Christian Hauntology #1: Punk Rock

More on hauntology later.

Here's the first edition of hauntological Christian covers -- this one is à la first- or second-wave punk rock.

Be mesmerised by the theological correctness, shake your fist in a subversive victory dance, and crow your way into the mic.

Jesus Christ the King and Saviour
Sally Trethewey

Humble birth in Herod's reign
Jew and Deity
God was with them once for all
Shared humanity
John the Baptist knew His sign
Prophesied the Way
Turn to God, His Kingdom's near
Repent, believe, obey

CHORUS:
Jesus Christ the King and Saviour
Blessed Lord, Emmanuel
Living Word, God's Son, Messiah
The victor over Satan's realm

Jesus taught His Father's will
Truth with certainty
Showing from the Word of God
His authority
Challenging His enemies
Who refused to hear
He fulfilled all prophecies
His Majesty was clear

CHORUS

On the cross where Jesus reigned
In His Father's plan
Israel's Suff'ring Servant died
Our Passover Lamb
Many saw the Son of Man
Coming in the clouds
To the presence of His God
In glorious risen power

CHORUS

No-one knows when He'll return
For the Judgement Day
But He tells us, Wait in faith
Hope and watch and pray
This command from Jesus' lips:
Speak to all mankind
Make disciples in My Name
I'm with you for all time

CHORUS:
Jesus Christ the King and Saviour
Blessed Lord, Emmanuel
Living Word, God's Son, Messiah
The victor over Satan's realm
Jesus Christ the King and Saviour
Blessed Lord, Emmanuel
Living Word, God's Son, Messiah
The victor over Satan's realm
The victor over Satan's realm
The vic-tor over Sa-tan's reallllm

Depicting Jesus

How should we depict Jesus? Is there one particular way in which we should portray Jesus? What would make a wrong depiction of Jesus, if anything? To get you thinking, here's a useful page from Rejesus.

As in previous posts, I began a series of designs for ES using the image of a Jesus puppet. Here's the latest:
There have been a range of responses to the puppet:

• Different / distinctive
• Fun / engaging
• Cute, perhaps childish
• Tacky / cheesy
• Disrespectful / mocking of Jesus

I went on a hunt for some other depictions of Jesus as alternatives.

Firstly, I went back to the early iconic representations of Jesus as Pantocrator (ruler of all) such as the following image:

Here's one draft I produced using a Pantocrator:
Then I toyed briefly with using a heavily incarnational image, using a photo of an "ordinary" person, such as Bono. I drafted this design featuring a young Joe Strummer (The Clash) just because he looks cool:
I also glanced at the manga Jesus, of the Manga Bible.

If the Jesus puppet is an inappropriate depiction of Jesus, what is appropriate? The iconic representations of Jesus are almost invariably stern and forbidding. The incarnational images tend to be too ordinary: they are not recognisably Jesus. The manga Jesus exudes adolescent image-consciousness and wannabe edginess. The vast majority of other modern images of Jesus are either cringe-inducing or kitschy.

I'm reminded here of Piss Christ by Andres Serrano (1987). It's a photograph of a crucifix suspended in the artist's own urine. Some Christians are outraged that someone would have the gall to depict Christ in such a denigrating way. I agree that, just as the artist literally pisses on Christ in this work, its message is about the utter denigration of Christ. Is this perhaps simply reflective of society's derision of Jesus, or religion, or tradition? The denigration of Christ is actually what makes Piss Christ so powerful for me, so evocative of what Christ has done for me as a Christian. I despised God, yet Jesus is the one who was willingly crushed for my sins (Philippians 2:5-11, Isaiah 53:5). It was for my sins that, following his Father's will, Jesus went to the cross. In a very real way, I have pissed on Christ. In my rebellion I have rejected the living God who made me. Yet, gloriously, Christ willingly bore my sins in death and did away with them forever, bringing me life. For me, that's the message that Piss Christ presents in such a visceral, gut-wrenching way. Here's someone else's reflections on this.
Why do I bring up Piss Christ? When Jesus is depicted in deliberately irreverent ways, perhaps others are just doing some more Piss Christ. It occurs to me that Jesus survived being pissed on at the cross. I think he will survive such trite dribbles too. I think he will probably also survive his grotesque life in kitsch, despite his eager Christian consumers. It is Christians themselves who propagate some of the most bizarre depictions of Jesus (which I find alternatively creepy, amusing or embarrassing).

