[a reckless, scandalous expenditure]

What are the hallmarks of the ministry of Jesus Christ? Do we embody them? Here is what William Stringfellow says about this:

Perhaps it is helpful to notice a few things about the ministry of Christ. One is that the ministry of Christ is a ministry of great extravagance--of a reckless, scandalous expenditure of His life for the sake of the world's life. Christ gives away His life. The world finds new life in His life and His gift of His life to the world. His is not a very prudential life, not a very conservative life, not a very cautious life, not--by ordinary standards--a very successful life.

He shunned no one, not even adulterers, not even tax collectors, not even neurotics and psychotics, not even those tempted to suicide, not even alcoholics, not even poor people, not even beggars, not even lepers, not even those who ridiculed Him, not even those who betrayed Him, not even His own enemies. He shunned no one.

The words that tell of the ministry of Christ are words of sorrow, poverty, rejection, radical unpopularity. They are words of agony.

It seems ridiculous to apply such words to the ministry of churches nowadays. Yet where these words cannot be truthfully applied to the ministry of churches today they must then be spoken against the churches to show how far the churches are from being the Body of Christ engaged in the ministry of Christ in the world.

As posted on Richard Beck's blog post The William Stringfellow Project: A Private and Public Faith, Part 4. Stringfellow quote from "The Fear of God", chapter 4 of A Private and Public Faith.

love. period.

Pastor Stickman's first sermon, his first Sunday after inadvertantly outing himself. Quite a contrast to some of the things which he said previous to that point in time. Now he can be more open, more honest.

Love. Period.

What do you think? Is there something more to say?

Do you want to qualify love in some way? Put conditions or limits on it?

---

Previous pastor stickman cartoon

culture war

Are we in a culture war?

What cultures are involved?

On a friend's blog, Jarred posted a comment which speaks to this:

Jarred said...
Emily: I would encourage you to beware of the Middle Ground Fallacy when it comes to speaking of the "culture war." After all, only one "side" of the "culture war" thinks of it in terms of being a "culture war" and has invested much time and effort in painting the other "side" as thinking in the same terms and behaving accordingly. The other "side" thinks of it in terms of struggling to gain the same human dignity and legal protections for all people.
May 16, 2012 10:10 AM  (source)

So there is the question of, "are we really in a culture war" or are Christians just not happy about no longer being in power. There is also the reality of the gap between what pastors and denominations believe and what the parishioners believe, and correspondingly, what each is willing to "fight" for.

 Ironically, in a world where the dominant perception of Christians is that we are judgemental and anti-gay, many evangelicals are rushing to support and promote Chick-fil-A now that its owner has publically stated that his company is against same-sex marriage. That's sure to help everyone to see and know that Jesus loves them no matter what!!

---

More reading: Some words for Christians on both sides of the Chick-fil-A war by Rachel Held Evans.

[joel mckerrow :: confession for the white part in me]

"Joel McKerrow is an international touring performance poet, writer, educator, youth worker, thinker and activist based out of Melbourne, Australia. He is the founder of ‘The Centre for Poetics and Justice’ (www.cpj.org.au/), a not-for-profit, community arts organisation focused on using poetics as a form of literary education, self-expression and social engagement for marginalised teenagers." (from his website).

 What Joel confesses in these videos fits perfectly with this site, in terms of addressing marginalization and in terms of saying sorry for what has been done from positions of power and privilege. These are amazing videos -- both in terms of the confessions being made, the speaking of them, and the appropriately artistic videography.

The four videos in the series:
my confession part 1: for the white part in me (featured above)

my confession part 2: for the rich part in me

my confession part 3: for the Christian part of me

my confession part 4: for the masculine part of me

---

For those of you living near Edmonton, Joel will be part of an evening event on Thursday, August 2nd at the Bleeding Heart Arts Space.

just as we are

Last time: Pastor Stickman, at the first Sunday service after accidently outing himself, was unsure of what to say. A parishioner gave the traditional greeting of "The Lord be with you", and Pastor Stickman responded with "And also with you".

Somehow – and frankly, I don't know how – he is still the pastor! Many pastors in similar situations have been fired and blacklisted in their denominations. In his case, half the parishioners have left the church, but that's to be expected.

Those who have stayed have been encouraging him. Perhaps a card, or an email. Maybe some fresh muffins dropped off at the house. And he begins to understand more deeply that even in this the worst of times, God loves him. No longer the proud leader with all the answers, he needs the body of Christ that meets in this building. They need each other. We all need each other.

