Monty Python theology

Ok, here's a good exercise for you if you're feeling like you're (to quote Karen Carpenter, that famous optimist) "On Top of the World," or if you have begun to think that the world is really a quite happy place (you are disqualified if your "office" has padded walls) and/or that humanity is making progress -- every day, in every way, we're getting better and better!!!

Go to the Barnes & Noble website, browse the "Religion and Spirituality" section, specifically the "Books under $10" section. You will likely find some of the following.

First, The Joke's on Ewe: Jokes, Riddles and Funny Stories Little David Told his Sheep. Now, I'm aware that solitude can have strange affects on people, and some people believe that their pets answer when they talk to them, but this scares me. On the other hand, now the story of David "feigning" madness in front of the Philistine kings makes much more sense. And it's obvious that David was called to be in Saul's court not just because he could pluck a harp -- he was doing standup. Maybe Henny Youngman was a direct descendant.

Then, there are various books containing "church jokes" (mostly written by Nietzsche?), and "Fun Facts About the Bible," not to mention God Plays Golf.

You see here how hard some people will work to try to make following Jesus seem palatable -- or even fun. I mean, if God plays golf, maybe I can get into the Heavenly Country Club!!! (Hmmm -- I wonder what the girl on the beverage cart sells there? Or would it be free? O -- wait -- we couldn't be thirsty in heaven!!! Ha!!! On the other hand, what fun would golf be if. . . . Nevermind.).

Ok, here's another: Sinners in the Hands of God Made Easier to Read. Is this what it means?


I can almost hear Jonathan Edwards proclaiming boldly: "Those who are morally challenged need to maximize their opportunities to create a positive trend in their self-talk, creating a behavior-change that will result in better relationships, greater contentment and less guilt and negativity. If those people do NOT do that, God will, quite possibly, create a situation in which the negative self-talk and negative choices may bring about further negative consequences that will encourage deeper self-examination that will motivate one to relinquish the guilt and negativity and trend toward behaviors that bring positive self-talk and positive relationships, toward the goal of full acceptance of oneself as a beloved creature of God with whom God wishes full fellowship, intimate communion and communication." Jonathan Edwards meets Joel Osteen.

A friend of mine who no longer professes Christian faith has this gripe against church: churches lie. They're not truthful about the gospel, grace, sin and/or judgment, not to mention about who God is (assuming that churches actually do know who God is!). He says that if churches told the truth about those things, our songs would essentially tell us that we suck and deserve to go to hell. In other words, we would stop sugar-coating the gospel and our own very human need for redemption and grace. Some more contemporary churches are discovering the same thing. It's one thing to go to church to get a good free show, complete with rock and roll and laser lights. It's quite another thing to go to church and have an Isaiah 6 experience -- where face to face with the Holy God, we are compelled to hit the deck and cover the backs of our heads. I mean, this is bigger than any tornado drill -- or the real tornado, come to think of it.

A few years back the acting troupe Monty Python made a movie called The Life of Brian. According to a documentary on the group, they started out to satirize Jesus. But after reading the gospels, they decided there was no content there to be made fun of, so they trained their sights on how churches present Jesus. I've still not seen the whole movie straight through (though I own a copy), but one scene I've caught a number of times is the crucifixion scene which features the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," a quite cheery tune with bright and carefree whistling -- sung by those being crucified, and joined in by the gathered crowds. In other words, this is what Monty Python apparently thought was what churches presented as the message of Jesus (best if spoken with a fake British accent): "just keep your chin up; things will get better! Always look on the bright side!" As if that was what Jesus' life and death were all about. Bull.

I told my teenage son about this scene one time, and for years we had our own little private gag (!) going on in church. Whenever one of us would hear some part of a sermon that aligned with the "look on the bright side" message, we would (very quietly) whistle a bit of that tune, and then stifle our laughter.

Annie Dillard has said that no one really takes seriously what we profess to be doing in church -- that if we did, we'd go to church wearing crash helmets -- and that we're like children mixing up a batch of TNT in our new chemistry sets to kill a Sunday morning. She's right. We're killing ourselves with kindness, not to mention laughter.

We do this because we think people need to hear something nice about themselves -- for instance, that God loves them unconditionally. Certainly this is true. But all heresy is a matter of overemphasis. To emphasize God's love and grace in such a way that it excludes or hides from us God's holiness becomes heresy, not to mention falsehood. It's shallow.

I recently heard a sermon series on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, in which the essence of Jesus sermon was presented as a message of self-esteem and lowering one's stress level. I could have whistled through the whole thing.

