Pretty much any sort of “I’m not a Christian, I’m a _______” tends to just sound annoying to me. Pretty much any attempt to place a wedge between one’s faith identity and the historic identity of the Church tends to make me cringe.

It sounds just like more anti-traditionalism to me, which, quite frankly, is kind of passe’…don’tcha think?

“Hey baby, wanna do life with me?” I’ll try that line next time I’m at a really sleezy bar.

As Stephen Prothero recounts in his insightful and entertaining new book, “American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), one of a number of recent cultural histories about the peculiarly American version of Jesus, Christian leaders in the early 20th century were positively obsessed with counteracting the image of a Christ of “womanly sweetness,” as one pastor described popular representations, or, as another put it, a “namby-pamby effeminate” Jesus.

In 1940 an obscure Chicago ad man and evangelical Christian, Warner Sallman, was inspired to paint a portrait of Jesus by an art teacher who exhorted him to depict a “virile, manly Christ” who “faced Calvary in triumph.” The result was Sallman’s famous “Head of Christ,” which was distributed to World War II soldiers and eventually became the most popular Jesus representation ever, with more than 500 million copies in circulation.

In this sense, Mr. Gibson’s “Passion” can be seen as another round in a more than century-old battle to assure Americans that Jesus was a manly savior, and that real men could be good Christians. Mr. Gibson’s Jesus is a kind of “triumphant action hero,” in Mr. Humphries-Brooks’s words, who can represent a tough-minded America for tough times.

Christians have always responded to powerful images as much as they have to the written word. Yet the “true” face of Jesus is in fact a blank canvas, or a palimpsest that each generation rewrites as a way to define what its faith means.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/arts/21JESU.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5007&en=4d732275d553f498&ex=1392786000&partner=USERLAND

So if it’s any comfort, Mark Driscoll is nothing new.

I’m trying to discredit you, but the vitriol was intended.

To address your arguments:

1) Jesus relinquished his power and embraced vulnerability. In fact, his power was made perfect in his weakness. This tells us about the character of God, that he makes himself known through the foolish and weak. It is not just a gesture or posture, it is God’s own character.

2) There must be room for harsh polemics within the body of Christ. After all, much of what Jesus has to say about those in religious leadership is hard. And when one is distorting our understanding of who God is in his very character, well, they deserve a harsh rebuke. I think something about “white-washed” tombs and “sons of Satan” is in there somewhere. Or you can check out what James has to say on the matter. Either way, it seems odd that you would be defending the machismo of Driscoll by arguing that we should be more nice to one another. Would Driscoll’s all powerful Jesus want us “to all just get along”?

P.S. I’m glad to know that there are other average persons out there.