15 Minutes of Jesus

Evangelicals have a desperate need to be cool. From their trademark infringement t-shirts (Jesus is the Real Thing, made to look like the Coca-Cola logo), to their pop music that sorta sounds like pop music,¹ to their movies, all starring Kirk Cameron, so pedantic and predictable they make a Hallmark rom-com look like a Joycean fever dream, Evangelicals want you to know they are down with it, that faith is so gosh darn fun you won’t miss that trashy, demonic pop culture for one second. In case you were wondering, Catholics don’t care if you think they’re cool because they produced the greatest art, literature, and music for countless centuries, and Mormons don’t understand what we’re talking about, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” notwithstanding, because historically that’s just Mormons being Mormons.

Nothing could endorse Evangelical street cred like a celebrity conversion. When I was growing up, we had former Nixon dirty tricks Hatchet Man, Chuck Colson, whose autobiography Born Again brought the language of Evangelical salvation into the mainstream, helping fuel the meteoric rise of Jimmy Carter. To a kid, Colson felt like your dad lecturing you on saving for retirement, but he had been to prison, a Christian OG. Johnny Cash (the Man in Black is one of ours!), an artist that understood far too late that his spiritual power was in singing about the incredible darkness he fought his entire life, only scratching the surface with his early Hillbilly Gangster lyrics. The gospel songs he sang with June and the Carter Family are exercises in religious sentimentality, but in his final American Recordings, he fully embraced the terror of longing for destruction and salvation with equal passion. His covers of “Personal Jesus” and “Hurt” are the full realization of that struggle. And the two greatest covers ever recorded. I will fight you anywhere, anytime about it.

And then, more electrifying than Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus,² Bob Dylan released Slow Train Coming and started preaching during his concerts. Evangelical hipsters rejoiced. Dylan, man. Dylan. Man. Like Paul, Dylan had received an actual visitation from Jesus albeit during a hotel stay in Tucson, Arizona. Desert. Makes sense.

Celebrity salvation was supposed to produce some sort of theological peer pressure (Come on, man. Even Dylan’s doing it) and the masses would head to get in on the wave. We patiently waited by the entrance of the church for their arrival. Why go make disciples of all nations when the Tambourine Man could bring them to you? Convert smarter not harder.

If Dylan leaving acoustic folk music and plugging in during the 1965 Newport Folk Festival had polarized fans and critics, this threatened to tear apart the fabric of reality. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote a review of his concert under the headline, “Bob Dylan’s God-Awful Gospel.” We didn’t care. The most mediocre Dylan album was 10,000 times better than what we had to offer (number approximate). That wasn’t the point anyway; one of the most revered icons in popular culture had switched to our team. We had been validated.

Or had we? Dylan followed Train with Saved and Shot of Love and then returned to earlier themes and the Judaism of his youth. Or so it seemed. Dylan would follow long silences with impossibly enigmatic comments during rare interviews.

In fact, Dylan was simply following a nearly archetypal pattern of adult conversion, especially among the famous: the long descent into despair; the sudden epiphany of faith and salvation; the cringy enthusiasm and self-righteous indignation that your faith isn’t as real or passionate as theirs;³ the embarrassed retreat into something less intense, sometimes living their new religion in a more private way, sometimes reverting to their old lifestyle, sometimes repeating this pattern over and over again.

William James brilliantly observed in The Varieties of Religious Experience that only a handful of people in any religion are true believers, allowing their faith to permeate every decision and outlook on reality. They often change the course of their religion and the larger society. Such people are branded fanatics, zealots, and in the modern era, pathological. The rest of us are just trying to get through the day, looking to faith for a sense of community, a framework of meaning, a solace during times of chaos and stress. So let’s not get carried away.

Given the intense scrutiny that constantly dogs the famous, is it unreasonable to think a lasting conversion would require walking away from the spotlight? Leonard Cohen did so for five years to live as a Buddhist monk. But hey, let’s not get carried away. That could have served as the Evangelical mantra of my youth: Let’s not get carried away. Ohm.

Especially now that Evangelicals get to be the actual celebrities. Ah, me public. This new reality reached its acme when the celebrity pastor, Carl Lentz, baptized Justin Bieber in the bathtub of NBA player Tyson Chandler at 3 a.m. I can only assume an angel is patiently explaining to Paul what any of that means. Lentz, a man photographed with his shirt off more often than the young Al Green (a man that quit taking off his shirt when he became a pastor later in life. You see what’s happening here?), pastored the immensely popular Hillsong NYC⁴ church, with the kids lining up for hours to get in like a leg of the Eras Tour. Lentz crashed so spectacularly, including admitting to an affair with his nanny (way to stay humble Carl), Justin Bieber had to disavow him, declaring he’s just a “Jesus guy”⁵ and wants to steer clear of any negativity in religion. And the circle is complete.

Evangelicals have always been a “This and . . . ” people, arguing you could be rich and holy (you only have to be willing to give up your wealth, a pastor once informed us), control the reins of the state and remain compassionate (we have seen how that’s turning out), bathed in attention and not preoccupied with self (Carl’s abs would beg to differ). Any sort of honest reading of the Gospels demonstrates Jesus asserting a “This or . . . ” attitude to the world. You can materially rich or spiritually rich. You can define power as using the coercion of the state or in serving those with no power. You can have the adoration of the world or the solace of knowing yourself honestly. Because Jesus was a fanatic. But let’s not get carried away.

1. Contemporary Christian Music, or CCM, rose to prominence during my adolescence. I spent countless hours trying to convince my friends that my pale imitation CCM band was as good as their infinitely better secular one. Exhibit A: Stryper here and gloriously here.
2. Paul was really the first celebrity conversion. What’s more spellbinding than a man killing Christians that becomes a Christian? And blind for three days after the divine encounter. That story killed when he was on tour, telling women to pipe down in church and homosexuals they were going to hell. Evangelicals love Paul.
3. Dylan being Dylan, he took this phase to all new levels in “Property of Jesus”. “He’s the property of Jesus/Resent him to the bone/You’ve go something better/You’ve got a heart of stone.” Sublime. Enjoy your sad existence losers.
4. I can’t even begin to explain the madness of Evangelical megachurches. Watch the doc, “The Secrets of Hillsong” for an accurate depiction. Not to brag, but I made a quick list of things I thought would happen in the doc, and Lo, they all came to pass. Because they always come to pass in those environments.
5. I got a glimpse of Bieber, loyal Canadian, earlier this week on the front row in Toronto to catch game 7 of the Florida Panthers/Maple Leafs hockey game. He appeared to be dressed as some sort of KGB club kid. Being a Jesus Guy couldn’t save the hapless Leafs. Too Soon?