Rest in Peace, Imaginary Jesus
And a Christian meme that is definitely not doing the Lord's work
Fifteen years ago, my first book released into the world, a unique-to-this-day comedy theology novel called IMAGINARY JESUS.
The cover stood out in the absolute best way and was often shelved in the Barnes and Noble Christian section between an Amish romance and a Christian thriller.
Some folks who frequented Christian book stores were so confused by the cover and title that the publisher eventually changed both.
Atheists started sending me notes saying, “I thought this was an anti-Christian satire until I got halfway through and was upset to realize I had been tricked into reading a Christian book.” (I made a lot of atheist friends in this season.)
A number of people who are still my friends today came into my orbit because of this book, many in the publishing world… a number of whom I am still working with! But also people who read the book and reached out, or invited me to speak somewhere, or who sent me a beautiful note about how the book did something meaningful in their lives.
I talked to the publisher this week and we agreed after fifteen years to take the book out of print, including e-book. So very shortly IJ will be a lovely memory, or that really fun kind of book you can only discover in physical places, not online. The audio book will still be around through next year, I think.
All the rights are reverting to me, so I can do my own self-published version of it or sell the rights elsewhere, so don’t be too surprised if I resurrect an updated or anniversary edition in the future.
I also reserve the right to do a much longer post about this book coming into being. It was a wonderful, beautiful, happy experience.
Anyway, rest in peace, Imaginary Jesus!
Speaking of Imaginary Jesuses
I’m so interested in this meme that has been getting passed around. I saw it on a pastor’s Facebook account. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you a bunch of election thoughts. But I’m super interested in parsing this meme a little.
This is an interesting meme, because the underlying but never spoken idea here is: “Donald Trump is terrible in many ways, but God ordained him just like God ordained King David. And if you find that idea challenging, well, that’s because you’re self-righteous, because God did do this thing.”
It’s a cleverly done meme, because it’s really a critique of those who critique Donald Trump, disguised as a confessional. The person sharing it almost certainly not feeling “challenged” by this idea, because if he was he’d probably push back on it, explore it, kick it around and see if it’s true.
And it’s super NOT true.
Come, let us reason together, as someone famously said, and take a look at this.
Do you remember the story of King David? God chose him to become king instead of the son of the current king (Saul). And God looked down and saw this wealthy, sexually corrupt, “filthy minded” fellow in Israel and said, “Yeah. I choose that guy.” Right?
No. David was a kid. He was poor. He was a shepherd. He was a runt. And he famously was not a filthy-minded adulterer, he was this kid who prayed and sang all day, and when he heard that the Philistines were mocking God, he fought a giant… one kid against the scariest warrior on the other team. And when everyone started praising him afterward he was like, whoa, this is God’s victory not mine.
So God chose a humble, poor, unexpected, and un-experienced child who loved God and said, “This will be the new king.”
Now, did David become an adulterer later? Well, actually, it seems pretty clear in the text that what he did is become a rapist, not an adulterer (but we don’t have to debate that, either way the meme is wrong). Was he “filthy minded”? I don’t know, man, I think that’s a stretch. He was wealthy *because* he was the king, he wasn’t chosen when he was rich or because he was rich or in spite of being rich.
In fact, the actual story in scripture seems to argue the opposite of what this meme does. The story of scripture tells us, “Hey. Even the pure at heart — children who love God and write psalms while caring for the sheep, passionate guys who stand up for what is right — even they can be corrupted by power and wealth and pulled away from the things that matter the most.” And if you read the psalms you see pretty quickly that, yeah, David talks a lot about the struggle to stay connected to the divine, the passion he had for trying to stay holy and stay focused on God, and his deep remorse when he screwed things up.
This meme is 100% a great example of how politics twists our brains and how we then go on to twist scripture. The “King David” comparison to Donald Trump has been around since at least 2016, but it requires doing violence to the biblical text.
Are there ways to compare Trump to King David without doing violence to the text? Sure. But then we’d have to focus more on things like, “Does justice come to even the king when he breaks God’s law?” And the answer is, yeah… and sometimes God punished the nation he ruled over as well.
Look, longtime friends and fans of mine know I’m not a fan of President Trump. And I’m also not a fan of the very common practice of saying a leader is “ordained by God” and then the next four years say the Other Party’s Leader is sent from Satan to torment us or whatever. If God’s ordaining leaders in the sense these folks like to say it then you don’t get to choose which leaders you think are ordained.
In fact, the place where we see Democracy most clearly in action in scripture is 1 Samuel 8.
The people come to Samuel and say, “We want a king!”
Samuel, on God’s advice, tells them, “A king will conscript your sons, take away your daughters, demand your best cattle and take your land and turn you into slaves.”
And the people say, “Yes! Give us a king!”
And Samuel asks God what he should do about it, and God says, basically, “Give them what they want.”
Did God “ordain” King Saul? Actually, yeah he did. Because of the wicked desires of the people he gave them exactly what they wanted. Saul, by the way, didn’t start out as a bad guy, either. He had his chances to do some good things.
Anyway: the meme above isn’t just bad theology, and it isn’t just confused. It’s taking the name of God in vain. That’s what happens when you try to dress up your politics in church clothes.
And hey, beware of pastors who pretzel the Bible to make their politics look godly. That’s manipulation and is often spiritual abuse. You’re better off finding a different church home.
What I’m reading this week
It’s Monkey Vs. Robot and the Crystal of Power!
It is GOOD?!
This very much depends on if you like monkey on robot violence.
Does this image fill you with glee? Do you find yourself rooting for the robots and/or the monkeys? If so, this is the book for you!
Also: DESPITE THE CHARMING ILLUSTRATIONS THIS IS NOT A BOOK FOR SMALL CHILDREN.
There are both squished monkey deaths and flaming robot beheadings.
If this book is one you’ll enjoy, probably every sentence is making you want it more. If you’re feeling a bit iffy about it, you should probably pass. But if you ever get attacked by monkeys or robots I bet there’s something you could have learned from this book.
This week on Fascinating!
JR. and I talk about his new GAME NIGHT activities. Super fun!
BRUCE
In the northwest the weather gets cold then warm over and over in the fall, and this week had some nice, dry days. But as you can see, Bruce is putting on some winter heft to get him through those lean days to come.
Like always, I encourage us all to take Bruce’s advice. Maybe we should all try to put a few pounds on this month and/or next.
Be kind to yourself this week, and peace to you!
Matt
Thank you for deftly deconstructing that meme. It takes many forms, but they generally have the same message.
I think what I worry most about another Trump presidency is the effect it will have on boys and young men and the effects that's going to have for a generation or two. A president tends to be a role model, but in this case he's a very negative role model that seems to give permission for the worst to come out in men. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!
I loved reading IJ, and I thought that using a tobogganing scene to resolve a philosophical debate was an absolute delight.
Also, to further your point about David, besides the fact that he didn't write most of the Book of Psalms, of the individual psalms that *are* actually attributed to him, most of those are thought to have been written before David took the throne. So: David *didn't* write Psalms, and "King David" did *not* write very many of the psalms within that book.