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.