Jesus. Mascot? King? or _____?
Trey Ferguson looks at the crucial difference between a Jesus-as-Mascot, a conquering King Jesus™, or The Risen Christ?
The suffocation of the soul has rarely hampered American pride in being Christian. And nothing embodies that pride about being a good ol’ “Bible-believing” Christian quite like King Jesus™.
I’m not talking about Jesus of Nazareth who humbly spent his first evening in a feeding trough some three decades before he was brutally tortured to death in the middle of the street at the hands of the most powerful empire on three continents (if we’re still pretending that Europe is something other than the western cape of Asia). He is an inconvenient mascot.
I’m talking about conquering King Jesus™. Not the one who conquers sin, death, and the grave. We need a real mascot. We’re talking about the King Jesus™ who conquers our enemies and rivals. King Jesus™ who comes back with the blast of a trumpet and a crack in the sky to vanquish all of the people we’ve decided God finds annoying, gross, or otherwise unworthy.
King Jesus™ makes people happy. King Jesus™ doesn’t require anything of you—other than loudly cheering anyone else who shares your excitement about King Jesus™. He doesn’t make you feel bad about anything (except not cheering hard enough for other Christians—even if they look, live, or love nothing like Christ). King Jesus™ doesn’t make you do hard things. King Jesus™ makes you feel good.
Last September, Charlie Kirk was tragically assassinated. I consider all violence a tragedy and a hazard upon the human soul. And yet, the tragedy of his death does nothing to alter the ways that he very intentionally and publicly chose to live his life. So, it was with some small measure of shock that I encountered a narrative suggesting that somehow, someway social media algorithms were to blame for the divided impressions we had of Kirk. Sure, I’ll concede that algorithms tend to feed us more of what we engage with. However, Charlie Kirk was not even coyly provocative. It was a carefully curated, bold brand. The whole thing. He was a shock jock. He’d often find the most offensive way to say things in order to provoke reactions and generate clicks & views. I’m not even criticizing that as a way to make a living right now. I was just a bit confused as to how so many Christians were willing to present someone with that particular, intentionally crass brand as a paragon of their faith.
But it makes perfect sense when viewed through the lens of America’s favorite mascot, King Jesus™ the Conquerer.
Whether or not you actually follow Jesus (or any of his many teachings we don’t like to talk about about too much), if you call yourself a Christian in this land, you recognize a conquerer when you see one.
Conquerers put people in their place.
When Renee Nicole Good was murdered by an ICE officer this past Wednesday, the government didn’t hesitate to justify her execution. The Department of Homeland Security issued an extra long post on social media about how she was engaged in domestic terrorism. Within a matter of hours, video evidence exposed their narrative as a lie. Yet, that didn’t stop the President and Vice President of the United States from continuing to justify shooting a motorist (who was trying to drive away) three times in an alleged act of “self-defense.”
There are not two realities here. There is one reality with two narratives.
One narrative is true and one is false.
The problem is not with our algorithms. The problem is with the condition of our souls.
That is why we continue to entertain false narratives, like the one employed to sanitize the ICE agent who killed Good. Jonathan Ross is a “committed Christian” and “tremendous father and husband,” the media was happy to report—moments before the government (rather confusingly) released cell phone footage he recorded of the incident in which he shot a woman three times before calling her a “f*cking b*tch.”
And people were happy to run with that narrative because it doesn’t actually encounter any dissonance with King Jesus™ the Conquerer. King Jesus™ vanquishes your enemies. And, when you’re fighting a culture war, sometimes your enemy is a protestor. Or a liberal. Or an LGBTQ person. Or an immigrant. You can cage those enemies. Lie about them eating pets. Deport them to random countries. You can bomb their home countries and deny their citizens refuge. You can even murder them. And you can still be a “committed Christian” and dope dad.
Because King Jesus™ doesn’t really require anything of you.
King Jesus™ makes you feel good.
He is an effective mascot.
But Jesus doesn’t real look like that. At all.
That’s just an American ideal dressed up in sacred garb we’ve all agreed to call Jesus Christ.
Here’s the thing about mascots…
They are there to rile up the crowd.
That’s it.
They don’t get to play in the game. They do not to contribute to wins or losses.
They are there to sustain morale even when losing is inevitable.
If you want to see the game played with integrity, then a mascot will not be enough.
We are going to have to do hard things. Great discipline will be required of us.
And, if we are more committed to the process than the prospect…
If we are more committed to communion than conquering…
We just might see the world redeemed to wholeness.
Mascots will never save us.
We must commit to the movement.
King Jesus™ the Conquerer does what is willed by his many adoring fans.
But Jesus of Nazareth…
He who was crucified…
The Risen Christ…
The Son… is still moving.
Those who follow might learn what it is to live freely.
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