I really, really hope this is the final chapter, anyway. But I’m not going to promise myself anything.

Here are two more items I have recently acquired for what is definitely now a “collection” of strange Jesus stuff.

Bill brought me this lamp, which apparently was in his ninety-year-old mother’s posession and that’s why it’s no longer functional, unfortunately.

As you can see, this lamp is composed of a large, shiny seashell embedded vertically in plaster in a black dish. The seashell forms a backdrop for a cheap gold crucifix that overlooks fake coral in two neon colours. The seashell in the foreground conceals a light-bulb, or at least what used to be a light-bulb. I believe the idea is for the light from the bulb to reflect off the inside of the smaller shell and onto the plastic crucifix.

Lest you think this was an ill-advised Women’s Ministries craft, let me note that a stamp on the bottom bears testament to the fact that this item originated at “The World Famous Ye Old Curiosity Shoppe” in Seattle, USA, which has existed since some point in the 19th century (the last two numbers in the date are blurry). There’s still a price tag, too, that reads “$4.50.”

But the more interesting of Saturday’s acquisitions is this one, purchased by Robin on my behalf for $2. Apparently the woman who sold it to her had less-than-adequate English-language skills, so I’ll forgive her not negotiating a lower price.

Surrounded by a tarnished base metal frame is a holographic image of Jesus at prayer, with two cowering disciples looking on. Above the image is a small but working lamp that illuminates the scene. It even came with a light bulb.

As I said, I hope this will be the final installment in this series of posts documenting my acquisition of strange religious items. What began as a whimsical journey has now become slightly depressing. I’m not sure why. Is it perhaps a sense of disillusionment resulting from vestigal attachment to the conventions of Christianity and its iconograpy? Is it that I feel bad that fossil fuels were expended in the creation of these absolutely unneccessary objects of no redeeming aesthetic value?

Maybe it’s just that I don’t have room for more crap.

But I can’t help it if people just keep bringing me stuff! I never should have made my illicit desire so public.

As promised I have more Jesus paraphernalia:

The sound board and microphones in the background may confuse some readers, so I’ll flesh out the situation. Each Saturday morning this month I’ve produced a radio show on a community station about garage sales. That’s why I refer to other people making these enviable purchases rather than myself, as I spend each morning in the studio while others do the actual garage saleing. I’m allowed to make requests, however, and that’s why Marni and Rodney selected this Jesus plate for me.

I think this plate is right on the border of kitsch and just plain useless/tacky. But it has a lot going for it — the unapologetically Caucasian Jesus with flawless pink-toned skin, the flowing brown hair and immaculately groomed beard, the white tunic with sash (coloured purple? I assume the artist intended for it to read as blue, as that’s the traditional Jesus sash colour, and everyone knows purple is the colour of gay). The image also features the subtle yet evident halo and heaven’s light shining down on Jesus’ face in 3/4 profile.

You can’t discern it in this low-resolution image, but at the bottom edge of the Jesus picture a scripted font reads “Inspiration.” That actually makes me wonder if maybe this was part of a series. Perhaps we will find the others next week. What could they be? (Dare i hope for one entitled “Temptation?” Get thee behind me, Satan!)

But our radio show strives to reflect the diversity of the community so we also seek out other forms of religious imagery that borders on kitsch. The Fat Buddha has long been a fixture of the pop culture visual lexicon, but seldom is it so disturbing as this:

Its menacing countenance is part drag queen and part gremlin. Looking at this candle, I imagine that if I took it home I would place it on one shelf only to find it mysteriously reappearing wherever else in the house I went — the kitchen cupboard, the shower stall, the closet, the freezer. Each time I would return it to its appointed place on the bookshelf only to have it once again appear next to me at my desk or bedside. I would throw it in the trash. It would appear on my car dashboard. I would chop it up into pieces, and then throw it out. It would appear in my handbag. I would melt it down, its gelatinous pink flesh forming a grotesque melange in my saucepan until–

Well, the point is I didn’t take it home and I think it’s still hanging out at the radio station. It’s also worth noting that, like the image of Jesus above, this religion founder also appears to be Caucasian.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: the Jesus plate cost me the sum of $0.50. I don’t know how much Freaky Buddha cost, but it can’t have been much more.

WHATEVER WILL WE FIND NEXT? If you have any requests, let me know and I’ll pass them on to our intrepid field reporters.

I hate to link and run, but:

Jesus can appear on your pancakes every day if you buy the Jesus Pan (only $29.99 for two!).

It looks kind of fake at first but a cursory glance around the interwebs seems to indicate it’s for real (feel free to prove me wrong). In any case, I’d be tempted to get one but I don’t make pancakes really ever and I have to admit I’d prefer it if the visage of the Son of God weren’t so dour. A little more along the lines of Buddy Christ, maybe.