[the sacrament of friendship]

What does true friendship look like? What does it offer the other person? What expectations are involved?

Richard Beck has been reading A Private and Public Faith by Stringfellow, and says the following:

So what does this sacramental life look like? For Stringfellow one proxy is simply friendship. In this chapter he describes his relationship (Stringfellow was living in a Harlem tenement at the time) with a boy addicted to narcotics. Stringfellow discusses how various clergy and social workers had come to view this boy with suspicion, as a lost cause, as a waste of their time and effort. And Stringfellow agrees that the boy probably is a lost cause from those pragmatic and programmatic perspectives. And insofar as Stringfellow can help the boy he helps. But his central concern is simply being a sacrament of life in the world of this boy. To be a life-giving oasis. To bring resurrection where only death is at work. To being a friend.

He often visits me when he is free, and we have talked a lot together. I am not aware that I have ever told him that he has a bad and costly and very debilitating habit. He knows that better than I do. And while he and I have talked about how his habit might be controlled or even cured, our relationship is not contingent upon his breaking his addiction. Acceptance of another person is acceptance of the other as he is, without entailing any demands that he change in any empirical way. This boy is an addict, and while I would rejoice if he were freed from this affliction, that would not change or increase my acceptance of him as a person. And though I am not an addict, that makes me no better nor worse than he. I am not his judge. I am just his friend. (Stringfellow)

And that, according to Stringfellow, is the central and primary witness of the Christian in the world.


The sacrament of friendship.

Overall excerpted from Richard Beck's blog post The William Stringfellow Project: A Private and Public Faith, Part 4. Stringfellow quotes from chapter 4 of  A Private and Public Faith.

standard reply

This is the standard reply that many Christians use to apply to those who are—in their eyes—"sinners."

I saw this just the other day on a friend's blog. She had posted about generous spaciousness and the invitation to rest, and one of the comments from a reader went as follows:

Steven said...

"Jesus, it is well known, had dinner with the wrong kind of people, touched the wrong kind of people, had conversation with the wrong kind of people, went to the wrong places, triggered and exposed social taboos, broke dividing walls, and announced a new kind of level playing field."

And then He told them to "go and sin no more".

July 15, 2012 9:10 PM source

Perhaps someone should have told Jesus to "go and sin no more," considering he was associating with the wrong people....

Let's unpack this a bit.

First, the reader repeatedly refers to "the wrong kind of people" without explanation or quotation marks. Consider the difference between the following two sentences:

1. Jesus had dinner with the wrong kind of people. Generally speaking, unless someone says more to qualify this, it means that they believe that these were indeed the wrong kind of people and perhaps even that Jesus should not have been having dinner with them at all. Think of Simon the Pharisee seeing the woman who was wiping Jesus' feet with her hair and perfume, who then said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:36-50 NIV).
2. Jesus had dinner with the "wrong kind" of people. The quotation marks indicate that while some think of these people as the wrong kind of people, the writer himself does not think so.

Not only does the reader not have quotation marks, but he makes no statements to indicate that he is in disagreement with these people being the wrong kind of people. Nothing is said about Jesus loving everyone regardless of what the general society thought of them, nor anything contrasting Jesus' treatment of them with how the religious people treated them.

And then we have the reader's statement that Jesus "told them to 'go and sin no more'." Biblically, we have only the account of the woman caught in adultery where Jesus says "go and sin no more." So to say "He told them" (emphasis added) is simply not correct. It takes personal bias and applies it to Jesus.

While I do not know the Steven who posted the comment, I would guess that most likely, he himself feels that these were the wrong kind of people for Jesus to be spending time with, and that perhaps exposing social taboos and breaking down dividing walls is not such a great idea.

A standard phrase like "go and sin no more" is pretty handy. I simply label someone as a sinner (based on the simple evaluation: are they like me, or not?) and then I tell them to go and sin no more. Black and white. No nuances. No consideration that perhaps we have different ways of understanding something, or different approaches.

But labelling someone and giving them a pat answer is not grace, it's not love, it's not compassion, and it's not what Jesus did.

Perhaps "go and sin no more" is one of those phrases that we should give up... forever.

