We're The Man!

"The Man." The Enemy of subversive people worldwide. "The Man" is the cops, the government, the corporations, the French, your boss, the System, the LAPD, whoever... "The Man" is different to different people, ya know? Screw the Man...right? Down with the Man. Oh yeah, you feelin' that? The Man is pretty much whatever institution you find to be an oppressive force keepin' you/us down.
I've been thinking about The Man in two different ways lately. One, the Man as the Church. And two, the Man as evil.

One, the Man as Church. I was talking to my friend Curt at Borders two days ago. We were talking about Brian McLaren's new book "The Secret Message of Jesus." It's good by the way, I recommend it. A 4 out of 5 I'd say. Anyway, McLaren is one of the forerunners of a new kind of christianity. Well not NEW, because as far as I'm concerned it's actually the OLD way, but it's new to us now (a shame). Anyway, I got to thinking...ya know? Christianity use to be the subversive, counter-culture, alternative way of living that was Stickin' it to the Man. It was radical. It was dangerous. It was subversive. It was scandalous. It was a revolution. But it was also love. It was something so ridiculously original and crazy it had to be right. It was Stickin' it to the Man with love. The early christians were like hippies living on the fringe of society. But the love, life, and truth of the message was so amazing that their numbers grew and grew and grew. What?
And eventually this message, this movement, this revolution was so threatening (but not with violence) to the oppressive systems of religion and government (Rome was the biggest Man of them all) that they began persecuting the believers. The Church leader Tertullian from the 2nd century says of the Christian persecution: "The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow: the blood of Christians is seed." He said this in the face of the Man. THAT IS SUBVERSIVE! And it was true. No matter what Rome did, they could not stop this sect of people from growing. These people that actually believed in One God, who only a hundred years ago had come in the flesh as some peasant, and taught that through faith in Him and in Love that they could actually live life eyes open, make the world better, and eventually be with God forever. I mean, what?!?! It was spreading like wildfire, even in the face of death and torture. But the Christians kept going, kept loving, kept worshipping, kept meeting, kept forgiving their enemies, and kept their faith in Jesus Christ. What a perfect plan God had. Crazy, yes, but also perfect. The Kingdom of God would advance, and take over the world. But not by any violent means. Not by mere intellectual persuasion. Not even by common sense. But as a quiet, stealthy, steadily advancing organism. Humble in it's speech and walk, but confident and immovable in it's faith, and tenacious in it's love. How wonderful and beautiful! Down with the Man! To be a Christian was to be a part of something that felt dangerous and revolutionary. I would imagine a girl who liked a boy who was a christian back then telling her mother about him would hear something like, "Are you crazy? Don't even think about it. I want you to settle down and date some nice boy, not one of those crazy Christians. You wanna get yourself killed hanging out with a crowd like that?" It's like back then WE were those crazy counter-culture punk rockers with tattoos and piercings all over with crazy ideas about life. Except instead of giving the Man the middle finger, we turned to them the other cheek. Intead of blowing up buildings, we prayed for them as they released the lions on us. Instead of criticising those that Roman society had no place for, we let them into our community. And it grew and grew and grew...

UNTIL...

WE BECAME "THE MAN"!!! And that's what Curt and I talked about the other day. How We, the Church, have become The Man! I don't think it was ever suppose to be this way, honestly. Now I don't know where I stand completely on Calvanism vs Armenianism as far as Predestination, or where the line is drawn between what God plans and allows to happen, or what is free will vs not, or whether GOd allows big bad things to happen. But I'm not so sure that I am willing to believe that it was ever God's intention for us to become The Man! This is where I wish A LOT of people read this thing, because that sentence alone could spark quite a robust debate. Along with this one: Did God know we would become this? Did He, in his omniscience (whatever extent of that might be), realize that we would become so impotent, so safe, so tame, so stuffy? Before I go any further, let me say that I don't believe the church at large is ineffective, I'm speaking in generalities about the Western Church in general. I'm speaking about the institutional church that could be quite readily characterized as "THE MAN."
So here we are today...the same Christianity that 2000 years ago was dangerous, countercultural, subversive, opposing violence, promoting a new kind of community, offering a new exciting way of life, stickin' it to The Man...
But today, we are the Man. We're getting it stuck TO US! We're the "Roman Empire" if you will. I mean, sure we still claim to promote many of the same things we did, namely, Jesus Christ and such. But people roll their eyes at us now. People laugh and joke about us. I know that that will happen. I know some and many will always hate Christianity, Jesus said so. But there is a difference between someone hating us because of what we stand for and who we are (which is the way it should be) and someone rolling their eyes with boredom or laughing with indifferent callousness (as it often is). WE ARE THE MAN! I don't know if you've seen "Raging Bull". But the church is like Jake LaMotta, the great and ferocious boxer. In his heyday he was a force to be reckoned with. He was dangerous, edgy, a fighter. He was lean and he captured the attention of anyone who saw him in that ring. But he gave into pride, jealousy, and insecurity. At the end of the movie, he owns a club, where he stands up and tells jokes and eats and drinks and gambles. He's 80 pounds overweight, short of breathe, and the only thing he commands is uncomfortable laughter from his audience at his forced humor and comment. He's a shadow of who Jake Lamotta was, or is suppose to be. A weak, soft, tame version. We are Jake Lamotta.
People (especially when younger) instinctively rebel against whoever The Man is in their lives. It's built into us. The church thrives in the beginning, I believe, because the church was an alternative way of life. Life in God through Jesus was hope. It was crazy, Screw the Man, kind of hope! It was the outlet for all of humanity, in their attempt to Fight the Man. And I'm not talking about governments there, I'm talking about THE MAN that I haven't addressed yet. See, I believe that every human has that gnawing feeling that something is holding them down. Keeping them down. Sometimes it is governments, laws, people, war, disease, etc... Those things can be part of the issue. But all of those systems, corrupt and clean, are ALL being run by an even larger system of injustice and evil. This system is The Man's THE MAN! And we all inherently have this pissed off feeling that things are the way they are. We hate war! We hate violence! Abortion! Unjust courts! Lying dictators! We hate all of that, but no matter what we do on the surface (laws, petitions, activism) as good as they can be on one level, they can not even touch the ultimate system behind it all. The Enemy! Evil! Satan! Whatever you call it or him, it is responsible for the Effed up state everything is in. And that is what made Christianity (and as far as I'm concerned, MAKES) so POTENT! It actually addresses the most base and important issues. It deals with the superficial issues like war, justice, poverty, etc...but at heart it is about what it really on everyones mind..that unseen thing that has us killing each other and ourselves. It's about letting Jesus guide our hearts and minds and decisions. THEN, we can address the other issues at hand.
So, the church was fighting the Man! (Rome, but more importantly EVIL) But then we became the Man! What happens when the Subversive group ends up becoming the man? Well, the same thing that happened when the Vietnam generation grew up to become the Man...nothing happens! Progress stops. Status Quo is maintained. The cycle is perpetuated.
UNLESS...