shirt #10 : Feel the Force

Title: Feel the Force

Design: White legend and red 'name badge' on black

Make: Fair and Bare



Reach out and touch me

I have a personal interest in this shirt because it was my concept. It was printed by Fair and Bare – the best ethical threads on the web. Not only are F&B shirts 100% fair trade, but they are submitted and voted for by us, the people of internetland. Check them out here.

I have had a few comments about my shirt though, ranging from ‘Er, Jon, that’s a bit pervy’ through to ‘Wow that’s so cool. You must be a Jedi in disguise to come up with jokes like that.’ Okay, I haven’t quite had that second reaction, but I’ve had plenty of the former.

But is it pervy? Because deep down aren’t we all looking for intimacy, for love? I once read a story about a elderly widow who went ballroom dancing once a week. People thought she loved to dance, but in fact she hated it. She went because that was the one time a week that someone would hold her. She went for the touch, not the two-steps.

We underestimate the power of touch. I’ve been told I’m a good hugger. I don’t like to brag, and I’m not really sure that hugging well is something to brag about. But I don’t hold back in hugs. I mean it when I hug someone.

And you can sense when someone gives you a noncommittal hug, can’t you? Some hugs are like air-kisses, but even less warm. They mean ‘I want to be seen to like you.’ Rather no hug than a fake hug.

Touch is that most basic connection. It affirms you, when someone touches your arm or shoulder. A touch offers you companionship, reminding you that you’re not alone in your circumstance. It’s a wordless promise, of friendship, loyalty, support, and love.

We forget sometimes that some of Jesus’ most powerful statements were wordless. He touched a leper (Matthew 8:3), breaking one of the strongest cultural taboos of his day, and the leper was cleansed. Everything in that society told you that you don’t touch lepers. The religion, the legal authorities, the people around you – all would tell you not to touch the leper. They were unclean and their uncleanliness would be transferred to you.

Jesus touched him.

He touched the eyes of the blind and they could see (Matthew 20:34). He put his fingers into the ears of deaf mute and then touched his tongue, enabling the man to hear and speak (Mark 7:33). When he rose the dead he touched the dead body (Luke 7:14) – another cultural taboo.

Touch was an instrumental part of Jesus’ miracles, and is usually linked to him feeling compassion. You ever feel that - when all you want to do is put your arms around someone and somehow hug away their pain? And of course, many wanted Jesus to touch them, because in his touch was power (Luke 6:19, Mark 5:25-34). But there are also other ways in which he used touch to connect with people.

At the event known as the Transfiguration in Matthew 17, the disciples are overcome with fear. Jesus’ response is to touch them and tell them not to be afraid. The account doesn’t give details, but I imagine a reassuring hand on the shoulder. “Don’t be afraid.” We can face down anything if we know we have back up; overcome any challenge if someone will be there with us. A touch is all we need sometimes to cast out fear.

There’s an interesting aspect to Mary Magdalene’s encounter with Jesus in the garden (John 20:10-18). She is standing distraught by the empty tomb, and didn’t recognise Jesus. It’s hard to see someone clearly if you are weeping uncontrollably, particularly if you think they are dead. When she does realise who it is, one of the first things Jesus has to tell her is to let go of him.

I can’t imagine how tightly Mary was hugging Jesus, but the implication is she would not have let go if he hadn’t asked. We cling to those we love, reassured in the warmth from their body, even as we say goodbye to them. That’s why we hug on train stations and at airports. Sometimes the only way we can convey our emotions is through allowing our bodies to touch.

It’s a profound irony that Depeche Mode begin their song ‘Personal Jesus’ with the line ‘Reach out and touch me’. It couldn’t be more apt. Jesus, it seems, was a hugger.

I would go so far as to say that the times we are most like Jesus aren’t when we’re doctrinally right in what we say, or caught up in a worship song, or reading ‘Every Day With Jesus’ in our quiet time, or any of the other myriad religious things we do. I think it’s those times when we reach out to help someone to their feet, or hold a grieving friend, or accept a sullen teenager with a pat on the shoulder, or shake hands with someone who everyone else ignores.

That’s when we feel the force of what it means to be human. And in a strange way what it means to be Christ-like too.

shirt #9: Movies - ruining the book since 1920

Title: Movies - ruining the book since 1920

Design: white slogan and grey graphic on black

Make: Threadless

Blue-eyed Jesus

Cinema is the medium for telling the biggest stories. And there’s been a temptation since film-making began to try and tell the greatest story ever told. Jesus doesn’t get much bigger than on the big screen.

Every film gives us a new cultural take on Jesus. Monty Python tried to do the messiah as comedy, while Martin Scorsese asked ‘what if Christ doubted his divinity?’ Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ contained what was probably the most accurate depiction of the gore of crucifixion ever for cinema-goers just getting into ‘Saw’ movies, while The Da Vinci Code rewrote history by blatantly plagiarising from several ‘alternative historians’. And then there was Dogma, with the Buddy Christ ready to welcome us all into Heaven, even if we are fallen angels.

What does this tell us, this cultural obsession with Jesus? More importantly, how can so many films get it so different? Why do we feel the need to rewrite the story to suit our own ends?

