments where we find ourselves caught up in something bigger than ourselves as we have the privilege of bearing witness to the here and now being momentarily pushed aside to allow us a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

In that moment, I was reminded of just how ancient and enormous the Christian faith really is. My experience at my local church in the States is but a drop in the bucket of a faith that as been lived out nearly unchanged in countless different settings for generations.

These past couple of days as I have had the opportunity to hang out with the monks at Glastonbury Abbey, I have once again been reminded of the enduring quality our ancient faith possesses.

Each morning the monks wake up for vigil at 6:30am to sing the psalms and profess “Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.” They continue their worship again at lauds, then at mass, then again at vespers, and finally once more at compline. In these acts of worship, along with their daily routine of work, study, and service they incarnate a life of worship and obedience that has been lived out by countless generations for nearly as long as their has been a Christian faith.

For me, like the service in Dewsbury, it has been a profound reminder of just how ancient and enduring the Christian faith really is. Certainly the church has experienced times of renewal, reformation, and even moments of division. But at its heart, Christianity has remained essentially unchanged for 2,000 years.

Yes, styles of worship have evolved. Yes, new traditions have been stared. Yes, new denominations have arisen. But the basic confession of “Jesus is Lord” hasn’t changed.

In a world where everything is constantly changing, where what is revolutionary today, is passe tomorrow, I find the unwavering consistency of the Christian faith to be remarkable as well as a source of both comfort and strength. That steadfastness reminds me that I am not alone in my journey of faith, but rather I am journeying along a path carved out by countless people before me on which I am surrounded by a whole host of other believers both past and present.

As I try to connect that ancient and enduring reality with a modern church in flux, I am forced to pause and question both the necessity as well as the wisdom of the notion that everything in the church must change, lest she be overcome by the march of progress and rendered irrelevant.

I am less convinced everyday that the proclamation of the church’s imminent demise is true.

For 2,000 years the church has witnessed the clash of cultures, revolutions of all kinds, and the rise and fall of great civilizations. Yet, in the wake of this sea of change, she has steadfastly maintained and defiantly pressed on with the same gospel proclaimed by uneducated 1st century fishermen.

Despite countless proclamations of her imminent demise, she has endured.

As the church faces yet another seismic shift in civilization, perhaps we should look back our shared history and remember that what has allowed the church to endure for two millennia has not been her ability to continually change herself, but her ability to continually change us.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

This may not be the worst Christian t-shirt ever, but it’s gotta be close.

“Do the Jew”??

Really???

Nobody thought, “Hey, sexual innuendo and racist overtones probably aren’t the way to go for a Christian t-shirt.”??

Really???

Thanks to Luke for sharing this!

Matt Appling, author of the blog The Church of No People, was kind enough to ask me to write a guest post for him while he’s on his annual blogging sabbatical.

I wrote about the truth that is found in the BIble’s use of metaphors.

Make sure you check it out!

There are no words for this.

Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show….

Well, I think this officially wraps up the Presidential election.

If the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse gives you his musical endorsement, that makes you President, right?

(Found at Christian Nightmares)

I admit it.

I like going to church.

I know that’s not the hip or cool thing to say these days, but I actually do enjoy spending my Sunday mornings at church.

That’s not to say that those who struggle with or get frustrated by church don’t have legitimate frustrations. Many of them do and, as I’ve argued before, perhaps sometimes they do need a break from regular church attendance.

I don’t want to diminish the importance of those frustrations or the pain they cause one bit.

But for me, church is somewhere I actually want to be.

Yesterday, my wife and I began the process of finding a new church home here in Connecticut. The service at the church we chose to visit wasn’t by any means the greatest service I’ve ever attended. But, after having been away from church for a few weeks due to various trips and moving across country, there was a sense of being home again.

Granted, I had never met any of the people at the church before, but there is that wonderful quality about the Body of Christ, particularly when you are in a church within your own tradition, that gives you a sense of being at home with family when you’re at church even when that church is 1,200 miles away from your “actual” home and family. Sure, not all churches are like that, but when you find one that is, at least for me, it’s not something you want to let go of.

Church, for me, is also place of much needed nourishment and encouragement. Being away from the Body for too long left me feeling drained, or at least incomplete, but I didn’t fully realize this until I was there. Sure, the church exists beyond the four walls of the local parish, but the truth is that the physical gathering of people within those walls is a tremendously important thing. The handshakes, the smiles, the kind words, and even the unwanted hugs have a way of physically imparting a much needed inward and spiritual grace.

Of course, church is a rather peculiar place. And I don’t just mean the awkward meet and greet time during service that nobody really likes. Other than karaoke bars, who else gets together regularly to sing songs together? Where else do teenagers regularly mingle with senior citizens? And it’s not often that you find a place where people so willingly (and sometimes without even being asked) share their hope, pain, joys, and struggles with strangers. But it’s this peculiarity that I think, at least in part, helps make church such a wonderful place.

It’s true that this peculiarity also points to the fact that church is an imperfect place as well. There’s always a singer singing off-key. Inevitably the sound system doesn’t work exactly the way it’s supposed to. And the preacher is sometimes a bit, well, boring. But I think there’s a certain kind of beauty in that. That imperfection reminds us of our own flaws, but as the service continues forward despite these flaws and is finally brought to a holy completion, we are reminded, in turn, that despite our own imperfections, we too can be brought to a holy completion as well.

