If you’re a Christian with a blog, or just an opinion in general, and you have the audacity to critique other Christians, particularly prominent Christian leaders, you will inevitably find yourself under attack by fellow Christians accusing you of “stirring up disunity” in the church. The thought being that if “the world” sees the church display any hint of discord, disagreement, or imperfection, that would be somehow mean the total collapse of the church’s ability to do evangelism or worse, the invalidation of the gospel.

This is, of course, nonsense. If it were true, the church, with its 2,000 years of flawed history, would have collapsed long, long ago. And yet these attacks continue. Why? Because there is a powerful force behind them: fear.

Of course, the church should strive for unity, but what these Chicken Littles of the faith are bemoaning is not the absence of unity, but conformity; conformity to their particular brand of the faith. Moreover, they’re mourning the prospect that their favorite Christian guru or church may not be as perfect as they thought, or needed them to be.

In other words, these self-appointed watchdogs and defenders of the faith come out in droves because their heroes have been revealed for the flawed human beings that they are and always have been. Yet rather than accepting this reality they instead turn towards denial and self-delusion. They become what every great regime needs: spin doctors and masters of propaganda. They fill up comment sections, write blog posts, preach sermons, all in an effort to spin the reality of the situation and cast the critic as the villain and their fallen hero as the innocent victim – all in the name of “Christian unity.”

You see, the thing about this sort of Christian unity is that it’s nothing more than propaganda.

Like all good propaganda, it’s not really unity that is sought, for diversity can not only exist within a unified people, it can thrive. What these Christian propagandists seek is conformity and the assurance that they are right.

To their credit, these Chicken Little’s of Christian unity are quite eloquent and often very effective in their propagandist efforts.

Take, for example, Tim Challies, a popular blogger who recently came to the defense of Sovereign Grace Ministries, a organization which has been criticized, and rightly so, by other Christians for refusing to cooperate with civil authorities in an investigation into accusations of sexual abuse. According to Challies,

“This situation is unfolding before a watching world that loves nothing more than to see Christians in disunity, accusing one another, fighting one another, making a mockery of the gospel that brings peace. You and I are responsible to do well here, to be above reproach in our thoughts, words and actions. We are responsible to be marked by love whether evaluating a difficult situation or taking appropriate action. We can make the gospel look great or we can make it look insignificant.”

What makes Challies’ words so devastatingly effective is his ability to not simply move the guilt away from those who have created the problem and place it on those calling them to account. Effective though that is, what makes it so powerful in a Christian context is the way he turns critique, an amoral and often healthy practice, into nothing short of sin.

The absurdity of this is stunningly profound, if not altogether repugnant.

And yet it is a technique employed over and over and over again from the most prominent celebrity preacher to the lowliest internet troll and everyone in-between all of whom’s greatest fear is, apparently, being perceived as less than perfect. This need to be perfect, or at least to be seen as perfect, is a temptation that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve’s need to be like God – to be perfect. Like Adam and Eve we still listen to words of the snake and believe that being less than divine is somehow a flaw.

So, we do everything in our power to maintain the myth that our leaders, our churches, our theological systems, and, by extension, we ourselves are perfect. This is what is at the heart of so many of the recent cries for Christian unity. But the righteous indignation of “Christian unity” that runs rampant today has is more often than not nothing more than propaganda for sustaining a false and unnecessary narrative of perfection. A collective effort to sustain a lie.

The truth is the church is and always has been populated by imperfect people.

But the church has never feared this imperfection.

In fact, she has embraced it.

You see, if effective evangelism required that the world perceived the church as perfect, never arguing, and always agreeing on everything, there would be no Bible.

Think about it – the Bible begins with the story of a people who try to become gods and fail. Then when learn about a drunk named Noah. There’s Lot who slept with his daughters and the great father of the faith, Abraham, who was a pathological liar. Moses was a murderer, David an adulterer, and Solomon a polygamist. The entire nation of Israel were serial spiritual adulterers throughout much of the Old Testament. In the gospels we meet a group of 12 disciples who were power hungry doubters. Paul was a terrorist and if we learn nothing else from his letters it’s that the early church was constantly bickering.

Which means, if the writers of the Bible had listened to the modern propaganda about Christian unity and “sowing disunity” the Bible would never have been able to be written because it’s just too bad for PR.