If Jesus is bigger than art, does that mean we don't need to worry about how Christians depict Jesus? Artistic depictions of Jesus are always enculturated. Jesus himself was born a Jew in Palestine. In a similar way, we now have black Jesus and manga Jesus and so on: Jesus is perennially re-figured to speak to new groups of people. While it is easy to point out bad depictions of Jesus, it is simply impossible to find a universally ideal depiction of Jesus. (Luckily the original is at God's right hand, waiting to get back.) Because different people view art differently, one Christian's Sacred-Heart Jesus is another Christian's nightmare. In this melting pot we now also have pomo Jesus: images of Jesus that highlight the shortcomings of other Jesus-depictions. In this sense, a friend suggested I use a life-size cut-out Jesus, as seen in Mark Sayers' The Trouble with Paris. This 2D, portable Jesus is an ironic challenge: it's ridiculous to try making Jesus who we want him to be.
I assume that an appropriate, biblically faithful depiction of Jesus must be an image that will communicate to rather than alienate most of its viewers in a particular time and place. I think this is where the puppet fits in nicely for the purposes of the ES design. Like the cut-out, the puppet has a built-in ambiguity or question. It is simply a puppet depicting a somewhat stereotypical Jesus. It leads us to wonder who the real Jesus might be. The puppet's pose is one of speaking and welcoming: will we then respond and "meet Jesus at uni"? The actual Jesus puppet is sold online for communicating the gospel to children. Perhaps this nicely captures the sense in which each of us should prepare to meet Jesus (Lk 10:21, 18:15-17). Rather than being irreverent, I think the puppet shows a Jesus who can be questioned and challenged, and who will make himself known in response. Ironically, I think the puppet suggests a robust Jesus.

If you could buy Jesus in a pharmacy, he would be...

"Meet Jesus at uni" is the slogan for the brochure I'm working on, for the 2008 AFES Commencement Camps SA. I've been trawling the web for images of Jesus, trying to find something in between gritty and fun. Who wants a sop-bag?

WANTED
Jesus. Must be able to transmit God's life-giving message on campus. Wimps with nighties and flowing locks need not apply. Strictly no clean-cut Anglos.

There are all kinds of Jesuses out there. There's the rather overwhelmed Where's Christ and there's the bizarre menagerie of Jesus of the Week. Some others include:
Jesus Shaves
Jesus H Christ (who'd've thought?)

Jesus the tinned healer

Your type of type

What makes you tick? How do you see reality? How do you interact with others?

The PERSONALITY TYPES of modern psychology go back to Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. As with much of personality psychology, the types are not empirically grounded but they contain some instructive ideas. In other words, they are not based on exact measurements but that doesn't stop them from being helpful. The personality types can help us to think about the questions above, become more self-aware and work out career paths.

On the other hand, personality typology has found an unhelpful home in pop culture. Some people online put too much stock in type analysis and seem to think that it is the key to matching themselves up with Mr or Mrs Right. Pop psychology focuses on self-help, self-empowerment and success and many people believe they can perfect themselves and their world by applying the right psychological techniques. This deceptive way of thinking is a danger for Christians too: just look at the catalogue of Koorong!

Now to the fun stuff. Jung's types were used to develop the Myers-Briggs test that is in wide use today. I recently got myself a score and a type to boot: INTJ (Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging). Find some descriptions here and here. The "simple arrogance", the perfectionism, the drive for improvement and innovation and the "system building" all appear to describe me pretty well.

You can take a free sample test to get some idea of what your type might be. Once you've scored your test, use the links to find out the characteristics of your type.

The dynamics of interbeing and monological imperatives in "Dick and Jane"

This is one of my favourite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons (official page). Bill Watterson is criticising academic writing for its obscurantism (in plain English: the inability to communicate in plain English). The fact that fake, randomly generated academic writing is so realistic would seem to support this! Dick and Jane, by the way, is an American institution.

Where do you live?

This popular cartoon is by Randall Munroe (you can now buy posters of it too). I especially like the submerged land of Usenet* and the tiny principality of Attractive MySpace Pages! Where do you live?

