Jesus is my boyfriend

I just read an article that jogged my memory of a conversation I had with one of my good friends the other day centered on the phrase above. I not only think the phrase carries a dripping, overly emotional and sentimental Francine Rivers or Danielle Steele feel to it, I personally am repelled as a heterosexual guy by its connotations. And though my friend disagreed with me on this point, I think the reality that the church is the "bride of Christ" should only be employed in speaking of the church as a whole, not me as an individual. At any rate, I don't want to comment too much on this article, but it's the first real solid, even-handed look I've seen at the emotionally-charged, erotic relationship with Jesus stuff. It's not like this is new (see: Teresa of Avila), but it is rapidly gaining steam in the more conservative, Max Lucado-addicted crowd...and some of the examples the author of the article highlights seriously made my jaw drop to the ground.

There are two main dangerous effects (in my mind) of this overly sentimentalized emotional love towards our relationship with Jesus if engaged in uncritically:


1) It reduces Jesus to a subjective "friend" (buddy Jesus) without the equally true reality that he is Lord of the Universe. Jesus is not just some smarmy "I looooooove you" concept without serious expectations for our lives that demand we subordinate his friend status to his Lordship status. A simple look at what Jesus represents on the white horse in Revelation (as well as a couple conversations with Pharisees or the times he dresses down his disciples) wouldn't really fly in a Danielle Steele novel. Instead of asking "What is Jesus to YOU?" I think we should ask "Do we carry an understanding of Jesus that reveals ALL of who he was and is?" (because I'm accountable for the picture of Jesus I portray through my thoughts and actions). That way, we can see that Jesus not only is merciful and willing to help when we screw up, but also has eyes that flash with his commitment to righteousness and expectations for his followers. One without the other could lead to some twisted conclusions about Jesus.


2) Focusing on our emotional "feelings" of love towards Jesus without integrating other elements of love (consistency, commitment no matter what, trust, sticking it out through the hard times as well as the good) can create a situation where a girl (or guy I guess) can be terribly confused and feel terribly unloved when the highly charged emotions aren't there. Or, any challenge to their lives and their relationship with God becomes a personal attack on their private relationship with Jesus; and they reject out of hand anything that might ask of them commitment in the midst of a hard situation.

Just a couple thoughts. Here's the beginning of the article.

Dating Jesus: When 'lover of my soul' language goes too far. Agnieszka Tennant

"God loved the world with an extravagant tenderness. He spun into our genes a strand of divine DNA. Imago dei, this God with us—it's an astonishing intimacy..."

Read the rest of the article here.

Some thoughts (maybe some interaction with others?)

My friend Matt Murphy is a prolific blogger over on Myspace; I wish I had the work ethic to be as disciplined on mine (blogging helps me sort out my scattered thoughts). Matt about a half a month or so ago posted a blog I found interesting. I'll attach both his thoughts and mine, but before doing that, I've got a bit of a preface that's been rolling through my head recently (most directly related to Matt's approach).

Matt is not your typical evangelical American Christian. How do I define typical evangelical American Christian? Most often, I find them to be hypocritical in belief and lifestyle and logically incoherent. Keep in mind I'm saying this as a Christian too (and that I, from time to time, am both hypocritical and logically incoherent, but work with me). I continually find myself intrigued that Christians can in one breath talk about love, forgiveness, and God's grace and in the next talk of folks next-door or across the globe as if their lives are nothing more than dirt. It seems to me the prevailing message we get in our churches is typically something that leads to a split in us; as if you or I could "love" someone in our hearts but beat to a different drum in our actions. As a simple example, somehow we've been taught that we can "love" God and others and "forgive" others while simultaneously serving in the military and killing those who disagree with us (using the most obvious case) in the name of "justice." This logic goes further for those who don't serve directly in the military but engage in the cult worship of military "heroes" or our American governmental leaders that usually takes place the Sunday closest to every Memorial Day, Veterans' Day, or Independence Day where we celebrate their sacrifice to maintain our "freedom." Acknowledging that reality could spawn some more writing here on that subject, but I think it's important to focus here on the false presumption that we can "believe" certain things while our lives and primary motivations completely contradict what we say we believe in. It's wickedly humorous to me how supposedly mature Christians in times of relative peace and comfort say all the right things, yet when things happen that destabilize the norm, they line up with all the other good American citizens and toe the line of uncritically accepting the decisions of G.W. because he's a "praying man" or the nation at large as if we're the pure, perfect light of freedom and justice in the world or some other such nonsense. This applies to any modern nation-state (especially in the West) where fealty to the state usurps faithfulness to Christ as Lord.