One thing most of those films do is humanise Jesus. Life of Brian, for all it’s faults (and minor blasphemies), does ask the thought-provoking question ‘what if people made a mistake?’ Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ has a very human Jesus tempted to quit and live a normal life. The Da Vinci Code – one example where a film-maker simply couldn’t ruin the book because the book was execrable – again paints a picture of a human Christ.

But those aren’t the only films that somehow seem to get Jesus a little bit wrong. Most of us of a certain age will have watched Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, with Robert Powell as the good-looking blue-eyed messiah, surrounded by an all-star ensemble cast. Apparently Zeffirelli instructed Robert Powell to try not to blink, to make him stand apart from the other characters and give him an other-worldliness. It works. Watch the movie. It’s a bit creepy.

The ‘Jesus’ evangelistic film follows the same route – an altogether too good-looking chap who seems to float ethereally through the main gospel events. I watched about ten minutes of it, and I have to admit I turned it off out of cringing embarrassment.

About ten years ago I had a row with another church leader who wanted us to go door-to-door offering people the opportunity to watch the Jesus video. I made what I felt was the very valid point that I didn’t feel such an airbrushed view of Jesus with such low production values was going to cut it in the inner city area we were working in. People were used to blockbusters and we were giving them a less-than-great movie.

He challenged me on my negativity – ‘How could I possibly say that people wouldn’t respond. Thousands of people had become Christians as a result of watching it.’ Me, being well-versed in hype, questioned that, and asked if he knew any of these converts, at which point he told me my argument was stupid.

Truth was, we were both arguing from ignorance. But he had seniority and so plans were made to distribute the video. It wasn’t a successful evangelism tool. Hey, sometimes you have to let people learn the hard way. Especially those who have seniority.

But seriously, what I think that film missed is that it was too earnest; too interested in capturing the absolute awesomeness of who Christians claim Jesus to be. In films like that, Jesus has to be ‘different’, ‘other-worldly’, slightly spooky, and what you end up with a borderline-autistic alien proclaiming epithets and coining proverbs at random.

It doesn’t seem to ring true with the earthy Jesus in the Bible. This is the Jesus who frequents the kind of parties that earn disapproving tsks from the holiest people of the day. At one meal, a known prostitute enters the room, weeps over Jesus’s feet and wipes her tears away with her long hair.

That scene sounds embarrassingly intimate just in the one-line summary I’ve given you. She wipes his feet with her hair? You don’t want to watch that. People don’t know where to look. Some people get in a huff. You can read it yourself in Luke 37: 36-50. There’s a similar story in John’s gospel when Mary of Bethany (Lazarus’ sister) does the same sort of thing (John 12: 1-8).

When I read those stories and try to imagine airbrushed, blue-eyed Jesus having that done to him it doesn’t really add up. There’s something deeper going on, as if Jesus takes that intimate – and slightly disturbing – action and transforms it into something beautiful.

The thing is people have seen the airbrushed, gentle, floaty, non-confrontational Jesus of the movies and that’s the Jesus they recognise and ignore. That Jesus doesn’t seem to have anything to say about the harsh realities of, say, getting screwed on your income tax, or putting up with bullies at work, or dealing with judgmental religious hypocrites.

And that I think is where the films get it wrong. Because Jesus talked about tax frequently (e.g. Mark 12:13-17), and how to deal with people who persecute you (e.g. John 15: 18 – 16: 4) and as for religious people… He didn’t have very many nice things to say about them at all!

That Jesus would be an interesting subject for a film. And you wouldn’t have to make up a load of tosh about him getting it on with Mary Magdelene.

shirt #8: 665 - neighbour of the beast

Title: 665 - neighbour of the beast

Design: retro numerals and white legend on navy

Make: On Fire

Ooooh, I'm scared

I saw this t-shirt and I had to have it because it’s hilarious. As someone who doesn’t really care much for end times rantings and hysterical books labelling various world leaders as the antichrist, it seemed doubly worth getting. I’m an iconoclast at heart I guess.

‘But wait, Jon,’ you may say, ‘do you mean you don’t really believe in the end times and the tribulation and the rapture and the Beast and Armageddon and the lake of fire and the conversion of the Jews and false prophets and so on?’ And my answer would be ‘Not really, no.’

At this point you might be thinking ‘Well, this blog is obviously heretical and there are much better things to read on the web’. And while I agree there may very well be much better things to read on the interweb, I’d challenge you on the charge of heresy.

The amazing truth is that when it comes to interpreting apocalyptic literature, for about 1,800 years, the literalist Left Behind-style doom-mongering would have been considered the preserve of fringe nutters who would probably be dismissed as heretics. It’s only been in recent years, mainly since the 1960s, that the whole ‘end times’ culture has taken root in churches.

That culture has been fuelled by the growth in fundamentalism as a key expression of American Christianity, and it’s been exploited by a number of preachers, teacher, authors, ‘prophets’ and church leaders who have used it to launch a career and make lots of money.

That might sound harsh, but that’s the truth. There’s good money in apocalyptism. It’s popcorn science fiction for good Bible-believin’ folks and it plays on people’s twin key motivators – fear and the desire to survive.

