movie critique

Not needing to look him up in the book of names, the angel at the gate takes the opportunity to offer a critique of one of Hitchcock's movies:

breakfast not included

Ludicrous, isn't it? The idea that someone would choose to go to heaven just because of thinking that they would get breakfast there and not in hell? It reminds me of choosing Holiday Inn where a complimentary hot breakfast is often included instead of staying somewhere else....

But that's what part of the chorus suggests in the Newsboys' "Breakfast" song::

May this song remind you

That they don't serve breakfast in hell.

The song in general is complete silliness, but even silliness can send a deeper message, and I have often wondered how a friend invited to a concert with a Christian would feel about the song.

And then I wonder about using hell fire and brimstone as a way of converting people. That's why I first said yes to Jesus, and it took a lot of years to realize that God is good and that He really loved me.

jesus prays for his future

Thanks to A. for suggesting a lighter, more hand-written font style...

jesus prays for a homosexual

Is it true that anyone who has read the Gospels will know that this is not the real Jesus? Or are there some people who would like nothing better than having a Bible passage about Jesus rejecting a gay person? After all, that's only a small step further than Jesus telling the woman caught in adultery to "go and sin no more", isn't it?

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have seen some of my previous "western jesus" cartoons.

This label is used for cartoons which show a Jesus who acts the way that many contemporary North American Christians tend to. This "western jesus" 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 who are North American Christians often tend to be, how would he have acted in the situations he found himself in?

This is the third of the new set of western jesus "jesus prays" cartoons...

alpha beta omega

Seeing Alpha posters on church lawns has got me thinking... do churches really want people to think? Do churches really want us to question everything?

That's not been my experience, so I'm offering some alternative poster ideas:

[sdrawkcab]

How ironic. Putin and his government are bringing in strict anti-gay laws, and his police are running around with the word "HOMO" printed backwards on their shirts:

Of course it's really the abbreviation for Отряд мобильный особого назначения, (Otryad Mobilniy Osobogo Naznacheniya — Russian H sounds like our N), but still.... Even more ironic in this picture where they are arresting gay rights activists at an authorized gay rights rally!

On a more serious note, the increase in discrimination against and oppression of sexual minorities in other parts of the world is very disturbing, and even more so disturbing is that some of this is apparently being encouraged by conservative western Christians!

Can you imagine Jesus preaching, "Blessed are you who persecute sexual minorities"? or  "Blessed are you who ensure that non-heterosexuals can be fired for no reason other than their non-heterosexuality"?

I can't. It would be completely backwards to the Jesus who walked - and still walks - among us with love and mercy.

---

Read Michael Kimpan's article on (good) gracious, where he explores more of these current matters.

Read National Geographic's brief report on harsh anti-gay laws in other countries.

[pastrix by nadia bolz-weber]

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

"Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term "pastrix"(pronounced "pas-triks," a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith.

Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, Nadia, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious leader material-until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor.

Using life stories-from living in a hopeful-but-haggard commune of slackers to surviving the wobbly chairs and war stories of a group for recovering alcoholics, from her unusual but undeniable spiritual calling to pastoring a notorious con artist-Nadia uses stunning narrative and poignant honesty to portray a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way.

Wildly entertaining and deeply resonant, this is the book for people who hunger for a bit of hope that doesn't come from vapid consumerism or navel-gazing; for women who talk too loud, and guys who love chick flicks; for the gay man who loves Jesus, and won't allow himself to be shunned by the church. In short, this book is for every thinking misfit suspicious of institutionalized religion, but who is still seeking transcendence and mystery."

Description from amazon.ca

Read Rachel Held Evan's review of Pastrix.
Read Richard Beck's review of Pastrix.

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
Nadia Bolz-Weber
(Jericho Books, 2013)

okay with jesus

We who are Christians like Jesus. We like that he gave his life for us so that we can go to heaven. And we generally like the way he reached out to the poor and the lepers.

We're okay with the Jesus of the Bible.

But because we also like things the way they are, we often don't believe in the Jesus of today. We don't want our world shaken up. We don't want a Jesus who breaks our religious rules. We don't want a Jesus who overturns tables in our temple. We don't want a Jesus who embraces marginalized people in our culture. That just won't do.

So we believe in the Jesus of yesterday. He did all those wonderful things in his culture, and as these issues are all fixed now in our world, there's not much more to do except send out missionaries, get people to say the sinner's prayer, and have potlucks.

We're okay with the biblical Jesus as we have created him, but not with the real Jesus....