At its core, the Bible is scandalous. It’s the account of all the many ways God’s people have screwed things up. And yet there is no attempt to coverup any of those perfections. Why? Because the Bible is a testimony to the fact that God doesn’t need perfect people. God uses imperfect people to accomplish great things – and He’s not afraid to do so. If anything, God seems to relish using the prodigal son or daughter to accomplish God’s will.

The Bible is a story of broken people saved by a broken savior who’s offer of salvation is a call to live a broken life.

That’s the good news of the gospel, the scandalous news we’re supposed to be proclaiming to the world we’re so worried about impressing.

Yes, we are called to perfection, but the resurrection didn’t instantaneously perfect the world. It simply begins it. Which means the perfection of the church is not something we will experience on this side of eternity…and that’s ok.

This means if you are a Chicken Little, convinced the church will collapse at the smallest sign of “disunity,” you need to direct your righteous indignation somewhere useful. Perhaps towards the fact that millions of children go to bed starving every night, or towards the lack of effort given to prevent the loss of millions of lives to curable diseases, or towards the defense of basic human dignity denied to so many because they don’t look, sound, or believe like “I” do.

Or pick another cause. Get creative. Just find something more productive to do with your time.

Yes, the unity of the church is a noble pursuit, but it can’t be driven by propaganda, itself motivated by fear and the idolatrous need to be seen as perfect. As important as unity is, so is the church’s integrity, honesty, and ability to deal truthfully and effectively when she fails.

To do that, and maintain the unity we all want, we must remember that our unity is not found perfection, but in our brokenness. It is found in our willingness to break bread together in the face of that brokenness as we come together to worship a broken Savior.

We are a broken people and that’s ok.

In the face of a world that demands perfection, this brokenness of the Body of Christ is nothing short of scandalous.

To reject that brokenness for the sake of public perception is to reject the cross and the God who was crucified upon it.

If we are going to be united as a church, it won’t come about through a sustained PR blitz.

Our unity as the people of God will only come about through our willingness to embrace our shared brokenness.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

As promised, here’s the pertinent info for the upcoming American Jesus Madness 2013 tournament.

Just like last year, I want to hear from you about who or what should be in the tournament.

What are the requirements? Not much. The only requirement is that the person, place, or thing must have played some sort of role in pop Christian culture during the past year. It can be a pastor, a celebrity, a tortilla with Jesus’ face on it, the apocalypse, whatever. It’s up to you.

I need 32 participants, so go nuts, have fun, and be creative. If you need some help getting your creative juices flowing, check out the bracket from last year.

The deadline for participant suggestions is Monday, March 11th.

Once I have all the suggestions in, I will create the bracket and post it on Wednesday, March 13th.

Along with the bracket I will also post a tournament breakdown of each of the match ups to help guide you on your way to determing who will be crowned the 2013 champion of American Christianity.

Last year I offered an iTunes gift card to the winner. However, this year I’m going to offer something even greater – eternal glory! Sure, iTunes gift cards are great, but you can’t put a price tag on eternal glory….which is perfect since I’m currently a poor grad school student.

[That being said, if you have or represent a company/organization/cause/etc and would be interested in sponsoring the tournament, let's talk. Last year over 75,000 votes were cast and I'm expecting many more this year. So, if you're looking for some moderate exposure at a cheap price, let me know. I'm willing to sell out.]

Anyway, back to the business at hand.

If you’d like to fill out a bracket and submit it for your chance at eternal glory, and you really should since that’s half the fun, you will need to print off your bracket, fill it in, scan it/take a picture of it/whatever, and email it back to me since I’m not as awesome as ESPN and don’t have a digital interactive bracket for you to fill out. Or if you’re super cool, you can save the bracket jpeg, fill it in digitally, and send me the file. Up to you.

Only 1 bracket submission per person. And along with your submission if you would do one or more of the following I would greatly appreciate it:

-“Like” The American Jesus on Facebook

 -Follow us on Twitter

-Subscribe to The American Jesus

-If you’ve already done all 3, link to the tourney on Facebook /Twitter/wherever.

Last but not least, the deadline for bracket submissions is Monday, March 18th at 11:59pm.

The tournament itself will start Tuesday, March 19th with voting beginning promptly at 8:00am EST.

Voting is easy. We’ll talk more about it when the time comes.

Until then, let me know who or what belongs in the tournament in the comments section.