What has "love" become in our society? What about "justice" and "peacemaking" and "discipleship"? It's manifestly obvious to me we value Jeremy Bentham, George W. Bush, or H. Richard Niebuhr's opinions on these subjects more than Jesus or Paul. Is that a problem? (tongue planted firmly in cheek) I say all this because Matt (as a relatively "new" Christian) has a deeper awareness of the aforementioned concepts of love, discipleship, justice, etc than 99.9% of my friends or acquaintances that call themselves Christian. How has this hit Matt between the eyes and not them? My deeper question is: how can we recover a reading of the teachings of Jesus with a plain understanding that they are intended to be the center of what it means for you and I to be disciples? Call me crazy, but love doesn't make sense if we don't define it by Jesus' example, teachings, and further (second-level) New Testament musings. The proper pursuit of justice doesn't make sense if we don't define it by Jesus' example, teachings, and further (second-level) New Testament musings, etc etc. Matt seems to have this awareness (along with a willingness to be dynamic in dialogue about the secondary issues that stem from his pursuit of discipleship in the way of Christ). I think that should be applauded.

Anyways, here's what he said on his blog (keep in mind my perception of Matt's approach comes not from this post alone, but from reading multiple posts that seem to reflect a consistent motivation):

I have opinions that my friends don't like.

Soldiers go door to door killing. For what? Are the citizens of Iraq suddenly going to come to my house and try to kill me or my family? Probably not. Its a good thing we have a constitution here that generally prevents the killing of malcontents. Have any weapons of mass distruction definitively been found? No. Did Iraq threaten us prior to our invasion of their country? Depends on who you talk to. Have we rooted out any Al Qaeda members in Iraq? Not definitively. When we did invade, for the purpose of human rights, did we assist refugees? Not really. Is the US Government moving to make more strict laws against torture of prisoners? Negative. Wait, isn't torture of Americans one of the things we are upset about? How many innocent have died? A lot. How many American soldiers have died just from being over there (vehicular accidents, friendly fire, etc.)? A lot. In the first Iraq war, more Americans died from just being over there than in the war. Is Matt ever going to vote Republican? My sources say no."

And my response:

"Some further questions I think are important:

How does a secular sense of justice match up with a Biblical sense of justice 1)in general and 2)specifically in the case of Iraq?

How do we as the church maintain a distance from the actions of the state and take action in our own unique way that provides an alternative witness in times where the actions of the state are clearly unjust?

In recognizing the ultimate futility of staking our complete interest in the actions of the state (empires rise and fall, right?), how do we move beyond secular political pigeonholing (liberal/conservative, Democrat/Republican/Green/Libertarian) to recognize that the Politics of Jesus will make some label us as conservative in some areas and liberal in others?

In connection with another of your blogs, it seems to me we always have the temptation to make the easiest move towards the most comfort in our lives. I think that relates to:
1) our politics...its easier to toe the line of whatever party we agree most with and we end up defending their entire platform because we think they're "right" and the other "wrong", and
2) how we relate to the society as the church...we've passed off much of the responsibility of the church to impact the society for good (who started widespread education and the helping profession of medicine?) on the state; that way we don't have to do much other than go to church on Sunday and sit on our hands the rest of the time.