[but I don't see you as asian]

In "But I Don’t See You as Asian: Curating Conversations About Race" Bruce Reyes-Chow curates a collection of cringe-inducing statements about race such as, “If they can say it, why can't I?" ” "Do you know martial arts?" and “He’s a different kind of Black,” hoping to turn awkward moments into a dialogue between friends.

Sitting in the sweet spot between lectures in academia and activism on the streets, Bruce invites the reader into a salon type of atmosphere where he directly addresses thoughtless words and diversionary tactics, such as dismissing racial discussions as being impolite or avoiding race conversations altogether. He invites the reader to chuckle, gasp, and perhaps nod in understanding as he lists the kinds of statements often used against persons of color in a predominantly white culture. But rather than stopping there, Bruce asks readers to swap shoes with him and reconsider their assumptions about race. Useful for individual reading, or as a tool for opening group and community discussions, "But I don't see you as Asian" puts one person’s joys and struggles on the table for dissection and discovery.

(description from Amazon)

Read an excerpt of the book and an interview with Bruce Reyes-Chow at redletterchristians.com.

Note: I haven't read this book -- it's just come out.

jesus prays for disunity

jesus prays for control

[the cross in the closet]

"Timothy Kurek, raised within the confines of a strict, conservative Christian denomination in the Bible Belt, Nashville, Tennessee, was taught the gospel of separation from a young age. But it wasn't long before Timothy's path and the outside world converged when a friend came out as a lesbian, and revealed she had been excommunicated by her family. Distraught and overcome with questions and doubts about his religious upbringing, Timothy decided the only way to empathize and understand her pain was to walk in the shoes of very people he had been taught to shun. He decided to come out as a gay man to everyone in his life, and to see for himself how the label of gay would impact his life. In the tradition of Black Like Me, The Cross in the Closet is a story about people, a story about faith, and about one man's "abominable" quest to find Jesus in the margins."

(from the back cover)

This book was a fascinating read, and is enlightening in terms of how a person is able to not only gain a deeper understanding of others and to make a space in his or her heart for them, but to have love where before there was hatred and rejection. Definitely recommended.

Online preview available.
BlueHead Publishing (October 11, 2012)

p.s. Summer has given more opportunities to read, so I've been recommending books lately. In the next months, I plan to share quotes from Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited along with more new cartoons.

cartoons about serial killers

How do you decide when a cartoon or joke is harmless, or when it hurts people? Of course, the same cartoon can amuse one person, offend another person and confuse yet another. But overall, are there principles or ways of determining where a cartoon stands?

Take this cartoon from Matta as an example:

Should a serial killer be offended by this? Does it make fun of him or her? Or it is simply a funny idea which happens to be about serial killers and their weapons? After all, it's not like one of those jokes that starts with a line like "Serial killers are so disgusting that ...."

one true voice

Whose voice will be heard by the parishioners?

How true is that voice?

How can we listen to one another, and together as the body of Christ with the leading of God's Spirit discern what is true?

[single stories]

There often seems to be an aversion to hearing the stories of others. I'm not referring to hearing the stories of a poor widow in the Sudan, of a homeless family in Toronto, of our friend's weekend camping adventure. No, our aversion is to the stories of those whom we dislike and whom we often despise, those whom we see as being sinful and out of line, those whom we see as being beyond hope or unregenerate.

We like to hear one side of the story. It keeps things nice and tidy for us; it avoids disrupting our world.

But it is narrow and limited. And it negatively impacts those whose stories are not being told.

Richard Beck, in his review of Michael McRay's Letters from Apartheid Street, refers to these single stories and how hearing the other stories – or, to put it differently, the stories of others – counters the effects of the single story:

Reversing the dynamics of dehumanization, Michael describes this as a process of rehumanization (pp. 25-26):

...the danger of the single story. Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie warns of the danger of single stories--that is, stories which depict only one side to a person or event. Such stories, when repeated often, convince the audience that the description within the story is the whole truth...

 ...I must confess...I have a single story of soldiers...

 ...I want to take seriously Jesus's call to love my enemies...[But without] another story to add to the original, though, I cannot create a fabric of humanity in which to clothe them. I have needed a story to re-humanize the Israeli soldiers occupying this land...

Michael finds this second story in conversations he seeks out and recounts with some of the Israeli soldiers. It's a wonderful example of how you, practically, go about learning to love your enemies.

From http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.ca/2013/06/letters-from-apartheid-street.html, (quoting from Letters from Apartheid Street: A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine by Michael McRay. Emphasis added.)