Can’t wait to hear who you nominate. And remember – don’t be afraid to get creative!

Last night The History Channel aired their epic miniseries The Bible.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post based on the trailers History was using to promote the show and made the point that, though subtle, there is a highly problematic racism going on in the casting of this series wherein history is whitewashed as virtually all the heroes, good guys, and not least of all the savior, are white guys.

This past weekend Kevin Hart hosted Saturday Night Live. While it was a particularly good episode, the “Really!?! with Seth & Kevin” segment during Weekend Update did have some pretty funny lines. Coincidently, (or was it Providence?) they talked about racism.

So, after The History Channel aired their program last night, I thought to myself, “What would happen if you combined the two – SNL‘s Weekend Update segment with The History Channel’s ’The Bible Series.’”

Using the character photo gallery from The Bible Series website, which posts the main characters from the series along with a few minor ones that I had to leave out for the sake of space, I came up with the following.

Now, for the sake of full disclosure, there was one other character listed that was played by a black actor, the role of Balthazar. However, as the point I was originally making was that the lead characters, i.e. the heroes/saviors, in this program are all white, the casting of the minor characters isn’t relevant.

Anyway, I just wanted to offer something to think about as much of the evangelical world celebrates the fact that the Bible is on TV.

If nothing else, I hope it raises the question, “If this program is supposed to be historically accurate, and there are plenty of actors of the historically accurate ethnicity to play the given lead roles, why were all those lead roles instead given to white guys?”

It’s officially March.

And you know what that means….

That’s right, we’re only 18 days away from the start of the 3rd annual American Jesus Madness tournament!!

If you’re not familiar with this epic battle royale of American Christianity, it’s really simple….

It works just like the NCAA Tournament, but instead of basketball teams I use famous Christians and famous Christian things. I seed those people and things and then you vote on a winner.

What are you voting on? Well that’s up to you.

For example, Stephen Colbert and Kirk Cameron could be matched up together. You could vote for which person you like better, which one is more entertaining, which one would win in a bar fight, which one is more sane, which one is more insane, which one is a bigger jerk, or you could get really judgmental and vote on which one you think is the better or worse Christian.

It’s up to you.

Last year was a record year. Over 75,000 votes were cast in the tournament and we saw Tim Tebow narrowly defeat Rachel Held Evans to be crowned champion of American Christianity for 2012.

This year, I’m hoping for even bigger and better things. And most of all, I’m hoping you join in the fun, especially if you haven’t done so before because, well, it’s just too much fun not to.

I’ll be announcing all the details next week. So stayed tuned to find out when, where, and how you can help crown the 2013 champion of American Christianity!!

As I’m always welcoming new people to the blog I sometimes like to revisit an old post or two that sparked a good conversation, but may have been missed by those who weren’t around when it was originally posted. Since I’m currently cramming for my Reformation Europe midterm (which is tomorrow), I thought today would be a great day to bring something out from the vault. And, since the Reformation was already on my mind, what better subject to talk about than that great Lutheran tenet of faith “sole fide,” or salvation by faith alone.

This post is a follow up of sorts to the “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” post from the other day, but more so it is a fleshing out of things I’ve been thinking about over the past several months.

So, forgive me in advance once again. This won’t be my shortest post.

First, a story.

There’s a great episode of The Office in which Dunder-Mifflin is getting ready to launch their new website. As part of the launch they send invitations out to all of their regional branch managers inviting them to the launch party. Naturally, the regional manager of the Scranton branch, Michael Scott, gets an invite. So, he talks Jim into driving him to the corporate party in New York. When the two finally make it to the outskirts of the city Jim asks Michael for the exact address of the club where the party is being held. Michael tells Jim that the club’s name is “chatroom” and apparently they will need a password to get in. It’s at this point that Jim turns the car around and heads back to Scranton.

You see, Michael assumed that he knew what the invitation said. He assumed that since his former protégé Ryan was in charge of the launch he would be invited to the main party in New York City. So, he never bothered to actually read the invitation. It wasn’t until he did that he finally understood that the invitation was to the online webcast of the party.

I think most of us suffer from Michael Scott Syndrome. We have so many years of personal context built up around us from what we’ve learned via Sunday School teachers, pastors, parents, and pop theology books that it has become so ingrained in our subconscious it prevents us from reading or hearing what is actually being said about the faith. This is particularly true as it pertains to the Bible.