But I would maintain that the stuff that is published, which confidently predicts the end of the world based on what the Bible “says”, is usually utter crap. The point of Revelation, like all Biblical apocalyptic writings, is to reassure the readers that whatever happens, God is in control. Revelation is not a prophetic diary of what will happen two thousand years (or more) in the future.

Rob Bell sums it up well when he says: “Were the people in John’s church reading his letter for the first time, with Roman soldiers right outside their door, thinking ‘This is going to be really helpful for people two thousand years from now who don’t want to get left behind’?”*

There I’ve quoted Rob Bell and denied the ‘truth’ of Revelation. There really is no hope for me.

Here’s the thing. John’s readers would have interpreted Revelation in their own time as a subversive critique of Imperial power. Think about it – mighty Empires from across the sea, popular leaders demanding to be worshipped, a great city built on seven hills that is a byword for evil but will come under judgement.

What is he talking about here, if he’s not talking about the Roman Empire, the cult of Emperor worship, and Rome itself? Babylon doesn’t mean Babylon, the ruin in Iraq. It’s a metaphor. And a pretty obvious one. (The historic city of Babylon isn’t built on seven hills, so why on Earth would John say it was, if that was what he meant?)

Of course, you could be a smart aleck and argue that if American fundamentalists read Revelation the way it’s meant to be read, it could be pretty uncomfortable for them. Imagine reading about the godlessness of a mighty empire that seeks to extend its reach through primarily mercantile means into every corner of the globe and demands an unyielding fanaticism. Especially if you then had to go into a school where children stand up and salute the flag every morning. It’s much better to say it’s all about what’s going to happen, not about a human mindset that can be replicated in any Empire.

Fortunately I’m not a smart aleck. But if I was…

The preoccupation with the end times also produces some other sour-tasting fruit. For one thing, all the time taken up with ‘predicting’ who and what is a sign of the imminent end uses up valuable resources that we could use doing something useful and practical. It reminds me of what the Jedi master Yoda accused Luke of being in The Empire Strikes Back: “All his time he has looked away, never his mind on where he is, what he is doing.”

Or if Yoda isn’t authoritative enough for you, will Jesus do? Jesus tells his disciples not to worry about tomorrow, but to trust God. He also says that even the Son of Man doesn’t know the ‘day or hour’ when the end of the world is due to happen (Matthew 24:36-42). What’s more important is what you’re doing today. How are you using the talents God has given you? How are you being salty salt and illuminating light in the world?

The other thing I deeply dislike about the end times money-making game is that it takes the focus away from God and Jesus. Instead of God being the focus of our Christian lives, we get side-tracked discussing the ‘enemies’ of God – the antichrist, the Beast and so on. Incidentally, this is the same gripe I have with treatises on “spiritual warfare” and other demonology. What should we be discussing, as Christians? Surely, it’s Christ.

The books and films about the end times focus on the power of the antichrist, the way he will assume control and so on. It ignores the central message of the writers of the apocalyptic books, namely God is in charge, no matter what. And that for me is why I think we ought to consign the books the boot sale, the films to the dustbin, stop being so afraid about who ‘gog and magog’ might be, and get on with the important stuff.

And get on with it, like, now.

* Jesus Wants to Save Christians, p.134

shirt #7: Love Your Enemies

Title: Love Your Enemies

Design: multicoloured characters with white legend on black

Make: (c) Red Letter 9






Seriously?

I bought this shirt in a Christian Bookshop in Salt Lake City (and before you ask, it was a Christian bookshop, not one run by the Latter Day Saints!) because it made me laugh. PacMan, of course, does love his enemies, when they turn blue and edible. Mmm. Yummy, yummy blue ghosties.

And of course it links two of the greatest heroes in the history of humanity: PacMan and Jesus. It even has the Bible verse in tiny print in case you’re in any doubt over who made the ludicrous suggestion to ‘Love your enemies’. And I use the word ‘ludicrous’ genuinely. If it wasn’t Jesus who said it, you wouldn’t think it was the smartest suggestion in the world. They’re your enemies. You don’t love your enemies, do you? It’s pretty much the definition of the word ‘enemy’ – person I don’t love.

Except that Jesus said you should.

Fortunately, I find it a piece of cake to love my enemies. I can tick that box with a clear conscience. There’s no one in my life I would class as an enemy, so in the words of Aleksandr the Meerkat: “Shimples!”

Except, of course, it isn’t as simple as that. If it was, this would be the shortest blog post yet, and you’d be thinking ‘Wow, that guy’s holy.’ And smug.

Because while it’s true that I don’t have any enemies in the way that, say, Spider-Man has the Green Goblin, or Sydney Bristow has Arvin Sloane, or humanity has the Cylons, there are people it is hard to love. If Jesus said ‘Love the people you find irritating…’ it would be a case of ‘Whoah, there.’

Does Jesus really mean I have to love that obstructive or obnoxious co-worker? Or the boring person who always collars me in church to have a tedious conversation I can’t escape from? Or the neighbour who gets agitated at the slightest provocation? Or the cold caller? Or the Jehovah’s Witness who knocks on my door during dinner? Or the local youths who hang around the bus shelter intimidating passers-by just by looking vaguely menacing?