[the gospel of Rutba]

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove tells this amazing story of embracing one's enemy:

During the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Leah and I traveled with the Christian Peacemaker Teams to Baghdad, believing that the way of Jesus called us to interrupt the unjust war our country was initiating. Three days after U.S. planes bombed the hospital in Rutba, our American friends’ car hit a piece of shrapnel on the highway outside of town and landed in a side ditch. Iraqis stopped by the roadside, took our bleeding friends into their car, and drove them to a doctor in Rutba. “Three days ago your country bombed our hospital,” he said, “but we will take care of you.” He sewed up their heads and saved their lives. When we asked the doctor what we owed him for his services, he only said, “Please, go tell the world what is happening in Rutba.”

The more we told the story, the more it sounded like a modern day Good Samaritan story. A good Iraqi—a good Muslim—not only saved our friends’ lives; he also showed us what God’s love looks like. We can’t be saved apart from the stranger, even the stranger who seems to be our enemy. The gospel of Rutba is that hope lies in the “enemy.”

Read the rest of Jonathan's post about The Gospel of Rutba (on his blog)

Check out the Gospel of Rutba website and read the book.

I'm gay unless...

Can people be themselves around those of us who are Christians?

Or do they feel they have to hide part of who they are, for fear of being laughed at, rejected, or otherwise mistreated?

If the cross around my neck is there because I have chosen to follow Jesus, will I follow Him in treating other people the same way he did?

---

On a related note, a pastor in Washington State has decided to reclaim the word gay -- to take it away from those who use it in ways related to sexual orientation and use it for the original meaning of happy and joyful.

He says he is "on a mission to take back words, phrases and symbols he believes groups, such as homosexual activists and other liberal organizations, have "hijacked" from the American lexicon." (source: christian post).

While he's at it, maybe he could "take back" some of the love and acceptance that these groups have hijacked from the church, 'cuz it sure seems that they have far more of it than some churches.

I'm Christian unless...

Christians should be Christians — in other words, like Jesus — regardless of whom they are interacting with. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. With some people they are nice and civil, with others they are cold, with some they can be downright rude, hateful and completely unChristlike! And then they do indeed become a tool of satan disguised as a religous nut, pushing people away from considering Jesus, away from being in relationship with Christians (who apparently have good news for everyone), and away from churches.

Are all Christians like this? Of course not. But enough of them are – particularly some very vocal ones – as seen by a survey of 16 - 29 year olds which found that 91% of those outside of the church perceived Christians as anti-gay, and 80% of churchgoers in the same age category perceived the church as anti-gay. (Unchristian, 2007).

Is this just about being pro-gay or anti-gay? No. You can fill in the sentence any way you like: "I'm Christian unless you're ______." What will it be for you?

Shouldn't a Christian be a Christian always? and in the same way?

Shouldn't we treat others with love and respect regardless?

Who would Jesus reject?

Whom do you have trouble loving the way Jesus did?

Please take time to read an excellent article called "I'm Christian unless you're gay" written by Dan Pearce, which inspired this cartoon. Despite the title, it's not specifically about gay people -- rather, it's about love, hate, respect...

---

On a related note, Red Letter Christians has an interesting article called "The Witness of the Sons of Hell", referring to Jesus calling the scribes and Pharisees "sons of hell" in Matthew 23, and discussing how we "become sons of hell when we devote our lives to locking people out of the kingdom of heaven."

[I'm sorry]

"Sorry seems to be the hardest word" – a line from one of the songs that played on the radio when I was growing up – is true of churches as well as individuals. But there are exceptions....

Here's an exciting story about Christians in Winnipeg stepping forward to say sorry to those they have hurt:

"On Sunday, June 3, a group of Christians from Little Flowers Community and Hope Mennonite Church said sorry to the lgbt people who have been hurt by the hatred and discrimination they've experienced from Christians and churches over the years. They went to Winnipeg's Pride Parade to "offer an unqualified, sincere apology."

The response was humbling. Hundreds of people marching in the parade stopped to thank us, hug us, take pictures and ask questions. However, most moving for me was the people who shouted out, “We forgive you!”. We were a small group and did not try to bring too much attention to ourselves (as the day was not about us), but made an intentional effort to let these neighbours know that we know we have done poorly and seek their forgiveness. That message seemed to be well received."

Read more about this, including concerns that some Christian communities expressed about participating and why saying sorry isn't enough, in the full post Why We're Sorry and Why It's Not Enough by Jamie Arpin-Ricci, "an urban missionary, pastor, church planter and writer living in Winnipeg’s inner city West End neighbourhood."

How often do we say sorry to one another?

