(adapted from a Bible & Pop Culture journal response)
“Upon seeing ‘J’ walking down the aisle in cutoffs and a tuxedo T-shirt, God leans over to Pope and wryly notes, ‘Damn. I’ll never be able to retire.’” (C&W, 50).
It's okay. I laughed, too.
As I was reading the C&W article on the representations of Jesus – both for devotional purposes and in Elseworlds – I realized that I am much more drawn to the representations of Jesus in the Elseworlds. I like to engage the cultural presentations, the “cultural preoccupation[s] with Jesus and [the] playful willingness to engage in ahistoric aesthetic experiments in order to ask, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ if he were dropped into weird environments” (49). That seems like much more fun and much more applicable to the world today than trying to re-create a Jesus in antiquity…definitely much more interesting.
I worry though, I guess, about that degenerating into mockery. I do not want to mock Jesus. I think that I like the Elseworld Jesus because it satirizes religion, and religion can be stuffy and ridiculous sometimes and we need (I want) to laugh at it for its ridiculousness. It's like the YouTube videos by Vintage 21 that satirize old school Jesus videos. They are hysterical and point out the silliness of the devotional type Jesus films ("There's that, and there's that"). I really never have been a fan of force-fed religion and the Elseworld representations of Jesus allow me to consider what I really think and give me the space to draw my own conclusions and to imagine (and throw out, if I desire) different aspects of Jesus’ character. I want to confront my fears and the limitations of my faith and figure it out; I realize, though, that sentiment does not apply to the majority of Christians or human beings in general. That is why I am at seminary, and at a seminary that encourages me to come to my own conclusions. I like the space to imagine Jesus, to laugh and to consider, being confronted with different ideas about him and Christianity within the checks and balances provided by a community of people doing the same thing.
And yet, my biggest fear is going from pointing out the inconsistencies and silliness of religion to mocking Jesus the actual person. I take Jesus seriously because I have wrestled – and continue to wrestle – with what I think about him and God. I love and respect Jesus the human because he stood up for what he believed despite his being “just another Jew in the ditch” (Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited). I do not understand how exactly Jesus the human is Jesus the divine representation of God, but I do believe it and respect the mystery. Process theism says it is because Jesus the man most fully responded to call of God upon his life (it's just so funny).
Then I consider that perhaps the Devotional Jesus side of things can become mockery, too, just on the other side of the coin. Sam Harris says that moderates are failed fundamentalists, unable or unwilling to pick a spot and park it. Atheists and fundies bookend the conversation because both have chosen sides. So, asking as a failed fundamentalist, can we have both? Can we poke fun at Christianity and not Christ? Can we re-imagine Christ and Christianity in positive, progressive ways and caricature that which we find absurd? Can we ask, can we trust, mainstream audiences (although, what is mainstream? and can we apply that label to those people drawn to this genre of popular culture?) to responsibly and maturely (whatever that means) view and reflect on this Elseworld Jesus? Are the majority of people only able to handle Devotional Jesus because Elseworld Jesus is too out there, too controversial, too threatening? How can we Elseworld folks be responsible about that, too?
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