Seriously, I’m meant to love all those people?

Yes. And it gets worse… ‘Love’ isn’t just a case of ‘live and let live’, tolerating those people who annoy us, and biting back the swearwords that rise unbidden in our minds (maybe that just happens to me). Love is more than toleration. Love is more than letting people live. Love is more than just biting our tongue.

Love is proactive, and dynamic, and understanding, and compassionate, and comforting, and inclusive, and warm, and life-affirming, and all those things that, honestly, I’m rubbish at being.

I mean that. I’m rubbish at loving people. I’m an introvert and sometimes I wished I lived in a cave and never had to see anyone. There’s an old joke: I love the human race, it’s people I can’t stand. Loving my enemies would be easier if I could avoid all social interaction.

But then I would miss out. Because loving your enemies isn’t about having warm mushy feelings for people instead of being wound up by them. Loving your enemies is a conscious decision you take. It can be an effort of the will. To choose, repeatedly, to love when someone lets you down, over-reacts, wastes your time, says something spiteful, or fails to keep their promises, takes more than feelings. Love – as a relationship not an emotion – is something you have to work hard at sometimes.

And that willingness to love changes you. Being willing to seek the best for someone – not force what you think is best upon them – isn’t easy. It’s not meant to be easy. If it was easy and came to us naturally, Jesus would never have had to tell us to do it.

But what about if someone hurts you, or maligns you, or seems determined to be your enemy? What can you do, then?

I don’t want to belittle this. I know what it’s like. When I was in high school a girl who was in several of my classes bullied me badly. The only reason I enjoyed French class was because she was in a different set and so I got some respite from her name-calling. She mobilised a gang of her girl friends to mercilessly humiliate me at break times, threatening me with phoney complaints to teachers, or spreading rumours about me to other classmates (many of whom ‘helpfully’ told me what was being said behind my back).

And years on some of that stuff still hurts, to be honest. It’s hard to think of her name or her sidekicks and not instantly think of words like ‘bitch’ or ‘harpy’. But there are good reasons for me not to hate her. For one, hanging onto hatred like that will only hurt me, not her. I imagine she’s forgotten about the way she terrorised me. She won’t know about my lingering hate. My negative resentment won’t affect her at all, unless you think bad vibes will have some sort of psychic effect on her. Which I don't.

So, what's the solution? A clue is in Jesus' words. He follows up the statement to ‘Love your enemies’ with the words “and pray for those who persecute you.” That’s not stupid wishful thinking. It works.

Now, when someone winds me up, and I realise I’m heading on that way to holding it against them, I try to pray for them. Sometimes, if I’m in a bad mood, I pray that God will smite them for me. But I’m careful with that. Because, unlike playing PacMan, ‘loving your enemies’ isn’t about destroying your enemies by gobbling them up.

It’s about somehow destroying the thing that makes you enemies – the hate. And you can only destroy the hate if you are both willing to love, and that means you need to take the step of wilfully choosing to love too.

And maybe being the first one to take that step.

shirt #6: Advisors

Title: Advisors

Design: multicoloured on white

Make: Threadless

Who are you listening to?

I like this t-shirt because you have to think a bit. All you see is feet. What’s going on? Oh, right, an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other.

It’s almost a cliché now to have a ‘goodie’ and a ‘baddie’ offering you conflicting advice, which is usually equally unhelpful. In Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove, Kronk, the dumb bad guy, asks his ‘shoulder angel’ for advice, but neither his shoulder angel or shoulder devil are much help. Eventually he asks them both to shut up while he works out what he should do.

And then there’s Dan Piraro’s clever little take on the problem*.

Just imagine if your shoulder devil and shoulder angel were that fat!

The reason we laugh at cartoons like this, though, is because sometimes we do feel caught in the middle of two conflicting viewpoints. We all know good, well-meaning, saintly people whose advice just seems unworkable. Equally, we all know persuasive, intelligent people whose advice seems seductively reasonable, but there’s just something not quite right about what they are saying.

And somewhere in the middle we’re stuck, not quite knowing what to do, who to believe, and who we should listen to.

Now, like when you were asked a question in Sunday School, in a classic Christian piece of writing the correct answer here would be “Jesus”. Just listen to him and everything will be okay. Ignore everyone else and listen to what God is telling you.

Well, yes… but it’s not as simple as that, is it? What about all those people who claim to speak for God? How come they all seem to say different things?

And if you’re not the kind of person who hears voices, you may feel that God isn’t talking to you anyway, so how can you listen to him? (And secretly you may be suspicious of the people who do ‘hear’ voices and say that God ‘s talking to them. I’ll let you in on a secret – it’s not just you! I frequently ignore them too because I suspect they might just be imbalanced.)

So, who do we listen to? The apostle Paul has some interesting comments to make on that one.

He says: “avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him.” (Titus 3: 9-10)

And “watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.” (Romans 16: 17-18)

And, also “see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)

So, when we’re weighing up who to listen to, there’s quite a few checkboxes on the tick-list, at least according to Paul. Is a person divisive? Are they looking out for their own interests? Do they flatter you? Are they basing their ideas on worldly things?

