Holy Week Hoopla

Someone commented a few days ago about how Holy Week always puts Christianity in the spotlight in media. For whatever reason, I have since noticed it far more predominately this year. Here are a few of my favorite highlights:

Strike One. In Naugatauck, Conn., a store owner put a sign out that says "Easter: Honk for Jesus." The neighboring tattoo parlor artist and owner put out a sign next to it that says "Honk twice for..." and has a picture of a devil below it. In defending his decision, he stated that he wasn't a satanist himself, but he didn't want his customers thinking that his business put out the Christian sign. "More people have been killed in the name of God than over anything else, and so I don't think people should fight about religion," he said. "Satan is part of the same religion as Christ, so it's a contrast, not a competing religion." Well, how very postmodern of him.

Strike Two. Here in Missouri, a heavy-weight bout of a different kind is being waged between the theologically and culturally conservative Missouri Baptist Convention (and also the Southern Baptist Convention) and the theologically conservative but culturally liberal emerging church (specifically, The Journey Church in St. Louis). "Missouri's Most Powerful Baptist," Roger Moran, is using his politically established platform as a lay leader in the MBC to blast the practices of emerging churches, such as The Journey, who use alternative methods to reaching the unchurched in today's young adult culture. Apparently, holding official theological discussions at Schlaffly Bottleworks (and enjoying a brewskie or two) is specifically outlawed and condemned in his version of the Bible. He must have missed the part where Jesus turned water into wine... or where He stayed in the houses of tax collectors... or the time when he counseled a prostitute at a well and told her that He loves her in spite of her sin... but I guess that's not important when you have "conservative values," right?

Strike Three. In New York (come on, you knew it was coming!), an artist famed for truly brilliant ideas like spraying 5 tons of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home, or "festooning" a 4 poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham, has been forced to take down his sculpture of a nude, anatomically correct 200 lb. Jesus that was planned to open in a hotel art exhibit. The appropriately named "My Sweet Lord" sculpture caused such an outrage, that the artist was sent death threats and the hotel who planned on hosting the exhibit received hundreds of phone calls. Artist Cosimo Cavallaro, says that it was not his intent to create outrage, but if people would just "listen with open minds..."

I'm sure that many more interesting stories highlighting Christianity will come about as the week goes on. I didn't pick these stories from a group, but are just the first few that came to my attention. I find it interesting that, at the core, each highlights a different manifestation of conflicting beliefs. Why is this the focus of our interest? Why are we looking for conflict? I don't know.

The Post-Dispatch's story on the MBC and the "emerging church," however, I found to be particularly interesting. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, "emerging church," it is a very loose network of interdenominational churches who's association is primarily their shared vision for the future of the Christian faith. Their vision is a return to "the basics" of scripture in loving our neighbors without agenda, and showing how the Gospel is relevant to contemporary culture instead of forcing culture to conform to their own idea of what culture should be. Awesome examples of this are Mars Hill Church in Seattle and The Journey here in St. Louis. I don't want to go into a huge amount of detail in this post because 1.) I want to write more about it later, and 2.) I need to do some more digging to be able to give a better definition. My intent with bringing it up here is in my desire to see this conflict played out and resolved in the church so it can be incorporated into our theology. For too long we Christians have built our fences and walls, creating a system of rules to which we can fulfill and pridefully declare "I'm a good person." Once we realize that being a disciple of Christ is anything but comfortable, pristine, and painless, we will finally be living out the Gospel of grace to our fellow man. Love hurts. But it rocks too.

If you are familiar with the emerging church and would like to learn more, check out Mark Driscoll's "Radical Reformition" or "Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Church" (one which I still need to read myself). I know that the last half of this post was as clear as mud, so stay tuned for more entertaining attempts to figure this out and put it to words.