That makes it a heck of a lot easier to sit in our armchairs and talk about why the poor just need to quit being lazy and do something about their lives when we don't have any direct connection to those who are poverty stricken; or talk about why single mothers shouldn't get abortions without actually working directly in their lives so they know not only their lives are important, but the lives of their unborn children, etc etc. I'm continually frustrated by how selfish I am in this respect (in a vacuum, I'd choose the armchair), and how much potential we have for grassroots change as the church that's being wasted in front of televisions between the four walls of our residences."

Penny for your thoughts (and willingness to read this longish post)

Movies that make you go hmmmm......

sideways closer

I've seen two movies in the past week ("Sideways" and "Closer") that have really messed me up...it's hard to put a finger on the reasons why, specifically, these movies struck deep, but I'm willing to take a stab at what's been going on inside my head since the viewings.

I'll just state right off the top that both of these movies made me extremely sad and yet profoundly touched at the same time, although Closer has engaged my mind much more than sideways. In addition, Clive Owen (I wanted to deck him in the face), Natalie Portman (her sadness KILLED me) and Paul Giamatti (I wanted to walk with him through his depression...LOOK at his face in that picture above...he's SEARCHING and not finding over and over and over again) inspired the most intense emotions in me since Joaquin Phoenix played Commodus in Gladiator (thinking of his role in that movie has ruined every other role I'll see him in for forever and a day). Uggg...just writing that last sentence raises my hackles..."Am I not merciful!" No, Commodus, you're not; and you're an incestuous, misguided, petulant, murderous baby; why don't you buck up and face your insecurity instead of always spinning the conversation and issues off on others? (that would've won me rave reviews in the Emperor's court)

I'd have to say that more than anything else, both of these movies drew out in sharp relief how twisted our societal conceptions of love, intimacy, sex, and relationships have become. The flip-flopping of love as desire, love as intimacy, love as perfection, love as manipulation, love lost through jadedness, love that allows one to get laid multiple times the week before marriage, etc runs so deep in our society, and clearly showed the swamp we more often than not are willing to wade through in life that often swirls us deeper into self-doubt, lack of intimacy, and coldness instead of drawing us deeper into relationship with one another. The older I get, the more I sense the core longing I have for knowing God and being known by Him, and everything society tosses at us to cover over and inoculate against this longing built into us all. It was horribly painful to me (especially in Closer) to see that the decisions each individual made over the course of the movie built a wall higher...brick by brick...between themselves and others.

Do you remember the poster in health class in high school that had the guy with all that black junk all over his face and bruises and stuff and it said, "If you knew what your insides looked like on the outside from smoking, would you still do it?" For some reason that poster came to mind for me, and I wondered what it would be like if the emotional wounds we all carry showed themselves outwardly on us through bruises and lacerations and stuff. Would we be more willing to recognize our woundedness and need for healing, or would we all walk around and pretend like they weren't there like we do today? To be honest with you, the reality of that picture in my mind has haunted me for a few days now. To see Natalie Portman's character shredded emotionally time and again, the temptation and consummation of her sense of vengeance and desire for justice by sleeping with Clive to get back at Jude, and her confusion over what love means instilled in me a deep sense of sadness that's taken awhile to dissipate. It's even more sad knowing that so many people are in this state (including myself from time to time). Why do we think we can be self-sufficient, treat others like dirt, see relationships as a means to an end, and ultimately find we've only been wounding ourselves?

The last few days, as I've read of the relationship Adam and Eve had in the Garden with God...the relationship that was intended to last; I've felt my heart tugging and longing for that place and that reality...walking with God in the cool of the evening. Knowing who I was. Knowing my life was valued. Seeing the beauty of what relationship was intended to be. I want to live like that with others...and above all, to be honest with who am I with God. I don't need to pretend to be something I'm not; He knows the truth anyways.

Why all the smokescreens and deception?