Those things count against a person’s trustworthiness, and the things they say may well be worth weighing carefully. (But interestingly he doesn’t say ‘only listen to Christians’. He even warns against listening to certain types of Christians. In other places, Paul quotes various pagan philosophers, so it seems character matters more than the faith someone claims to represent…)

And it makes sense to routinely assess who is giving us advice on how to live our life. Is it the latest TV chef or fashionista? Is it our friends in work or school or college, who think we’re odd if we don’t conform to their idea of a good time on a Friday night? Is it a family member who expects us to live to a certain standard of living, or a neighbourhood peer group who think there’s something wrong if you don’t want to keep up with the Jones’?

Or is it a church community that has always done things a certain way and now believes that their way is the only proper way to do things.

Maybe it’s time to push the people sitting on our shoulders off, even if they look like angels.

After all, ‘devils’ are angels too.


*I'm a huge fan of Dan Piraro's cartoons and was fortunate enough to have coffee with the man himself on a trip to New York. I recommend you buy his books!

shirt #5: Problem with Anger?

Title: Problem with Anger?

Design: Orange and black 'advert' on brown

Make: Chunk

Redemption knows no limits

This T-shirt was the reason I was refused service in a gift shop at the Grand Canyon. No, really. The girl on the check out insisted she read the entire shirt before allowing me to pay for the souvenir nick-nacks I was buying.

It’s strange, but not a unique experience. This is one of my most commented on T-shirts. Usually the comments are positive, although the kid in my church who has Asperger’s told me it was “stupid” because “everybody knows” that Darth Vader died. The spirit of Anakin Skywalker appears right at the end of Return of the Jedi to prove it! “So, he couldn’t be running anger management classes.”

I had to agree with him as his logic was ruthlessly sound. But I still like the joke. I like the idea of Darth Vader wondering what to do with his life now he’d given up being the Dark Lord of the Sith, and resolving to help people through setting up an anger management clinic. I think that’s amusing.

But it’s also something more.

I think the whole Darth Vader’s redemption story-line is pretty meaningful. Many people may fail to find the meaning, but anyone with half an insight into the central theme of Christianity – the redemption of human beings from a dark existence of wickedness and fear – should be able to spot why the Star Wars saga affects people so powerfully, particularly men my age who watched it repeatedly as kids (and now watch it repeatedly as adults!)

The spiritual dimensions of Star Wars are multiple and varied. There is the contrast between spirituality and materialism, the struggle between tyranny and freedom, the sense of destiny, choices between right and wrong, sacrificial heroism or brutal subjugation of others, belief or cynicism, the fact that the things we judge weak can prove to be mighty (“Judge me by my size, do you? And well, you should not, for my ally is the Force…”) and so on.

Even the dualism of light and dark echoes the Christian narrative: “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” says Jesus in John 8:12. This is the light that continually shines in the darkness which has not and will not overcome it (see John 1:5).

But underpinning all those themes is the grandest theme of all – redemptive hope. It’s in Luke Skywalker’s voice as he tries to convince his sister that there is ‘still good’ in his father. It’s in the spine-tingling scene when Luke faces down the Emperor and throws away his lightsaber instead of killing Vader. It’s in the unmasked Anakin Skywalker’s last words as he tells Luke that ‘you were right about me’.

The ‘pull’ of the Star Wars films is their emphasis on redemption, simply because that is what many of us are looking for, even if we aren’t aware of it yet. We all recognise there are things in life that we have done wrong, that we would do differently if we had the opportunity. We may even wish we could ‘change our destiny’, to do good things instead of bad; to escape from the ‘dark side’, of ourselves if not the Force.

It’s this hope of redemption that makes so many of the statements in the Bible ring true. The verse next to the ‘most famous verse in the Bible’, John 3:17 says “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save [or redeem] the world through him.” Paul writes to Titus saying: “we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness” (Titus 2:13-15).

Paul talks of redemption being a yearning of the whole created order, in Romans chapter 8: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.” (verses 22-24).

The central message of hope is that whatever we have done, including the destruction of a populated planet with our brand new armoured space station, we can find some sort of redemption. On the T-shirt, Darth Vader makes the promise that “I came back from the dark side, and so can you.” It’s the kind of advert we frequently see, promising us that our lives can change. Those ads often ring hollow. But what if someone were to make us such an offer and it was genuine?

Would we take the opportunity? Would we, like Vader, come back from the dark side? Would we accept the offer of redemption?

shirt #4: Video games ruined my life

Title: Video games ruined my life. Good thing I have two extra lives.

Design: white slogan and multi-coloured graphic on royal blue

Make: Threadless

Life is short

Recently I discovered a computer game I was playing had a built in stop-clock, which logged the total number of hours I’d spent playing it. I’d passed the 40 hour mark. That doesn’t sound like much, but I only work 37 and a half hours a week.

So I’d spent the equivalent of more than a working week playing that game - and I hadn’t even completed it yet!

Video games are fun, when they aren’t so frustrating you want to smash your controller, and fun is good. Rest is also good for us, although whether video games are very restful is another debate. It depends a lot on what games you choose to play. There’s a controversial study group called ‘Killology’ which has concluded (among other things) that violent ‘first person shooter’ games can act as a training exercise in shooting people.

