Deicide

The April 1966 edition of Time Magazine lives in infamy for its bold title: Is God Dead? The cover is on many lists of the best magazine covers of all-time, and for good reason. It pulls at the heartstrings of many and forces us to ask questions we’d rather not ask.

The truth is, at one point, He was. Dead.

It is hard to fathom just how twisted humanity must be to assassinate God, Himself. To think ourselves self-sufficient enough to eradicate the very God that gave breath to our lungs was the pinnacle of the pride of mankind being exposed in the most grotesque of displays.

Deity sprawled across a wooden beam as humanity challenges Him by mockingly saying God couldn’t even save Himself.

An ancient portion of the Jewish text called the Torah had a portion that read:

לֹא־תָלִין נִבְלָתֹו עַל־הָעֵץ כִּֽי־קָבֹור

תִּקְבְּרֶנּוּ בַּיֹּום הַהוּא כִּֽי־קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים

תָּלוּי וְלֹא תְטַמֵּא אֶת־אַדְמָתְךָ אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה

אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָֽה׃ ס

Ever so haunting are those letters. God’s own law used against Him by humanity, so that every person who is placed across a tree is cursed.

Make no mistake about it. Jesus was executed for political purposes. The idea that the Jews might have a new emperor was threatening to Romans. But the Jews were more haunted by the idea that a Messiah wouldn’t wipe out the Romans to set-up a political Kingdom so they could get revenge. They couldn’t wrap their mind around God not being their flavor of perfect. The Messiah they had spent years inventing wasn’t real.

God, Himself, had killed their idea of God, Himself.

It seemed an injustice and a fraud for this mere Nazarene born in rural Bethlehem to allow people to call Him King of the Jews. This wasn’t the king they’d craved. He had just let them beat Him with no measure of retaliation – what kind of a King does that?

God had a funeral. He was given burial spices even as a newborn. He was placed in a tomb with a boulder to seal to entryway. A soldier of the occupying political regime was placed before the tomb. They said it was to guard the tomb, but perhaps the imagery was the greater intention. The Romans had conquered another potential insurrection by slaughtering an innocent. Once again, the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) remained. Peace through death. Yet another successful crucifixion.

The light of the world – blown out like a candle.

Starry Night

I recently started reading a great book called “Divine Commodity” by Skye Jethani. This work attempts to reveal the pitfalls of consumerism quenching our thirst for imagination and perspective, and thus far, does a fantastic job of it.

Jethani utilizes the perspective and works of nineteenth century Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh to illustrate many of his thoughts. Most of us have seen van Gogh’s most famous painting, an oil on canvas konwn as The Starry Night.

Now, I’d seen this several times, myself and thought it to be dreadfully uninspiring. I never much like impressionism, so I was already fighting an uphill battle. The winds and clouds seemed uninvolved in the rural countryside below, the sun was dreadful, and it just really didn’t evoke any emotions.

Jenthani pointed out something that has made me revisit this infamous painting with reverence and awe. Look at the buildings in this painting and look for something…missing.

Here is the church.
Here is the steeple.
Open the doors.
Lighting no people.

van Gogh

In the midst of a typical night, with God’s lights up above shining bright over a village, one building that should be reflecting the light like a bicycle reflector is more dark than the rest of the community.

One might immediately think, “Well, of course. The church is empty because everyone is at home.” But van Gogh seemed to have other ideas as he sought to “tell it slant.”

“When I have a terrible need of-shall I say the word-religion, then I go out and paint the stars.” -Vincent van Gogh

van Gogh made a habit of hanging out on a hillside, glaring at the open sky. Perhaps this perch was his source of imagination and creativity. But looking now at this painting, I have a new respect for it. When an artist exposes the truth of a culture, brings conviction, and makes those of his particular religion seek to fix their wrong, there’s a word for it. A word most contemporary Christians would much rather ascribe to a televangelist raising money for bigger sets, fancier limos, and a still darkened faith (despite its bordering fraud and manipulation).

Prophet.

Starry Night

Leaving Behind “Left Behind”

As a high school student, I was an avid reader of Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” books. For those who missed out on this phenomenon, LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins authored a series of books about Christian doctrine of the “rapture” and what takes place thereafter that went on to sell 40,000,000 copies, spawn three movies, spin-offs, and more. It became a 1990s phenomenon that my church even adopted for a production of the same name. If you’re already familiar with it, just scroll past the bullets if you want.

In the series, the dispensationalist doctrine of the rapture takes place. As the world picks up the pieces, a group assembles together to create an alternative community of Christians who warn of the judgments of Revelation coming. A figure-head of a global government arises named Nicolae Carpathia to rule the globe (with his trusy sidekick, Leon Fortunato playing the part of “the false prophet”). A literal interpreation of Bible prophecy is transformed into a narrative story that slowly covers three years (or so) in 16 books.

Early on into the eighth book called The Mark (which I spent months anticipating), I had this sudden thought of, “why am I reading these books?” Faster than you can say “you just wasted $30,” I threw the book down and began pondering exactly what I had been reading. This wasn’t really Bible prophecy – this was an artisitic twist on speculative events. Something instinctively made me realize I was wasting my time.

