I make videos. I love short sentences. Sorry, I just found that funny. That, and the fact that each sentence is one word longer then the next. Anyway, back to the first sentence- I make videos. And no, these are not your Michael Scott & Jan type videos (if you don’t get the reference then ask someone who is a fan of The Office). I make fun little short skits. Sometimes they are for high school or middle school promo material or sometimes they’re created for sheer frivolity. I once made a video in which myself and the other creator, Chris Gagnon, a fellow film connoisseur, heavily poked fun at those who commercialize Christianity (and no, the video has not yet been put up on YouTube).

Anyway, I had a few people come up to me and tell me that they thought the video was borderline sacrilegious. I laughed a little to myself as to not undermine what I truly thought of their opinion and then went on to explain to them the humor in the video, the humor that they had clearly missed. I am sorry if that last sentence comes off sounding a little harsh but I am sick and tired of water-downed, commercialized Christianity. I wish I could have taken that person to the Family Christian Bookstore or heck, even Meijer which sells this “temple” merchandise, and asked them if they thought the t-shirts, with the fun, cheeky theological statements were sacrilegious. This Christian cultural phenomenon blows my mind: what is it that makes one want to waste their money on such ridiculous things?

Does one really feel the Holy Spirit move a little more when sucking down Testa-Mints? Now yes, there are some cute little t-shirts for kids or girls and even some sweet ones overall that actually don’t make the wearer look like a complete fool. And to make myself clear, I am not trying to make this into some sort of fashion statement, that all Christians must abandon any clothes that reference Christianity in order to look cool and fit in with our culture. I am merely sharing my thoughts and I am not one to give out fashion advice seeing as my fashion consists of jeans, t-shirts, and sandals. I’m just saying that T-shirt theology gives off this false, cheesy portrayal of Christianity, even if the statement is true. To quote a wise man “If you can fit your theology on a T-shirt it’s probably not very accurate, very deep, or very good.” See for yourself, go to Google, type in Christian t-shirts and explore away. Again, you will find good ones along with some that are so ridiculously cheesy they will cause your eyes to roll back like the rock blocking Jesus’ tomb (that was my attempt at cheesy Christian humor, maybe I should put it on a t-shirt).

Oh, and for those of you who are interested, my favorite “Christian” t-shirt simply says on the front “GET STONED! Like Paul!”. The “O” in “STONED” is cleverly portrayed as a rock; quite ingenious! Like I said earlier, sadly the video we created to poke fun at these commercializations of Christianity has not been posted on YouTube but for your own video enjoyment here is a link to a similar video a few of my students and I created poking fun at those who portray Christianity as “happy-go-lucky”. Enjoy and let me know what you think!