For example, in one case when a teenager ran amok in a school with a gun, the number of ‘head shots’ among his victims exceeded the skill level expected of a Navy Seal. His ‘simulator training’ was video games, and that is mirrored in similar murderous rampages that have occurred in the USA. [Read more]

But I don’t play those games, so I’m okay. I play benign games like PacMan (I love PacMan). And, so if video games altered behaviour, any of us who grew up playing PacMan would spend our lives in darkened rooms, eating little white pills and listening to tinny repetitive music. (Hang on a minute...)*

But even if video games have no effect on you, despite what the authors of ‘Killology’ would argue, they undeniably drain your time if you let them. On one of my other sites, freelance theology, I was recently asked a question related to ‘leisure time’ and how we use it as Christians. Part of the response I wrote sums up for me the dilemma we face when we consider how we use our time.

The importance of ‘Rest’ and the urgency of ‘Time’
There are two competing Biblical themes relating to how a believer should regard leisure. One is the notion of ‘rest’, as typified in the concept of ‘Sabbath’, which combines rest from labour with worshipping God. The other is the awareness that ‘time’ is a non-renewable resource, which should be used carefully. The ‘Parable of the Talents’ (Matthew chapter 25, verses 14-30) for example, cautions a person against wasting what they are given in an unproductive way. The Jewish ‘Wisdom’ tradition, particularly the book of Proverbs, places a high value on productivity and condemns laziness and idleness.

What seems to be needed is a balance between rest that is needed and using time productively. Rest that enables a person to recharge and take time out to concentrate on what really matters, i.e. worshipping God, is considered valuable by Biblical writers – and is proscribed in the Law of Moses as the ‘fourth commandment’. But there are also warnings that devoting too much time to leisure can mean we never achieve our potential. Nobody knows exactly how much time they have, and so it is
important to use that time wisely.
[Read the rest of the article here]

Moderately addicted?
It may be that with video games, as with so much else, the ‘everything in moderation’ rule applies. Certainly discernment over which games you play is important. The verse “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” comes to mind (Philippians 4: 8-9). Is a game where you steal cars, drive recklessly and kill people any of those things?

And then there’s the ‘getting in the way’ issue. I think we have to be very careful as Christians not to scream ‘idolatry’ at any past-time or concept. It’s as annoying as the way ‘heresy’ is carelessly bandied about in Christian media, and on the web. Playing video games is not idolatrous, unless they become the most important thing in your life. If they become all-consuming, if they occupy the majority of your time, if they in effect control you, then yes, like any addiction, they have usurped the place of God.

But most of us aren’t in a spiral of addiction to video games. Even though when I get a new game I sometimes come close to obsession with it. I’m attracted to the novelty and so it may become my main leisure activity for a while. But then it wears off, usually when I realise that it has consumed a large amount of my ‘non-renewable resource’; my time.

And that’s the irony about this shirt. It would be lovely to think that in life there are two unseen hearts at the top of the screen (or Mario’s head followed by a number). But there aren’t. When I use up this life, I don’t get another go at whatever challenge killed me.

The challenge for me is that when I die, I’ll have more to show for my stint on earth than a few completed computer games. Otherwise, video games will have ruined my life. And I won’t be able to have another go and this time do it right.

*Not my own joke, but funny…

shirt #3: Choose Your Weapon

Title: Choose Your Weapon

Design: white illustration and slogan on red

Make: unknown (printed on a Hanes tagless tee)
If you recognise this shirt, tell me who made it so I can credit them.

What you gonna do, punk?

This T-shirt (a gift from my good friends Bryan and Elaine) always raises a little chuckle. It’s a moment of confrontation – who knows what about – and in that moment the two protagonists have a choice. The ‘weapon’ they choose will determine the outcome of the contest. One will win; one will lose.

So what’s it to be? Rock, paper, or scissors?

In recent months I seem to have gone through a number of confrontations. At work one colleague was in a difficult situation and reacted badly, and I copped plenty of flak simply because I sat nearest to them. There was a family disagreement between grown adults that ended in tears. And just a couple of days ago someone in a church situation said something so unfair and untrue that even now, writing this, I still feel irritated.

But what should we do when confrontation is unavoidable? When we’re in that moment. What weapons do we reach for? What will we pull out from behind our back?

There’s a lot of advice in the Bible about pulling the right kind of weapons. For example, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”(Proverbs 15:1) And my all-time favourite: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”(Proverbs 25:21-22)

The temptation is to lash out. We like to pretend we’d only do so in defence, but let’s be honest, there are times when want to get our retaliation in first! But one of the best weapons according to the ‘wisdom books’ of the Bible is kindness. There’s also a warning too. Being wronged doesn’t give you the right to repay evil for evil. “In your anger, do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26 – also in Psalm 4:4)

Jesus had a few weapons up his sleeve, which he used to devastating effectiveness. When his opponents used flattery to catch him out, he asked a clever question in return to expose their duplicity (Luke 20:21-23). When the Pharisees declared him to be demon-possessed he used ruthless logic to counter their accusations (Matthew 12:24-25). He quoted Scripture when the devil sought to beguile him (Matthew 4:4,7 &10). He used a home-made whip to drive the money-changers from the Temple (John 2:15).

