When Will Jesus Flip Our Tables?

What amazes me about Christianity is how utterly lost we are. In the past few years I’ve transformed into a cynic, and Christianity continues to puzzle me. How can we be so blind? Everyone seems to think they’re right, that if someone else believes something different, they must be wrong. I continually fall into this trap. I look down on others because they have a different view, as if I have the one, properly ordained theology. This gets tricky, because as soon as you begin claiming Christians can believe different things and both be correct, others jump all over you claiming your one step from saying all religions must therefore be correct. I just struggle with the different ways we see God, and we always think our view is the only correct one.


For much of my life I’ve thought mainstream anything was polluted, sinful, bad. I only bought into things with a “Christian” label on them. Now it puzzles me that I was willing to swallow anything thrown at me with a “Christian” label, but wouldn’t even look at something without such a label. In doing so, I missed one of the greatest phenomenons in rock and roll history, U2. Fortunately I’ve been roommates with some U2 freaks and have been educated. By being so afraid of anything secular, I opted for the lazy way out. I didn’t have to filter my music and find out what’s decent and what’s not. Instead I just bought my CDs from the Christian bookstore and it was all good. It can turn you into quite a sheltered person.

Yesterday I walked into a Christian bookstore for the first time in a long time. It made me sick. I don’t understand how we can plaster Jesus’ name on so many items for sale and call it glorifying. I don’t understand how all these pithy little phrases are going to convert the people I pass on the streets. I don’t understand how parodied logos fit with Paul’s words to be in the world but not of it.

And I used to buy into this Christian materialism. I used to think that by wearing a t-shirt with a Bible verse I was doing my part to witness to my classmates. I certainly did more than just wear a t-shirt, but how many times did I let the words on the shirt speak for me, when my actions were indistinguishable from any other student.

I just don’t understand how we can hock all these cheesy wares in Jesus’ name. I remember a story in the Bible when Jesus got mad. We usually don’t like to talk about Jesus getting mad. We’d rather portray him as this comic book hero, Nice Man. But it’s in the Bible. He got mad. Some people had turned the temple of God into a market place and Jesus stormed in there with a whip and some harsh words, flipping tables and knocking things over and pissing people off. I wonder when he’s going to do that to us.

One thought on “When Will Jesus Flip Our Tables?”

  1. You’re right on people profiting, but if Jesus was here flipping tables, he would probably get a restraining order.

    We’re only human, we cannot comprehend what God is fully.

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