* Usenet was/is a huge and ancient kind of e-mail-based discussion system

Elvis, eaten

During our weekend away, Tamie and I watched the film Ray, recounting the life of musician Ray Charles. It's a biopic similar to another we saw recently, Walk the Line, telling the story of musician Johnny Cash. Both men experience a rags-to-riches rise into stardom, transcending socioeconomic lowliness, the traumatic deaths of siblings and, in the case of the famously bespectacled Ray Charles, lack of eyesight. Both men become incarcerated in stardom's snares, abusing substances and relationships. Ray Charles does not allow blindness to disable him but is instead crippled by heroin addiction. However, both men finally find redemption, with patient and long-suffering women standing by their sides. The two films have positive endings.

One of the books we found at our holiday accommodation was Elvis Handbook by Tara McAdams. The beginning of Elvis Presley's story is similar to those of Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. From humble beginnings, Elvis experienced a meteoric rise to fame and fortune. His volatile image and sound held untold power in the melting pot of American music and culture. Yet Elvis' personal story is ultimately about loneliness and the insistence of sadness. By the time his eight year film career had finished, Elvis had become an institution, disconnected from his own cultural monolith, and his fame became an ever-lonelier place. Towards his life's end, as McAdams puts it, Elvis began to be the first Elvis impersonator. He was finally consumed by his addiction to prescription drugs. The sheer monumentality of Elvis' cultural icon is starkly offset by the hopelessness of his personal decline. His desolation is highlighted, perhaps unwittingly, in Bono's cynical lyrics: "Elvis ate America before America ate him". The end of Elvis' life is dominated by degeneration. There is no happy ending.

Many of us are aware of the frailty of our lives and our selfish capacity to abuse ourselves and others. We console ourselves with the thought that redemption is possible. Ray and Walk the Line fit in well here: they do not shy away from human decay, but there is always another chance to be renewed. Elvis' story is different, making us ask what happens when redemption may not be found. What would an Elvis biopic be like? How would it celebrate his tenacious talent, the luck of his rising star, and the vibrancy of his music in light of his degeneration?

Anglicanisms

As part of an Anglican church, Tamie and I have been fostered -- often grudgingly -- into a centuries-old collection of English traditions. I was recently reminded of the Englishness of Anglicanism when watching Keeping Mum. It's set in a tiny English parish where the vicar Walter Goodfellow (Rowan Atkinson) sets the tone for a good-natured chuckle about Anglican ways. We were struck by the cultural similarities we experienced despite being in Australia!

Someone else who helps us make light of our would-be Anglicanism is Dave Walker of CartoonChurch.com. Here are three snippets from his downloadable 2007 calendar.

If you've heard of the Windsor Report, I recommend this.

Pompous Pilot, Juders and Holly Ghosts

That Eye, The Sky was my first Tim Winton read.

Ort Flack is a twelve year old boy living in country WA. When a car accident sends Ort's Dad into a coma, faultlines appear in the Flack family. Ort's Mum feels helpless, his sister hates everyone including herself, and Grammar is lost in senile confusion. But Ort sees things in a unique way. Everything from his stomach to his visions makes him a spiritual barometer for his world. Ort is also aware of something else: the sky is observing even more than he does, and it sees people's secrets and intentions. Then a tortured epileptic comes to stay, sometimes weird, sometimes helpful. It turns out he wants to share something with the Flacks. But will things get better?

Everything is just so dumb. Sometimes, some nights, it's just so stupid. And I just go out and look back at the house, and that little cloud of light that came on the house the day they brought Dad back, it stops me from bawling. It makes me stop everything. Something in it says to me, says to me soul in me belly and in me bum, Hang on, Morton Flack. Crazy, eh?

It's a book about faith, trust and weakness. I found it mesmerising, hard-hitting and surprising. Every church depicted is unreliable, inauthentic and useless. There are eschatologically constipated angry fundamentalists, there are Catholics absorbed in impenetrable ceremony and fixated on the crucifixion, and neither is any good to the Flacks. Even the gospel messenger himself is hopeless. The Flacks' world is a pathetic muddle with no way out, and the Christians are no help. And yet That Eye, The Sky describes an unexpected life-giving faith that can overcome even the deepest brokenness. It's quirky and unpredictable, a present-day Australian gospel story. Visit your local library, read it and get a swift kick in your churchy guts!

What a book. Stories! Pompous Pilot, Juders, Holly Ghosts. Doesn't get me sleepy at all.

I'm up for some more Tim Winton!

(Greg Clarke did his English doctorate on him.)