But we should be careful not to pass over the ending of the service too quickly for it is there that one of the unique, but truly incredible moments of the service takes place – the “sending forth”. Most of us may ignore this time, distracted by our lunch plans or so eager to rush home to kick off that we miss the pastor’s words. But if done correctly, this final moment may just be one of the most important moments of the service, for it is here that we are not just sent out with a blessing, but we are sent out with a mission.

Week after week we are commissioned for the days to come with a renewed purpose to spread the good news of the gospel. That may seem routine, but if we take it seriously, and I think we should, then it is an important reminder that we all have been called by God for a purpose. That, at least in my mind, is a pretty incredible thing.

Now, yes the church has her flaws. And yes, she needs to be held accountable when she fails to live up to what it means to be the Body of Christ, particularly when people get hurt. But those necessary changes and corrections don’t happen from without. They happen from within.

Congregations vary greatly from church to church, street to street. Your church may be really screwed up, but that doesn’t mean the church across the street isn’t ready to welcome you with open arms. It’s ok to be angry, but it’s not ok to hold every church everywhere responsible for the actions of a local congregation, because the truth is there’s always a church somewhere in which you will find loving, compassionate people actually embodying Christ to the world.

Yes, it might take some effort to find that church and yes that effort may at times be a painful process, but the church was given to us as a gift, even if sometimes it feels like a curse. Transcendent thought it may be, it’s a gift that can only be fully received amongst the physical gathering of believers. So, if you haven’t been in a while, let me encourage to give church another chance.

You never know. Your visit may just surprise you. If you really make an effort to give it a chance and you pay close attention, then tucked away between the off-key special music and the awkward hugs from strangers, you may just catch a glimpse of the kingdom of God here on earth, just as it is in heaven.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

It used to be that “the devil made me do it.”

Now it appears the devil has lost his job.

God, it seems, is now in the business of making people do some not so wonderful things.

In an interview that aired recently on Fox News accused murder George Zimmerman told Sean Hannity that Treyvon’s tragic death was, in fact, “all God’s plan.” In other words, according to Zimmerman, God wanted Treyvon dead. He just pulled the trigger.

After being called out by Rachel Held Evans, Scot McKnight, and many others, Doug Wilson played the God card in his defense against accusations of misogyny. As he explained, he shouldn’t be blamed for his views because he is simply relaying what God has to say.

And, of course, there are the religious extremists who perform heinous acts of terror, destruction, and death. They do so, as we all know, because they believe themselves to be God’s instruments of wrath and judgment.

So what gives?

Has God suddenly pulled a 180 and started doing evil?

Probably not. At least I sure hope not. I think, more likely, what we are witnessing is a refusal to take responsibility that is spreading in epidemic proportions.

I have no idea why playing the God card has suddenly become so popular. Although, if I had to guess, I would suspect it stems from a combination of things.

God makes a great scapegoat. There’s nothing good about the devil. If we had allowed him to posses us, forcing us to do evil, then that just makes us look bad. But if it is God who is pulling the strings, then we think ourselves, and whatever subsequent actions we take, to be just, or worse, divinely ordained. In short, we blame God because it allows us to convinces ourselves that, despite what others may say, who we are and what we are doing is right and good.

Likewise, as much as we don’t want to be associated with the devil, we don’t want to be associated with sin. Even if the devil made us do it, we’re still sinning. But if God forced our had, then what we are doing is, in fact, the will of God, which in turn lets us to keep our conscious clean, allowing us to sleep at night no matter how many people we may hurt, offended, or outraged. If God is making us do everything, then sin no longer exists. (And sadly, that means there’s also no more need for Jesus.)

Finally, I think, if we are really honest about it, there is a fundamental lack of courage that goes along with playing the God card. There’s nothing brave about killing unarmed teenagers, suppressing women, or terrorizing innocent people. But if you do those things everyone else despises because God told you to ignore popular criticism, that makes you brave, right?

I think that somewhere inside themselves, those that participate in these sorts of behaviors know this. But rather than admitting their lack of the real courage it takes to do the right thing, or simply not participating in the wrong thing, they instead choose to do things that seem brave, but in reality are not, because those things give them a since of courage without really having to be brave. Then, by employing the God card, they give these cowardly acts, at least in their own minds, a sense of divine nobility.

The truth of the matter is, God or devil, we are ultimately responsible for own actions. This is why there is such a thing as sin. If the devil or God made us do a thing, and we had no control to do otherwise, then we could be not held responsible for our actions. Likewise, if we were not able to choose to do the right thing, there would be no such thing as “good”, but that is a philosophical discussion for another day.

What I want to suggest, is that we all find the courage to stop blaming God, the devil, or anyone else for the decisions we make, the actions we take, and the words that we say.

If you feel God has called you do something, then do it, but do so acknowledging you are doing what you think or believe God has called you do. That way, if in fact you are wrong, God doesn’t get the blame and God’s name isn’t smeared all over the news or across the blogosphere. And, of course, if you’re right, then God’s name will be praised all the more.

All that to say, if we are going to claim to be “real men” or “real women of God” (whatever that means), then let’s act like “real men” and “real women”, stop passing the buck, and take responsibility for the things we believe, we say, and we do.

Otherwise, we should just shut up and keep our opinions to ourselves.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt