Luke 1:78-79

Perhaps reading them back to back was not a good idea. Daniel Radosh and Jeff Sharlet are two secular New Yorkers who have dug deeper than most into the hidden subcultures of Christianity. Both do their homework, bring their biases to the table, and present imperfect but important works that examine how those of us who name Jesus as Lord still bow to the old idols of popularity and power.

Radosh’s “Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture” examines everything from the marketing of “Jesus junk” to the anti-Semitic roots of the Eureka Springs Passion Play to the glories of Christian pro-wrestling. Radosh also finds several people and events that he actually likes along the way---most notably the Cornerstone Music Festival, Pedro the Lion, and PTL refugee Jay Bakker.

Jeff Sharlet finds less to laud as he digs into the present and past of “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” (referring to the Abraham Vereide/Doug Coe/Dick Foth led network of rich and powerful Christians that I hear more often referred to as “The Fellowship” or slightly tongue-in-cheek, the “Christian Mafia”). I would have appreciated more quotes and less “let me tell you what this really means” style interpretation, but my view from the cheap seats of the D.C. power scene tells me that Sharlet still got a lot of it right.

Sometimes we Christians need to be reminded of our flawed human nature (or at least how flawed our nature appears to the outside world) but I emerged somewhat depressed by the supposedly therapeutic experience.

So, I put Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” back on the shelf for another day and picked up the Gospel of Luke instead. I could use some good news . . . and blessedly I found it.

Maybe it was the juxtaposition of reading Advent passages in September; maybe it was the somewhat unfamiliar NRSV style of the thin, strangely colored, clearance priced New Testament that I take with me on the Metro, but I found hope in the words of one who too had doubts:

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to
give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our
feet into the way of peace.

These beautifully unmutable words from Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, reminded me our Triune God is at work still, and He still works in ways that confound the worldly wise and strong. Coming not to Rome, but a backwater province; reaching out secretly not to the Secretaries of State, business executives, and class presidents of that day, but to peasant girls, hill country priests, and shepherds in the fields; Jesus chose to be a hick, not a blue-blood or a celebrity.

Before anointing David (just an afterthought of a son for Jesse), the prophet Samuel was told, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” We American Christians still want to look at the outward appearance and assume that surely God will be best served if that movie star or Senator can use her power to help out Christ. But the dawn breaks in unexpected ways and that is indeed good news to me.