Not my words, the words of the minister-to-be who prompted this
blog. Funny thing, except for the anthropomorphism, I have thought that
exact thing about Tao.
Of course, the most obvious evidence of God’s (or Tao’s)
cheekiness is MY son’s call to ministry in a very problematic (as in very
conflicted over the homosexuality as unGodlike issue) United Methodist Church. Some say it’s my
fault even because, although I no longer worship a good-looking white guy that
sends specific messages from above to guide my day from the moment I get out of
bed to take my first pee in the morning to the moment I lay my head down on the
pillow where Jesus who loves me protects me throughout the night, I am guilty
of raising my son in a Progressive Methodist Church. OK, fair enough. In my
defense, I was very careful in my selection, searching for the least traditional,
most inclusive Christian church I could find in Tucson in 1996.
When Dan first chose Wesley Theological Seminary, his
response to my question about why he chose a seminary SO FAR AWAY FROM HOME (he
was accepted to all four of his choices, two of which were a lot closer than
Washington DC) was that he felt Wesley might be perhaps a bit
more conservative than the two California seminaries or ‘peace-loving’ Boston
University School of Theology. Having been raised in a church which did not
prepare him for intense Biblical discussion, he wanted to be ready to be Pastor
and Teacher for the probable Bible-thumpers he might find in rural Montana to
whom his own church upbringing would have zero resonance.
I suspect he figured when he got to Wesley he might have to
downplay his own Progressive Christian upbringing in his sandal-wearing, vegan-options-at-church-dinners,
Mother-Father God, fully inclusive Methodist church. But not long after moving
into the dorm, instead of hiding his woo-woo past, he began posting and
collecting an entire photo album on his Facebook page called Favorite Religious Memes.
These memes are not for the Christian faint of heart. Many directly hit at the institutional
conflicts and concerns that drove me completely away from mainstream Christian
denominations for over 20 years.
Since Dan’s entry into seminary, I have learned that there
is a secret dark underbelly of Progressive Christianity. Firstly, I learned
that the satirical film Dogma about two errant angels is
possibly one of seminarians’ most favorite films. The film certainly is
irreverent and at one point just plain gross but perhaps ‘dark’ and ‘secret’
are too strong.
Let’s just say unless you are ‘in the loop’ or trying to
find religious memes and jokes that satirically handle some of the basic,
sometimes deeply divisive, issues of Christian ministry, you might never come
across the movie Dogma or the cartoon
Coffee with Jesus or the Christian doppelgänger
of the satirical online news source The Onion called The Babylon Bee, which styles itself as “Your Trusted
Source For Christian News Satire”.
But
the good news for an ex-Christian Taoist fretting about the power of the
Christian far right is that there ARE such institutional reactions to the
central conflicts and hypocrisies found in all Christian denominations
(including Progressive ones). Coffee with Jesus
is probably my favorite. Found on Radio Free Babylon’s website, the
4-panel cartoon deals with real issues of every person of faith, regardless of position
on the continuum of Christian faith traditions.
In the cartoon below, a very approachable Jesus
addresses the problematic issue of loving your neighbor as yourself. Carl, one
of Jesus’s coffee regulars and wearing a hat with the logo ‘The Scapers’ asks Jesus
“...when you say ‘neighbor’ are you talking about the people on my street or
people in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean?” Jesus’ reply is an unequivocal “Yes.” It seems pretty clear that the Coffee Jesus doesn't want Muslims and Jamaicans being excluded from Christian love either.
In another cartoon, Jesus and a very white, middle-class
Christian couple who appear frequently chatting with Jesus over morning coffee,
discuss the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine. Jesus claims this miracle
“just happened that way” and his Mom kind of made him do it. Everyone knows how much boys love their Moms.
The Babylon Bee
tackles faith issues in much the way the highly political The Onion tackles
politics, scandals, the Dugginses current crisis of faith and just about
everything else in the mainstream news. Take something that is really
newsworthy and turn it on its head in a way that makes the reader think it just
might BE the news (I confess to checking to make sure some real news stories DON'T come from The Onion). Babylon Bee
article titles range from “Local Woman Searches Bible In Vain For Beloved
‘Footprint in the Sand’ Passage” to “Gridlock Reached as Two Men Both Certain
God Told them To Date Same Girl".
Now I know for a fact that Shakespeare is
credited with providing an awful lot of common phrases so maybe Local Woman
should search Shakespeare instead of the Bible for that passage. And, frankly,
we’ve all met those who are convinced God has told them to do or to be something
totally in conflict with our own beliefs so either the Bible God is being
cheeky with the two gents OR just possibly God doesn’t work that way.
I must admit that I feel better thinking about a Christianity
that can laugh at itself while struggling with the same themes it has failed to
address in a Jesus way for centuries. Satire has probably existed a long time as one
of humanity’s tools for change, using humor as a way to highlight our failings
while making us laugh a little instead of being insulted by overt attempts to unveil
our weaknesses. And I think the venue of morning coffee at the kitchen table is
a brilliant and familiar choice for these little conversations with Jesus in
which the cartoonist extends the words of Jesus into micro-commentaries on how his
words could challenge our way of being faithful to Jesus’ ministry.
Having said that I am mindful these cartoons and news stories deliver truth
in a way that just might change the way some Christians practice their faith and
may even enlighten my own path to the Way doesn’t mean that I will be changing my belief system soon and be converted to this thing called Christianity. I might,
however, pick up the Book that reconstructs the oral history of this guy called
Jesus and see what its Rabbi Jesus had to say. At the very least, it’s possible that some
morning I might just set out an extra cup for Jesus and invite him over so we
could chat about something with which I am struggling in my own meditations. Coffee with Jesus’s Jesus seems like a
pretty wise and thoughtful guy, a guy I might check in with every once in awhile on my own path to Tao.
