The Birth of Jesus, Told 4 Ways

This Christmas, God Spam is taking a Rashomon-like approach to the Nativity story (but without the rape and murder and creepy fortune teller). Here are four different videos describing the birth of Jesus, as told by...

...Social networking:


...Sincerely adorable New Zealand children:


...Lovably inaccurate American kids:


... And tongue-in-cheek Christian cartoonists:



The Christmas story comes out of years of church tradition and theological controversy, but you can get a nice run-down of what the Bible actually says here. In the words of writer Phyllis Tickle: "The Virgin Birth is so beautiful that it has to be true, whether it happened or not."

Merry Christmas from all one of us at God Spam!

Gotta Have Faith: Lewis Black

"Gays didn't need to ask if they were gay. God told them. And if God told them, that's all you need to know, 'cause He's God and He wouldn't have made people gay unless He thought it was right. How do I know this? Because He's God and He's smarter than you. And if you don't like what I just said, tough. That's the God I believe in and that's the way He thinks. Maybe your God will have some thoughts someday."  

— From I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas, in which comedian Lewis Black expresses a message of divine love and acceptance in the most ornery way possible.  Crankiness notwithstanding, the book actually has a lot to say about the ways in which our culture celebrates and interprets the Christmas season. (And if you're interested, here's an interview I did with Lewis Black when the book hit shelves in November.)

The New Christianity Meets the Liberal Media

Jay Bakker, whose name I shall follow with the obligatory "son of Jim and Tammy Faye," gets an excellent profile in this week's New York Magazine.

Image: Kenneth Cole via Killing the Buddha

 I've mentioned Jay before on God Spam -- he's the founder and New York City pastor of Revolution, a church that seeks to embrace individuals (mainly the young, liberal, counter-cultural variety) who feel rejected by traditional Christianity. Here's how writer Alex Morris sums up Bakker's unexpected ministry:

But as I’m sitting there, close to the back and beer in hand [note: Revolution NYC meets at a bar], it occurs to me that maybe the opposite of faith isn’t doubt. Maybe the opposite of faith is certainty, a comforting belief in your own rightness. To a greater degree than most Evangelicals may care to admit, Jay Bakker’s open-armed ministry is an extension of what his parents created. Jim and Tammy Faye were much more tolerant than other televangelists; in 1986, Tammy Faye famously interviewed a gay minister who had been diagnosed with AIDS. But theirs was a theology of aspiration—believing is easy, and believing leads to success—and it didn’t encourage its followers to doubt their faith or themselves. This, it seems to me, is what Jay is offering: a Christianity that allows for, and is even sustained by, failure.

I'm going to repeat that last line, because I love it: "A Christianity that allows for, and is even sustained by, failure."

Promotional image from Revolution NYC

An interesting detail: Morris refers to Bakker as part of the Emergent movement. I'm not surprised that he says Bakker won't use the term himself; among Evangelicals (of whom Jay, however liberal, is one), "emergent" is considered a sort of half-boast, half-pejorative, like "hipster."* Be that as it may, this is the first time I've seen the emerging church given attention in a major New York City-based publication. I've been wondering when the Emergent movement would start making its way over to the East Coast, and this could be the first harbinger.

* I don't know why this is, exactly, although there's a certain teen-like brattiness that can come with the rejection of the mainstream church. For example, Emergent Church icon Tony Jones once told me in so many words that my lovely Brooklyn church is doomed, because we follow the Presbyterian bylaws and meet in a historic church building. 

**  And yes, if were wondering, "liberal media" in the headline is indeed supposed to be tongue-in-cheek; I have two (non-religion-related) articles in the same issue of the magazine.

This Week, On the Happy Fundamentalist Mormon Polygamy Hour...

Husband Kody's first three wives think his fourth wife is a ho because she kissed him before they were married. God, I love Mormons.

Christine O'Donnell and Eddie Izzard Argue About God

Vintage "Politically Incorrect" clip in which the Senate candidate explains that, if she were hiding Jews in her attic during WWII, God would save her from having to lie to Hitler. And then Eddie Izzard and Bill Maher make fun of her.

