It's the last night of class. I'm talking about masturbation. I wish I was home, not because I'm ashamed to talk about masturbation in front of conservative people (though it might be fun and I'll be disappointed if no one challenges my thoughts), no, I wish I was home because I'm over this class and these people.
I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago I was trying to listen to public radio and a report on Iraq or some such nonsense when a crappy Christian song started interferring with the reception. It went something like this:
"In Iraq today, 25 people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a LORD YOU ARE EVERYTHING I NEED AND I WANT TO reactions were mixed, and though no group claimed responsibility THE WATER I NEED, THE PLACE I CAN GO TO LOVE and to date, the deadliest attack in the Basra region WHENEVER I CALL TO YOU."
It is so like Christians to think that their worship is more valid than the ills of the world. I know it wasn't intentional, but if our only response to pain and suffering is a clanging gong or resounding symbol. It's crappy. I don't like it.
I'm reading Hunter S. Thompson right now. He's a badass. I think I want to be like him, except for the killing oneself. I can recognize that it was the only way out for him and that his character demanded it, but for catssake, that boy can write! I finished a Bukowski book earlier this month too and I just right now as I'm sitting here recognize that these men experienced first and wrote what they felt. It makes sense; both of them wrote in about the same period of time and I wonder if it's an American phenomenon (Hemingway, et al). Probably not, but what can you do?
I don't know if my faith is mine.
Peace.
6.19.2006
6.12.2006
You can't raise a baby on motor oil
It's been interesting.
I think I'm running out of seratonin. I've been sleeping a lot. And I just found out tonight that I have to write a bunch for my class. I think I'll write about masturbation. Or having In God We Trust on money. I know I wrote about that before, but it would be nice to reuse my other stats. I'm just afraid its too vague a topic.
Danielle is working a lot. The World Cup is going on. Wayne and I are going to watch the U.S. play the Czech Republic that I Tivo'd tomorrow. Bad English. Tomorrow, Wayne and I are going to watch a private airing of the U.S. vs Czech Republic World Cup Game that originally aired today at 9 am. And I'm going to drink beer and cook polish dogs.
I really don't want to write these papers. It seems like overkill. Hate the man, serve the man.
Peace.
I think I'm running out of seratonin. I've been sleeping a lot. And I just found out tonight that I have to write a bunch for my class. I think I'll write about masturbation. Or having In God We Trust on money. I know I wrote about that before, but it would be nice to reuse my other stats. I'm just afraid its too vague a topic.
Danielle is working a lot. The World Cup is going on. Wayne and I are going to watch the U.S. play the Czech Republic that I Tivo'd tomorrow. Bad English. Tomorrow, Wayne and I are going to watch a private airing of the U.S. vs Czech Republic World Cup Game that originally aired today at 9 am. And I'm going to drink beer and cook polish dogs.
I really don't want to write these papers. It seems like overkill. Hate the man, serve the man.
Peace.
6.05.2006
It's been a long December and there's reason to believe...
It's a slow night in class.
I'm trying to write a paper on masturbation. It would seem that from an ethical standpoint the Bible is nice and vague on it, while there are people on both sides of the issue on this side of AD. All that to say, I'm afraid that most of my paper will be concessions and the rest will be vauge. What a way to live.
There is not a lot else going on with me. Danielle is in school two nights a week and sometimes working three days a week. The pay is nice?
I really like summer. I really don't like working in the summer. I need to teach during the school year and get summer's off. Done and done.
I tried to get Radiohead tickets but it sold out in about 15 seconds. Rat bastards. And I heard Thom Yorke is releasing a solo album in July. Hope it's better than Billy Corgan's.
There's a great lady in our class whose name is Marva. She brings in her laptop, powercord, powerstrip, and A PRINTER to class each week about 20 minutes late, boots up with volume high, and never turns off her sound. It is hilarious. One time, her phone rang 3 different times with volume high and she didn't turn it off. At one point, she pulled it out and looked at it and THEN PUT IT RIGHT BACK. Lovely. I would love to have a camera follow her around all day. She is a character.
Speaking of characters, I didn't call Mom and Dad this weekend. Everytime I do, they seem to want to talk about Stephen. Rabble rousers? Who can say. But I'd still cuss Stephen out if I had the chance. Just because...
Peace everywhere.
I'm trying to write a paper on masturbation. It would seem that from an ethical standpoint the Bible is nice and vague on it, while there are people on both sides of the issue on this side of AD. All that to say, I'm afraid that most of my paper will be concessions and the rest will be vauge. What a way to live.
There is not a lot else going on with me. Danielle is in school two nights a week and sometimes working three days a week. The pay is nice?
I really like summer. I really don't like working in the summer. I need to teach during the school year and get summer's off. Done and done.
I tried to get Radiohead tickets but it sold out in about 15 seconds. Rat bastards. And I heard Thom Yorke is releasing a solo album in July. Hope it's better than Billy Corgan's.
There's a great lady in our class whose name is Marva. She brings in her laptop, powercord, powerstrip, and A PRINTER to class each week about 20 minutes late, boots up with volume high, and never turns off her sound. It is hilarious. One time, her phone rang 3 different times with volume high and she didn't turn it off. At one point, she pulled it out and looked at it and THEN PUT IT RIGHT BACK. Lovely. I would love to have a camera follow her around all day. She is a character.
Speaking of characters, I didn't call Mom and Dad this weekend. Everytime I do, they seem to want to talk about Stephen. Rabble rousers? Who can say. But I'd still cuss Stephen out if I had the chance. Just because...
Peace everywhere.
5.15.2006
Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy?
I have the Gnarls Barkley song stuck in my head. So it goes.
I'm reading more Dave Eggers. I really like him. I'm reading AHWSG, his memoirs about raising his brother after his parents die within 5 months of each other. He has such a refreshing style to his writing and it's nice to be talked to as an equal while reading. I also have a Ian McEwan book that I should start because his prose is beautiful, just beautiful, and I wish I could write like that.
I am planning my last two classes right now. It looks like I might get to take some Christian Ethics class on terrorism, or might have to, I guess. If I want to be done in December, it looks like I'll get to take something like that. And then a Sumner class to finish it all off. I wish this school had more options available, because it's a little lame that I have to take something that I'm not really interested in to finish. I have to waste electives on classes I'd elect not to take if given the chance. Fight everyone.
Saw M:I:III today. I hate the title and I hate the font in the movie that transitions the viewer from location to location. It was miserable. The movie was okay, but Tom Cruise is crazy. And I have it on good rumor that he might be gay. Like I care.
I hope to love the sensual.
Peace.
I'm reading more Dave Eggers. I really like him. I'm reading AHWSG, his memoirs about raising his brother after his parents die within 5 months of each other. He has such a refreshing style to his writing and it's nice to be talked to as an equal while reading. I also have a Ian McEwan book that I should start because his prose is beautiful, just beautiful, and I wish I could write like that.
I am planning my last two classes right now. It looks like I might get to take some Christian Ethics class on terrorism, or might have to, I guess. If I want to be done in December, it looks like I'll get to take something like that. And then a Sumner class to finish it all off. I wish this school had more options available, because it's a little lame that I have to take something that I'm not really interested in to finish. I have to waste electives on classes I'd elect not to take if given the chance. Fight everyone.
Saw M:I:III today. I hate the title and I hate the font in the movie that transitions the viewer from location to location. It was miserable. The movie was okay, but Tom Cruise is crazy. And I have it on good rumor that he might be gay. Like I care.
I hope to love the sensual.
Peace.
5.08.2006
While we were staying with Danielle's folks in the hotel room, everyone was asleep and I couldn't get comfortable. Then I noticed how incredibly warm I was. No matter what I did, take off my shirt, go outside for a few minutes, fan myself, I couldn't cool down at all. Eventually, I calmed down and decided to put in earplugs because her dad is a notoriously loud snorer and there were some partiers across the street. (By the way, the next morning I saw the testicles of one of those partiers as he burst out the door holding them out for his friends to see.)
After I put the earplugs in, I remembered why I hate them. All I can hear and feel is my heart beating, and that scares me, like it's one of those things I shouldn't think about or else it will get self-conscious and quit under the pressure. And then I remembered that that's why I don't like being under water; I can hear the one thing that separates me from death and it's unsettling. It's not a fear of water, it's a fear of self.
I also had some other thoughts I thought would be profound in the morning but it never works out that way. Everything seems clear and vague at the same time when you are falling asleep and if there were some way to record those thoughts, it would be the most pure poetry and art ever created. Let's get onto that project, okay eggheads?