We have so many sacred cows in evangelicalism (inerrency, creationism, gender roles, sola fide, etc.) which have been impressed upon us since birth that it becomes all but impossible for most of us to recognize that many of the passages we string together to make our case for these theological positions don’t actually, or to more specific, they don’t literally say what we think or want them to say; especially when we place those passages in context.

This doesn’t mean it is impossible to interpret particular passages to support our conclusions. However, if we want to be truly faithful to what the broader Biblical narrative actually says, then we have to find a way to set aside our predetermined conclusions about what each passage “means” before we pick up our Bibles. Only then can we attempt to read the words that are actually on the page.

For example, in the previous post I stated that Jesus never preached salvation through faith alone. That is true. Passages from Ephesians and James, among others, were tossed out to prove that Jesus preached sola fide. The problem of course is that Jesus didn’t write either of these letters. Nor did he write any of the books of the Bible.

That is not to say that a case can’t be made for sola fide based on other things that Jesus said coupled with statements made by other Biblical writers. However, if this theological tenet is to be accepted as the gospel truth, then we should make sure we understand both where it came from and what it really means. And therein lies the problem. Sola fide, though derived through interpreting particular biblical passages, is in fact a product of the Reformation (1400 years after the New Testament was written). This doesn’t necessarily nullify its potential truth. Where we run into problems is our modern understanding of this 500 theological tenet. We believe in the myth of sola fide.

Here’s what I mean…

The idea of salvation through faith alone begins its formulation under the great reformer Martin Luther. In his introduction to Romans he writes,

Hence it comes that faith alone makes righteous and fulfils the law; for out of Christ’s merit, it brings the Spirit, and the Spirit makes the heart glad and free, as the law requires that it shall be.

Taken out of its context, it would be easy to read this as Luther claiming that all Christ requires of us is faith or belief, by which we mean intellectual assent to the truth of his life, death, and resurrection. However, this is not at all what Luther believed. Rather, it is the myth of sola fide that has developed in the centuries after Luther’s death. For Luther, good works were just as important as “believing” or “accepting Jesus as your Savior”. In that same introduction to Romans he writes,

Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever….Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!

For Luther our faith in Jesus was not momentary intellectual assent to Jesus’ existence. For Luther, faith is transformative. It absolutely results in good works, in a particularly way of life that is distinctly reminiscent of the life of Jesus. Like the Biblical writer James said 1400 years previously, Luther was adamant that if faith is not embodied by good works then a person is an unbeliever. For Luther, there is no salvation for unbelievers, therefore there is no salvation for Luther apart for good works.

Through a combination of misinterpretation and overzealous freedom fighters, this dual emphasis on faith and works was lost. What resulted was 2 different versions of sola fide. On the one hand there was Luther’s sola fide in which faith comes from God alone, transforming us and empowering us to be the Christ-like people God intended us to be. Then there is the modern myth of sola fide in which “faith alone” (by which we mean intellectual assent) is all that is necessary for a get out of hell free card.

The hate of the Roman Catholic Church that brewed during the Reformation continues to fester today, enabling this later form of sola fide to become the dominant narrative of salvation. As a result, any notion of “works” being attached to salvation is the basest form of heresy simply because good works “reek” of Catholicism and as any good American Protestant Evangelical will tell you, “Catholics aren’t Christians” (insert sarcasm font). As Protestants we are willing to concede that good works are icing on the salvation cake, but we make it clear that they are neither required nor fundamentally relevant to our salvation.

This was not at all what Luther taught, it wasn’t what Jesus preached, and it isn’t what the Bible as a whole teaches, no matter our best efforts to cherry pick a few passages which on the surface seem to indicate otherwise.

If we can get beyond our Michael Scott Syndrome and read the actual words that are found in the Gospels we will see that Jesus never affirmed the modern myth of sola fide. Absolutely, Jesus spent much of his time criticizing the legalism of the religious leaders. However, there is a tremendous difference between legalism and good works. Legalism oppresses people. Good works can, through the power of God, change lives for the better.

Jesus was profoundly concerned with how we live. As I have pointed out before we see this clearly in Matthew 25, but we also see it exemplified in every moment that Jesus taught about quarrels or clothing, when he healed the sick , or when he simply shared a meal with outcasts.

