Christian? The Ontology of Movies, Mints, and Bible-guns.
I had a voicemail on my office phone the other day from someone marketing a new movie, a movie with an “inspirational story.” Basically, the caller encouraged me to take my youth group to see this film. Now, it’s really no secret that “inspirational” is code for “Christian.” And that got me thinking about a “Christian” movie. What would that movie look like? Does such a category of movies even exist?
What does “Christian” mean adjectivally? I mean, really. I go to the “Christian” bookstore which sells, and I’m not making this up, “Testamints.” How genius! Mints with a crosses embossed on them. Christian movies. Christian mints. Christian guns.
Right? Christian guns: slap a Bible verse on that sucker, and you’ve got yourself a genuine Bible-gun, ready for the Taliban. Or better yet, I can brand Psalm 42:1 on my 25-06 in hopes of bagging a 12-point buck deer. Bible-guns, the untapped market in Christian kitsch.
It’s easy to baptize something or somebody and label it/he/she as Christian. But few ask: what does that mean? How does a cross squeezed on a lifesaver make it a Christian mint? Praying to ask Jesus into ones heart? Shooting a Bible-gun? What about eating a Testamint and praying the sinner’s prayer while shooting a Bible-gun?
I suspect “asking Jesus into your heart” makes you a Christian like stamping a scripture on a gun makes that gun Christian. It doesn’t. As my friend Dallas might say, I’m not ontologically a Christian. And I suspect he’s right. It’s difficult to define a state of being (to construct sentences with be verbs) as empirically Christian.
It’s a scary thing to say, “‘Christian’ isn’t a state of being,” because it takes away the ability of those in power to anoint someone or something as acceptable. The powerful retain power by constructing meaning and by defining who is in and who is out, applying the label “Christian.” But the truth is, living in community is a messy thing, a thing not easily defined or divined. Living in community involves much more than lifting a hand and saying a prayer; it involves much more than a linear process of discipleship (e.g. I progressively become more Christian as I pray or read my Bible).
We’ve gotten this wrong too long. We’ve asked too many people to walk down to a prayer bench and sent them merrily on their ways. We’ve had too many discipleship classes with 7 steps to become like a sanitized Jesus. We’ve rejected too many people because they didn’t look or act or believe like “Christians.”
I’m neither a Christian being, nor am I becoming (in a linear sense) Christian. I am, however, “learning the practices and language of and living in a family, the [Church]” (see this great post by Wess Daniels). Learning is creative and tedious and improvisational and dangerous and beautiful. It’s living in this creative/tedious/beautiful family, a family which lives and fails and lives again in faithfulness to the story of God as revealed in Jesus, that matters.
(I’ve been putting off this post. I’ve said so much lately, I don’t want to risk saying this in the absurdity of everything else. But a series of conversations and sermons means I can’t put this off any longer.)
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Doesn't that mean that "Christians" exist within our relationships? I mean to be Christ like (Christian) You must love God and then love your neighbor. Whomever your neighbor is you have to have a relationship with them to exhibit that kind of love. There is an act of being Christian, it's a matter of motive; primarily why and how?
I think the problem is the label "Christian." I hear things like, "Are gays Christian?" "You shouldn't play non-Christian music at church" "The President's not a Christian." Phrase like those are used to delegitimize (and oppress) something or someone. "Christian" in those cases says less about the nature of the person or thing and more about the preservation of the power structures.
The problem is that, traditionally, communities need to use language in a way that both preserves (internally) and protects (externally). But churches (communities of Jesus) were founded by deconstructing those traditional power structures and by vulnerable inclusion. Identity in such communities is a fluid thing and should be informed, not by the most powerful, but by the least of these.
I agree the problem is the label. It's a stereotype at best. The label categorizes and then people will natuarlly sort things in that manner. You can find those labels in all walks of life, for example, I am a "Sailor" the general association is that we are drunken, cursing men with no morals. My experience has been that while the standard maybe different, there are very few groups of people with the level of personal integrity that Sailors have. I guess my next question is, how do we change those power structures?
Maybe a couple of things, most of which get you in trouble. Like what Jesus did with "Sabbath," a word that had become mostly a tool of oppression. Jesus and his disciples picked grain on the Sabbath; Jesus healed on the Sabbath. When confronted by the good folks who defined "Sabbath," he provided an alternative vision of what Sabbath meant, a definition rooted in the in-breaking rule of God (an eschatological vision) AND based on the struggles of the oppressed.
I don't know that there's some pattern we can follow (patterns seem too constrictive), but I'd say challenging power structures involves something(s) of the following: disassembling words/phrases, reassembling those words/phrases [with God's future in sight (eschatologically) but grounded in the stories of the oppressed], and pissing the powers off. The stories of the oppressed make us realists. And it's the part that pisses people off.
I'll add this, too. Here's what I think Pentecostals can bring to the table but what we too often miss. Speaking in "tongues" has to be a fluid thing, since language and meaning are always evolving. Of course, to evolve something must have a starting point, a root. BUT, the shared language of Christians and Jews is a slave narrative, a Diaspora people who occasionally find ourselves as the "powers." We have to constantly check to make sure that our "tongues" are spoken in the margins. And that's the evolution.
That's why I struggle when people talk about the "traditional definition of marriage" or "we must have church on the Lord's day" or whatever. Fundamentally, the language of those folks has ceased to evolve, ceased to be constructive, ceased to be…Christian.
A pattern ( I don't like that either) or definition is to restrictive when talking about Christianity. We as people latch on to definitions and patterns, we understand them; we fear things we don't understand as a culture. Also they affect our faith, by putting "limits" around something God is involved in. We are talking about someone who has raised the dead, spoken through a donkey, parted the waters of the Red Sea, etc. Christ brought that vision, and that's what we must follow. That eschatological vision requires us to interact with those in need, He succeeded where the Pharisees and Saducces didn't. God's chosen leaders have always been interactive with His people from Moses, to the Judges, Prophets and onto the Apostles. All that to say the focus should be on if our actions are bringing us closer to Jesus, if we do that then the people we have a relationship with will see Him in us.