After I put the earplugs in, I remembered why I hate them. All I can hear and feel is my heart beating, and that scares me, like it's one of those things I shouldn't think about or else it will get self-conscious and quit under the pressure. And then I remembered that that's why I don't like being under water; I can hear the one thing that separates me from death and it's unsettling. It's not a fear of water, it's a fear of self.
I also had some other thoughts I thought would be profound in the morning but it never works out that way. Everything seems clear and vague at the same time when you are falling asleep and if there were some way to record those thoughts, it would be the most pure poetry and art ever created. Let's get onto that project, okay eggheads?
The taste of love is sweet, when hearts like ours meet
Here we go.
My parents in law just left this morning to return to AZ. It was nice having them out here. Stephen is staying with us this weekend and I can honestly say I just don't get his relationship. Everyday he spends about an hour fighting with her on the phone and it just doesn't seem enjoyable. But it's what he wants. So do we discourage the relationship? How do you convince someone that life is better than what they are accepting? I just point and laugh and hope that someone will do the same for me.
Pablo Honey came in the mail. Still haven't listened to it. And I did start reading Interview with the Vampire. It's an interesting concept, but it hasn't enraptured me the same way Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt did.
Time to not learn.
My parents in law just left this morning to return to AZ. It was nice having them out here. Stephen is staying with us this weekend and I can honestly say I just don't get his relationship. Everyday he spends about an hour fighting with her on the phone and it just doesn't seem enjoyable. But it's what he wants. So do we discourage the relationship? How do you convince someone that life is better than what they are accepting? I just point and laugh and hope that someone will do the same for me.
Pablo Honey came in the mail. Still haven't listened to it. And I did start reading Interview with the Vampire. It's an interesting concept, but it hasn't enraptured me the same way Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt did.
Time to not learn.
5.04.2006
But who would wanna be, who would wanna be, such a control freak
In Church and Society we are discussing how patriotic Christians should be. I wish I could have discussions like this all the time. It is a massively dividing issue, but somehow, we have only gotten a little emotional about it. There are so many issues tied to it (authority, identity, orderliness, etc.) and we could spend all night talking about it. My wife would hate this discussion. There is no definite answer.
I just found out I got a 92% on my final. That's great. And it's official: I'm never studying for anything again. Unless it's important.
Time to review that final. Oooooo boy.
I just found out I got a 92% on my final. That's great. And it's official: I'm never studying for anything again. Unless it's important.
Time to review that final. Oooooo boy.
5.01.2006
Yeah, I know he's a pretty good read...
I just bought a Bukowski book and thought about Modest Mouse. And I've been reading a book about Radiohead and have been loving it. So I bought Pablo Honey. Which I don't think I've ever heard all of. When they come to LA, I'm buying tickets even if I have to sell my child.
We are talking about Xian ethics right now. I think. It's horribly boring and I want to hit something just to prove my point. So I'm gonna take this bag of puppies, gonna set it out to freeze.
We're looking at a stereo system for our house right now. I am way too impulsive to make a decision like that. I wonder at what point does a person become incapable of making their own mind up? I spent a few days researching what bike to buy, then ended up buying one at WalMart for 100 bucks. But I never use it. So even though I spent time thinking about it, it was just whether or not I wanted a specific model, not whether or not I need it. My question is this: where is that voice of reason when I'm decided on the relevance of a product? I think it sold out. And the devil was ebay.
I'm still writing my paper on whether or not "In God We Trust" belongs on U.S. currency. I started out with a strong no, but now I think I'm drifting towards, meh, leave it. Is the idealist dying? Or is the idealist meeting the realist? I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Time to learn. Or look at myspace.
Peace.
We are talking about Xian ethics right now. I think. It's horribly boring and I want to hit something just to prove my point. So I'm gonna take this bag of puppies, gonna set it out to freeze.
We're looking at a stereo system for our house right now. I am way too impulsive to make a decision like that. I wonder at what point does a person become incapable of making their own mind up? I spent a few days researching what bike to buy, then ended up buying one at WalMart for 100 bucks. But I never use it. So even though I spent time thinking about it, it was just whether or not I wanted a specific model, not whether or not I need it. My question is this: where is that voice of reason when I'm decided on the relevance of a product? I think it sold out. And the devil was ebay.
I'm still writing my paper on whether or not "In God We Trust" belongs on U.S. currency. I started out with a strong no, but now I think I'm drifting towards, meh, leave it. Is the idealist dying? Or is the idealist meeting the realist? I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Time to learn. Or look at myspace.
Peace.
4.24.2006
Here I go again on my own
Yeehaw. I'm back in class, I hit the glass.
I just took a Sumner final on Church and Society. It went well, but I can never tell what that translates too. Probably a nice hit in the mouth.
Got back from Mexico on Friday. It went pretty well. Wayne and I were rockstars on stage and made a lot of good connections with some kids. There are a lot of screwed up people out there, though, and the church misses a lot of them. Meth, weed, alcohol, all of it, these kids are doing it at 13 and 14. But we assume that their biggest problem is that they need more worship or memorization of Bible verses. No, what these kids need is to be loved, but love with a capital L. They need to know Love.
Just a thought. Time to learn...
I just took a Sumner final on Church and Society. It went well, but I can never tell what that translates too. Probably a nice hit in the mouth.
Got back from Mexico on Friday. It went pretty well. Wayne and I were rockstars on stage and made a lot of good connections with some kids. There are a lot of screwed up people out there, though, and the church misses a lot of them. Meth, weed, alcohol, all of it, these kids are doing it at 13 and 14. But we assume that their biggest problem is that they need more worship or memorization of Bible verses. No, what these kids need is to be loved, but love with a capital L. They need to know Love.
Just a thought. Time to learn...
4.10.2006
I could sing of your love forever
I'm in Mexico now. In an internet cafe. The title is from a song people are singing in camp. I don't like the song.
I haven't posted in a while. Work was crazy and I didn't have class for awhile, so I didn't post. Life is okay. MySpace is a threat to our youngsters.
Time for a nap or something. So long stinktown.
I haven't posted in a while. Work was crazy and I didn't have class for awhile, so I didn't post. Life is okay. MySpace is a threat to our youngsters.
Time for a nap or something. So long stinktown.
3.10.2006
I love the money and the girls and the shame of life
The title is from a Butthole Surfer songs. "Now, with more flavor!"
Our video project is moving forward. The boys at Chronicle Project have taken it upon themselves to raise funds to get this done, and that is an incredible step forward. That means we won't be tied to our own fundraising efforts and that they can move as they want.
Yesterday I went to court. I lost. On the plus side, it didn't cost me anything more. On the minus side, I didn't get my $351 back. Poo on everyone.
Apparently a group of Japanese people killed themselves after meeting on the internet. I mean, after all meeting on the internet, they decided to kill themselves and then did. It's a very odd side-effect of having access to the world. I've spent the last 8 minutes reading news reports of similar cases (there's one from PHX were a 21 year old student kills himself while people watch him on his webcam) and it's very eerie. The fact that 1) we don't see death other than through a screen and 2) we kill ourselves and broadcast it, leads me to believe that something is off. I don't like feeling uncomfortable and death definitely makes me feel that way. Oh well. Death and taxes, right?
Peace to all. March is a busy month.
Our video project is moving forward. The boys at Chronicle Project have taken it upon themselves to raise funds to get this done, and that is an incredible step forward. That means we won't be tied to our own fundraising efforts and that they can move as they want.
Yesterday I went to court. I lost. On the plus side, it didn't cost me anything more. On the minus side, I didn't get my $351 back. Poo on everyone.
Apparently a group of Japanese people killed themselves after meeting on the internet. I mean, after all meeting on the internet, they decided to kill themselves and then did. It's a very odd side-effect of having access to the world. I've spent the last 8 minutes reading news reports of similar cases (there's one from PHX were a 21 year old student kills himself while people watch him on his webcam) and it's very eerie. The fact that 1) we don't see death other than through a screen and 2) we kill ourselves and broadcast it, leads me to believe that something is off. I don't like feeling uncomfortable and death definitely makes me feel that way. Oh well. Death and taxes, right?
Peace to all. March is a busy month.
3.02.2006
Riders on the Storm
Life has been well. I just got back from PHX on Monday after hanging out with my parents over the weekend. It was very odd. My parents are old and crazy, and I love them a lot. We went to my grandparent's gravesite in northern Phoenix. It was kind of surreal to see the name Schoon on a gravestone and realize that "everyone you know, someday, will die." Even me. Later that night I was trying to fall asleep and creeped myself out thinking about final breaths, the experience of death, and all that stuff. I kind of swing on a pendulum in response to the brevity of life: hedonism to asceticism, indulgence to restraint.