How rarely do we see institutions such as churches and governments admitting wrong and saying sorry? Can you remember a time? The one that comes to my mind is when in 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a formal public apology to former students of the native residential schools. Perhaps you know of some?

the Lord be with you

Amazing that the pastor is still in the pulpit. In the typical elder-ruled or vestry-run church, he'd be long gone, dismissed via a secret meeting to which he was not invited. After all, he confessed his sin publicly, didn't he?

But somehow, here he is, albeit unsure of himself and of what to say, the Sunday after having inadvertantly outed himself in front of the entire congregation. And it is reasonable for him to be unsure. Many of his previous sermons had an anti-gay tone or message. He hasn't been fired ... yet. And now he finds himself at the mercy of the congregation. Well, at the mercy of those who have stayed, anyway.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

I Peter 2:9 NIV

And here we have this verse played out, with a parishioner initiating the greeting with which a priest usually starts the eucharist (Lord's supper) in many liturgical churches. How fitting... a parishioner taking seriously hir role as a royal priest, using a phrase from the Lord's table at which all are welcome, the table of the Lord Jesus who broke stigmas and social rules and generally made the religious people of his day angry.

The Lord be with you.

televangelesus

Jesus didn't care about his reputation. He acted Christ-like regardless of who was around him and regardless of what the religious leaders thought about it.

Philip's reply was prophetic: while we don't hide passages where Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, or was called a glutton and a drunkard, we downplay the significant ways in which Jesus broke the stigma and social mores of his time to reach out to those on the margins.

How about you and me? Do we love people like Jesus did? Or do we let cultural and social rules determine whom and how we love?

---

Note to readers: after reading this cartoon, one of my friends commented that it really should have been Philip who was concerned with Jesus' reputation, and Jesus replying this his disciples will ignore the significance of this in the future. This makes good sense in general, except that this is the "western jesus."

Who is that, you ask? It is a Jesus who acts the way that contemporary North American Christians tend to. This idea and theme came out of reading Richard Beck's book unclean, taking some of the concepts from it and applying them to Jesus. In other words, if Jesus was the way we tend to be, how would he have acted in the situations he found himself in?

I realize after his question that this is not so obvious in this particular cartoon, so I am pointing it out here.

See all western jesus cartoons.

[vineyard memorial garden for lost women]

Winnipeg.

A city where nearly 50 missing women, children and transgender Winnipeg sex-trade workers had been murdered or gone missing over the previous 26 years.

Most of them aboriginal.

Word has it that there has been a serial killer at work, and on Monday, June 25, 2012, police charged a man with three of these killings.

In Winnipeg's inner city is Vineyard Church,

located in a century-old warehouse at Main and Sutherland, which backs onto the memorial garden.

The Vineyard Memorial Garden, as it is formally called. Rieger [one of the pastoral staff at the church] and some friends started it to remember first 20, and now 24, murdered and missing neighbourhood women. At first, Rieger recalled Monday, it was murdered sex-trade workers who were memorialized; now it's any woman from the area who dies violently.

It was living sex-trade workers who inspired Rieger because they kept coming to him and asking if he could drive them to cemeteries where their friends were buried. And it was these same women -- women like Jane -- who helped build the memorial garden.

Stone by stone. Name by name. Tear after tear.

It was built in way that also honoured aboriginal tradition, and in a manner that allowed families and friends to have a place close by to grieve. The plaques to each woman still have to be put in place. So I asked Rieger when it would be finished.

"Never," he said.

Quotes from Gordon Sinclair Jr.'s full article at Winnipeg Free Press.

For more, read the Vineyard Church's story about the garden.

---

Christine Pohl tells this related story:

A very moving example of hospitality caught me by surprise as I visited one of the communities. Jubilee Partners has set aside a beautiful spot on its property for a graveyard. In it are buried several people who had been homeless before they died, a couple of refugees who became ill and died after they had come to the United States, and two men who had been convicted of capital crimes and were executed by the state. The quiet beauty of the place offered a poignant recognition of the humanity of people who were in many ways society’s castoffs. Their lives had been acknowledged with a simple funeral service and grave marker, arranged by a community who noticed, and cared about, their passing. This dimension of hospitality has very ancient connections. The early church took responsibility for burying strangers, especially indigent ones.

From Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, p. 167.

Added January 3, 2013.

[understanding the cartoons on this blog]

First of all, if all you are looking for is a good laugh, you've come to the wrong place.

