My only (day) job: subversive televangelist?

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photo credit: Adbusters


It took "ads" like this for me to realize it..

Bottom line, my only job may be:

subverting empire...


aka adbusting...
aka hijacking the party line..
aka temple tantruming

etc.

Those of you new to these parts are saying: "huh?"
Those of you who are natives or immigrants to EPIC culture are saying: "Amen...
That's all good and huge and necessary..
but what does that have to do with the real bottom line:
the great commission (as we said in modernity)
and being missional (as we enlightened pomos say)??"

Great question.
Simple answer:

Nothing if such subversion is end in itself;
everything if I navigate it wisely and well.

Means can be end.
Medium inevitably is message.

But we must be hijacking the right train.
Or we simply "become a monster so the monster will not overtake you."

As a writer and resident "alien consigileri" for "The Bohemian Alien: an organization of raging deadbeats, incandescent
idealists an profound christians"...

As chief dreamer, cultural architect and goatherder (un, pastor) of third day fresno..

As a pusher towards the unobvious in my facilitation of classes/workshops for our non-denominational network and beyond..

I am primarily a subverter of the dominant pair of dimes.

Someone has to (gets to) tell and show folk that the Emperor is naked.
Or religious, whatever is worse.

Delicate deal to be midwife without resorting to force and forceps...

Maybe optometrist is a better metaphor, i am merely suggesting/prescribing an alternate pair of lenses..


Until one has entered the book of Revelation not through the lens of evangelical endtime spornography or God's detailed daytimer..
and seen it for what it largely is:
a parody of sorts,
a prophetic satire;
a hijacking of empire...

Until we see/hear books like Colossians as
" Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire"..

we will largely missing the point and prophecy.

Flush the fashion, as St Alice of Cooper once preached.

Life in the Kingdom; becoming subversively orthodox (as opposed to its evil counterfeit: orthodoxically subversive)pilgrimmage with Sermon on the Mount as hymn and hypertext should foster a walk in which we cannot not walk all over empire. With a violent peace and an unloaded gun.
This is not being radical for radical sake, but simply (in John Piper's delightful phrase applied to fasting) "a prediction of what will seem normal for those who miss the Bridegroom."

But if this grand tradition, historically incarnated well by Anabaptists, winds up being
counter cultural and nothing more, we get nothing more than koinonitis.
An ingrown toenail on the Body of Christ.
A narcissistic "Sermon in the Amount" which ironically enthrones Mammon in the name of Jesus.

Counter-culture is crucial...but the crux of it all is engaging culture on its own ground; actually going to Mars Hill; being real..As Sweet says, "We are in the world, but not of it...but not out of it either." There is nothing more sacred than a holy wordliness that stays engaged to Jesus while engaging culture.

Don't hear what I'm not saying: cheesy copy cat ads to sell Christian products, or
centerfolds in Christian mags.

Although such is a great starting point IF it is orientedd as satire and starting point,
Until the holy hijack is commandered.

And great biblical ministries like "XXXChurch.com: The #1 Christian Porn Site"...kudos to Anabaptist Fresno Pacific University for hosting this holy, wholly subversive ministry (I am
sure they took a few hits)..

And great biblical ministries like a whole class on theology of U2..kudos again to St Tim and that same university!

But we must keep pushing; asking questions like:

Where are the Christian "Vagina Monologues"??




We must enter the system/matrix belly of the beast-whale to engage it, subvert it , and come back with the keys.

Even when it means allowing prayers to Jezebel on Wheaton College campus.


Helpful hint:

realize that there is a whole breed of Christians who are artists, who:

"see their job as preparing unreceptive and probably overgrown ground to be more open to the sowers who are going to come after them..so I am not going to talk about (them)...as if their primary task ought to be pleasing people who are already Christians. And I'm also not going to spend a lot of time on questions like 'What exactly does each of them believe?" or "Have they always lived up what they say say they believe?' I think apart from simply being kind of tacky
and voyeuristic, questions like that betray a misunderstanding of how art worksm in the first place. "

These extraordinarily relevant and revealing comments could and should qualm the fears of well-meaning religious folks who tend to major in missing the point. But I fear many will miss not only the pungent point, but the untold blessing in letting art work, for Christ's sake.
Yes, there is indeed a place to ask if confessing Christians artists betray Jesus with their lifestyle; but believe it or not, "betraying how art works in the first place" can lead to nothing less than betrayal of the daring Jesus who is longing to reveal himself through startling fresh, blatantly real, and admittedly imperfect vessels (Last time I checked, that's the only kind of vessels available to him).