I'm reading a great book on worldviews. Meic Pearse has a book called Why the Rest Hates the West. It details the effects of the Enlightenment on Western culture and its excesses and how it has distinctly affected how we are treated by other cultures. It's brilliant.
The video project on the Standards of Excellence in STMs is kind of taking off. We met again today and realized we need to raise $250,000 for four documentaries. I hope we can do it. This would be a rad project to give to Mexico Outreach before I left.
Wayne thinks I should watch The Sopranos. I'll pray about it. Speaking of praying, I observed Ash Wednesday yesterday. I actually had a physiological response to the campus pastor when he said, "Christians all over the world will be celebrating this date today." I felt connected to a worldwide body and somehow refreshing. I gotta go Catholic. By the way, I couldn't figure out what to give up for Lent so I didn't give up anything. What is obedience worth when it's impulsive? I have no idea.
Peace to all.
I'm reading a great book on worldviews. Meic Pearse has a book called Why the Rest Hates the West. It details the effects of the Enlightenment on Western culture and its excesses and how it has distinctly affected how we are treated by other cultures. It's brilliant.
The video project on the Standards of Excellence in STMs is kind of taking off. We met again today and realized we need to raise $250,000 for four documentaries. I hope we can do it. This would be a rad project to give to Mexico Outreach before I left.
Wayne thinks I should watch The Sopranos. I'll pray about it. Speaking of praying, I observed Ash Wednesday yesterday. I actually had a physiological response to the campus pastor when he said, "Christians all over the world will be celebrating this date today." I felt connected to a worldwide body and somehow refreshing. I gotta go Catholic. By the way, I couldn't figure out what to give up for Lent so I didn't give up anything. What is obedience worth when it's impulsive? I have no idea.
Peace to all.
2.09.2006
A seven nation army couldn't hold me back
It has been a while since I posted. That's embarassing. To whom, I don't know, but I bet someone is really embarassed right now.
I was going to post about my pride because I think I remember getting in some disagreement or something. Oh yeah, I was at the Coldplay concert and trying to sell my tickets and a couple of guys outside ("professional" scalpers) were much more aggressive than I was. I kept on thinking that I should be like them to sell my tickets, but I just could not stop thinking about was if I looked cool or not throughout the whole thing. And then I kept thinking about it the whole night.
What if I didn't? What if I wasn't so concerned about what people thought about me? How would my life be different? And I don't mean in just the commercial cliche "life your own life" kind of crap. What if I were not afraid of humankind? Holy crud that would be incredible. I think that makes Jesus so much more incredible (or Gandhi, or MLK, or etc) to me because it is such a rare thing. To be able to shed the cultural, social, and personal skins that keep all of us following each other around aimlessly is so far removed from where I am that I can barely understand it. Maybe someday.
Someone else stood in the middle of the road while I drove by. He eyed me too. It seems to be haunting me (cf. this day) all over the place. Maybe I'll hit someone someday.
Time for learning. Peace.
I was going to post about my pride because I think I remember getting in some disagreement or something. Oh yeah, I was at the Coldplay concert and trying to sell my tickets and a couple of guys outside ("professional" scalpers) were much more aggressive than I was. I kept on thinking that I should be like them to sell my tickets, but I just could not stop thinking about was if I looked cool or not throughout the whole thing. And then I kept thinking about it the whole night.
What if I didn't? What if I wasn't so concerned about what people thought about me? How would my life be different? And I don't mean in just the commercial cliche "life your own life" kind of crap. What if I were not afraid of humankind? Holy crud that would be incredible. I think that makes Jesus so much more incredible (or Gandhi, or MLK, or etc) to me because it is such a rare thing. To be able to shed the cultural, social, and personal skins that keep all of us following each other around aimlessly is so far removed from where I am that I can barely understand it. Maybe someday.
Someone else stood in the middle of the road while I drove by. He eyed me too. It seems to be haunting me (cf. this day) all over the place. Maybe I'll hit someone someday.
Time for learning. Peace.
2.02.2006
Doo doo doo doo, da da da da, is all I want to say to you
Class is pretty good tonight. We're talking about the role of Christianity in culture. T.S. Eliot might have provided some pretty crappy fodder for a play but he did okay with Christanity and Culture. I still don't get most of it, but he basically says that the best way to form a society is to borrow ethics from Christianity. And he does so in a way that is overwhelmingly scholarly.
Europe planning is interesting/exciting. I am looking forward to the adventure of it. Dear and the Headlights is not playing Coachella. I thought it would be cool if they did. Time to listen.
Peace.
Europe planning is interesting/exciting. I am looking forward to the adventure of it. Dear and the Headlights is not playing Coachella. I thought it would be cool if they did. Time to listen.
Peace.
1.30.2006
Someone to hear your prayers, someone who cares
I'm turning in a paper tonight on the cultural icon of Jesus. I posted it right before this one.
I have a problem with anger. At least I think I do. The other day I was driving in the Citrus College Parking Lot, probably going a little too fast, and a man walking towards me stumbled into my lane. I slowed down a little bit and as I passed him, I heard him say, "Get off the phone!" I slammed on my brakes, came to a squealing stop and paused for a moment. It was at this time I realized that he had intentionally stepped into my lane to teach me a lesson on how to drive. This hurt me, because I'm the best driver in the world.
I yelled back "WHAT?" (Like I was going to step to these...)
He kept walking away and I stepped on the gas like any angry person would. It wasn't not very dramatic because my car takes 8 miles to get to 50 miles an hour, so the effect wasn't very intimidating, but I was pissed. And I kept thinking about it and wishing I would have stopped and kicked his ass.
And that's not nice. I think it was the realization that it was only pride that kept me angry that humbled me the most. This pride stuff, man, it's gonna get me. Booooo. What if I had just kept going and smiled at him? I guess that sounds simplistic and probably not very realistic, but I was a very ugly person in that car, and that's not helpful.
Time for class. Peace to all.
I have a problem with anger. At least I think I do. The other day I was driving in the Citrus College Parking Lot, probably going a little too fast, and a man walking towards me stumbled into my lane. I slowed down a little bit and as I passed him, I heard him say, "Get off the phone!" I slammed on my brakes, came to a squealing stop and paused for a moment. It was at this time I realized that he had intentionally stepped into my lane to teach me a lesson on how to drive. This hurt me, because I'm the best driver in the world.
I yelled back "WHAT?" (Like I was going to step to these...)
He kept walking away and I stepped on the gas like any angry person would. It wasn't not very dramatic because my car takes 8 miles to get to 50 miles an hour, so the effect wasn't very intimidating, but I was pissed. And I kept thinking about it and wishing I would have stopped and kicked his ass.
And that's not nice. I think it was the realization that it was only pride that kept me angry that humbled me the most. This pride stuff, man, it's gonna get me. Booooo. What if I had just kept going and smiled at him? I guess that sounds simplistic and probably not very realistic, but I was a very ugly person in that car, and that's not helpful.
Time for class. Peace to all.
Pick up the receiver, I'll make you a believer
Your Own Personal Jesus: How an Icon Can Be Lord of Your Life
On their 1990 release of their album Violator, Depeche Mode included a song titled “Personal Jesus.” The stiff funk/hip hop beat and simplistic guitar chords are reminiscent of a tribal song as lead singer David Gahan tells the listener how they can own their “own personal Jesus/someone to hear [their] prayers/someone who cares.” All the listener needs to do is “lift up the receiver,” which will “make [them] a believer.” The album is considered to be one of Depeche Mode’s finest, and “Personal Jesus” has been remade by everyone from goth-rocker Marilyn Manson to country music legend Johnny Cash.
It seems odd, at first glance, that a song about Jesus would thrive in popular American culture. Fundamentalist Christians often claim they are being persecuted by the secular culture, while the secular culture decries the agenda of those who seek to marry church and state. Controversies erupt over prayer before football games, Ten Commandments in courtrooms, and evolution in classrooms. There does not seem to be an arena in which the controversy over religion has not reached unless, of course, it is in the marketplace.
Jesus sells records, books, t-shirts, and trinkets all across America. The epitome of paradox in American thought (religion mixed with capitalism, the sacred and profane) finds fruition in the icon of Jesus. Although Jesus remains a pillar of evangelical faith, the marketing of Jesus in America as an icon has diluted the transformational character Jesus could be to the secular community.