So sorry about that. This is a social commentary blog, and the majority of cartoons are involved in making comments about society and culture, especially the Christian subculture. Think of the editorial cartoons in major newspapers, with a Christian angle to them and without all the politics. The sidebar list of labels will give you a sense of the range of social, cultural and justice topics which are being addressed here. You can also check out about this blog to read more about my goals and vision.

Now about the cartoons. Most of the cartoons are a springboard to the discussion and questions contained in the text before and after the cartoon. It is thus important to read the surrounding text to understand the point of the cartoons. If you read only the cartoon and it does not make sense to you, read the rest of the post. If it still does not make sense, please post a comment with your questions or thoughts. (If it does make sense, I'd still love to hear from you).

A number of the cartoons use a pastor figure as the mouthpiece for negative views. No, I don't hate pastors. My dad is a pastor and I love and respect him. So why the pastor figure? Two reasons: first, pastors are often the public mouthpiece for the views of the church, and often the primary mouthpiece that tells the congregation how and what to think. Secondly, I'm not a great artist and so if I had to come up with a different drawing each time of different average people saying these things, I would be quite exhausted. This way, I can reuse the same basic layout which is easier. That having been said, the pastor cartoons will be evolving now that he has inadvertantly outed himself. Stay tuned for more on that.

Types of Humour

This blog deploys various literary devices and types of humour to get its points across in the cartoons and in the related text. These should be taken into account when trying to understand the content of the cartoons. Here are some examples:

1. Tongue in cheek
2. Hyperbole (exaggerating)
3. Irony
4. Inversion (saying the opposite)
5. Taking something out of its normal context
6. Caricature (this is particularly the case with the 'western jesus' cartoons, which recast jesus in the style of a contemporary north american christian)
7.  etc.

Thus, do I always exactly mean what the cartoon is saying? No. Do I always mean what the text is saying? No. But I do mean the cartoon and text to make the point that it is making, using whatever literary and humorous devices it's using. That having been said, you won't find me saying offensive things and then excusing them with the line, "I was just kidding." If something seems offensive, it's often either because you haven't read the text and understood the context, or because it's pointing out something that is not popular to point out and which the reader may not want to acknowledge.

Types of Cartoons

There are a variety of cartoons on this blog and I will describe some of the types here:

1. Purely funny with no deeper meaning. Simply a good laugh in the middle of the seriousness of this blog [example: chicken soup for everyone]. Because this is a social commentary blog, you won't find a lot of these, but there are some.
    
2. Funny with a deeper meaning. [example: man's best friend]
    
3. Possibly funny, but giving a twist to a familiar Bible story or passage, with a deeper point being made. [example: lost sheep]
    
4. Probably funny, and relating to a broader theme or exploration. For example, there are a number of cartoons labeled "western jesus" and "unclean". The "unclean" label is because this cartoon relates to my reading of (and quoting from) Richard Beck's book unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality and Mortality. The "western jesus" label is because Jesus is portrayed in these cartoons as responding as modern-day westerners might respond in similar situations. [example: jesus febrezus]
    
5. Maybe funny or not, and relating to a broader theme or exploration. This is similar to the previous item. For example, there are a number of cartoons labeled "love the sinner, hate the sin." After hearing this one day, I came up with a number of cartoons which are meant to deconstruct this saying, to point out what it is about, how other people hear it and how it can impact others. [example: third row] Similar themes would be "not anti-gay" which explores what it means to be or not be anti-gay, and "defining" which looks at how words are defined and who gets to decide what their definition is.
    
6. Not funny, and with a serious point. Essentially, the cartoon here is a pictoral way of introducing a topic. [example: the christian agenda]
    
7. Horrifying with a deeper meaning. There are a few of these, and they are not funny in the slightest, neither as a cartoon nor in the point that is being made -- but the point is an important one. [example: ecclesia]

Offensive?

If a cartoon or statement seems offensive to you, take a look at the whole context including the type of humour used, to see if perhaps it is really making a valid point. And keep in mind that I in no way mean that all Christians or all churches are a certain way, but that some Christians or churches are that way. Of course, it might well be that some readers will be offended — either by my perspectives and beliefs, or by the fact that I'm pointing out bad attitudes and wrong actions on the part of others. But my goal here is not to offend but to bring to light what is the case, to explore and process ideas, and to help us all move forward in loving each other as Jesus did. Again, check out about this blog.

This page is a work in progress, and may be updated from time to time.