While driving through Alabama, I figured it would be a good experience to flip through radio stations in the middle of nowhere… well… near Eufaula. Now, I know some of Bocephus’ (aka Hank Williams Jr) wonderful catalog of music, including “Family Tradition,” but a wonderful little diddy came on while on my drive. The song is entitled “If the South Would Have Won (We’ve Had It Made).” The song includes such wonderful lines as “I’d make my surpreme court down in Texas and we wouldn’t have no killers getting off free/If they were proven guilty then they would quickly swing” and as a South Floridian, my personal favorite, ” We’d put Florida on the right track, ’cause we’d take Miami back.” Listening to that song while driving through rural Alabama… I almost bought a confederate flag! (ok… not so much).

Over the next few days I have the exquisite opportunity to attend the International Christian Retail Show put on by CBA. For those who don’t know what it is, and I assume that a vast number of readers here at Drive Through Rain do not, this is the end all be all for anything you can find in any Christian bookstore, anywhere. So whether its Bible commentaries or TestaMints, Left Behind video games or Veggietales, you can find it all here. Everyone is peddling their crafti-work, and (supposedly) all in the name of Jesus.

Upon arrival to the World Congress Center, I see out on the vast landscape of Christian retail, and the floorspace alone is at least 4 football fields. Lets just say, its vast. So the company I work for has a booth, and I head that direction. I’m pretty dead set on finding them, so I am not taking in any initial impressions. Although I wasn’t browsing to start, it was hard to miss this on my way in:

Giant Larry Boy

Well, I got to my company’s table and proceeded to wander my way through the giant maze of Christian sub-culture fuel. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to start. The first half of my walk was through Christian book-publishers. I mean, there were probably a lot of books with questionable content or books that in no way further the Kingdom, but all in all, there seems to be some excellent resources out there.

My next experience was with the Christian junk sellers (i.e. everything besides books). My first real exposure to this was in college. I was never a man of faith until then, and had never really seen people sell much spiritual stuff other than the candles at the supermarket, usually in the Spanish foods section. When I was at Washington University, it was the year the Pope came to America and he came to St. Louis. We went to go see him, and you could find any Pope related item, from Pope-on-a-rope for all your baptismal cleaning needs and Pope-sicles, to satisfy your sacrament sweet tooth. Lets just say, this place topped them all. Some items I can understand people wanting and having a need for, but some things, I just don’t get. There was a booth for sunglasses…. seriously… Jesus sunglasses. What made them Christian? Don’t really know. Seems like people are ok with using Jesus as a marketing tool to sell stuff. Same with folks who put the Jesus fish on their business trucks. Is it truly biblical to never interact with non-Christians and only do any kind of business with supposed Christian-based companies? Does that guarantee you will never get ripped off? Unlikely. There was also a contraption to help you memorize scripture by projecting words on your windshield while driving. So, next time you see someone with a Jesus-fish on their car driving badly, don’t get mad… they may just be memorizing Scripture.

I will post for you three interesting finds for the day.

1. Christian Board Games. One company apparently makes Christian versions of all the board games out there. As if Scatagories really causes me to be tempted by the devil. They have everything from Apples to Apples the Bible Version to this:
   
   
   Guess you gotta make sure not to say words on your card, like “atonement, sacrifice, perserverance of the saints.”
2. Bronze Jesus. This lifesized bronzed Jesus warrior statue confronted me amidst my casual stroll. I was thinking of buying it and putting it by my front door to remind me what a merciful Savior I have.
   
3. The Jesus Statues. I have once before posted on ridiculous Jesus figurines, but these will take the cake. See Jesus in commonplace situations, like riding a bull, driving a harley, or falling off a cliff, to help remind you the price that was paid for your sins. Get yours today from WeAreFishermen.com
   

Taken from an article in my Religion Major Alumni newsletter from the University of Florida:

The more we learn about religion the less likely we will be to surrender our voices, through our lack of religious knowledge, to political leaders who frequently understand their actions in a religious context

Though about two-thirds of Americans supports both evolution and creationism in the public schools, how can we know what creationism is all about, or intelligently debate its place in our schools, if less than half of us can identify the book of Genesis?

Biblical references abound in public conversation about stem cell research and gay marriage, so how can we make an informed decision about these hot button issues without knowing something about the Bible?

Can we understand the war in Iraq without knowing something about Islam? Isn’t it clear by now that we need to have some basic understand of the difference between Sunnis and Shiites?

