Jesus: How Great is He?
E. I. Sanchez November 13th, 2007
One of my recent purchases from iTunes was How great is our God by Chris Tomlin. The song has a great little melody and simple lyrics but the end product is an addictive anthem.
The song is one of my favorites because it projects the truth of our days. People are confused. They are lonely. They are tired. They want meaning. They want better lives. They want happiness. They really want assurance of the things not seen. Yet, they reject the good news of Jesus. They mock him. They cheapen his gospel. They ridicule him in their arts, their comedies, and their books.
Yet - how great is our God that - in the midst of all this hatred - that he still abides by his promise - that no one should perish.
Consider this YouTube video in which a Jesus character is paraded on Hollywood Boulevard. Should we laugh along? Should we boycott? Or should we sing together: How Great is Our God?
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=WLKk00OYKhU]
- Culture , Nature of God , Postmodernity
- Comments(13)
I love when my savior and my faith are ridiculed. It is an occasion for conversation, in my opinion. I used to get bent out of shape - terribly so - now, not so much. I can’t put my finger as to exactly what has changed.
Jesus is Lord. No amount of ridicule or mocking can change this - often these mockings are based in a reaction to the current incarnations of the church or of the societies that have Christianity as the [un]official religion.
What about other peoples?
I cannot defend or really attack this attitude - but I would be inclined to laugh - although I have not listened to it yet, only watched a bit of it (I have been at school or Dr appointments all day).
My disappointment starts when people become too concern with defending God. I was actually trying to find a recent example but I couldn’t think of one.
In any case, we have to be careful to provide the intellectual reasons for our faith through formal apologetics but we need to stay away from populists picketing, media trashing, or death threats (e.g. abortion clinics).
Our God is so great, that he can take care of himself.
Edgar.
So what should we do? I hear and agree with your prohibition - but should we just smirk to ourselves?
Or is there some way to constructively approach people? You know without colonizing them or making fools of ourselves.
That is what I find myself often thinking about.
Hey guys!
I find myself too often engaging people who are not honestly seeking answers to objections, but rather throwing up smokescreens to mask their unwillingness to accept the Holy Spirit. Most of the ridicule is from people who will not consider an apologetic to begin with, so I try not to waste time. That said, I usually fail to heed my better judgement.
Like the early Christians, I support substituting our culture as dominant rather than taking our cues from the culture (think Christmas rather than Saturnalia). I see a lot of unfunny Christian T-shirts and bumper stickers out there, mocking pop culture. I prefer a substitution rather than one-upsmanship.
P.S. Edgar, one of the big lies is that Christians bomb or somehow threaten abortion clinics all the time. Truth is, these things almost never happen. We are remarkably well-behaved as it turns out.
as a christian, i can’t lay the task of proclaiming the truth about God’s character at the feet of a person who doesn’t know Him. i actually made it a New Year’s resolution a few years back to cease being shocked by the sinfulness of the world. i shouldn’t expect to see light where God says there is darkness.
of course, i have a responsibility to bring to light.
i think it’s also important to point out that most gays aren’t desecrating mass. they are well-behaved too.
i don’t know if i can make the same claims for bill o’reilly.
Theotica - I don’t think I disagree with you - but I am not sure as to what you are exactly referring to in the above quote.
What should we do to respond to that kind of thing?
I try to make it clear that I don’t think it’s funny. I don’t tend to boycott, picket, berate, or scream. But I don’t laugh, and pointedly turn away.
If asked, I take my inspiration from Jesus, who told His disciples to shake the dust off of their sandals outside of towns that would not receive them.
I believe that God has a great sense of humor. The duck-billed platypus is proof-positive of that. But He doesn’t appreciate being mocked.
But sometimes it IS funny. And more often than not, the mockery we see is not so much mocking the true YHWH god as it is mocking the god they’ve met through the Christians they know. And that god is, unfortunately, sadly amusing.
God doesn’t need us to defend God. I think about Monty Python’s Life of Brian. They talked in an interview about how they originally wrote the movie as a series of blasphemous jokes, then decided to research their subject material. "We found that nothing Jesus said really lent itself to mockery; everything he said was good and noble and true… So we thought, well, let’s make fun of the Christians instead. Because Jesus said all this really good stuff, and they spent the next 2,000 years fighting and killing one another over precisely how he said it."
That’s really telling, I think. The world mocks God because we show them a God who is entirely mockable.
God died rather than defend God’s honor. Why are we getting so up in arms?
Jr’s comment is awesome, and I echo his sentiments.
That is all.
jr. your comment is well put.
However, would I be in the minority if I said that I laughed when I first so that video?
Did anybody see the Simpson’s movie? They mocked the Bible and Christianity a few times. There’s a scene in which Grandpa Simpson is having a seizure. The scene cuts to Homer who is seen frantically paging through the Bible as he cries: “this book has no answers”…
Thoughts?
I thought the Simpsons movie was hilarious, that scene included. It’s a perfect mockery of a goofy Christian stereotype.
I’m at work right now, so I haven’t watched the video above. I’d just say it’s important to remember that our beliefs and our religion are by no means above reproach nor satire. To think Christianity is above such rebukes would be a display of utmost vanity and hubris.
Either humor must be completely absurd, or there must be a grain of truth in the humor for it to be funny. For the most part, Christianity-mocking is mean-spirited and not based in reality or anything presented as reality by the vast majority of Christians.
Good-spirited Jesus-mocking, such as that found in Robot Chicken, for example, is funny to me. I didn’t think the Simpsons movie was funny, but I did enjoy Life of Brian.
As Christians, we are too down on ourselves. Our guilt is more mockable (is that a word?) than the images we supposedly present of God.
PS I also thought the video above was funny