Simply put, it is no coincidence that Jesus spends the vast majority of his ministry teaching people how to live, not teaching them how to “believe”. God became man in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, not so that we could have another doctrinal tenet to agree to, but in order to show us how to live. And as if to clear up any doubt that simply confessing belief in Jesus was not necessarily enough to “get into heaven, Jesus said “Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

Likewise, while Paul certainly locates the impetus of salvation in the grace of God (where it should be), he was very concerned with living a particular way of life. Like Luther who would follow him and Jesus who preceded him, Paul also believed that “good works” were essential to the Christian life and in fact to our salvation. This is both why the vast majority of his letters deal with how early Christians were to live (not just believe) and why he writes that we are to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” Paul understood that salvation does not begin and end at the moment of “belief”. Rather, “acceptance” is simply the first step of the journey in which we become the hands and feet of Jesus through whom he extends salvation to the entire world.

Aside from the underlying bigotry that shapes the modern myth of sola fide, I think the myth itself speaks to a profound misunderstanding of what salvation is all about. Viewed from the modern myth of sola fide, salvation is about intellectual assent to the reality of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection so that we will not go to hell for not believing the wrong thing. However, there are serious problems with this.

If our salvation rests upon our “acceptance” of it, then salvation is not dependent up Jesus, but our own confession. In that way, salvation is very much accomplished through our own works. Likewise, though we try all sorts of mental gymnastics to avoid it, if our role in salvation is exhausted by our “belief” or “acceptance”, then we are liberated from having or needing to live any particular way of life. It was the church in Corinth that first picked up on this apparent loophole. If our actions don’t matter in regards to salvation, and in fact, if God’s grace is the response to our sin, then shouldn’t we continue living however we want (in sin) so that God’s grace will abound all the more? Paul had an answer for this Corinthian proposition: “Hell no!” (Paul’s words, not mine)

So then, how are we saved?

What I think we learn from Jesus and the writers of the New Testament is that our “acceptance” of salvation is not a one off moment that happens during a prayer at an altar. Instead, “acceptance” is a process. It may start at the altar, but that is just the beginning of the journey of salvation.

I think it would be helpful to think of salvation as a drama. Jesus’ salvific actions, or as Paul wrote Jesus’ “faithfulness” to the Father, are the opening and closing acts of salvation. However, there is entire play that takes place between the moment Jesus walks out of the tomb and when he returns in glory. During that time we participate in the divine drama. Simple intellectual assent does not constitute participation. What is required of us is a truly Christ-like life, so that “the world may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven”. It is this pointing towards God that is our responsibility in the divine drama of salvation and redemption. We live a particular way of life in order to show others the way to Christ and prepare the world for the coming of the kingdom of God to earth as it is in heaven.

We must abandon the false dichotomy between salvation that is divorced from good works and salvation that is defined by good works. There is a middle ground in which salvation is given freely by God, but which also demands a particular way of life.

There are few people who have reminded the church of this need for “good living” more powerfully than the great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It was he who wrote,

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing….Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

In short, to pretend as if nothing is required of us after we “accept” God’s free gift of grace is to cheapen, dishonor, and ultimately render mute Jesus’ sacrifice. Perhaps for no other reason than this, the modern myth of sola fide must be just that, a myth.

There are plenty of examples that we could use in the modern church to exemplify how the myth of sola fide is carried out to the detriment of all. However, I think it would behoove us more to see how God responds when our faith is defined by the myth of sola fide. To do that, we need only to look at the book of Isaiah and a story I have mentioned here many times before.

This was the time of Solomon’s temple, when the kingdom of Israel was flourishing. In many ways, it was a time very similar to our own, not least of all because their relationship with God had come to defined by “faith alone.” They believed that God created them. They believed that they were His chosen people. They prayed and when necessary they went to the temple to make burnt offerings. So what did God think of their version of sola fide?   

“The multitude of your sacrifices— 
   what are they to me?” says the LORD. 
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings, 
   of rams and the fat of fattened animals; 
I have no pleasure 
   in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. 
When you come to appear before me, 
   who has asked this of you, 
   this trampling of my courts? 
Stop bringing meaningless offerings! 
   Your incense is detestable to me. 
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— 
   I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. 
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals 
   I hate with all my being. 
They have become a burden to me; 
   I am weary of bearing them. 
When you spread out your hands in prayer, 
   I hide my eyes from you; 
even when you offer many prayers, 
   I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!

