A few blocks from where I lived, I saw a bumper sticker that was a prayer. This was more than 10 years ago. The prayer was simply this, “Dear Jesus; protect me from your followers.”
Given how things have gone this last decade, and using the evangelical grid of prayers being answered with “yes,” “no,” or “later,” I am going to say that this particular bumper sticker prayer was answered with a resounding “no.”
Those who claim to follow Jesus have wreaked havoc in the world. To be fair, those who don’t follow Jesus have been havoc wreakers as well. It is just that Jesus told us that we, his followers, would be known by our love and we have come to be known, by many people, as a hate group.
You might remember when there was a common complaint in evangelical circles that Christians were not fairly represented in the media. I hear less of that complaint now. There can be, instead, an owning of the anger and aggression, a kind of pride in power and strength, even as claims to persecution and victimhood are still sounded. Some of the most powerful people in the world, or in particular nations, claim a Christian motivation for their trumpeting of division and fear and even war.
Victor Orban, in Hungary, as he consolidates power and seeks to outlaw opposition, presents himself as a protector of Christian values and a Christian nation. Vladimir Putin, in Russia, does the same, proclaiming that the “special military operation” in Ukraine is part of a larger vision to maintain Christian values in a Russian empire.
Large swaths of Christian expression in the United States, including the majority of evangelicalism, have become dominated by a similar Christian nationalist vision, using faith and religion to identify enemies and threats.
When it comes to social issues and personal freedom, it also seems that many Christians perpetrate fear and hate, rather than trust and love. My work as a pastor and in chaplaincy support at a hospital has occasioned interaction with families around the death and funeral of loved ones. I have seen families who deal with the “most religious” family member as the one who is most demanding, most insistent on their religious view defining the service.
A couple of days ago, I was watching some NFL football. The most religious time in America seems to be Sunday afternoons, the most religious culture seems to be NFL football. A few years ago, I attended a Seattle Seahawks game and it was far and away more religious than most church services I have attended. So, it was fitting that during the broadcast, there was an ad - for Jesus.
My first reaction when I see ads like that is to prepare to be upset. What kind of fearful, judgmental thing is Franklin Graham going to say now, or what kind of sappy bait and switch will be presented? This time it was more difficult for me to by cynical or skeptical. The ad centred around the slogan “He gets us” and it presented Jesus not as a tax-cutting, immigrant-bashing, moral crusader. Instead, Jesus was presented as actually loving, as counter to the status quo of power, wealth, and domination, and as understanding the pain of the rejected and the vulnerable.
When I was a pastor at an evangelical church I warned against what I called the “got your back, Jesus” sense of Christian life and identity. Kanye West showed up on the cover of Rolling Stone with a crown of thorns and the evangelical community went crazy. I said that I thought Jesus could handle it and that we ought to not think that we are called to be his defenders. Curious to note that, since then, Kanye has become somewhat of a Republican evangelical hero. All it took was a worship album and a Trump connection.Eventually, the “got your back, Jesus” motivation severs from Jesus and attaches itself to political, social and cultural causes. It is easy to see how that has happened on the political right wing, but the left wing is not immune from such tendency.
I prayerfully consider the gospel scene when Jesus was arrested before his crucifixion and Peter took up the “got your back, Jesus” stance, grabbed his sword, and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest who was there as part of the arresting party. Jesus told Peter to stop it and, in a last miracle before the crucifixion, healed the wounded man.
I wonder what such healing would look like today?
There is also that passage familiar to many evangelicals, the one about being “the aroma of Christ.” It’s in 2 Corinthians 2 and says that the aroma is for some “from death to death” and for some “from life to life.” That’s putting it mildly.
Many times, when I have been reading gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, I have asked Jesus why he put up with such bad public relations. He didn’t capitalize at all on the healing miracles, even warning people NOT to tell anyone. He allowed himself to be misunderstood over and over again.
I am grateful, that Jesus did not hire a PR firm. I am also intrigued by the ad I saw the other day. I get why the people behind it would be motivated to put such time and effort into rehabilitating Jesus’ image in America.
Having said that, I think He’s fine. Jesus has handled worse historically. Somehow, even amidst political storms and comical “strong men,” the love of Christ does find a way. In Christian faith we hold that Jesus has already made the longest journey, from God to humanity, a journey “into the far country” (as Karl Barth puts it). Finding a way through bad press is less daunting.