Why We Sell Jesus
The phenomenon of marketing the faith is decidedly “new” in comparison to the chronology of the Christian faith. “A century ago we didn’t have Christian stores in shopping malls selling rock music, diet books, and T-shirts. After one hundred fifty years of Darwinian science, a succession of scientific triumphs that have enabled human beings to create life in a laboratory, a sexual revolution, and a generation reared without school prayer, nine out of ten Americans say that they believe in God.” But a question must be asked, how did a man who lived in 1st century Palestine come to mean so much to so many people living in America two-thousand years later?
One must first consider the formative years of the country to truly comprehend the impact the foreparents of this country had on religion and the marketplace. Prior to the foundation of the United States, religion and state worked alongside one another—albeit grudgingly in some cases. In the words of R. Laurence Moore, “[t]he state grew powerful by encroaching upon the church, but the church responded by filling the state bureaucracies with its men.” However, when the United States formed its government, those who composed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights included a clause that guaranteed that the state would never make a law that respected “an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Interestingly, some of these same framers wrote in the Declaration of Independence that men held certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These two documents ensured one thing: that an individual had the right to decide what was best for him or herself. This mindset spilled into the economy, which developed into a free market system based on Adam Smith’s ideas. As such, capitalism was born in America. “Beginning with the French Revolution and the American Civil War, the ‘common man’ became convinced he had as much to lost or to gain in a war as did a king, so it was not unreasonable for him to die fighting for the nation. After all, after the Enlightenment and the nations produced by it, the ‘common man’ was king.”
However, this approach did not come without cost. Capitalism bled into the church, where suddenly an individual held as much “pull” in a congregation as any leader in the church. “Capitalism thrives in a climate where ‘rights’ are the main political agenda. The church becomes one more consumer-oriented organization, existing to encourage individual fulfillment rather than being a crucible to engender individual conversion into the Body.” In essence, the church had to compete with popular culture for the attention of its members, and the easiest symbol to cling to and market was Jesus. “The ‘science’ of modern advertising encouraged Protestant churches to differentiate themselves by something other than church doctrine. For example...Methodist churches did not sell themselves as a surer way to heaven than Baptist churches.” Instead, Methodist churches began to look similarly to their Baptist brethren as they each chose to compete in the same marketplace for the same patrons.
This does not mean that the Church’s intentions were flawed, and it is too easy to blame (or credit) 18th and 19th century Christians for the state of the evangelical church today. Most likely, church leaders were simply trying to survive in the free market system. “[M]any Protestant religious figures were enormously inventive in adapting religion to American democratic culture. Trying to make religion enjoyable was a lot better than trying to impose religious conformity by law.” Religion in the formative stages of the United States transformed from being an institution (e.g. the Church of England) to being a personal decision based on preference. This description of religion—and as a result, religious symbols—fits well into current theories regarding icons. “…[R]eligious symbols and stories are, like so much else in contemporary culture, cut loose, free floating, fluid. They do not disappear. Rather, they reappear as culture resources.”
Who Sold Jesus
If Jesus can be viewed as a “culture resource” instead of a culture shaper, the Jesus sold in this environment will match the culture and values of the respective eras, whether abolitionist, prohibitionist, civil rights, or Victorianism women. And if Jesus looked like the era, the prophetic value of the church would be limited to the understanding of Jesus as he fits the culture. Rather than preaching against the potential ills that accompany capitalism and individualism (or any social structure, for that matter) which might offend the “customer,” Protestant churches instead looked to the needs of the people. It was not the miracle worker Jesus that made logical sense, it was the powerful moral teacher (see Thomas Jefferson’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Library of Congress, 1904). It was not the judgmental Jesus who spoke against the wealthy that people wanted to hear about, they wanted to hear that they had a friend in Jesus (see P. P. Bliss and Ira Sankey’s “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs, 1875). It would appear that depictions of Jesus reveal more about the era in which they appear than they reveal about Jesus of Nazareth. Though Jesus can be traced through the history of American culture, two different periods best depict his adaptability to culture: the “sweet savior” of the 1800s, and the Jewish Jesus of the early 20th century.
Sweet Savior
For a large part of the 1800s, American Protestantism found commonality in Jesus. Christian leaders such as Henry Ward Beecher (brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe) found “the very genius of Christianity” not in the organization or institution of Christianity, but in the person of Jesus. According to Beecher “the fruit of the Bible is Christ. The rest to me is just what leaves are on an apple-tree.” It was because of this emphasis on Jesus that the churches in the 19th century could remain united despite denominational differences. Similarly, “Jesus piety also emerged out of the dynamic of the new free market in religion.” This free market allowed churches and leaders to market Jesus as a friend to parishioners, a marked difference from the relationship Jonathan Edwards envisioned in his famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon in 1741.
A new “friendlier” Jesus was portrayed as a child in Christmas hymns such as “It Came upon a Midnight Clear” (1849) and “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (1868) but also having distinctly feminine characteristics in other art, such as Bernard Plockhorst’s Christ Blessing the Children (1885). According to Prothero, the inspiration for this piece came from European paintings of the Madonna and Child, but in this piece, the baby is sitting on the lap of Jesus. Even when Jesus was portrayed as an adult, the images of him are “softer” than prior representations. In 1889, Heinrich Hoffman produced a painting entitled Head of Christ (see figure 1). In it, Jesus is not looking directly at the viewer; instead he is looking down (in submission?) and to his left. The unassuming pose evokes almost a sense of pity, which fits well into the view of Jesus as a humble friend. Not only did art pieces of the era echo the soft humanity of Jesus, popular literature about Jesus also reflected distinctly 19th century themes.
The first Jesus novel published in the United States (William Ware’s Julian: Or, Scenes in Judea) found shelves in 1841 and depicted a skeptic who followed Jesus, got to know him, and eventually became a believer. This was not a distant faith the main character experienced, it was a familiar man who became a friend. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), replete with abolitionist themes, emphasizes Jesus’ self-sacrificing love through the lives of Little Eva and Uncle Tom. The two protagonists “exemplify the feminine qualities attached to Jesus . . . They are pious and passive, submissive and sacrificial.” Numerous representations of Christ were made in this time period, but Jesus meant more to Americans as a “sweet savior” than anything else. In the years that followed, liberal Protestantism and an increased emphasis on historical accuracy and scientific proof ushered in an age that saw Jesus not as a Christian, but as a Jew.
The Jewish Jesus
The understanding that Jesus was Jewish did not happen overnight. Instead, there was an increased emphasis on the historical location, time, and setting of Jesus’ life that scholars began to appreciate in the early 1900s. Prior to that, most representations of Jesus depicted a fairly European face with dark hair and this was the image that was exported around the world (again, see fig. 1, Hoffman’s Head of Christ). “[A]lthough Jesus himself lived in the Near East, it was as a religion of Europe that his message came to the nations of the world and the islands of the sea—a religion of Europe both in the sense of a religion from Europe and, often, a religion about Europe as well.” Scholars—and popular culture—recognized this at the turn of the century and began to study further Jesus’ roots.
On Christmas Day in 1925, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise remarked that Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian, and Jews should accept him as one of their own. His comments sparked a controversy that ended in a rift in Jewish circles. Although Wise was not saying anything new (cf. Emil G. Hirsch’s “The Doctrines of Jesus,” 1894) the appearance of the debate in America shocked some Jews and caused others to reassess their understanding of Jesus of Nazareth. Joseph Klausner was one of the Reform Jews who wrote that Jesus was a Jew “to his fingertips,” and as a result, Jews had the unique ability to truly understand his teachings. It was within this era that Jesus came to be appreciated as a rabbi.
Two years after Wise made his remarks, filmmaker Cecille B. DeMille directed the 1927 blockbuster The King of Kings which critics felt unfairly blamed the Jews for Jesus’ death and feared it would ignite feelings of anti-Semitism. However, DeMille argued in his memoirs that the film portrayed Jesus as “the greatest Jew who ever lived.” The significance of this is that the director of a movie in Hollywood, if nothing else, sought to accurately portray his subject, not as a redeemer, not as a friend, but as a Jew. Whether he succeeded or not is for debate, but if DeMille’s words are truthful, the fact that Hollywood responded to cultural understandings of Jesus is monumental. Quite suddenly, it would seem, the shapers of popular culture discovered that how they portrayed Jesus garnered a reaction from the consuming public, Christian or otherwise.
Other movements certainly influenced this understanding of Jesus, but it was within these movements that Jesus gained a foothold in America as an icon. Other movements existed at similar times and will likely follow, but in looking at today’s understanding of Jesus, one can see the preceding understandings of Jesus distinctly influenced our current era, the iconic Jesus. This is the Jesus who is all things to all people, and yet meaningless at the same time. He is an icon that can mean the world to the faithful and be nothing at all to the non-Christian.
