Look at any evangelical teenager in the 1990s and you’ll see a woven or elastic bracelet hanging from their wrist with the letters WWJD prominently displayed. For teens like me during what we would have declared to be the golden age of Christianity, it was more than a platitude for those committed to soul winning. It was virtue signaling, a marker to the world that you were one of the ones who understood what really mattered. You, unlike so many in this fallen world, asked the important question that should precede every decision and action: what would Jesus do?
But this seemingly innocuous phrase can be so easily used – as all language can – to function in any capacity we want it to. So, then, we need to ask some follow-up questions. Who is determining the nuance of context in which Jesus’ hypothetical action is required? How can people from two or more different contexts discern which Jesus-action is the right one? Is that “one-right decision” universal across all times and places, amid all cultures and ethnic groups that have ever existed?
But perhaps more importantly, the functional nature of the question betrays the deeper reality of its linguistic limitation: “To which Jesus are we referring?” In other words, “What would Jesus do?” begs the follow-up question, “Will the real Jesus please stand up?”
In this episode we continue the second season look at the faith that exudes the cringe-worthy sentiments of conservative evangelicalism and try to imagine and craft a healthier way to discuss our religious endeavors and our encounter with that which we call Holy.