Fri, May 16 2008
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In the final accounting, their anger is about much more than a big yellow Jesus billboard.
If you can get beyond letter writers’ heated rhetoric to read between the lines, it becomes apparent their wrath is fueled by a much larger issue.
In a nut, there are Christians who believe they’re engaged in a spiritual war in this nation, and they can get livid about it.
In an age of hair-trigger political correctness, where people fear saying anything offensive about anything or anybody, many Christians lament it’s somehow become “safe” for folks to lampoon the faith at will.
The back story: This newspaper published a recent article about a local ordinance to mitigate outdoor billboard clutter. To illustrate the topic, an accompanying photo showed a grouping of highway signs between Mankato and St. Peter.
By happenstance, the predominant billboard in the photo was one that simply said “Jesus” in large black letters, an advertisement for Jesus Assembly of God Church in St. Peter.
Also by happenstance, the story headline used the word “eyesores,” which appeared right above the photo.
This unfortunate juxtaposition was red meat to those attuned to the spiritual-warfare school of thought, and venomous letters to the editor began pouring in. Most were suggestive of some sort of conspiratorial blasphemy.
It was nothing of the sort. These things can happen in the production of a newspaper. There was no God-trashing agenda here, no conspiracy. We left our black helicopters in the hangar on this one, folks.
Here’s the big picture on this brouhaha: That billboard/headline word coupling served as a Rorschach test for Christians who think they’re under assault.
They looked at that billboard article and saw not what it was — an article about, um, billboards — but as being emblematic of a disrespect-without-consequence dynamic when it comes to Christianity.
Jesus Assembly of God pastor Greg Stone provides an example.
At a recent celebrity roast for a couple of ESPN on-air personalities, drunken ESPN anchorwoman Dana Jacobson went to the podium and launched into a tirade about Notre Dame football: “F---Notre Dame,” “F---(campus mural) Touchdown Jesus,” and then, “F---Jesus.”
Granted, it was a celebrity roast, where the whole point is to be as humorous and outrageous as possible.
She failed at the former, but succeeded horribly at the latter. For her crudities, she issued an on-air apology a few days later and was suspended for a week without pay.
What if, Stone says, instead of F-bombing Jesus she had done the same using the word “Mohammed,” or “blacks,” or “Jews”?
He has a point. At the least, she’d be fired. At the most, she’d be shark bait for her neighborhood jihadist.
But use the word “Jesus” and you’re docked a week’s pay. This is what put-out Christians are really railing against whenever they see real or perceived broadsides fired with impunity against their faith.
Stone is an adaptive spiritual fixer as well as a pastor. He knows how to change brackish water into wine. That’s why he can look upon the Jesus billboard flap as both an insult and an opportunity.
He thinks the whole thing has been orchestrated by a higher power. He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence the article ran while church members were in the midst of a 40-hour fast.
“I don’t believe people did this. I believe there’s a spiritual element here,” he said.
“We’re not upset over this. We’re just not. I can find 100 reasons not to be upset. I had a deep joy over the whole scenario. I could not have paid for that spot in the paper.”
He sees another upside to his church being cast in the role of martyr at the hands of us godless heathen newsprint peddlers.
“People will feel sorry for us because we took a sucker punch.”
Brian Ojanpa is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6316 or e-mail bojanpa@mankato freepress.com.
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