 Wash and make yourselves clean. 
   Take your evil deeds out of my sight; 
   stop doing wrong. 
Learn to do right; seek justice. 
   Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless; 
   plead the case of the widow.

It was this context which set the stage only a few chapters later for the famous messianic prophecies that predicted “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Jesus was coming to save Israel from their sin. If context tells us anything, and it usually does, then according to Isaiah chief among those sins was a faith defined by “faith alone” and personal piety. This is a sin we still need saving from today.

In closing, let me be clear. I firmly believe that our salvation is grounded in the grace of the Father extended through the faithfulness of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit alone. There is no amount of good works we could do on our own to earn salvation. However, while we are not saved as a result of our good deeds, neither are we saved apart from them.

Therefore, I think it is critical to make a distinction in what exactly it is that we believe. For many of us, we believe that a person has faith or believes in Jesus when they agree that he was born, lived, died, and rose again. However, this is not the sort of faith Luther or the early church had in mind. Even the devil and his angels believe in the reality of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The true confession of faith in the early church, and the church today, is “Jesus is Lord.”

There were plenty of other gods and men who had died and been resurrected during the era of the early church. What made the church distinct was not just the idea of resurrection, but more so that this man from Nazareth who had been resurrected wasn’t simply another god-man. He alone was Lord of a heavenly kingdom that was beginning to dawn on earth in and through them.

To claim “Jesus is Lord” is much more than intellectual assent to historical reality. It is a transformative confession that has the capacity to reshape both our lives as well as the world around us. As Lord, Jesus is the one we follow by living a life that reflects the life that he lived. “Jesus is Lord” is the recognition that all things belong to him alone and as such nothing is outside the realm of redemption and repurposing for use in the kingdom of God.

If we are to be the Christ-like people of God we are called to be, then it will not happen through faith in a list of beliefs “alone”. It will only come about when the confession “Jesus is Lord” ceases to be merely a pleasant thought, and instead becomes a way of living and being in the world through which all of creation is oriented towards its Creator so that the kingdom of God begins to dawn “on earth as it is in heaven”. This is the sort of “faith” we are called to have.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

We’re just a few weeks away from Easter.

Which means you’re going to be hearing a lot about Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection at church for the foreseeable future (not that you didn’t already….I hope).

You might even hear some talk about how scandalous the cross is or, at least, how scandalous it’s supposed to be.

Of course, when something has become a fashionable piece of jewelry, a tasteful decoration, and a trendy tattoo it becomes difficult to call it scandalous. But I think the scandal is still there, even if we do go out of our way to domesticate and ignore it.

After all, if you were to walk into some of the largest churches (and plenty of not so large ones) in the United States, chances are good that you’ll notice something missing – a cross.

Or if there is one, there’s a good chance it’s not the center of attention. Why? Because too much “churchy” stuff makes visitors uncomfortable and if they don’t return, our churches don’t “grow” and if our churches don’t “grow,” we can’t afford that new multi-million dollar addition we “built on faith” and if….well you know how the story goes.

But for as much as we’re concerned about the comfortability of outsiders in our midst, I think the truth is most of us don’t mind moving the cross to some place where we’re not forced to look at the entire time, forced to think about the horrors and humiliation that occurred so long ago on our behalf.

Sure, we love talking about and celebrating the fact that “Jesus died for our sins,” but we really don’t like thinking about what it means for God to die on a cross and we especially don’t like thinking about what the implications might be for us.

Because when we do begin to think about the implications of such an act by God, something becomes quite apparent quite fast.

The cross has no place in Evangelical Christianity.

Evangelical Christianity proudly proclaims a big, awesome, all powerful God, building its foundation on God’s greatness and might. The cross stands in stark contrast to such a God. On the cross we see God beaten, bruised, and dying. Without realizing it we often explain this away by talking about how God gave His Son to die as if, implicitly, the Son was somehow less than God and therefore able to perform such a lowly act. In doing so, we free ourselves from the scandal of a God who “though being in the form of God did not consider equality with God something to be exploited, rather he made himself nothing….[and] humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross.”

What we want is a God who goes to battle for us, who fights off our enemies, who conquers and destroys in one fell swoop, and then turns to us and says “Go and do likewise.”