Jesus on the Dashboard
In 1966 popular musician John Lennon said that his Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” While Lennon’s comment might have been the most blasphemous thing a lot of American Protestants heard that year, it underlies an important idea: Jesus is an icon. “His comment certainly first brought the idea of Jesus as a celebrity to wide public attention.” No longer was Jesus someone, he was something. He was a celebrity who competed with other celebrities for fame. The American treatment of celebrity had now been bestowed upon Jesus and he would be featured everywhere as a marketable asset. What Jesus had that other celebrities didn’t, however, was the endorsement of the status quo.
Elvis was counterculture, Marilyn Monroe was counterculture, but Jesus was the mainstay in American culture and in some ways still is. It is much easier to use the icon of Jesus for shock value than other celebrities. And so now, Jesus can be used as a countercultural icon as well as supporter of the mainstream. “Today, when most people are used to seeing the flag or Jesus Christ on T-shirts, they nevertheless object strenuously to a photograph such as “Piss Christ” (an image of a crucifix, obscured and illuminated by urine, see fig. 2) or “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” Renee Cox’s depiction of a nude female Christ dining with her twelve disciples displayed at the Brooklyn Museum in early 2001.” Jesus does well as an icon of the profane and sacred. However, it is his icon within the Protestant community that profoundly reflects our current era.
Quite literally, there is a Christian alternative for virtually every “secular” merchandising product. “The Christian Booksellers Association started organizing commercial outlets for religious reading material in 1949. Now their outlets stock Christian-style Harlequin romances, Bible-based diet books (More of Jesus, Less of Me), lovemaking guides, and exercise books.” Music marketed as “Christian” can be found in Wal-Marts and Christian book stores alike. Along with the Christian alternatives to products, books about Jesus, shirts with his likeness on them, bumper stickers that quote him, movies that and more can all be found virtually everywhere. The nation of America has become increasingly Christian as the logo of Jesus spreads across America.
A distinct effect of this on the Protestant faith can be seen in the increased use of imagery in private worship. “Art historian David Morgan contends that American Protestants from Calvinist traditions…have largely set aside their historical fear that praying in front of an image of Jesus puts his Word at risk…By the mid-twentieth century, Morgan suggests, large numbers of Protestants, mainly women, had adopted the Catholic practice of venerating Jesus images.” According to Morgan, many Protestants had some type of image of Christ in their homes during the nineteenth century, but what was new in the twentieth century was the use of those images during prayer and meditation. Perhaps the most famous portrait of Jesus is by Warner Sallman (see figure 3). His Head of Christ (1940) is one of the most popular renditions of Jesus. In it, Jesus is looking slightly upward, head lit from behind but also maintaining a sense of orthodox glow about it.
On an experiential level, this makes sense. Americans like their celebrities to have faces. One only need look in an average supermarket in America to see the number of faces on the covers of magazines and tabloids featured at the checkout stands. If Jesus were alive today, the paparazzi would likely follow him around, too. The proliferation of icons in American life demands a faith that competes, images and all.
Another distinct effect of the exposure of Christ as an icon is that Jesus has become more a personal icon unlike any other in history. Jesus is one of the few marketable icons Americans can claim to know, defend, and base their religious values on. Within Protestant Evangelical circles, the question of salvation is boiled down to one question: “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” He is not just an icon; he is a friend whose face just happens to be the most exposed face in human history. As a result of his exposure, evangelicals proceed to purchase more “icons” and continue to perpetuate the marketability of Jesus.
Richard Wright Fox points to a Republican presidential primary debate in 2000 as further evidence of America’s odd relationship with Jesus. In this particular debate, presidential hopeful George W. Bush named Jesus Christ as the “political philosopher or thinker” he “most identif[ied] with” because “He changed my heart.” Bush went on to further explain himself, using highly personal language (i.e. he turned his “heart and [his] life over to Christ” and “accept[ed] Christ as savior” and as a result it “chang[ed] his life”). His response contrasts sharply with other responses from the debate (John Locke, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, et al) and yet seems to resonate deeply with many people. “A majority of Americans would answer the question just as he did, in the same ‘heart’ language. Jesus is their hero, their staff and support, their personal savior, as he has been for most Americans…”
The primary problem with the perpetuation of Jesus as an icon is that he means too much. Unlike corporate icons (which have paid staff devoted to the protection of their image), Jesus can be claimed by anyone and used as an endorsement. In 1998, Kevin Stacy took an existing engraving of Jesus kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane and placed the corporate slogan of Apple Computers (“Think Different”) over Jesus’ head. The image of Jesus praying, face illuminated with eyes looking skyward, with a popular slogan so close to his body deftly portrays the paradox of Jesus as a Fifth Avenue ad campaign. There does not seem to be a more fitting bridge between the sacred and profane. And it is not limited to popular culture; Jesus is now a bridge between science and religion. As evidence, one could look to the “newly” discovered field of psychology and Christian counseling.
Fox sees Reverend T.D. Jakes as evidence to the “bridge-like” quality of Jesus. Jakes, pastor at Potter’s House church in Dallas, TX, operates a successful (from an economic standpoint) ministry which creates members who can step “out in force, inspired and spiritually armed by Bishop T.D. Jakes to help others in their communities and across the world,” replete with books, movies, seminars, and concerts. He “urges preachers to target their congregations psychological and material as well as spiritual needs.” This is unique because of its attempt to marry psychological thought (a thoroughly twentieth century endeavor) with spiritualism and faith. This was not a concern of churches prior to Sigmund Freud (d. 1939), Carl Jung (d. 1961), B. F. Skinner (d. 1990), and Erik Erikson (d. 1994). “Nothing could be more American: coming up with a new way of thinking about and marketing Jesus. Jake’s ministry starts with people’s everyday problems, sheds gospel light on them, and mobilizes people to draw on all their powers—including the power of Jesus—to solve them.”
Looking Ahead
Evangelical Christians still stress that they possess the true Jesus. Editor of Christianity Today George K. Brushaber said that “We [Christians] hold the franchise. We have a monopoly on the only sure word of salvation, revealed in Christ Jesus and demonstrated in his work. This good news can top the sales charts in every region. No church, no city, need lag behind in ‘consumption’ of the gospel.” What is odd about this quote is the decidedly business language he incorporates and though some of it is tongue-in-cheek, the idea of Jesus as a marketable asset is not a new idea. This is the language capitalists use, and as previously noted, this is a result of centuries of individualism and the free market system. However, this does not seem to be a productive state. As mentioned earlier, Allistair MacIntyre said that dying for the state is like “being asked to die for the telephone company.” Because Jesus has been distilled into such a both palatable character and comfortable icon, trying to ask him in your heart is akin to asking McDonalds into your heart. When Jesus means everything to everyone, he means nothing to everyone. “It is highly unlikely that Americans will ever come to any consensus about who Jesus really is, but they have agreed for some time that Jesus really matters.”
The evangelical answer to who Jesus is is a good answer, but unless evangelicals clearly delineate any type of differences, he will just be another option in a sea of icons. There must be something transformative about Jesus, or the message evangelicals espouse will just be another voice. Evangelicals may find hope in the fact that America recognizes the founder of their religion. As Jaroslav Pelikan remarked “[t]he sun never sets on the empire of Jesus the King, the Man Who Belongs to the World.” The downside of this is that because he belongs to the world, the world might end up defining who he truly was, and is.
On their 1990 release of their album Violator, Depeche Mode included a song titled “Personal Jesus.” The stiff funk/hip hop beat and simplistic guitar chords are reminiscent of a tribal song as lead singer David Gahan tells the listener how they can own their “own personal Jesus/someone to hear [their] prayers/someone who cares.” All the listener needs to do is “lift up the receiver,” which will “make [them] a believer.” The album is considered to be one of Depeche Mode’s finest, and “Personal Jesus” has been remade by everyone from goth-rocker Marilyn Manson to country music legend Johnny Cash.
It seems odd, at first glance, that a song about Jesus would thrive in popular American culture. Fundamentalist Christians often claim they are being persecuted by the secular culture, while the secular culture decries the agenda of those who seek to marry church and state. Controversies erupt over prayer before football games, Ten Commandments in courtrooms, and evolution in classrooms. There does not seem to be an arena in which the controversy over religion has not reached unless, of course, it is in the marketplace.
Jesus sells records, books, t-shirts, and trinkets all across America. The epitome of paradox in American thought (religion mixed with capitalism, the sacred and profane) finds fruition in the icon of Jesus. Although Jesus remains a pillar of evangelical faith, the marketing of Jesus in America as an icon has diluted the transformational character Jesus could be to the secular community.