But the times when he could have drawn the biggest weapons of all were the times he chose not to. He refused to perform miracles for the amusement of Herod, or even talk to him (Luke 23: 8-10). When he spoke to Pilate, he made the treasonous statements that a) all Pilate’s authority came from Yahweh, not from the god Caesar (John 19:11) and that b) he was the King of the Jews as he was accused of being (Luke 23:3). Those statements sealed his death warrant when other words could have helped him walk free.

Jesus refrained from using the other ‘weapons’ at his disposal. In his divinity he had the rock to blunt the scissors, the paper to wrap the rock, the scissors to cut the paper and yet he chose not to.

This isn’t meant to be a homily on non-violence, because active ‘non-violence’ itself is actually a weapon, which you have to choose to use. It’s a weapon that breaks the will of the oppressor. There are many stories of people in authority whose will is broken when they are forced to move against the forcibly non-violent. Police officers who disobey orders to turn on the water cannon. Soldiers who ‘shoot to miss’ in the firing squad.

Most of us aren’t in such a literal firing line. In every day life the right weapon is important, however hard it is to use it. I know how hard it is to give a gentle answer instead of a harsh word when someone writes a curt and utterly rude email. I also know the shame felt by a person who is shown kindness when what they really deserve is a good kick up the backside. ‘Burning coals’ is a good analogy for how your face feels if it happens to you. Trust me.

Bigger and badder weapons don’t work against each other. We’ve had a nuclear arms race and no one really came in first. The beauty of rock, paper, scissors is there is no one thing that beats everything else. Rock can beat scissors can beat paper. If both people draw the same then neither wins. You have to use something different.

In life, sometimes that means finding the third way. Instead of riding the segregated buses, or burning them, can you walk to work instead? Can you turn the other cheek and invite the punch of an equal rather than the slap of a master?

The reason kindness is such a devastating weapon to use is simply that nine tenths of the time it’s the one no one expects you to choose. And, if you both do choose kindness to fight your battles with, then that’s the only time that having the same weapon means you both win.

I’ve just got to remember that.

shirt #2: I look better naked.

Title: I look better naked.

Design: multi-coloured slogan on black

Make: David & Goliath

Hypocrisy, shame, nudity and freedom

Like the previous T-shirt (‘theologian’) I have to admit I don’t tend to wear this T-shirt out much. I do wear it in bed though, as it’s very comfortable, and also then very few people see it. (And, yes I see the irony about owning clothing that proclaims I look better without it.)

The interesting thing about nakedness in the Bible is that is closely allied to shame. Adam and Eve’s first realisation when they could distinguish between good and evil was that they were naked, and, in shame, they hid. Noah drank himself unconscious and was shamed by one of his sons for passing out naked in his tent. Throughout the ‘prophetic’ books “nakedness” is used to symbolise how God will bring low the enemies of Israel and put them to shame.

And then there’s our own experience. Have you ever had one of those mortifying dreams where you discover you’re in school, or work, or church, and you suddenly realise that you’re naked? Even worse, have you ever had an embarrassing experience of being naked in public?

I’m not going to ask you to share the details of your public nudity, but I’ll tell you one of my embarrassing stories. When I was about 12, some family friends came to stay and their 9-year old girl thought the most hilarious thing in the world was pulling down boy’s trousers. She’d done it to her brother numerous times. Then during the weekend she did it to me. I was so embarrassed. My face was flushed. I felt angry. I felt shame.

Strangely, about six years later I met her again and she couldn’t talk to me or even make eye contact. She was that embarrassed about what she’d done. It was strange, but my nakedness caused her to feel ashamed. I’m not quite sure why.

But why should we be so ashamed of nakedness? I used to have a badge that said 'Underneath my clothes, I'm a nudist'. But so is everyone. True, some of us are hairier (and in my case flabbier) than others, but when we're naked, we’re all basically the same.

Is it because we’re vulnerable when we’re naked? People can see us how we really are – and so can we if we look in a mirror. When we put on clothes, we look different. If you want to look thinner, or accentuate your cleavage, you can. In fact, it’s so common to do it, we don’t even think to consider it fakery.

And if we do it with clothes, how much more do we ‘dress up’ and hide who we really are inside? According to surveys, pornography is a secret vice for up to 50% of Christians, but very few will publicly admit they struggle with it. We can easily be the upstanding, moral, spiritual, principled man or woman of God and keep our addictions hidden. That’s not being judgmental. I only know how easy it is, because I did it.

The same goes for ‘doubt’. If we’re willing to sing along as if nothing is wrong in church, then we can fool anyone that we’re full of faith, when inside we doubt whether God exists, and whether we even care. But we put on our Sunday best clothes and our Sunday best pious face and we use the right words, and no one is the wiser.

Incidentally, once I preached about how I was lacking faith, and afterwards someone approached me and asked me to mentor them. It’s the only time that’s ever happened to me. He didn’t want spiritual; he wanted honest.