Tomorrow’s garage sales may reveal more Saviour kitsch, I do not know. If they do, I won’t be able to tell you about it until Sunday, however, as I’m going camping with the People Love Forgot. No beer, but high-on-Jesus life hijinks should ensue nonetheless.

Last weekend a friend of mine purchased this item at a garage sale. When he showed it to me, I flipped out and he gave it to me. I offered to pay him for it — quadruple the price, even! But he wouldn’t take my money.

I love it. I don’t really have a place to plug it in, but I’ll wait. I’ll wait for the day when, as the sun sets, I can turn the switch and be comforted by a glowing plastic Jesus.

technorati tags: jesus, kitsch

So I think I’m gonna quit church again. This week really managed to rub me the wrong way. Does the worship leader have to announce that “One thing we all have in common is that we believe Jesus is _______” (fill in the blanks). Look, I know evangelicals have a distaste for all things pomo, but can’t we at least acknowledge that everyone in the service might not accept the same doctrinal points? Forget disagreements between Christians, because individual churches do tend to be communities of like-minded people as an obvious result. But aren’t you alienating any of those precious “seekers” who might be in the crowd, let alone semi-re-lapsed Christians like me?

To quote Gob Bluth (I’ve been on an Arrested Development bender lately), come on!

Then the sermon was all about how people who are believing in Jesus are going to heaven and those who don’t are going to hell. Yawn. Actually, it might have been more interesting but I got thirsty in the first five minutes of the sermon and had to take a water break, then I got sidetracked in the lobby by various things like two-month-old babies named Tobias (coincidence? I think not!).

I’d like to take this opportunity to shout out to Eddie(F) at Edge of Faith who, after much deliberation and study, is leaving the Christian faith for good. Now he gets to enjoy the patronizing remarks of still-Christians who comment that this is all part of his “journey.” In my experience, there is nothing more obnoxious than that, because the implication in the word “journey” is that journeys are OK as long as you end up with Jesus in the end. Stephen Colbert put it well last week at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

“And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion - be you Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

It’s funny because it’s terrifying because it’s true.

technorati tags: stephen colbert, christianity, religion, politics, church, jesus

Today is the day we remember the day our Lord Jesus Christ died a terrible death. I personally remembered it by sleeping ’til 1 p.m. And I didn’t even do anything naughty on Bad Thursday night! It’s for the best. Some friends of mine, aging hipsters all, spent a truncated and despondent evening at Mod Night, surrounded by underclothed, eighteen-year-old, Fabu-Tanned flesh.

As evidenced by my behaviour, I’m still not much for church services these days. Especially not for Good Friday services, which are typically too bizarre for my taste. (I mean, bizarre is usually my cut of tea, as they say, but in this case it’s not the good kind of bizarre.) I will go to the service on Sunday like any good tourist, of course, then gorge myself on candy and roast leg of lamb of God.*

My mood has been greatly ameliorated, however, by the emergence of spring in our northern clime. There’s always this day in spring when you get up in the morning and leave the house and are all, “Woah, where did all these people come from?!” Everyone’s outside these days, even me. It’s nice.

What else is new? The new Geez is out. If you check the letters section there’s a little quotation from this very blog! Used with permission, don’t worry.

In other thrilling events, Tony Jones commented on my blog. Tony, the next time I’m in the Twin Cities I will not buy you coffee — I will buy you beer, and perhaps make a donation to the Tony Jones Beer Fund.

*One of two tasteless jokes in this entry. Can you find the other?!

technorati tags: geez magazine, tony jones, emergent church, easter

Fellow Winnipegger the old bill has won me over twice this week, first with a post about the nature of time, quantum mechanics and all those sci-fi things you know I dig so much.

Then, he touched on something I’ve been thinking, too — that all this media hype spinning around The Da Vinci Code and The Jesus Papers and “did Jesus really die?” theories and controversies is pretty tired. He’s right; it does come up every decade or so. Century after century, for that matter.

We are walking in the fields of myth and meaning, here, not fact. Even if we could use positivistic data to prove/deny Jesus death and resurrection, we’d achieve little. The fundamental issue is not the death and resurrection of Jesus in ancient Judea, but the death and resurrection in our lives today.

My thinking these days is along the lines that faith in Jesus is not dependent on the historical facts. I think the evangelical obsession with providing “proof” and “evidence” (a la Lee Strobel et al) is a mistake. It’s so strange that this religion that talks about a “personal relationship” with the ghost of a dead guy takes historical fact so seriously and places it so centrally in doctrine.

I think it’s absolutely possible to have faith in Jesus and the Christian God without reading the Bible as an incontrovertible record of historical events, specifically as they’re laid out in the gospels. I don’t know if I have that faith, but I believe it’s possible. (See? Belief! Right there!)

technorati tags: da vinci code, controversy, jesus, history, doctrine, heresy, religion, christianity, movies