Funny, but how funny?

Mark, over at The Foolish Sage, posted some of these movies on his last blog post. I thought they were funny, which was his intention, but as I watched them a second time, I wondered how funny they really are - or how true - or how untrue. Comedy, especially parody, is funny because it speaks truth, or shines a light, in an ironic way, into a normal everyday reality - so I'm curious as to what folks think about what is being presented in these videos.

Watch these, enjoy them, and lets talk about them. Just for fun.



Having gone to seminary, and likely having most of the books Mr. Christian is holding on my own bookshelf, this video resonates quite a bit with me. I find myself somewhere in the middle of these two guys, which I think I am glad about. I love theology, and love to talk about it. On the other hand, I have no bumper stickers, no ichthus on my car - more out of fear of blaspheming Christ than anything else. But anyway - Christ follower definitely wins this round.



This one is interesting... I get the whole "you orthodox people are so stuffy, why don't you loosen up" part of it, and I have some sympathy in that direction. I'd love to be able to come to church in jeans and preach, or in my most comfortable sweats (which I am wearing right now). But worship is and has never been about me and what I want or like. Yes, Mr. Christian's attitude towards 'Christ follower' is not good or helpful either, but it gets under my skin sometimes when people dress down just to be 'cool' or even a bit rebellious. Worship is not about me or how I feel or how comfortable I am, I happen to believe that how I approach worship reflects what I think about God - and that can also be reflected in how I dress. Do I always wear a suit? No. But if I go to worship wearing the same thing I would wear to a baseball game, it reflects, at least on some level, what I think about God, and His worship (worth ship). Of course, God is not concerned with outward appearance, and neither am I. I am more concerned about why one dresses the way they do, than what they actually wear.

And the other thing is the mention of Saturday... is 'Christ Follower' an SDA? I wonder who made this vid now...

For the record, I am against all things WWJD.



Now this one I am pretty much with 'Christ Follower'. Not much I like in the way of Christian Contemporary anything. Though it seems that we are making some headway in that department. Some of the young people in the church I am serving in have offered me all sorts of CD's to borrow to see if I can change my mind about CCM as a whole. Personally, I think I can respond just as worshipfully listening to TOOL as I can listening to Third Day, or PILLAR (a new CD I have borrowed to check out) - ok, maybe not TOOL (though I do like them). What we need to understand is that God's common grace has gifted even the most rebellious rock musician with the gifts that enabled them to make their music. So I as a Christian can listen and give thanks to God for their gifts, even if they do not. I am far more interested in professing Christians who make good music (like Chevelle), than anything with the label "Christian Music". And as a side note - who Christened U2 as the ambassador of Christian Coolness? I actually saw a book entitled "Preaching through the U2 corpus" -- I mean, come on... yeah, Bono used to look like Jesus, but let's not get carried away...



This last one I am not really sure about. I can't tell if they are making fun of the non-traditional move towards more multi-media in worship or what... I always thought that was not a trait of the "Christian" church, and more a trait of the non-traditional side of things. Seems like they are mixing their metaphors or something... I don't think worship gets any more traditional (in reformed circles) than it does where I worship, and multi-media would be a foreign language there... who knows...

I guess what I am curious about is, apart from taking a cool APPLE ad and making it their own, what is the goal of these videos? What are they trying to poke fun of exactly, or rebuke? Does "Christian" really exist? Of course he does, sadly, but how much of who he is (as reflected in these movies) is bad? And how much of Christ Follower is good?

ah well.. discuss.. I don't have the answers... that's why I preach instead of run companies... my answers are given to me by someone else...