Wednesday September 29, 2004
The anti-Jesus movement
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I suddenly realized, the other day, why I don\’t like some of my fellow Christians. They\’re indistinguishable from the world they condemn.
Consider, for example, Christian video games.
We all know that secular video games are hideously violent. Players destroy opponents by beating, bashing, shooting, decapitating, crushing, exploding, or tearing them limb from limb.
Christian video games claim to be different. They decimate their foes more cleanly. They use spiritual weapons that include “soul disks” and “Trinity blasts.” Or they can “smite” their opponent with “a ball of liquid holy energy that vaporizes the bad guys.”
I\’m not making this up. That\’s a direct quote from a Christian software company.
When I read the Bible, I don\’t find one reference to Jesus vaporizing his enemies. He had occasional harsh words for them. But he refused to call down fire from heaven on an unfriendly village. He told Peter to put away his sword. Even as he was dying, he prayed for forgiveness for his torturers.
If you can\’t beat\’em…
\”Times New Roman\”> The developers of Christian video games seem to believe that it\’s okay to do whatever the world does, as long as you do it in the name of Christ.
So we have Christian copies of board games, television shows, and rock \’n\’ roll.
“When Christian music started 20 years ago,” bragged a programmer for a Christian radio station in Texas, “all we had were different versions of Amazing Grace. Today we can compete with the big boys.”
I might quibble with his facts. Christian music started more than 40 years ago, and they also had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing historic spirituals. But his basic thesis holds. In other words, Christian rock or rap sounds the same as secular rock or rap. Except that it substitutes Christ for sex.
In the name of Christ, these so-called Christians are likely to endorse the death penalty, male supremacy, authoritarian social structures, scriptural inerrancy, corporal punishment for children, holy war, and/or exclusiveness against any route to heaven but their own.
Not one of those comes from Jesus. Not one!
The crucial difference
\”Times New Roman\”> The thing that made Jesus different from the social culture of his time was his radical inclusiveness. He turned no one away. He refused to use power to control anyone. He walked and talked with women, in direct contravention of the laws of his time. He said of his own scriptures, “You have heard it said… but I say to you…” He played with children. He consorted with beggars, and lepers, and tax collectors.
I can\’t help thinking that a whole lot of people who claim to follow Jesus have come to a fork in the road, and have chosen to follow the masses instead. They talk about the separation of church and state, but instead they\’ve integrated them. They\’ve sold out to secular pressures.
Christians, in the apostle Paul\’s memorable phrase, are called to “transform the world, not conform to it.”
If Jesus were still in his grave, he\’d be spinning like a rotisserie.
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Copyright © 2002 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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