Several years back, when I was an interim youth minister, I wore one of those colorful “WWJD” bracelets that were in vogue at the time. Many of the kids in my two youth groups wore them, and perhaps you had one or more yourself. the idea seemed both trendy and an appropriate expression of one’s faith. I thought perhaps my kids would notice that I was not afraid to show my loyalty.
With that one exception, I have never been one to wear my faith on my sleeve. After all, I am a Presbyterian, and everybody knows we are “the frozen chosen.” As a rule, we are not given to being demonstrative with our faith proclamations. Perhaps we are working undercover too much of the time.
Driving on the freeway recently, I spotted a car with a bumper sticker that said, “Jesus Rocks!” I guess I would agree, but I wonder if we do not do religion a disservice when we try too hard to reduce its cosmic truths to a slogan brief enough to fit on a bumper sticker. I have a friend who maintains that we live in a bumper-sticker culture where everything–especially critical political dialogue–is reduced to sound bites and and pithy one-liners. Perhaps it is the post-post-modern way of dealing with complex notions.
To suggest that “Jesus is my homeboy” may sound hip, but I submit that it doesn’t begin to tell the fullness of the story. I realize that the very point of a slogan is to capture the essence of a larger, more complex message. Unfortunately, I suspect that many folks never even get to the greater point. I am especially distressed by the very superficial way that non-believers often approach the historic Christian faith, failing to grasp the grand sweep of the God-infused human history that many of us have come to celebrate. They are too often encumbered by the stereotypes and caricatures that embarrass thoughtful Christians, and sadly, they never arrive at a place where they are moved to drink in the luscious grace of God in the midst of a community of Kingdom-aware disciples.
The earth-shattering, pretense-puncturing Christ-event of history, with its vast implications for all of humankind, can never be reduced to a short message. I often ask young couples who come to me to be married what they think about Christianity. I ask them to be brutally honest. Do they find it quaint, irrelevant, oppressive, intellectually silly? What they most often tell me is that they think it has a place, but that they have not thought much about it. What a shame.
Perhaps a bumper sticker slogan about the truth of my faith is better than nothing. Maybe learning that Jesus rocks is preferable to having no opinion about him. And maybe those of us who claim that faith need to live it more demonstrably. Great thinkers from Nietzsche to Gandhi have suggested as much. That seems far more genuine than honking if you love Jesus.
Raising Basileia 