Critical Mass

“Would St. Joseph send his Son to St. Joseph's?” The bold title of the ad caught my eye, and I felt compelled to look at the small print. St. Joseph's. Sounds like a hospital. I read on. “The way we figure it, St. Joseph had a lot to do with the way Jesus turned out. And, as we all know, Jesus fought corruption, hypocrisy, and the decadent power structure. He shook people up and you know what He got for that!” Hmm. An interesting take on the life of Christ. This far in, there was no going back. I had to see what these people wanted.

“Down here, we try to shake people up, too. It seems it's time for people to take fresh views on things.

For instance, we have a course on aggression and what drives men to violence. Maybe one of these students will someday be a great peacemaker.

No matter what the student's major, we try to open his mind, blow out the dust and sweep away the cobwebs. What we hope to send out on graduation day is a shaken up, turned on young man or woman. We don't mean a psychedelic cop-out but someone who's got a fresh, creative thought for this troubled old world of ours.

Now, everyone who agrees with that please raise your checkbook. (We admit it, we need money.) Our creditors keep telling us that the college that pays together stays together.

But most important come visit us. We're one mile south of Rensselaer and about 25 years ahead of most thinking.”

And, in the very small print at the bottom, it said “St. Joseph's College, Rensselaer, Indiana. With a promising campus in East Chicago.”

Well, this is obviously no hospital; it is also not a modern advertisement, though for all purposes it could be. It actually came from the pages of the May 31, 1968 issue of Life magazine. I was reading the issue in thinking of writing a piece on America's apparent enthrallment with both spy stories and ancient Egypt in the late 60s. (These two foci are, of course, unrelated, unless there was some obsession with spies from ancient Egypt. Rather, I have lately read in a Vietnam memoir of a hankering for James Bond novels among helicopter pilots circa 1966, in combination with a 1968 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, if I remember correctly, that made many references to the television show “Get Smart.” In addition, at least two copies of Life from 1968 featured stories on Egypt, including the edition in which I was sidetracked by the above ad. For this issue, Egypt was the title story, though this advertisement soon became my main interest.) In reading the magazine I was forced from the role of spectator to contemplator, if such a word exists, by the content of this simple ad.

My first thought was that people have twisted the life of Christ to their own political ends for some time. Sure, Jesus “ fought corruption, hypocrisy, and the decadent power structure,” to a degree. However, his life was marked more so by things like healing the sick, performing various other miracles, and that little action by which he took the sins of the world upon his shoulders and became the sacrifice for us, that we might be reconciled with God. I think that might be what they mean by “you know what He got for that!” Oh, and that whole conquering death thing. I think that's kind of important to.

All of this brought me to my second observation, namely that the ad was built upon a premise of questionable theology. St. Joseph's is apparently a Christian school, judging by the name and subject matter of the ad, as well as by the witty play on a Christian pseudo-truism in the next to last paragraph. (The couple who prays together stays together. A great thought, though unfortunately not always proven true in life, as many a high school student from a Christian institution might tell you.) Any student of early Christianity knows of the first and second century church's focus on maintaining the Great Tradition, though it was not referred to as such at the time. Maintaining apostolic succession, remaining true to the teachings of Christ as recalled by the apostles, aligning with the creeds--all of these things are remarkably different from the idea of “shak[ing] people up,” “tak[ing] a fresh view on things,” “blow[ing] out the dust and sweep[ing] away the cobwebs,” etc. This is not to say that Christians should not be able to meet with the intellectual rigors of the day; rather, as people who are called to serve God not only with their hearts but also with their minds, Christians should be at the forefront of the academic fields. This does not mean giving up what is past, however, to become “shaken up” persons.

Thirdly, I noticed the arrogance. “25 years ahead of most thinking,” eh? I suppose in one sense they were right, for by 1993, Jesus had been further reduced to nothing more than a political entity, or a great teacher, or a really nice guy. To some, he was a revolutionary to be admired, like Che or Mao; to others, the ultimate good guy, the kind of man you would want your daughter to date, provided he didn't step on any social toes (though he was rocking the “decadent power structure,” as we can so obviously tell).

Mostly, however, I was caught by the first notion, of Jesus as a political tool. It seems ironic that Jesus would be the drawing point for a college in the late 60s, a time captured in our nation's memory with images of free love and rock music, hippies and pot smokers, Volkswagen vans and war dissenters. Yet the picture of Jesus that is portrayed in this ad is one that would easily fall in line with this stereotypical view of our past. Jesus is seen as a dissenter himself, ready to stick it to the establishment in the name of justice and equality, fair play and power realignment. He just wants everyone to feel good, and to do good. Truth, justice, and the American way, all wrapped up in our American Jesus.

This version of Jesus, this advertisement as a whole, is incredibly tied in with our modern culture. Were I not looking at the magazine with my own eyes, I would probably assume that it ran in Newsweek or Time within the last year. This is Jesus as many would like to see him today: young, passionate, distraught at our government's corruption, hypocrisy, and decadence. Any government who is willing to spend more on an illegal war than on our nation's poor, who cares more about wasting lives in Baghdad than in saving lives in New Orleans, who would rather please the rich than help the needy, who likes oil more than quality education is obviously out of keeping with this American Jesus, or so the thinking goes.

The opposing viewpoint is equally flawed. In the second version of Jesus we find a sort of Rambo and Reagan rolled into one, a political animal out for the nation's good, whether the nation likes it or not. He hates abortion(ists), detests gays, believes political policies rather than personal relationships are the best way to spread the gospel, and most certainly supports the Global War on Terror, lest he be considered something less than an American, or worse, less than a Republican. He is Captain America, Superman, George Washington, and Norman Schwartzkopf combined into one, super Conservative Christ.

The problem with making Jesus a political figure is that it misconstrues the very reason for his coming. As one popular bumper sticker puts it, “Jesus is not a Republican.” As it turns out, Jesus isn't a Democrat either. God simply does not need human political maneuvering, much less American parties, to get his work done. Again, this is not to say that Christians should be uninvolved in the political realm. As with academia, I believe Christians should be involved in politics, that they might show love for their neighbors through their leadership, though this should not, of course, be their only way of making said love known. However, Christ's purpose for coming to earth as both fully God and fully man was to perform the restorative work upon creation, giving it a chance to realign with God. It was to become a sacrifice and a replacement for us in our wrongdoing, the supreme work of grace. It was to give us a chance to receive the righteousness we willingly cast of when we decided, through Adam, to sin.

In creating a political Jesus, we miss out on the real him. And in rallying our political parties behind the caricatures we have made of him, we both sully his name and confuse the Truth of his life. This does not mean religion should be forced apart from politics; in many ways they are inseparable. However, one's faith should inform one's political standing, and not the other way around. Should I pick my savior only upon my political preference, I am left only with a radical in the desert fighting the establishment, or a capitalist in the making working for local government. What I am left without is the redemption and the grace necessary for the remission of my sins.

Would St. Joseph send his Son to St. Joseph's? I kind of doubt it. If he did, I have a feeling his Son might have a slightly different agenda in mind than did that college almost 40 years ago.