Why We Sell Jesus
The phenomenon of marketing the faith is decidedly “new” in comparison to the chronology of the Christian faith. “A century ago we didn’t have Christian stores in shopping malls selling rock music, diet books, and T-shirts. After one hundred fifty years of Darwinian science, a succession of scientific triumphs that have enabled human beings to create life in a laboratory, a sexual revolution, and a generation reared without school prayer, nine out of ten Americans say that they believe in God.” But a question must be asked, how did a man who lived in 1st century Palestine come to mean so much to so many people living in America two-thousand years later?
One must first consider the formative years of the country to truly comprehend the impact the foreparents of this country had on religion and the marketplace. Prior to the foundation of the United States, religion and state worked alongside one another—albeit grudgingly in some cases. In the words of R. Laurence Moore, “[t]he state grew powerful by encroaching upon the church, but the church responded by filling the state bureaucracies with its men.” However, when the United States formed its government, those who composed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights included a clause that guaranteed that the state would never make a law that respected “an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Interestingly, some of these same framers wrote in the Declaration of Independence that men held certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These two documents ensured one thing: that an individual had the right to decide what was best for him or herself. This mindset spilled into the economy, which developed into a free market system based on Adam Smith’s ideas. As such, capitalism was born in America. “Beginning with the French Revolution and the American Civil War, the ‘common man’ became convinced he had as much to lost or to gain in a war as did a king, so it was not unreasonable for him to die fighting for the nation. After all, after the Enlightenment and the nations produced by it, the ‘common man’ was king.”
However, this approach did not come without cost. Capitalism bled into the church, where suddenly an individual held as much “pull” in a congregation as any leader in the church. “Capitalism thrives in a climate where ‘rights’ are the main political agenda. The church becomes one more consumer-oriented organization, existing to encourage individual fulfillment rather than being a crucible to engender individual conversion into the Body.” In essence, the church had to compete with popular culture for the attention of its members, and the easiest symbol to cling to and market was Jesus. “The ‘science’ of modern advertising encouraged Protestant churches to differentiate themselves by something other than church doctrine. For example...Methodist churches did not sell themselves as a surer way to heaven than Baptist churches.” Instead, Methodist churches began to look similarly to their Baptist brethren as they each chose to compete in the same marketplace for the same patrons.
This does not mean that the Church’s intentions were flawed, and it is too easy to blame (or credit) 18th and 19th century Christians for the state of the evangelical church today. Most likely, church leaders were simply trying to survive in the free market system. “[M]any Protestant religious figures were enormously inventive in adapting religion to American democratic culture. Trying to make religion enjoyable was a lot better than trying to impose religious conformity by law.” Religion in the formative stages of the United States transformed from being an institution (e.g. the Church of England) to being a personal decision based on preference. This description of religion—and as a result, religious symbols—fits well into current theories regarding icons. “…[R]eligious symbols and stories are, like so much else in contemporary culture, cut loose, free floating, fluid. They do not disappear. Rather, they reappear as culture resources.”
Who Sold Jesus
If Jesus can be viewed as a “culture resource” instead of a culture shaper, the Jesus sold in this environment will match the culture and values of the respective eras, whether abolitionist, prohibitionist, civil rights, or Victorianism women. And if Jesus looked like the era, the prophetic value of the church would be limited to the understanding of Jesus as he fits the culture. Rather than preaching against the potential ills that accompany capitalism and individualism (or any social structure, for that matter) which might offend the “customer,” Protestant churches instead looked to the needs of the people. It was not the miracle worker Jesus that made logical sense, it was the powerful moral teacher (see Thomas Jefferson’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Library of Congress, 1904). It was not the judgmental Jesus who spoke against the wealthy that people wanted to hear about, they wanted to hear that they had a friend in Jesus (see P. P. Bliss and Ira Sankey’s “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs, 1875). It would appear that depictions of Jesus reveal more about the era in which they appear than they reveal about Jesus of Nazareth. Though Jesus can be traced through the history of American culture, two different periods best depict his adaptability to culture: the “sweet savior” of the 1800s, and the Jewish Jesus of the early 20th century.
Sweet Savior
For a large part of the 1800s, American Protestantism found commonality in Jesus. Christian leaders such as Henry Ward Beecher (brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe) found “the very genius of Christianity” not in the organization or institution of Christianity, but in the person of Jesus. According to Beecher “the fruit of the Bible is Christ. The rest to me is just what leaves are on an apple-tree.” It was because of this emphasis on Jesus that the churches in the 19th century could remain united despite denominational differences. Similarly, “Jesus piety also emerged out of the dynamic of the new free market in religion.” This free market allowed churches and leaders to market Jesus as a friend to parishioners, a marked difference from the relationship Jonathan Edwards envisioned in his famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon in 1741.
A new “friendlier” Jesus was portrayed as a child in Christmas hymns such as “It Came upon a Midnight Clear” (1849) and “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (1868) but also having distinctly feminine characteristics in other art, such as Bernard Plockhorst’s Christ Blessing the Children (1885). According to Prothero, the inspiration for this piece came from European paintings of the Madonna and Child, but in this piece, the baby is sitting on the lap of Jesus. Even when Jesus was portrayed as an adult, the images of him are “softer” than prior representations. In 1889, Heinrich Hoffman produced a painting entitled Head of Christ (see figure 1). In it, Jesus is not looking directly at the viewer; instead he is looking down (in submission?) and to his left. The unassuming pose evokes almost a sense of pity, which fits well into the view of Jesus as a humble friend. Not only did art pieces of the era echo the soft humanity of Jesus, popular literature about Jesus also reflected distinctly 19th century themes.
The first Jesus novel published in the United States (William Ware’s Julian: Or, Scenes in Judea) found shelves in 1841 and depicted a skeptic who followed Jesus, got to know him, and eventually became a believer. This was not a distant faith the main character experienced, it was a familiar man who became a friend. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), replete with abolitionist themes, emphasizes Jesus’ self-sacrificing love through the lives of Little Eva and Uncle Tom. The two protagonists “exemplify the feminine qualities attached to Jesus . . . They are pious and passive, submissive and sacrificial.” Numerous representations of Christ were made in this time period, but Jesus meant more to Americans as a “sweet savior” than anything else. In the years that followed, liberal Protestantism and an increased emphasis on historical accuracy and scientific proof ushered in an age that saw Jesus not as a Christian, but as a Jew.
The Jewish Jesus
The understanding that Jesus was Jewish did not happen overnight. Instead, there was an increased emphasis on the historical location, time, and setting of Jesus’ life that scholars began to appreciate in the early 1900s. Prior to that, most representations of Jesus depicted a fairly European face with dark hair and this was the image that was exported around the world (again, see fig. 1, Hoffman’s Head of Christ). “[A]lthough Jesus himself lived in the Near East, it was as a religion of Europe that his message came to the nations of the world and the islands of the sea—a religion of Europe both in the sense of a religion from Europe and, often, a religion about Europe as well.” Scholars—and popular culture—recognized this at the turn of the century and began to study further Jesus’ roots.
On Christmas Day in 1925, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise remarked that Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian, and Jews should accept him as one of their own. His comments sparked a controversy that ended in a rift in Jewish circles. Although Wise was not saying anything new (cf. Emil G. Hirsch’s “The Doctrines of Jesus,” 1894) the appearance of the debate in America shocked some Jews and caused others to reassess their understanding of Jesus of Nazareth. Joseph Klausner was one of the Reform Jews who wrote that Jesus was a Jew “to his fingertips,” and as a result, Jews had the unique ability to truly understand his teachings. It was within this era that Jesus came to be appreciated as a rabbi.
Two years after Wise made his remarks, filmmaker Cecille B. DeMille directed the 1927 blockbuster The King of Kings which critics felt unfairly blamed the Jews for Jesus’ death and feared it would ignite feelings of anti-Semitism. However, DeMille argued in his memoirs that the film portrayed Jesus as “the greatest Jew who ever lived.” The significance of this is that the director of a movie in Hollywood, if nothing else, sought to accurately portray his subject, not as a redeemer, not as a friend, but as a Jew. Whether he succeeded or not is for debate, but if DeMille’s words are truthful, the fact that Hollywood responded to cultural understandings of Jesus is monumental. Quite suddenly, it would seem, the shapers of popular culture discovered that how they portrayed Jesus garnered a reaction from the consuming public, Christian or otherwise.