From outside the worship space, there came a raucous noise. Something was going on out in the lobby area that started turning a few heads in the back of the sanctuary. Soon, a few people could start to get a peek at the disturbance that was taking place. The motley crew started showing their faces as they made their way in. Sara and Samantha staggered in first, both dressed quite scantily clad for the occasion, dressed in their favorite Pretty Woman costumes. Certainly their profession would be quite questionable to those sitting in the pews. Brian followed suit, with a scent from his breath that has become a permanent fixture and a bottle that offers him an escape from his reality. A couple of men, grizzled and olive skinned came in next; their appearance would make most airline passengers have a few extra beads of sweat. In comes another man, dirt covered as if he’d just walked in the church from a week long camping trip. His body odor suggested an even longer period away from common practices of good hygiene. Nothing about him is attractive or exceptionally of note. He might be the loudest of all them, and he throws his arm around Brian and the group of them take an open row of seats and plops themselves right down.

How welcome would this crowd by at most modern churches? How welcome would Christ be at most modern churches? These are all the sorts of people Christ was with. Christ might very well be the last guy mentioned in the group. Its not that mostly white, suburban people don’t need Christ just as much as everyone else, but Christ definitely had a heart of the pariahs and outcasts of society. But why do so little of our churches reflect that?

I have always wanted to perform this social experiment (and maybe I still will). There is a large young adult worship service in the city I live that I think this would be an effective test. I want to either dress up as a homeless individual, smelling of urine, being a bit quirky in behavior and a bit crass. I want to do it so there is a hidden camera somewhere on the costume. I would proceed to videotape peoples responses to my presence at the service, so if the response is overwhelming freight, disgust, or people seem genuinely interested in talking to me. This would be not for my own satisfaction, but to send to the pastor(s) of the service so they may either address the negatives of peoples reaction or applaud the positives.

Do I think there will ever be churches where the rich suburban Atlanta folks can worship with the broken and least of these of the downtown communities? It is unlikely, but what are we doing to even try? How welcome would a homosexual couple be to worship at church? Would they be able to hold hands while still receiving a welcoming smile from people? Does being friendly and inviting condone behaviors? I don’t think so. If the church is a hospital, don’t you think its best to admit the patients than to turn them away? Do we need insurance for healthcare at churches, insurance that manifests itself in clean clothes and a certain polished appearance?

What is your biggest weakness? What is the one thing in your life that you may define is making you weak? Some may be thinking “I’m too shy,” or “I just don’t take enough initiative,” or “I’m too emotional.” May I suggest that that biggest weakness is probably not your true biggest weakness? This is a blog, so it’s my chance to say ‘here’s what i think!’. I think our biggest strengths can be our biggest weaknesses. The weakness I am talking about is spiritual weakness. It is a lack of spiritual maturity and fortitude. Its keeping the Kingdom of God at arms length from us. That is the biggest weakness we can have in our lives.

So how is our biggest strengths, which are usually God-given in the first place, our biggest weakness? Our biggest strengths often give us a sense of self-sufficiency as well as control. I consider myself a fairly well rounded individual. There’s a number of things that I can do fairly well (a jack of all trades, though likely a master of none). My ability to do all these things successfully, like teach a class or explain theology or play guitar, can keep me from actually experiencing the full breadth of how God wants to use those attributes. Because I can do something successfully, like lead a group in worship, I sometimes don’t let God be the one who is really leading. I don’t let God perform his miracle work through my hands, feet, mouth, etc. I can still, through grace, rest on the assurance that His word does not return back void, and acts of service like this are never truly in vain, but they are not up to the potential that He desires.

This also leads to a sense of control. Realizing that I can do it on my own, it is not easy to relinquish that ability and allow God to have his way. This is BIG TIME in so many areas of our lives. The pastor this morning said, “Perhaps its not our gross immorality but our gross self-sufficiency that causes us to keep the Kingdom of God at a distance from our lives.” I think this can be so true for so many people. We become self sufficient and as long as life is not too bad, we’re ok having control of things and not allowing God completely in. This just leads to so many complacent, reactive Christians instead of people living a sold-out, proactive life for God. Look at Paul. He had all the reason in the world to rely on his ability. But what does he say?

Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - Phil 3.4-9

Paul, a memorizer of the Hebrew scriptures, an excellent orator and theologian, a true Hebrew amongst Hebrews, counted all those abilities as loss, so that Christ may fully dwell and he may place all his reliance on Christ’s sufficiency through faith. Wow… if any concept is counter cultural right now its this. With so much ME cultures of things like blogs (yes… like this one), myspace, youtube, etc, everyone wants to have a ‘me’ voice and show off how they are unique in some way. But faith is never the promotion of me, is admitting how not worthy your Me is and promoting the saving grace of Him. So maybe, just maybe, we can learn to die to ourselves, admit our spiritual weakness, our total need for God, since anything we can muster on our own is simply filthy rags to Him, and finally we can really learn to know what it means to truly live.