Christian Chaff
Overt Christianity
by Jimmy Hopper
On a recent vacation trip to Atlanta and South Carolina, I decided that there must be a religious revival taking place among Southern young people, or at least, what passes for Christianity amidst the teen set. Everywhere we went; Stone Mountain, the Carolina Aquarium, Six Flags, and even individuals in the streets, there were groups and groups of young people wearing identical tee shirts with Christian “messages” enjoying the sights. Some of the shirts simply had the church name on them and were probably helpful in keeping the group together in crowds. Others added some catchy name for the group, i.e. Teen Mission ‘06. Still others teetered on the outside edge of taste. Finally, some of the groups were, in my opinion, downright detrimental to the cause of Christ.
Many of the shirts had variations of ad slogans. As an example, one of the most obnoxious used the Dairy Association slogan, “Got Milk?” except this was changed to “Got Jesus?” I guess the “message” was: If you haven’t got Jesus, you need to run by your local Pak-A-Sak and get him. He’s there on the shelf and he’s good for you! There were others almost as bad and many were in very garish neon colors that screamed “Look at me!”
The “look at me” idea is a constant for these displays. This was demonstrated most vividly in an episode I’ll call “The Stone Mountain Choir.” We had climbed Stone Mountain; my daughter, myself and my grandchildren. It was late in the afternoon (I’m old and slow) so we decided to ride the trams down. Because it was the last trips available, the building was packed with people waiting in line. Immediately ahead of us was one of these church groups, actually one of the larger ones we saw, maybe forty kids. Their shirts had a Bible passage on the back that was so long and the lettering so small that it couldn’t be read unless you were less than ten feet away and had some time available. When they saw that they had a large captive audience, they broke into a very “cheesy” (to use the new vernacular) praise song, and they sang it for many verses. What was fascinating was to watch the faces of the kids involved and the people forced to listen.
Most of those forced to stand there and listen looked pained. Some of the kids were obviously proud, staring out at everyone with almost a “I dare you to complain” look, indicating that they were Proud to be working for the Lord.Others, especially one particular guy, stood there with a beatific smile, proud to be joyous and holy. After seven or eight verses, it finally died down as some, then finally all, tired of it.
I’ve asked myself if I over-reacted to this stuff. After reflection, I really don’t think so. I’m almost certain that no one ever decided that they needed to find out more about Christ from a tee shirt or other over the top dress, bumper sticker, etc. I am fairly certain that people are usually turned off by these things, and this was quite plain as I surveyed the faces of the listerners to the Stone Mountain Choir. I could normally care less about this silliness but it does bother me that the name of the Lord is used, and I do mean used in its worse sense, so casually, so crassly and with such obvious self satisfaction and self exaltation.
Posted by Jimmy Hopper at August 23, 2006 07:36 PM
Great post, Jimmy. It is fascinating to see that two exaggerated responses leads to re-enforcement of “overt Christianity.” If a person came up to a choir member and glowed with thanks, they would leave feeling “used of God.” Strangely, however, the opposite response feeds this bizarre brand of evangelism. If a person came up to the choir, shouting curses, they would all board the bus feeling that they had been “persecuted for the sake of Christ.” Never mind that historical persecution consisted of having a blade pierce your internal organs. In many ways, this sort of nonsense can only be addressed within the church—since any other source would be dismissed.
Great post. I remember pretty well my high school and college days when I was an agnostic. I didn’t really respond to the overly sentimental religious crowd, and I still step back in my mind when I hear someone being this way. I’m convinced that my Christian friends who just loved me for who I was had more to do with where I am today than any other form of “reaching out.”
Hmmm, maybe I need to go check my closet and make sure I don’t have any of those t-shirts.
As one who lives in Georgia and who is a Christian, I am embarassed by this self-exalting, drive-by tram sing.
It is a natural reaction to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable by what these youth did. But I feel empathy toward them. Flashback to the mid 70’s— the denomination that I grew up in provided us with all sorts of “witnessing workshops” so that we could learn to “share our faith.” Afterwards, we always felt that in order to be pleasing and obedient to the Lord, we had to do something to share our faith. Thankfully, we weren’t blessed with the talent of singing, but I wonder just how many of our friends were overly pressured to “accept Jesus” because of our efforts.
