I debated whether to answer this one. Religion is a topic I typically avoid in public. But I’m going to go ahead and give this one a shot because it’s something I’ve thought about recently anyway. However, in order to answer it, I’m going to give you a little background first, to be fair…

See I grew up happily neck deep in something I like to refer to as Turbo Christianity™. For those not familiar with that term (by the way, please give credit where it’s due, I OWN that phrase), I’m referring to a peculiar brand of modern Christian… the Charismatic, semi-pentecostal, not-quite-sure-if-we’re-Calvinist-or-not, half-Postmillennialist, Preterist, prophetically gifted, apostalically anointed, sanitary, law abiding, singing and dancing white people who sometimes wish they are black so they can have extra long spirit-intoxicated dance-slash-shoutforglory sessions and have it seem normal, and who use the word “awesome” to describe a great many things which are not actually awesome. We were very much like the folks you saw on Jesus Camp when you wondered to yourself if people like this really exist in the world. They do. We were the Christians who, convinced of our rightness, skewed off into a wormhole of inverted pseudo-Christianity and in the process did some very weird stuff. (I use the word “stuff” because, 10 years later, I’m still embarrassed to use the S-word on my blog. See what I mean?)

So yes, I’ve heard of the guy.

Background having been acknowledged, what do I think about Jesus?:

I think he’s great. If you “read the red and pray for the power” as we used to say (except for now leave off the praying for power part), for the most part, it’s hard to argue with most of what he said. Give to the poor, feed the hungry, love your enemies, give stuff away to people that need it, don’t worry so much, love people, don’t judge, don’t be religious, forgive, simplify your life, material possessions are empty, be merciful, make peace, work hard, etc. Who’s gonna argue with that?

As for his followers and all the scaffolding they’ve built around him? I’m not a big fan anymore. Too many of them tend to be short-sighted, self-aggrandizing (look it up), and misguided on many levels. That’s not to say that there aren’t “Christians” out there who are NOT, as I once was, a Turbo Christian™. It’s just that the non-turbos seem to be in the minority. The TC’s are the ones that we all see looking like retards on TV, or hosting radio talk shows, or governing the country, or out on the street holding signs that would make the guy they are named after want to change his name if he happened to walk by. They are the New Catholicism. Empty ritual and blind unthinking religion. The all-singing all-dancing army of lost propagandizers, scared of the world and waiting to be rescued home to glory.

I realize I may sound bitter. That’s a fine line and a fair point. I don’t think I am. I’m just convinced that what I used to think I knew about Jesus and the Whole Ball of Wax is so limited and small and “Western”, I don’t claim to understand all that much of it at all anymore. And I’m OK with that.

So there. A big hairy answer to a short, probably sarcastic, question. Who’s next?