Jesus, Heavy Metal, and the Journey of Re-discovery

I've been thinking a lot about Jesus lately. Does this statement seem strange to you? I hope so. But to many of you it won't, and here's why. I've been in church all my life, and while there have been many saints who have pointed me to the Lord, so much of church life has been focused on getting the rituals "right" and at times emphasizing the differences between what are, in reality, very similar churches. I went on to get training in ministry, and while I was taught and mentored by some profound saints, so much of this training is focused on how to manage church. So I enter into work as an urban missionary. Once again, the work of church organization comes very naturally.

So lately I've been thinking a lot about Jesus. I've digested writings by N.T. Wright. My wife and I have been reading Brian McClaren's new book, the Secret Message of Jesus. I've revisited the Gospels seeking to understand Jesus in His context. I've reflected on the interpretations of Jesus by movies like The Gospel of John and the Passion of the Christ. I've had an increasing number of conversations unpacking the implications of the Gospel. I've been thinking a lot about this guy, Jesus of Nazareth. And I realize that I've had some redemptive works in my life.

As I've reflected back on Jesus and on my own life, I've remembered my heavy metal days. When I began to follow Jesus, I made a switch (a clean break) from absorbing a worldview from metal lyrics over to the scene of Christian Heavy Metal. Yea, Stryper, Bloodgood, Barren Cross, and so many others. I'd be standing right up front at the stage -- fingerless leather gloves, ripped jeans, banging my head and waving my fist. Hey, it was the Eighties. Don't knock it!

I'm so thankful for those days because a burning emotion within me got turned from simmering rage into a focused passion for matters of faith, and that passion was centered on Jesus. With screeching guitars and pounding drums, communicating to teens full of anger and confusion, church differences and right rituals was seldom the emphasis. Ballads and passionate shouts pointed to the King. I wouldn't have come to live my faith without individuals who wouldn't be caught dead in these concerts showing me kindness and unconditional love and teaching me the way of the cross. However, so much of the church has sold out (yes, I said "sold out!") to a picture of a tame Jesus and therefore a tame Gospel.

We have suburbanized Jesus. He was dangerous to the ruling religious establishment. He directly confronted them. He made a public demonstration in the temple courts that could be called a one-man riot. He rose up from among the working poor. He made defiant -- though completely holy -- declarations from a Roman cross. He is a King of justice, a Warrior of love, a Fighter for freedom, a Prophet of compassion, a Poet of peace. He came to declare a revolution, not yet another controlled religious sect. But we've suburbanized Jesus. We've made Him too tame, too nice. We've made Him too democratic.

One of the gifts that the urban church can give back to church is an image of Jesus that is untamed and uncontrollable and a Gospel that is powerful. What has really disturbed me about evangelism in the city is that urban people often think of the Gospel as too weak. I think that's our fault. I think this is so because we have largely lost how to communicate the revolutionary vision of Jesus and His Good News. Jesus raises the stakes on everything, and He gives the powerless back their power and their dignity by showing them the way of the cross. The way of the cross is the way to power, but it is a different kind of power. It is not only subservisive in nature, but it is completely counter-cultual and counter-intuitive in almost every way. There is a desperate need for urban evangelists to re-discover and articulate the Gospel in such a way that communicates its power in the context of a world that is violent, oppressive, corrupt, and unjust.

I'm thankful for my Christian heavy metal days. There was something unleashed within me that still lives though many more respectable influences have tried to tame it recent years. I'm also thankful for simple/organic forms of church. Because of their minimum amount of administrative maintenance required, I can have space to realign my focus once again to Jesus. I hope that the world can know through our counter-cultural, loving, peace-making ways that Jesus is alive and is crushing darkness. I hope that we can get to know Him once again in such a way that people are bewildered by us. It's not that Jesus hasn't been at work. I wouldn't be on this journey of discovery if it wasn't for so many saints that have come before me and have come into my life over the years and decades beginning with my own family.

However, the danger of sitting still and being satisfied with where we have come from is that Jesus may say "Come, follow me" and we simply miss it.