Situational Comedies and Train Cars

Two Things:

1) The other day I was in Lifeway with my mom and looking in the video section of the store. Before my eyes was a veritable cornucopia of... nothing. Ok, not completely nothing. There I was standing in front of a shelf full of good intentions wasted and millions of dollars down the drain. There were a few good movies for sale: The Passion of the Christ, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, ... uhm... yup, that was about it. I hate to sound like a cynic, but it's pretty much true. There were at least fifty different productions on display for sale in that store, and I could only think of two of them that were worth buying. Oh wait - Left Behind III is alright. It's not a bad movie, just not a good one either.

I promise you I don't spend all of my time ranting about Christian movies, even though if you are judging by my blog posts so far, it may seem like it. What caught my eye about this shelf was one DVD in particular. It was entitled, Pastor Dave, and it was a Christian sit-com. The DVD itself contained only four or five episodes, but season two had about ten I believe. A Christian sit-com? Immediately my interest was piqued. Just this past semester I actually had to write a 30-minute sit-com episode for my screenwriting class for a series that my professor had invented for the purposes of giving his classes something to work with. In my interest, I flipped the DVD on its back and began to read the episode descriptions, beside which were screen shots of each episode.

Let me just establish here that I have never before watched any of Pastor Dave, but I assume that the group responsible for the DVD covers would know better than to use bad looking screen shots as advertising material. So... I assume that the shots I saw were some of the best shots in the series, or at least indicative of the rest of the shots found in each episode. With that assumption in mind, I was forced to the conclusion that this series was of the same poorly produced quality as many other Christian productions. It's a shame, I was hoping too.

What really caught my eye about this sit-com though was a line written on the back, bottom left-hand corner of the DVD. It said, "Enjoy sit-coms as God intended them to be!" Really? How did God intend sit-coms to be? How did he intend us to enjoy them? It seemed rather arrogant for this one sit-com to lay absolute claim to God's will for situational comedies. And by doing so, what are they really saying? They haven't even said anything specific like "God intended situational comedy to be family friendly" or "God intended situational comedy to be based on Bible characters or individuals in the ministry" (although ironically this one is based on someone in the ministry). No, it only says that by watching this series, we are enjoying sit-coms as God intended them to be enjoyed. In other words, once more we see the "Jesus" brand name coming out again. We are supposed to purchase this series because it conforms to God's will, and we know it conforms to God's will because it tells us it does, without giving any reason no less. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this is arrogant, but last time I checked, Christian movies and television do not count as scripture. Neither does Christian marketing for that matter.

2) Driving home after dropping my siblings off at school this morning, I saw a train passing by overhead ( I was driving under a bridge - the train was not in fact flying... although that would make an interesting story premise wouldn't it? I mean, not on it's own, but paired with something... who knows...). Scrawled across the side of one of the cars were the words: Islam Sucks.

I guess with all of the post-9/11 reaction that Islam and Arabs have gotten, this makes sense. I can understand why someone would write that. What confused me what who would write that? Obviously someone who believes that graffiti is acceptable, but what is their background? Especially in terms of faith. Are they a Christian? Do they think they're a Christian? And was that one of their motives for writing Islam Sucks on the side of a train? And if so, who did they intend to see it? What effect did they intend it to have on them? Or was it just cathartic?

Sometimes I think we really need to be careful how we react to things in the south. For so long now we've established a church culture in which popular Christianity has become the norm in our region that it's easy for popular sentiment and theology to mix and get confused. What I mean is this: Theologically speaking, I believe Islam is false. I do not believe it is an inspired religion, I believe it teaches its adherents false concepts about God and our relationship to him (even though it does value many of the same truths that Christianity does, such as submission to God's will), and I believe that many wrongs have been done in the name of Islam in the same way that many wrongs have been done in the name of Jesus. I also know that in high school I had a very good friend who was a devout Muslim. We were relatively close friends, worked together in extra-curricular activities, and even carpooled at times. We even shared very similar political beliefs. Most of all though, we could converse. If we had differences, we could discuss them. I did not feel the need to declare a crusade on my Islamic friend and he felt no need to declare a Jihad on me. Does that mean I agreed with his religious beliefs? Most certainly not. However I respected the fact that he was a man of faith as was I, and that commonality served as the basis for a relationship that offered plenty of opportunity for conversations about faith.

What I believe has happened of late is that politically, we view Islam, or the radical political groups that fly its banner, as the enemy. And in the south, that combines with the theological difference that Christianity has with Islam through the culture of Popular Christianity that we have fostered by accident. With Popular Christianity as our filter, we lose hold of the theological underpinnings of Christianity's difference with Islam. What began as a disagreement over who God is and how we relate to him became a simple political machine which views Islam in every shape, size, and manifestation as the Enemy with a capital E. This is the sort of mentality which inspires "Islam Sucks", and I very much doubt that the writer of those words was quoting John 3:16 to his or herself as the paint began to fly. Instead, I imagine the thought process went something like this:

Islam destroyed the Twin Towers. Islam attacked the U.S. Islam is an enemy of the U.S. My momma and daddy always learned in church that Islam was bad. Islam is bad and the enemy. Church is good. America is good because of church (aka because it's "Christian"). Things suck in America right now. Life is harder for me right now because things suck in America right now. Islam, as the enemy of America and Church, has made things suck right now. Therefore, Islam sucks.

Ok, so this is obviously an oversimplified version of things, and I doubt the writer of those words literally thought out each individual sentence above, however I do believe that these are some of the unconscious mental premises that might have led to this act of vandalism. At least, I've heard various renditions of these premises from various individuals in various ways. Suffice it to say, you may not think people think this way, but they do.

So how do we prevent this from happening? To be honest, I'm not sure. First of all, we need to extricate ourselves from this Church Culture in the South that we are so proud of. Just because there are a million churches on every street corner and everyone has been to church at least until they hit middle school doesn't mean that there are a corresponding number of people in the South who actually follow Christ. Similarly, it doesn't mean that God favors us any more than he favors say, the North, where you are much less likely to find a church, much less people who go regularly. Second, we need to begin communicating again. Listen, we know that Individuals have hurt us, and that these Individuals did so in the name of Islam. But that's just it, they were Individuals, and Islam is made up of countless Individuals. Christ commanded us to love others, and because of this commandment, we will love all of these Individuals, form meaningful relationships with them, and communicate meaningfully with them rather than turning them into a mass, borg-like enemy. If we don't see Muslims as people, rather than the cause of our political and economic woes, then how ever will we love them enough to share with them the greatest thing that has ever happened for people across the globe?

Well, I think my rambling has run its course. Just some things I'm thinking about.