That the context of these comments is a specific presentation on the music and motivation of U2 (by Rev. Beth Maynard) does not at all negate the applicability of the comments to filmmakers. Art is art. Maynard continues, referencing U2's work in the 1990s which was laced with irony, and was


"marked by depicting and lamenting humanity's shadow side...including their own
shadow side....(This was) misunderstood by observers, I'm afraid particularly by
Christian observers, who bring to that art the naive thought that any artist who
writes about sin must be in favor of it."

LINK: God's Gold Tooth: Imperfect Prophetic Films

It's also way past time to re-imagine images.

I have written much about this at these links ("The words/IMAGES of the prophets written/PROJECTED on the subway walls" and First Church of Binitarian Biblilolaters).

Our point here is Jerry Mander's: "There is no rejection of images."

That statement is two-edged. We cannot reject all images in the name of a commandment that we have been told flatly forbids them. After all, "Christ is the image of God" (Col 1.15); how subversively sublime and sneaky is that...very postmodern of God!


Too bad the Reformation threw baby Jesus out with the artwater.

Mander's primary context was a warning, though: we inevitably accept all

images (at least through certain media) as valid and positive.

We cannot change the fact that our culture is full of images, some idolatrous and graven.
so we might as well say "Geez!" (explanation here) and subvert as many as we can.

Mander is well aware of the irony if his never appearing on television to talk about his book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television." But I wonder, in retrospect, if he would reconsider.

Even Anabaptists do not have to be Luddites.
As long as we are, in Jesus words, "simultaneously as sneaky as snakes and docile as doves" (Matt 10:16).

And as long as we read and wrestle with the angel... and with tribesters such as Ellul, Lessig, Dawn and Postman.






Mander spent fifteen years in the advertising business, including five as president of one of the most celebrated agencies in the US. But with a difference: Wall Street Journal dubbed him the "Ralph Nader of advertising" In 1972, he founded the first:

nonprofit advertising agency.

!!

No, I don't mean church.


And such is not an oxymoron. Just the way it should/could/must/will be.

Such is not a non sequitur. Just simple Its sequitur; a "prediction of what will feel normal to those who miss the bridgeoom" and are awaiting the wedding banquet.

Sex sells. Even sells mission trips (see: Pepsi, Sex, Elevation...& Mission Trips That Are Actually Missional).

And is sold by them.

A hellish sack of goods.

But subverting sexualization releases mission.
And leads to reduction of seduction.

It's elevation, as the rabbis (and Bono) would have it.

Just watch out for those pastoral retreats on the beach..(ostensibly for prayer)..

and beware the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue; here I refer you to John Tschetter's important article. (sorry if the pages are stuck together).


"Advertising," Stephen Leacock suggested, "may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it."
Which is the same thing as cheap sex.

I don't want it.

Actually I do; so do you...that's the problem ...and opportunity.


Finally..

I am meandering my way back into the bottom line I eluded/alluded to at the top:

My only job is to subvert empire in such a way that mission happens.

And if the medium is the message (see McLuhan, and the wonderful book by Mennonite pastor Shane Hipps)..

it may indeed be inevitable that I

..I can barely bring myself to say it...

appear at least once in television.

!!

Even though i have more than four arguments against my doing so.

Even though (I think) I am half-kidding.

I'm not sire I could stomach being on TBN ..

..or watch it for 24 hours (like a very brave sarcastic Lutheran)

It may have to be a very 'secular' show.
maybe on cable, or a channel known for porn.

Maybe Ken can connect me with someone at Clear Channel.

Somewhere at Mars Hill, or ZOO TV maybe.

Maybe a lingerie



ad like Dylan and Switchfoot have done.
(see "God Knows Victoria's Secret (so do Switchfoot and Dylan?)"

Imagine that.

Or not.

I am not naive about the dangers inherent in converting and subverting sex and violence.

They do not immediately become sax and violins.

But they never will without wise and foolish subverters.

I'll be the holy fool on mars hill.

I'll have to go where Jesus goes..
..though he never appeared on TV..

Wait, I need to check and see if Jerry Mander has appeared on TV..or YouTube yet..

I'll be







right back.

Crap.


I guess I'll be open..
..to visiting the belly of the beast.

Geez!

For those who would caution me against such a snare, I hear you.
But for those who quote a scripture they are sure is in the Bible: "avoid even the appearance of evil," read I am in sin if I "avoid the appearance of evil" now.


Bottom line:

I have to be in the matrix to unplug others. Gotta be in the system (but not of it) to subvert it.

And since I know I only have one job..

I might as well do it.

Or at least be it..

after I read this book pictured, and

come to terms with the crazy contadictedness of all this...