W.W.J.D.?: The Dark Side?

Those little bracelets were trendy among teens for a while.

It made a lot of grown-up types very happy, too. Lots of teenagers would be making wise choices, behaviorally speaking, if they asked that question, right? Couldn't hurt to have that little reminder around the old wrist while you're trying to decide whether or not to (insert parental fear here), right?

I saw one flaw in asking that question instantly: Most teenagers didn't really know what Jesus might do in any given situation. Most teens are, well,...how do i say this tactfully?...a bit fuzzy on what Jesus might do in the situations they face moment-by-moment. They have a handle on the "biggies" but there's plenty of gray between holding hands and sexual intercourse. WWJD doesn't exactly help out there.

Another possiblee "flaw" (reality?) I saw clearly only yesterday (thank you Kenda Dean--see book reference to the right--and her discussion of the bracelet craze of a few years back)

"A youth ministry that aspires to 'imitate Christ' must recognize the risk involved, for the young people and the church. 'Imitating Christ' entails more than moral formation...The objective of the holy life is conformity to God in Jesus Christ, whose self-giving love enables our own. After all, what if an adolescent we know actually does identify with the God of the cross, and therefore does love somethign truly, with the kind of passion that exposes all lesser ones, including the greedy, self-fulfilling ones on which human society stands?"

Jesus Christ does not create 'good teenagers' or 'wholesome youth programs.' (He) creates radicals and prophets--people who reveal the root of cultural deceits with the searchlight of Christ's love, and who unmask avarice, violence, rivalry, and smallness, exposing them like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain."...

"When Christian theology cannot embrace God's suffering love as it focal point--or worse, when it denies passion as the crux of Christian identity--the church has no basis on which to challenge the culture's claim on young people. Passionless Christianity has nothing to die for; it practices assimilation, not oddity. Passionless Christians lead sensible lives, not subversive ones; we are benignly 'nice' instead of dangerously loving."

For some reason, today, as much as I don't want to admit it, I feel I've been benignly nice instead of dangerously loving. God, forgive me for that.

W.W.J.D.?

He'd expose the Wizard of Oz with the searchlight of His love. And I don't think He'd wait.

There are risks. For them. For their parents. For our church.

And so it begins...right here, right now.