Admitting who you really are is hard. What if people reject you? Or condemn you? (What if they just point and laugh?) It’s scary to be honest and to be emotionally naked in front of people, even just on a blog – I really wasn’t sure whether to disclose what I wrote earlier about porn. But I decided to be honest, even though shedding the respectable clothes of churchianity, that we’re expected to wear, is a risk.

But the alternative to being honest is to be a hypocrite. And, given the choice, Jesus seemed to prefer the company of sinners rather than hypocrites. The word ‘hypocrite’ itself is interesting. It’s entered the English language almost directly from the Greek, through the Bible. A ‘hypocrite’ was an actor, with a specific technical meaning of a person who wore a mask to disguise their true identity.

When Jesus called the ultra-religious, super-spiritual Pharisees ‘hypocrites’, he was calling them actors, at a time when actors were considered the epitome of immorality. It’s not just some Christians who disengage with everything cultural because they think it’s wicked and sinful – the Pharisees did it too. Today, calling the Pharisees ‘hypocrites’ would be the equivalent of telling the best-known Christian pastors that ‘You’re all fakers, like porn stars pretending to enjoy sex’. That is how powerful an insult it was.

And Jesus even made fun of their clothes. The Pharisees wore white robes to symbolise their purity. Jesus said they looked like whitewashed tombs. They looked nice on the outside, but they were full of the stench of death…

So, really, compared to being like that, maybe Jesus would agree that I do look better ‘naked’.

shirt #1: theologian

Title: theologian

Design: white legend on black

Make: produced through the adopt-a-word programme for ICan.

We are all theologians

How did I get a t-shirt saying ‘theologian’? Well, funny story. But it turns out you can adopt a word – any word – for yourself or on someone else’s behalf and support literacy and educational programmes across the world. My wife adopted ‘theologian’ for me and I’ve got the unique t-shirt and the certificate to prove it.

Even though I like this shirt (and the person who got it for me!) I don’t tend to wear it much. It seems a bit arrogant to proclaim to the world that you’re a theologian, let alone walk into church in it. It’s a bit like wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the word ‘intellectual’ or ‘genius’ – it’s a bit of a claim. "I’m a theologian. And you are…?"

But actually we are all theologians. You may be, like me, the proud possessor of a degree in theology. I can put the letters BD – Bachelor of Divinity – after my name, as a result of three years in university. (My alma mater stopped awarding BDs a few years ago. Now students get a BA in Theological Studies. My degree is a collector’s item.)

But that degree doesn’t make me a theologian. In fact, it didn’t really qualify me for any kind of career, even being a vicar, which everyone assumes you’re going to do after doing a theology degree. Everyone, except those people who mishear you and think you’re studying geology and then start asking you questions about rocks. (Yes, it’s happened to me.)

So, if it’s not the degree, what is it? What does make you a theologian? It’s really quite simple. I am – you are – anyone is – a theologian if we think about, talk about, write about or in some other way describe or discuss the nature and person of God.

So, the guy in church who bluntly tells me that he ‘has no time for theology’ because all he needs to know is in the Bible is, ironically, doing theology. The kind-hearted, yet slightly flaky lady who tells me she thinks God is just a name we give to the idea of perfect humanity – she’s a theologian too. Professor Dawkins who labels God as a delusion is actually putting forward a very robust theological argument.

They – we – are all theologians.

But it’s not just what we say about God. Theology is more than just words. Belief is more than just verbal assent to a certain series of propositions. We do theology in the way we live. What I mean is: the way I act right now tells you quite a bit about what I believe.

Jesus told several parables that made that point. One involved a guy who built a huge barn to store all his grain, but then dropped down dead the night before he was due to retire. His theology told him that all he really needed was wealth; that he could ignore God’s instructions to feed the hungry, and that ultimately he was in control of his own destiny. God had other ideas.

Another parable Jesus told was about a man who had a massive debt cancelled, but then immediately afterwards beat up a chap who couldn’t pay him back. It’s a parable about forgiveness – specifically how if you have known forgiveness then you have to forgive other people. The antihero in the parable has a different theology – his view is that even though he’s been forgiven, he can react violently to anyone who wrongs him. Again, God has other ideas.

One of the saddest parables Jesus told is often called the Parable of the Talents. Three servants are each entrusted with their master’s money (called talents). Two put it to good use and make more money, the third buries his ‘talent’ in the ground to keep it safe. He is so afraid of his master that he would rather do nothing. His actions are motivated by his theology – the ‘master’ can be interpreted as God. His fear of being caught out, of angering God, paralyses him into inaction. He’s so afraid of doing the wrong thing he does… nothing.

There are other Bible verses aplenty that talk about the theology of actions. The letter of James contains this caustic criticism of believers whose active theology is lacking: “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” (James 2:18) And then there’s the classic aphorism attributed to St Francis of Assisi: “Always preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.”

What I say and what I do reveal what I think about God. When I’m gossiping, it looks like I believe that God isn’t listening. When I worry, it looks like I believe that God isn’t trustworthy. When I want something in the toy store, it looks like I believe more in material things than spiritual riches. When I’m self-centred, it looks like I believe God doesn’t really mean it when he tells me to love others to the same level I love myself.

Whether I have the word ‘theologian’ splashed across my chest or not, I cannot help but be a theologian. And that goes for all of us.