Brand Jesus

I have been reading a book titled Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age by Tyler Wigg Stevenson. The author has a degree from Yale Divinity School and does a pretty good job sounding like he does. I disagree with some of his premises, however, there are some very interesting concepts discussed throughout the book that have brought me into some deep contemplation.

Basically, Stevenson argues that all of us purchase things that define who we are, or who we want to be. Hundreds of years ago we went from a society that produced to a society that consumed, rarely do any of us "produce" our own possessions (i.e. self-sustained food production, weaving our own clothing, etc.). Since this is the case for nearly every one of us, we use our consumption to define who we are.

"Our image, our identity, who we are in respect to others, how others view us, and how we view ourselves -- in a consumerist society, all of this is up for sale in the products and services that we choose. This means that we become the products."

And it doesn't just stop with our culture, it permeates the Church as well -- that is Brand Jesus, an impostor that poses as truth and allows consumerism to grab hold of our spirituality. Here is a particularly amusing quote from Stevenson:

"Brand Jesus batizes consumerism and is utterly amenable to the presence of other brands. Are you a Christian yuppie? Enjoy Brand Jesus alongside Mercedes, Dom Perignon, Lacoste. How about those Christian punks? Brand Jesus rocks hardcore with P.O.D., Kerusso, and NOTW. For all the Christian patriots out there, know that Brand Jesus salutes you, along with manifest destiny, partisan politics, and anything that combines crosses with flags and/or bald eagles."

Now, this is funny because although we may not fall into any of the above categories, we can probably think of a different "Brand Jesus" category we fit our spirituality into. When we really think about it though, it no longer is that funny -- we have begun to unknowingly worship Mammon.

The conclusion is made that we are all part of the consumerist system that we have in this country and there is very little we can really do to change that. His argument is actually that we SHOULDN'T fight to change the system -- and I agree with him. Stevenson writes:

"any actionable plan against Brand Jesus [a fake Christianity based on consumerism] is doomed. And that is because consumerism is better at cultural judo than any of us will ever be: It will take our own efforts and turn them against us. Any active attempt to resist consumerism can and will be packaged, branded, marketed and sold back to us. And when we consume our own identity as the resistance -- as we invariably will -- we will have surrendered, in advance, the very battle that we aspired to fight."

I am reminded of Revelation 18 where Babylon is condemned in John's dream because they have hoarded their riches, they have traded and purchased, they have grown "rich from her excessive luxuries." John goes on and writes: "The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more." In Revelation 18:13 he goes as far as to say those cargoes were the "souls of men." Consumerism can wrap around our souls like a tumor and choke out any life.

We have but one choice when it comes to fighting the consumerism that is plaguing His chosen people, not fight the system that has created so much pain and anguish, but remove ourselves from that system. Verse 4 says:

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
[speaking of Babylon]
"Come out of her, my people,
so that you will not share in her sins."

This is our only choice. To be honest, I have no idea how we do it, but we can no longer go on living like the consumerism that permeates our lives is not a problem. As Paul writes in Ephesians 5, "Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." We can no longer sleep as the evil one destroys our homes.

"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."

Cleaning Up The Cross

Maybe some of you have had this experience before, but I was sitting listening to the message last Sunday and as I was listening the Lord was downloading something completely different than what the point of the message was. I understood the pastor, I was tracking him and it was a good sermon, but the message the Holy Spirit was giving me was different, and each main point, each scripture verse, even the songs we sung, zeroed in on what the Holy Spirit was telling me in a much more finite way than what the pastor was.

I have expressed this before, but I think it is important to say it again, much of what I write is a form of mental processing. Some stuff is very set in my mind, I know it to be truth and I want to express it that way. Other stuff is just me talking, I might believe it, but I'm wrestling through the "truth" of the matter, while other stuff is just what I'm thinking, I'm not so sure and I'm using this medium to process through it. In a lot of ways I am holding a mirror up to myself - if I'm writing about it, it means I probably struggle with it just as much or possibly more than the body of believers out there. Please struggle through these things with me.

As I was listening to the message last Sunday the words I kept thinking were "cheap grace." I asked myself, "What does that even mean?", and I started to get the picture of a "cleaned-up crucifix." One that has a solemn looking Jesus on the cross with a crown of thorns and possibly even a tear in his eye.

This is how many of us see the sacrifice of Jesus, or at least that is how we live our lives. We take Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and we sanitize it, we dab up the blood and clean up his wounds. This is cheap grace. Cheap grace gives us the ability to justify our sins, to ignore the deep sacrifice of Jesus to erase those sins - and so, we keep on sinning. Romans 12:1 says:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

When Paul spoke of "our bodies" he wasn't speaking of simply our physical bodies and sexual sin, but of our mind and our soul as well. Giving God everything. We tend to compartmentalize and give God our Sunday mornings, or our 15 minutes before the day begins. Paul urges us to become "living sacrifices" that is how we worship God. I think this becomes clearer when we see a vivid depiction of Christ's sacrifice for us. However you feel about the gore in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, most scholars agree that it is an accurate portrayal of the crucifixion. If you have objections to the film, that is fine, but tell me which of the two, the picture above, or the video clip below, shows the deep sacrifice that Jesus demonstrated for us?



