HOW COOL CAN A CHRISTIAN BE AT HARVEST BIBLE CHAPEL?

By on Sep 13, 2012 in Current Issues, Features

By Christian Research Network Associate Editor Erin Benziger of Do Not Be Surprised…
This is a repost of an original article on Do Not Be Surprised…

The Director of Women’s Ministry at Harvest Bible Chapel offered some pertinent and, in the eyes of some professing Christians, controversial thoughts yesterday on her blog, Living With Power. In a post entitled, “How Cool can a Christian be?” Lina AbuJamra opened her post with a picture of a girl whose arm is covered in tattoos. She then wrote:

Christians everywhere want to be cool for Jesus.

It’s like they think if they can blend into the world – look like everyone else, sound like everyone else, live like everyone else – then one day, Bam, they can hit the lost soul with the gospel, and tada, that person will make the leap of faith into an eternity with Jesus.

I’m not sure when being “cool” became the standard of all Christian behavior.

The truth is that the more you think about it, the more you’ll realize that cool and Christian are often mutually exclusive.

In other words, there is no place for cool in Christ’s version of Christianity…

(Source)

She then went on to list four reasons for this statement:

  1. Holiness is not cool.
  2. The cross is not cool.
  3. The disciples were not cool.
  4. Jesus is not cool.
She makes good points. After all, Scripture very clearly states over and over that the cross is folly to those who are perishing (1 Cor. 1:18), that God uses the weak and foolish (read: uncool) things of this world to shame the strong and the wise (1 Cor. 1:27). You can barely skim a Proverb without noting that there are only two choices in this life: God’s wisdom or the world’s folly, and that the wisdom from above will always appear foolish to a sinful, dying world.
AbuJamra concludes her post:

I don’t mean to burst your cool bubble, or sound like your standard party pooper, but if you still think you can be cool and follow Jesus, I think you may be confusing Biblical Christianity with your cheerleading squad.

Don’t.

(Source)

Simple and direct. It was interesting, though, that this was posted just one day after this video was released by The Resurgence:

As you can see, in that video James MacDonald, who is AbuJamra’s pastor, boasts about his new Vertical Church tattoo. Opinions about the freedom of a Christian to get a tattoo aside, this, along with some of MacDonald’s other recent behavior, may be an action that would be perceived by some as one who is trying to be “culturally cool,” the very thing that AbuJamra’s post appeared to speak against. 

YouTube screenshot

The irony of this was not lost on some readers of Living With Power, as a comment from “Joe” soon was posted:

Source no longer available
Unfortunately, it was not long before Joe’s comments and others apparently were removed and this was left by the blog author as an explanation:
Source

Additional discussion has ensued on that comment string since. Of course, the author of this blog has every right to remove any comments that she finds offensive, inappropriate or unhelpful. As a fellow blogger, I would never deny one this right.

The fact remains, however, that “Joe” did raise a valid observation and a legitimate question. But hey, there’s already so many elephants in the room, what’s one more?
Further Reading

James MacDonald Gets Inked for the Kingdom?
James MacDonald Proud to Have Rick Warren, Mark Driscoll & Bill Hybels Endorse ‘Vertical Church’ Book
The Resurgence Revives Rick Warren’s Man-Centered Mythology

The original appears here.

Further reading