Other movements certainly influenced this understanding of Jesus, but it was within these movements that Jesus gained a foothold in America as an icon. Other movements existed at similar times and will likely follow, but in looking at today’s understanding of Jesus, one can see the preceding understandings of Jesus distinctly influenced our current era, the iconic Jesus. This is the Jesus who is all things to all people, and yet meaningless at the same time. He is an icon that can mean the world to the faithful and be nothing at all to the non-Christian.
Jesus on the Dashboard
In 1966 popular musician John Lennon said that his Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” While Lennon’s comment might have been the most blasphemous thing a lot of American Protestants heard that year, it underlies an important idea: Jesus is an icon. “His comment certainly first brought the idea of Jesus as a celebrity to wide public attention.” No longer was Jesus someone, he was something. He was a celebrity who competed with other celebrities for fame. The American treatment of celebrity had now been bestowed upon Jesus and he would be featured everywhere as a marketable asset. What Jesus had that other celebrities didn’t, however, was the endorsement of the status quo.
Elvis was counterculture, Marilyn Monroe was counterculture, but Jesus was the mainstay in American culture and in some ways still is. It is much easier to use the icon of Jesus for shock value than other celebrities. And so now, Jesus can be used as a countercultural icon as well as supporter of the mainstream. “Today, when most people are used to seeing the flag or Jesus Christ on T-shirts, they nevertheless object strenuously to a photograph such as “Piss Christ” (an image of a crucifix, obscured and illuminated by urine, see fig. 2) or “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” Renee Cox’s depiction of a nude female Christ dining with her twelve disciples displayed at the Brooklyn Museum in early 2001.” Jesus does well as an icon of the profane and sacred. However, it is his icon within the Protestant community that profoundly reflects our current era.
Quite literally, there is a Christian alternative for virtually every “secular” merchandising product. “The Christian Booksellers Association started organizing commercial outlets for religious reading material in 1949. Now their outlets stock Christian-style Harlequin romances, Bible-based diet books (More of Jesus, Less of Me), lovemaking guides, and exercise books.” Music marketed as “Christian” can be found in Wal-Marts and Christian book stores alike. Along with the Christian alternatives to products, books about Jesus, shirts with his likeness on them, bumper stickers that quote him, movies that and more can all be found virtually everywhere. The nation of America has become increasingly Christian as the logo of Jesus spreads across America.
A distinct effect of this on the Protestant faith can be seen in the increased use of imagery in private worship. “Art historian David Morgan contends that American Protestants from Calvinist traditions…have largely set aside their historical fear that praying in front of an image of Jesus puts his Word at risk…By the mid-twentieth century, Morgan suggests, large numbers of Protestants, mainly women, had adopted the Catholic practice of venerating Jesus images.” According to Morgan, many Protestants had some type of image of Christ in their homes during the nineteenth century, but what was new in the twentieth century was the use of those images during prayer and meditation. Perhaps the most famous portrait of Jesus is by Warner Sallman (see figure 3). His Head of Christ (1940) is one of the most popular renditions of Jesus. In it, Jesus is looking slightly upward, head lit from behind but also maintaining a sense of orthodox glow about it.
On an experiential level, this makes sense. Americans like their celebrities to have faces. One only need look in an average supermarket in America to see the number of faces on the covers of magazines and tabloids featured at the checkout stands. If Jesus were alive today, the paparazzi would likely follow him around, too. The proliferation of icons in American life demands a faith that competes, images and all.
Another distinct effect of the exposure of Christ as an icon is that Jesus has become more a personal icon unlike any other in history. Jesus is one of the few marketable icons Americans can claim to know, defend, and base their religious values on. Within Protestant Evangelical circles, the question of salvation is boiled down to one question: “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” He is not just an icon; he is a friend whose face just happens to be the most exposed face in human history. As a result of his exposure, evangelicals proceed to purchase more “icons” and continue to perpetuate the marketability of Jesus.
Richard Wright Fox points to a Republican presidential primary debate in 2000 as further evidence of America’s odd relationship with Jesus. In this particular debate, presidential hopeful George W. Bush named Jesus Christ as the “political philosopher or thinker” he “most identif[ied] with” because “He changed my heart.” Bush went on to further explain himself, using highly personal language (i.e. he turned his “heart and [his] life over to Christ” and “accept[ed] Christ as savior” and as a result it “chang[ed] his life”). His response contrasts sharply with other responses from the debate (John Locke, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, et al) and yet seems to resonate deeply with many people. “A majority of Americans would answer the question just as he did, in the same ‘heart’ language. Jesus is their hero, their staff and support, their personal savior, as he has been for most Americans…”
The primary problem with the perpetuation of Jesus as an icon is that he means too much. Unlike corporate icons (which have paid staff devoted to the protection of their image), Jesus can be claimed by anyone and used as an endorsement. In 1998, Kevin Stacy took an existing engraving of Jesus kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane and placed the corporate slogan of Apple Computers (“Think Different”) over Jesus’ head. The image of Jesus praying, face illuminated with eyes looking skyward, with a popular slogan so close to his body deftly portrays the paradox of Jesus as a Fifth Avenue ad campaign. There does not seem to be a more fitting bridge between the sacred and profane. And it is not limited to popular culture; Jesus is now a bridge between science and religion. As evidence, one could look to the “newly” discovered field of psychology and Christian counseling.
Fox sees Reverend T.D. Jakes as evidence to the “bridge-like” quality of Jesus. Jakes, pastor at Potter’s House church in Dallas, TX, operates a successful (from an economic standpoint) ministry which creates members who can step “out in force, inspired and spiritually armed by Bishop T.D. Jakes to help others in their communities and across the world,” replete with books, movies, seminars, and concerts. He “urges preachers to target their congregations psychological and material as well as spiritual needs.” This is unique because of its attempt to marry psychological thought (a thoroughly twentieth century endeavor) with spiritualism and faith. This was not a concern of churches prior to Sigmund Freud (d. 1939), Carl Jung (d. 1961), B. F. Skinner (d. 1990), and Erik Erikson (d. 1994). “Nothing could be more American: coming up with a new way of thinking about and marketing Jesus. Jake’s ministry starts with people’s everyday problems, sheds gospel light on them, and mobilizes people to draw on all their powers—including the power of Jesus—to solve them.”
Looking Ahead
Evangelical Christians still stress that they possess the true Jesus. Editor of Christianity Today George K. Brushaber said that “We [Christians] hold the franchise. We have a monopoly on the only sure word of salvation, revealed in Christ Jesus and demonstrated in his work. This good news can top the sales charts in every region. No church, no city, need lag behind in ‘consumption’ of the gospel.” What is odd about this quote is the decidedly business language he incorporates and though some of it is tongue-in-cheek, the idea of Jesus as a marketable asset is not a new idea. This is the language capitalists use, and as previously noted, this is a result of centuries of individualism and the free market system. However, this does not seem to be a productive state. As mentioned earlier, Allistair MacIntyre said that dying for the state is like “being asked to die for the telephone company.” Because Jesus has been distilled into such a both palatable character and comfortable icon, trying to ask him in your heart is akin to asking McDonalds into your heart. When Jesus means everything to everyone, he means nothing to everyone. “It is highly unlikely that Americans will ever come to any consensus about who Jesus really is, but they have agreed for some time that Jesus really matters.”
The evangelical answer to who Jesus is is a good answer, but unless evangelicals clearly delineate any type of differences, he will just be another option in a sea of icons. There must be something transformative about Jesus, or the message evangelicals espouse will just be another voice. Evangelicals may find hope in the fact that America recognizes the founder of their religion. As Jaroslav Pelikan remarked “[t]he sun never sets on the empire of Jesus the King, the Man Who Belongs to the World.” The downside of this is that because he belongs to the world, the world might end up defining who he truly was, and is.
1.26.2006
It's come to kill us all
In class we're talking about plausibility structures. Apparently this phrase is allowed to define something within our minds that gives us the ability to find something plausible. I don't get it.
In other news, I hope the Pumpkins are coming out of retirement. There's an odd site up that talks about some new album. And there's a rumor floating around that the Pumpkins will play Coachella. Hahahahaha. The plot thickens.
Danielle and I love each other very much and are still working out things. There are just distinct layers of vulnerability that she and I haven't breached before and though it's liberating, it is raw. It's like coming out of the cave and being blinded by the sun; it's worth it, but it stings.
I am becoming more vocal in the office about theology. I'm starting to understand that there are certain things I can bring to that office that others simply cannot. Today George and I talked about a sentence he threw into a letter that said "The spirit enters at the point of salvation." We had a chance to discuss that for a few moments and I felt like he listened to me. I've always been intimidated by him, mostly because he's a louder voice than I am. However, I'm starting to realize that all we are just people. who are right sometimes and wrong sometimes, and it doesn't matter who likes me or doesn't like me. I can enter discussion, emerge wrong, and still be whole. I don't like being wrong, though, and I pray that I find humility.