Years, a college education, and a lot of reading later, I’ve revisited a look at what I missed. Apparently not much:

• I saw the first Left Behind movie and thought it was awful. Poor quality and not at all believable. They went on to make two more movies that were even more terrible.
•  A CD for the series was released with a “who’s who” of CCM. I’ll spare you the gory details of who’s part of this compilation, but let’s just say most of it leaves creativity and beauty in music as an optional component.
• Comic books – for those who can’t read, I guess.
• Left Behind: Eternal Forces was a video game where players “use the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.” Not only was the game awful by video game standards, but it begs the question, “What is spiritual warfare?”
• 40 kids books, 5 novels, 2 spin-offs, and a partridge-in-a-pair tree

I paint this picture to let you know that this is a juggernaut – and one I was extremely familar with. Sadly, I’ve been reading some of the “wrong books,” that theologians who read Left Behind don’t read.

• Surprised by Hope
• The Secret Message of Jesus
• Jesus for President

In these books, a different picture is painted of Revelation and other such theological texts. Consider a few thoughts:

1. 1 Thessalonians 4’s “meet Him in the air” was a common phrase in the day for greeting a prominent person and escorting them into a city – sort of like southern hospitality. See this document for more.
2. Revelation was a story John wrote, largely to emplore early Christians to come out of empire through allegorical language that made sense in the day and now seems cryptic.
3. The infamous “mark of the beast” was happening as Revelation 13 was being written. A person who wanted to shop in a first century supermarket had to check-in as they entered the store, pledge allegiance to Caesar, and take a stamp on their right hand or forehead with Caesar’s emblem on it. 666 is a simple math equation – nrwn qsr (knowing that Hebrew letters also have numerical values) that add up to NERO CAESAR.

I could go on and on, but you can do that on your own if you’re interested.

So what am I saying? I’m here to offer casual Christians a means to re-think what we have been told for quite sometime.

Consider the fact that the “rapture” wasn’t an existing doctrine until 1861 thanks to Margaret McDonald & John Nelson Darby. It spread a bit in Europe, but spread like wildfire in America. It rarely caught on around the world to the rest of Christians – you need only look at worldwide sales of Left Behind to see the proof. This is a Western phenomenon. No one in the early church had this idea. It would seem that something so critical to doctrine would have a whole lot more about it listed in Scripture than one verse and a few loose references.

I really don’t know much about Bible prophecy – I used to know everything if you’d asked me. Eschatology (as its called) is something that should have more questions than answers. Want proof? Find your favorite Bible prophecy expert and order their books from 20 years ago. If Christian doctrine swayed as much as their Revelation Unveiled “truth,” this religion would have never gotten off the ground.

The eschatology I do know is that Christ is one day coming to literally be grand emperor of Earth. I don’t mean this figuratively – I mean that all the states and nations will have one ruler to rule them all. Those who are “dead in Christ” will rise to join along in this new Kingdom.

Subversive Fundamentalism

I am unapologetically not a fundamentalist. This is not to say that I don’t have standards and beliefs that are non-negotiable. I’m all for the tenants of the Apostles’ Creed and other foundational theologies. However, one of the unique aspects of Christianity is that it is not entirely a cut-and-dry faith. The Bible isn’t explicit about how our church and everyday experiences should be. Rather, as Rob Bell teaches, its an open book – able to be considered and discussed.

In the process, of dealing with this, I took several months in early 2006 to deconstruct a lot of theologies I had been taught to assume correct. Those five months were severely difficult, but have helped to frame me into the person I am now.

Following this process (though to an extent, its ongoing), I’m finding that there are many organizations within Christianity that never made the jump and are still swimming in fundamentalist waters. Such ideology is very difficult because it spends more time tearing down minor issues than focusing on big picture issues. Consider these two options for what to focus on:
Tearing Down

• Don’t play video games – they could lead to your mind getting poisoned
• You should only hang out with friends who are Christians – you’ll fall otherwise
• Stop listening to music that isn’t Christian – the other stuff doesn’t glorify God and will hurt your mind
• Don’t dress in all black clothes – it makes you look angry

Building Up

• When you evaluate media, ask yourself if its true? Is it beautiful?
• What kind of people did Jesus make his friends? Tax collectors? Doctors? Prostitutes?
• Christianity is about finding way to change yourself to become more like God intended humans to be from the foundation of the planet

The differences are insane.

The Power of Visual Media

I have been engaging a thought experiment for several months wherein I have been considering why people in our culture are so enthralled by visual media, such as television, film, movie clips, internet media clips (i.e. YouTube), video games, etc. This goes deeper than just “because we like them,” as this appears to be a universal reaction to visual arts. Something else is going on psychologically.

My hunch is that it involves the way the human mind interacts with imagery. When humans dream and recall memories, they do not envision a continuous , stream of action. Rather, they see frames of motion taking place picture by picture in a continuous flow, rather than natural motion. When the human brain is interacting with visual media, it is witnessing a continuous stream of pictures that are more natural than even dreams create.

As a result, the human brain interacts much more powerfully with visual arts than in other circumstances.

At our church today, a military and police guru named Lt. Col. Dave Grossman taught extensively to hundreds of policeman in the region. Studies are showing that when young people engage in visual media, the middle part of their brains interacts with the visual, which is the animalistic, instinct portion, while the front half of the brain, which controls reason and analysis, remains dormant. Perhaps visual media is so powerful that it engages our brains in ways which we cannot control.