Christ commands us to live a life of sanctification, meaning a process of becoming holy. As Paul says, offer a living sacrifice, "holy and pleasing to God." Are we on an all-consuming journey to become Christlike, to become holy? I know that at times, I can be all consumed, but then it fades, and I either ignore the cross, or I take some bleach and wipe up the blood, clean it up a bit. I make His sacrifice seem insignificance, which also makes my sin seem insignificant. I fully understand the concept of grace, but true grace is different from cheap grace. The grace that we experience through Christ cost a lot, it wasn't cheap. We can do nothing to earn this grace, but if we grasp this sacrifice, we should have the all-consuming desire to be holy and to be like Christ. If there is one thing that Christ commands us over and over to do it is to follow Him, to learn from His ways, and then, as Ephesians 5:1 says, "be imitators of God."

At the end of the message we sung the song Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle. I was deeply convicted and knew the Holy Spirit was asking me some very pointed questions: Does your life reflect a desire to be Christlike, to be holy? Do you drink in His suffering? As Paul said in Galatians 2:20, are you crucified with Christ?

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The very least we can do to show our connection with Christ is to obey His commands, to keep His ways. Each time we sin, we cheapen His grace, we cheapen His sacrifice. Only through accepting that there is nothing that we can do and then allowing Christ to plant a desire to do everything for Him can we begin the process of sanctification. Only then can we begin the process of being crucified with Christ, dying to ourselves and allowing Christ to fully life through us. Listen to the words of this song below, read the lyrics, and ask yourself as I did, "Do I drink in His suffering?"

Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle

To the cross I look, to the cross I cling
Of its suffering I do drink
Of its work I do sing

For on it my Savior both bruised and crushed
Showed that God is love
And God is just

Chorus:

At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees, and I am
Lost for words, so lost in love,
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered

What a priceless gift, undeserved life
Have I been given
Through Christ crucified

You’ve called me out of death
You’ve called me into life
And I was under Your wrath
Now through the cross I’m reconciled

Chorus:

In awe of the cross I must confess
How wondrous Your redeeming love and
How great is Your faithfulness

Only light drives out darkness

"The ultimate weakness of violence

is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate...
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Corner in Memphis

One of my favorite artists. His lyrics and his voice are both rough in a way that allows his message to cut to the heart of the true Gospel.

Do you think Jesus would like the songs that we sing?

Corner in Memphis by Todd Agnew

Saturday on Beale St. with the drunk and the searching
I hear an old man playing guitar
I can't make out what he's saying
But I can tell you that he's suffered
And that he means every word from the bottom
Of what's left of his heart tonight

A few hours later, I slip into church
Singing songs about saving grace
One guy's nodding off and another hates to be here
And we all mouth the words to save face
It's 11:15 on Sunday morning
And I wish I was

On a corner in Memphis listening to the old man
Singing out his sorrows and laying down his pride
He's telling me his story or at least his side
With no need to pretend and nowhere to hide

'Cause we are all broken here
We are all ashamed
I couldn't fool you if I wanted to
Our stories are too much the same

And what about this Jesus?
They say He drank with the poor and the blind and the lame
Do you think He'd like the songs that we sing?
Or would He feel the same as I do?
What if Sunday School was on Saturday night?

What if their heart-breaking cries of pain
Are the first hymns of tomorrow's saints?

On a corner in Memphis, we're singing with the old man
Crying for his sorrows and laying down our pride
He's telling us our story, or at least his side
With no need to pretend and nowhere to hide

On a corner in Memphis
We're singing out our sorrows
He's telling us his story
With no need to pretend and nowhere to hide
On a corner in Memphis

Jah puts His soldiers everywhere

After Serenity and I had the opportunity to share at Grace Chapel last Sunday a friend of mine, who is on staff at Grace, told me I had to see this video. He linked to it on his blog as well. The video is set in Atlanta, Georgia. The guitarist and lead singer is Carlos Whittaker of Integrity Worship and is an artist and pastor at Buckhead Church which is part of a large church in the ATL. He was filming a new music video and a man walked up to him and started singing along. Interesting side note: while on our journey, we actually parked in the parking lot of Christian Church Buckhead, which is not Buckhead Church, but is obviously frequently confused with it. :)

Here is what Carlos says about the encounter on his blog: ragamuffinsoul.com.

If you listen carefully at the end you hear me saying this to Danny:

“Keep trying to make it man.”

He looked me square in the eye…cocked his head sideways with a confused look on his face…and said,“Trying to make it? No man. I ain’t trying to make it…I’m making it. Jah puts His soldiers everywhere. Jah says, Yea 'though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death'… He places some of us, in that valley.”

It reminded me of a post I did while in Charlotte, North Carolina about Jo-Rob. I encourage you to read it, but the basic jist is that in our society we are so focused on trying to "fix" others that we miss the point that God might be making. We may actually be working against the Kingdom of God. Maybe God doesn't want us all to have houses, jobs and comfort, maybe God puts His soldiers everywhere, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Before we try to fix someone, maybe we should simply try to love them first.