Time to learn. Peace to all.
In other news, I hope the Pumpkins are coming out of retirement. There's an odd site up that talks about some new album. And there's a rumor floating around that the Pumpkins will play Coachella. Hahahahaha. The plot thickens.
Danielle and I love each other very much and are still working out things. There are just distinct layers of vulnerability that she and I haven't breached before and though it's liberating, it is raw. It's like coming out of the cave and being blinded by the sun; it's worth it, but it stings.
I am becoming more vocal in the office about theology. I'm starting to understand that there are certain things I can bring to that office that others simply cannot. Today George and I talked about a sentence he threw into a letter that said "The spirit enters at the point of salvation." We had a chance to discuss that for a few moments and I felt like he listened to me. I've always been intimidated by him, mostly because he's a louder voice than I am. However, I'm starting to realize that all we are just people. who are right sometimes and wrong sometimes, and it doesn't matter who likes me or doesn't like me. I can enter discussion, emerge wrong, and still be whole. I don't like being wrong, though, and I pray that I find humility.
Time to learn. Peace to all.
1.23.2006
This is the new me
My friends just recorded a great song. It makes me laugh. And cry. Kind of like Blackhawk Down, except without the tribal warfare.
Danielle and I were talking the other night and this thought came to mind: Our role in life is to work with God to repair the enormous tear that ruptured in the Garden of Eden. I'm not sure how theologically sound this is, because I think that our role in life cannot be entirely summed up in "doing" something but could be summed up in oneness with God, but I appreciate the grandeur of the thought that there is some quest we are pursuing in an eternal sense. Who knows if it's entirely true, but I think it informally captures a part of what we are to do in this life, namely to recapture the "goodness" of first creation.
I am a prideful person. I mean, really, really rottenly prideful. And what's funny is that feeling too much shame about it (or pride in it!) feeds the me that places itself better than others. Shame and pride are inextricable linked and I don't know that I've ever known that as much as I do now. It is a big mistake to confuse shame with humility and I think I've spent a lot of time feeling shameful instead of seeking humility. For example, if someone were to find out that I were a habitual liar, I would feel shame, because in my culture it is not acceptable to be a liar. But instead of telling people about this deviancy, I would keep it a secret because I wouldn't want people to think less of me. When I do get found out, all I feel is shame. But in my case, I don't think I ever moved from shame to humility.
I guess a main difference between shame and pride is that shame is cultural, while pride seems to be inherent. I should have capitalized on a cultural marker (shame) to identify the root cause of my problem (self-interest, pride, etc.) and replace it with a characteristic which brings life (namely, humility). I know that a lot of this sounds ethereal or something, but I've been thinking about it and have felt more convicted about shame and seen that I operate out of shame because I am prideful. Sigh. And I want to be whole instead.
I think I should start going to counseling for this. It's a serious issue. And someday it would be nice to say I'm a recovering selfish.
The whole dying to self thing is much more significant to me when I realize that self-preservation is the very reason I live. I can't say, honestly, that I live for others, oh no, I'm much more interested in living for me. My schedule, my time, my appetite, my life, etc. It is SO ingrained in me that it makes me want to throw up. I think that's why the whole faith thing is much larger than me. It goes against everything I do. It must be true; it's impossible.
That much and more, going on in my head. Peace.
Danielle and I were talking the other night and this thought came to mind: Our role in life is to work with God to repair the enormous tear that ruptured in the Garden of Eden. I'm not sure how theologically sound this is, because I think that our role in life cannot be entirely summed up in "doing" something but could be summed up in oneness with God, but I appreciate the grandeur of the thought that there is some quest we are pursuing in an eternal sense. Who knows if it's entirely true, but I think it informally captures a part of what we are to do in this life, namely to recapture the "goodness" of first creation.
I am a prideful person. I mean, really, really rottenly prideful. And what's funny is that feeling too much shame about it (or pride in it!) feeds the me that places itself better than others. Shame and pride are inextricable linked and I don't know that I've ever known that as much as I do now. It is a big mistake to confuse shame with humility and I think I've spent a lot of time feeling shameful instead of seeking humility. For example, if someone were to find out that I were a habitual liar, I would feel shame, because in my culture it is not acceptable to be a liar. But instead of telling people about this deviancy, I would keep it a secret because I wouldn't want people to think less of me. When I do get found out, all I feel is shame. But in my case, I don't think I ever moved from shame to humility.
I guess a main difference between shame and pride is that shame is cultural, while pride seems to be inherent. I should have capitalized on a cultural marker (shame) to identify the root cause of my problem (self-interest, pride, etc.) and replace it with a characteristic which brings life (namely, humility). I know that a lot of this sounds ethereal or something, but I've been thinking about it and have felt more convicted about shame and seen that I operate out of shame because I am prideful. Sigh. And I want to be whole instead.
I think I should start going to counseling for this. It's a serious issue. And someday it would be nice to say I'm a recovering selfish.
The whole dying to self thing is much more significant to me when I realize that self-preservation is the very reason I live. I can't say, honestly, that I live for others, oh no, I'm much more interested in living for me. My schedule, my time, my appetite, my life, etc. It is SO ingrained in me that it makes me want to throw up. I think that's why the whole faith thing is much larger than me. It goes against everything I do. It must be true; it's impossible.
That much and more, going on in my head. Peace.
1.17.2006
Please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest
I'm tired. On Sunday night Wayne and Denise came over and I was introduced to my archnemesis Red Bull and vodka. That crappy drink made me stay up until 6:30 the next morning. I can tell you this: it should be outlawed because of the effect it can have on people. It made me sleepy and wired at the same time. I'm composing a letter to Antwone Red Bull right now to register my complaint.
I've been thinking about individualism and its impact on faith. It rules everything we do but we summarily fail to recognize its damning effects on our faith communities and individual understandings of God. As Americans we are so ingrained with the idea that our sole reason for existence is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that we forget that these things are only cultural relevant. Everyone has an opinion and we are told that we must listen to it all. We learn that we have "rights" to certain things, namely freedom. I think it is this spirit which has divided the Church into countless factions. Because I don't have to listen to a pastor I don't like when there is another one who might be saying something I like better. Because if there are people I don't like in church, there's another church with people I like better. Because if I don't understand what is being said about God I can go buy a book that tells me what to think about Him instead.
It's eye-opening for me to recognize that the pursuit of me (my rights, my freedoms, my will to live, etc) has been the most important thing to me for my whole life. And what's even more odd is that the culture which gave me this belief structure is not Christian, but instead American (and a result of the Enlightenment).
(And as an aside, isn't it funny that those who lived after it called it "THE" Enlightenment, as though the movement was what we needed to finally come out of the dark. It seems to me after the next Enlightement we'll call this age the dark ages. We're so pompous in our understanding of ourselves...)
I know I'm not the only one who has thought this and there are a number of books and thinkers which I'm pretty sure I'm stealing my thoughts from, but it is still a significant paradigm to see myself in. Is there hope? I hope so. There had better be. I bet it has something to do with God...
I've been thinking about individualism and its impact on faith. It rules everything we do but we summarily fail to recognize its damning effects on our faith communities and individual understandings of God. As Americans we are so ingrained with the idea that our sole reason for existence is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that we forget that these things are only cultural relevant. Everyone has an opinion and we are told that we must listen to it all. We learn that we have "rights" to certain things, namely freedom. I think it is this spirit which has divided the Church into countless factions. Because I don't have to listen to a pastor I don't like when there is another one who might be saying something I like better. Because if there are people I don't like in church, there's another church with people I like better. Because if I don't understand what is being said about God I can go buy a book that tells me what to think about Him instead.
It's eye-opening for me to recognize that the pursuit of me (my rights, my freedoms, my will to live, etc) has been the most important thing to me for my whole life. And what's even more odd is that the culture which gave me this belief structure is not Christian, but instead American (and a result of the Enlightenment).
(And as an aside, isn't it funny that those who lived after it called it "THE" Enlightenment, as though the movement was what we needed to finally come out of the dark. It seems to me after the next Enlightement we'll call this age the dark ages. We're so pompous in our understanding of ourselves...)
I know I'm not the only one who has thought this and there are a number of books and thinkers which I'm pretty sure I'm stealing my thoughts from, but it is still a significant paradigm to see myself in. Is there hope? I hope so. There had better be. I bet it has something to do with God...
1.16.2006
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