Apparently, not much has changed! I agree with Tim Lien this must be addressed within the church.
So my questions are… How are the youth of our church being taught to engage today’s culture but still be separate from today’s culture? and Are the youth of our church being taught to share their faith in a way that engages someone to want to explore the Gospel of Grace?
Hi “Laundry Girl,” Thanks for the response. I, also, was raised in that type of church although my time was earlier than the beginnings of the focus on the church as a growth industry in which even the children are considered salesmen for the “product” being produced. By the way, this group wasn’t blessed with the talent of singing either. I used the “choir” designation to indicate a “religious bursting into song because they just couldn’t suppress it any longer.”
Regarding your questions, Tim, as our former youth pastor could probably answer in more detail but I think, from what I’ve seen and heard, that I can give a simple answer. I believe that the primary focus of the youth program is to ground the youth in the Gospel and in a right conception of both living for Christ and the motivation for doing so. They do this in the group setting so beloved of teens, and, from what I’ve seen, have a great deal of fun doing it.
There is a sense in which no one living today can be totally “separate” from today’s culture without doing as Christians once did and joining a monastery. Although I don’t hold classic post-modern views, I would be pretty isolated and even lonely if I didn’t interact with those views. So, to answer the first question, I don’t think it is possible to be totally separate and still engage that culture. This doesn’t mean that the church youth have free rein to participate in gratuitous sex or even admire the celebrities and teens that do because they are Christians and they have been taught standards, but I’m not sure it’s possible to isolate them from at least the observation of such. I’m now dealing with these issues with teen aged granddaughters so I’m getting a first hand view.
Your second question regards sharing faith and in this, I defer to Prathima’s response above about Christians she responded to at that age. We are to demonstrate the Gospel in our lives and to love those who need it so much because they are not the Lord’s children. This is, in a real sense, the evangelical mission of Riverwood, both in engaging the culture and in loving others.
I hope this is helpful, even though it is one man’s studied opinion and again, Tim has details of what we do with the youth.
Thanks for the response. I hope you didn’t think that I was advocating that the church tells youth to be “totally separate” or isolated. But as you stated, there are standards that one would hope that they are being encouraged to uphold. I wholeheartedly agree that we must show today’s youth that the culture can be engaged by showing Christ’s love to everyone—believers and unbelievers. In this way, the Gospel is advanced most effectively.
I just feel alot of empathy toward those teenagers. They really probably thought they were doing the right thing. I just don’t want my children to make the same “mistakes” (for a better word) that I did in these same situations.
What did your granddaughters think of the situation? Did you have a chance to discuss your observations with them?
Thanks for the dialog. I can appreciate your empathy. I wasn’t truly a Christian at that age, and, had I been, children waren’t required to make advances back in the dim past when I was young! However, when I became a “young” Christian at an advanced age; even then I wanted to do whatever I could for the Lord.
This is an important subject since the view of Christians everywhere seems to be that “overt Christianity,” in its worse sense, is all there is to God’s people. Because of it, we are all essentially tagged in the public perception as mindless fanatics.
I guess I was answering you in the terms that these kids deal in, and that is usually separateness. I had no idea that our church was isolationist or that you were advocating that we become that way. The trick to all of this is teaching the standards and the necessity of abstaining from deliberate sin, yet being sure that others aren’t condemned or even looked down on for not having the same standards.
I think that the girls were also embarrassed by the display. I didn’t ask them for their input but they listened as Jennifer and I spoke of how that wasn’t proper, and that it is never helpful to try to force feed beliefs to a captive audience. They seemed to agree and I’ve heard them speak before of “evangelical” efforts by students who are members of a particular charasmatic leaning church when they were students at their former school in Northport. Those efforts were very embarrassing to them and they essentially said that there was no way to honestly respond to them.
Thanks again for the dialog.