God Spam in The Village Voice

The Village Voice's news blog featured God Spam this weekend in a piece about Jacob Isom, of "Dude, you have no Quran" fame. The article, by Leslie Minora, specifically focuses on the merchandise I whipped up in honor of Mr. Isom. You can read the story here.

From the interview: Watkins, a freelance writer and the daughter of a minister, says she started her quirky religious blog because she's "always been really fascinated by the intersection of pop culture and religion...[this type of blog] didn't exist, and I wanted to read it." Isom seems the personification of the very intersection Watkins explores.

I wouldn't say he's exactly at the intersection that this blog explores. If David Isom had grabbed the Quran while singing a verse from the lost Gospel of Thomas to the tune of "Bad Romance," then we'd be talking.

However, The Voice is absolutely correct that David Isom's story has a special appeal for me. Ironically, I had deliberately avoided covering the Amarillo Quran-burning story at first, for the same reason that I won't write about the Westboro Baptist Church: both stories center around a small group of bigots whose message distorts the Christian faith, and who are ultimately powerless except in their ability to get media attention. I do not want to feed that particular beast.

But I am not the mainstream media. By the time the book-burning was actually scheduled to take place, the nation's entire freedom of religion apparently hung in the balance of one deluded pastor and a park grill. The Unitarian Universalists, God bless 'em, mobilized en masse to stop this event from taking place. And then one shirtless stoner thwarted the entire event by doing the most practical thing imaginable: taking the holy book away. And since apparently no one had a back-up Quran (which I do, in fact, find hilarious), everybody just went home.

With one spontaneous act, David Isom brought this clash of faiths down from the ideological clouds to a very human level. And that's the element that's so often missing from press coverage of religion stories: the fact that the participants are individuals, and even if they all believe basically the same thing, they no doubt have very different reasons. No one was hurt that day in Amarillo; no individual freedoms were lost. In the end, there was just a man who looked down and realized he had no book to burn.

Footnote: I am 99% certain that God Spam is the point of reference for this article from the Amarillo Globe-News, as no one else to my knowledge is selling "Dude, You Have no Quran" hats. That article's reference to hats and T-shirts was also featured in The Week. And as a result of all this publicity, I have sold... 3 shirts! And no teddy bears. Come on, guys, Thanksgiving is coming. That's the traditional holiday of meme-themed plush toys. 

Dude, You Have No Quran: The T-Shirt

Every once in a while, an everyman utters such a profound statement that we must grant him our culture's highest honor: a slogan T-shirt. Ladies and gentleman, Jacob Isom is such a man. Although there were dozens of protesters making a stand against the scheduled Quran burning in an Amarillo, Texas park, Isom single-handedly thwarted the Christian hate parade by yanking the sacred text off a burning grill.

In his own, now-immortal words: "I snuck up behind him and took his Quran. He said something about burning the Quran, and I said, Dude, you have no Quran."

Jacob Isom, in honor of your bold stance against religious intolerance (and the fact that you said "dude"), God Spam salutes you with this custom T-shirt.

The "Dude, you have no Quran" shirt is now available for purchase, in assorted colors and styles, at the brand-new God Spam online store. And since Cafe Press, as it turns out, is insane about customization, you can also get your own "Dude, you have no Quran" teddy bear.

Or perhaps you'd prefer an extremely American-made dog T-shirt?

 

While you're there, you can also get a Smoking Nuns T-shirt, inspired by the popular God Spam post, "Is Catholicism like Smoking?" Here's the design:

(I'm not totally sold on this one, so if buy it now before I decide it's too offensive!)

But Jacob Isom, this post is really about you. God Spam salutes you, your bravery, and your weird cooking show pilot that we found on YouTube. All Americans should be proud to wear your words.

Update: Isom is now promoting official "Dude, You Have No Quran" shirts with his face emblazoned on them. Go here to buy one. So many options!