"When Christianity was still safe"

"It's what always happens to the saints and prophets who are dangerous: we bronze them, we drain them of their passion and life and trap them in stained-glass windows and icons, confining them safely in memories of the past. St. Francis becomes a birdbath, Malcoml X is put on a stamp, and Martin Luther King gets a holiday. And Jesus gets commercialized...It becomes hard to know who Jesus really is, much less to imagine Jesus ever laughed, cried, or had poop that smelled."


In the first chapter of Irrisitible Revolution, Shane remembers his life when it was still comfy and cozy, before Jesus wrecked him.

Jesus wrecking people, that just does not sound like the Jesus of Suburbia I got used to. My Jesus never confronts, never challenge, never speaks his mind. He is too a softy to do that.

Man, but am I bored with my Jesus.

So last night I spoke to a big group of friends. I told them that maybe Jesus was more of a bad ass than we make him out to be. The Jesus I grew up with and the Jesus I now try to believe looks more like a pale face, red cheeks, goodie two shoes whity than the radical rebel of Love that guys like Mathew, Luke and Mark remembered him to be.

The more I read the stories of Jesus as told by his friends and the friends of his friends, the more I realise that the Jesus I grew up with is so much different than the one of 1st century AD. I am getting this dreadful feeling that the Jesus I have been praying to the last few years is still lying, wrapped up in the grave. Very convenient though, cause this Jesus will never be able to challenge my consuming, suburbian lifestyle that I so often translate into Civilised Christianity.

But the Jesus I am encoutering in the Scriptures and the Jesus Shane and his friends at The Simple Way speaks of has the nack of pulling the rug from underneath your feet, turning your whole life upside down.

Shane is helping me to see that it is time to de-commercialize Jesus, to stop with the sugur coating, marketing bullshit and start telling the real stories of the life, death and resurrection of a Rebel Prophet who took on the oppressive systems of his day for the cause of the coming Kingdom of God.

No wonder I avoided reading this book, the rug I am standing on is just to damn comfy.