But this God who so willing allows the weak to conquer the strong, who meets violence with peace, and who dies for His enemies rather than destroying them with weapons of war turns our understanding of power and might upside down.

Which means in a Evangelical world built around a big, awesome, all powerful God there is no place for the cross.

But make no mistake.

It was God who hung beaten, bruised, and dying on that cross.

It was also God who was stripped naked before being nailed to that cross.

We brush this away, quite literally, by painting a white cloth on Jesus to hide his “shame.” But victims of Roman crucifixion were not afforded such a luxury. Jesus, like the countless crucifixion victims before and after him, was stripped naked in order to maximize his humility.

Which means God hung fully exposed before His creation, His most intimate parts on display for all of creation to see.

In an Evangelical world profoundly uncomfortable with sexuality and the human body, this may be the most scandalous part of the crucifixion. We may be able to find a way to be okay with Jesus dying, but we will have nothing to do with such “shameful” nudity. And yet, there hangs a naked God on the cross, his damaged sexuality for all to see.

However, our evangelical sensibilities will not allow us to confront this raw display of the human body, which means the full reality of Jesus’ death on the cross has no place in evangelical Christianity

But Jesus wasn’t simply stripped of his clothes. The act of crucifixion was a stripping of everything he owned, everything he was, and everyone he every knew.

He was left to die alone and empty.

Perhaps nothing stands in such stark relief to Evangelical Christianity than this simple fact, this simple lack of prosperity. Most of us brush aside the blatant prosperity gospel preached by so many televangelists, that false gospel that proclaims God wants us all to be rich. But the truth is prosperity permeates all of evangelicalism.

The best churches, the best preachers, the best Christians are the ones who are the most prosperous, who live the most successful lives, who preach before the biggest congregations, who worship in the largest churches. We may not willing to just come out and say “God wants me to be rich,” but we have no problem crying out when that prosperity doesn’t come as if it were someone a debt God owed to us as part of our agreement to follow Him. And we certainly have no problem going out of our way to avoid anything and everything that might make us uncomfortable, or worse, cause us to part ways with the things, or people, we have worked so hard to get.

And yet there on the cross hung Jesus, left to die alone, broken and empty, stripped of everything he had and everyone he knew. Which, once again, means there is not place for a prosperity destroying cross in Evangelical Christianity.

You see, what is so scandalous about the cross, what makes it so off putting to visitors, and so uncomfortable for those of us who claim the title “Christian” is that it opposes the success, pride, prosperity, and comfort we are told by the world we should value most.

The scandal of the cross is that it is not a sign of pride and victory, but of humility and defeat.

Yes, there is hope and victory in the resurrection. But to get to Easter Sunday, we must pass through Good Friday.

Or, as Jesus once told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow him.”

That cross is about humility.

Taking it up means we take what comes with it. It means we must be prepared to be stripped of everything we have, to be exposed for all to see, and, ultimately, to be broken, to be bruised, and to die.

Only then will we find life.

But if there’s anything that doesn’t have a place in Evangelical Christianity, particularly American Evangelical Christianity, it’s humility.

Which means, in turn, there is no place for the cross in Evangelical Christianity.

What we are left with instead is a cross-less Christianity, a Christ-less Christianity, a Christianity that’s been domesticated to suit our own tastes, desires, and personal comfort.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution for this calamity.

To become the Christ-like people we claim to be we must face the reality our own pride and find the courage to ask ourselves honestly….

Are we actually willing to pick up our crosses and be crucified with Christ or is the cross the place where our faith stops?

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

A friend of mine shared this on Facebook today and I thought it was pretty amusing.

And slightly awesome.

Lightsaber AND a jetpack in heaven? Um, yes please.

Of course, there are a couple things I’d want to trade out or at least add.

I was never a big fan of Firefly, so if I could get never ending seasons of Arrested Development, Michael Scott era The Office, and/or King of the Hill that would be pretty fantastic.

Also, I get that harps are the traditional heavenly instrument, but can I switch that out for Jimi Hendrix’s guitar?

Call me a heretic, but I’ll pass on the John Lennon album. How about a new Led Zeppelin album instead?

Oh, and no heavenly welcome basket of mine would be complete without unlimited gift certificates to In-N-Out and Oklahoma Joe’s.

But that’s just me.

What would you want in your heavenly welcome basket?

[Image via]

 
We live in a bottom line society.