So, if you hear me whistling in church, you'll know why. Pay attention. And if I miss one, you have my permission to whistle.

Gettin' Gospelled

There have been a few times in my life when someone has tried to evangelize me. I dated a girl once who was raised in a church that thought they were the only true church and the only ones going to heaven. (No, she wasn't a Church of Christer.) After we dated a month or so, she told me we had to have a serious talk. I was nineteen, maybe twenty years old at the time, and the words "serious talk" scared the living crap out of me, just for starters. I was certain that, since things had been going rather well between us, this was going to be a "lets get serious" kind of talk, and in a way, it was. It was also a "come to Jesus" talk. Her pastor had heard that she was dating a heathen (me -- "heathen" because I wasn't a member of their church) and had demanded that she put an end to it if I wouldn't convert. So, she had a tract or two that she wanted to work through: the first explained, from her church's point of view, all the errors of MY church, and the second one explained "the truth" (i.e., her church's position on all important things to know in order to get into heaven).

Now, being a good "Church of Christer," I did know a thing or two about the Bible, and I really had it over her in terms of Bible knowledge. Her church's reconnaissance on the Church of Christ wasn't very good, and her tract out of which she read to me accused us of believing a number of things we generally don't believe. Suffice it to say that she was rather unsuccessful in converting me. When it became clear that I wasn't going to be converted, at least in one easy step, she played her trump card: she told me that her pastor had demanded she break up with me if I didn't convert because they were not allowed to date non-Christians. The last time I saw her she was shouting at me from her front porch as I got into my car, telling me it was my own fault I was going to hell. After reflection, I had to laugh at the veritable role-reversal: it was usually us C2ers who. . . . Well, you get the picture.

Last fall, at a conference for religion scholars, I took a break from the sessions, bought a Venti bold coffee from the Starbucks in the conference center, and sat down at a table to relax and read for a few minutes. The table, which I was sharing with other conference-goers, was approached by a man who was handing out leaflets of some sort. I was curious, so held my hand out for one. He informed me that it was for the American Communist Party; I told him I thought capitalism was from Satan. He was suddenly my best friend. It turns out he is an ex-pastor, now an atheist, but still trying to change the world. He pulled a chair up close to mine facing me, leaned forward and tried earnestly to convince me that there is no God and that the only hope of the world is communism. I tried to convince him that certain communist principles aligned pretty well with the gospel of Jesus. I think in the end we were both unconvinced, but I bought some CDs of lectures from him, and I think we both enjoyed the forty-five minute conversation about the ways capitalism corrupts the human soul. I sipped my Starbucks throughout, relishing the irony.

In both of these situations there were a variety of ideas flying around, shot by one party toward the other, almost always missing their target for one reason or another. Or, at least I can say that the ideas had little effect on their intended targets, compelling as they may have been to their adherents. They simply didn't penetrate the other party.

I do have to admit, though, that I'm a little jealous of the communist. In some ways he's living the gospel better than I am. He's committed to a cause for which he has given up everything, a cause which consumes him as well as animates his life and every conversation (I watched as he made the rounds in the sitting area, talking to as many people as he could).

I wonder if I'm committed to the gospel of Jesus as much as he's committed to the gospel of Marx. There are times when it does consume me -- usually when I'm teaching or preaching, or trying to find a way to help someone negotiate life-obstacles. But there are other times when . . . well, when I'm quite the opposite.

In other words, there are times or "places" in my life in which the gospel has no or little effect. But for Christians, all of our life is supposed to be conformed to the gospel -- to the pattern of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. This is what we re-enact in our baptism, and what we re-member each time we take the Lord's Supper. Jesus said that whoever wanted to be one of his followers had to "take up his cross daily and follow him" (Luke 9:23): a daily, hourly, even minute by minute death to self.

The word in the New Testament for "gospel" is the Greek word "euangellion." In the list of spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4, one of the gifts is to be an "evangelist," that is, one who evangelizes. What is it to "evangelize" but to "gospelize"? If I teach the gospel to someone who hasn't accepted Jesus, I am trying to bring that person's life more into conformity with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus -- precisely what I need in my own life.

The reason the communist so impressed me was the way his life conformed to the gospel he had rejected. "When I am lifted up from the earth," Jesus said, "I will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32). The "lifting up," of course, is Jesus on the cross. In other words, according to Jesus there is something quite compelling about the cross -- about the life lived by "taking up the cross daily," always putting others before ourselves. That is a life conformed to the death and resurrection -- the gospel -- of Jesus.

Like it or not, the communist brought me a little closer to Jesus. Thanks, comrade.