If something isn’t efficient enough, if it doesn’t get the job done, or, most importantly, if it doesn’t make money, we get rid of it or ignore altogether in the first place.

Whether in business, church, or just day to day life, many of the decisions we make are based on what’s best for the bottom line, what makes the most sense in light of our resources, or what will be the most beneficial to us in the end.

Which means the people and things we cherish the most are those that are the most efficient, the most productive, and the most profitable.

In turn, this means there is no greater secular sin than being good for nothing.

If something is good for nothing, we toss it aside, trash it, vilify it, and go out of our way to make sure no one else bothers wasting their time, money, or energy on something or someone that is good for nothing.

Which is what makes God so particularly confusing and frustrating, if not altogether off putting.

God doesn’t always make sense. God doesn’t always do what is most efficient. God certainly doesn’t do what would be most beneficial to God.

Perhaps “worst” of all, God is good for no reason. That is say, God is good regardless of profitability.

God loves in the face of rejection. God gives grace even though it’s exploited. God forgives even as God is being trampled on. God gives when it isn’t deserved.

God is good for nothing.

For no reason.

For no profit.

God is good simply because God chooses to be good, not because of what God may get out of it. After all, God is not in need of anything.

This is, once again, what makes God so particularly confusing and frustrating, if not altogether off putting for those of us who live in a society consumed by the bottom line, where everything must have a purpose, a reason, a potential for profit.

But God’s love has no motive.

God simply loves.

Sure, God wants us to return that love, but God doesn’t force it and God certainly doesn’t stop loving when that love doesn’t see a return on its investment.

This is why Jesus tells the rich young ruler to sell everything and give the money to the poor. It’s not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with money or wealth. It’s because the man had a motive in wanting to follow Jesus. He wasn’t in love in Jesus. He wanted what Jesus could do for him.

But that’s not the sort of life Jesus calls his follower to. Jesus calls his people to simply love like God loves.

To be good for nothing.

This is why we hear so many people talk about the Christian life, but few actually live it. Being good for nothing is a scary thing. It requires us to abandon our need for profit, efficiency, and the sense of security that come with them.

It means taking care of the poor even though they didn’t do anything to earn it. It means forgiving even when forgiveness isn’t asked for. It means extending grace to those who actively seek our demise.

It means pouring out one’s life without exception of gain, but simply out of love for God and neighbor.

This is the sort of life we see embodied by Jesus in the Gospels.

And this is the sort of God we encounter in Scripture.

But this sort of God doesn’t fit very well into our modern bottom line society. In fact, this sort of God stands in stark opposition to it.

Because this sort of God is good for nothing.

But that is the very thing that makes God worthy of our worship.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

Yesterday I shared the SNL spoof “DJesus Uncrossed.”

Even without knowing it was from SNL you probably could have probably figured out on your own that it wasn’t a real movie.

Well, it may not be, but it seems “Fist of Jesus” is.

Or at least its creators want it to be.

There’s not a lot of information about this on the Fist of Jesus website.

Not even a description of what it’s supposed to be about.

They are, however, collecting donations to turn their short film into a feature one.

My first guess was that this was/is some sort of joke along the lines of the SNL parody and maybe it is. But at least the existence of the short film isn’t a joke.

It’s very real.

It’s in Spanish (with English subtitles).

And [WARNING] it’s pretty gory.

Anyway, check it out for yourself, and if you’ve got any inside information on this, um, project, let me know.

Real or fake?

ONE MORE WARNING – This is pretty violent.

You don’t get much more “American Jesus” than this.

Over the weekend SNL gave Jesus the Quentin Tarantino treatment with their movie spoof “DJesus Uncrossed” in which Jesus rolls away the stone with his bare hands, grabs his guns, and gets revenge on the bad guys who put him there.

Somewhere in Seattle I imagine Mark Driscoll sitting on his couch watching this and shouting “That’s my Jesus!”

Of course, he’s probably not the only one.

As my friend David Henson points out,

In the end, whatever the fallout from the skit, American Christianity didn’t need Tarantino or SNL or anyone in Hollywood to think up something as absurd and as base and as hysterically inaccurate as DJesus Uncrossed.

We’ve already done that for ourselves.

Say what you will about how offensive SNL’s sketch was. Our popular theology is more so. Because we should know better.

Anyway, check out the video for yourself and let me know what you think: perfect satire or blasphemous spoof?