Posted on 07/22/2003 10:28:39 AM PDT by presidio9
Sooner or later, there had to be a backlash against the largely American phenomenon of preempting political debate by injecting "Jesus" into whatever social or political argument happened to dominate the hour. The fad started several years ago and quickly found favor among a surprisingly broad swath of the U.S. population, young and old, men and women, right and left.
Religiously minded, but at the same time sheeplike in their simplicity, these people were soon sporting bracelets, pins and other accessories emblazoned with the question "What Would Jesus Do?" or its shorthand version, "WWJD?" Others, perhaps more cynical than simple, went along with what they perceived as a mainstream movement. Then-U.S. Vice President Al Gore, for one, declared that, if elected president in 2000, he would be guided by that question in his policymaking.
Last year, the all-purpose slogan got a bit more specific, and quite a bit more risible, with the launch of a campaign (complete with a Web site) urging people to ask themselves, "What Would Jesus Drive?"
In case you are thinking the only things Jesus drove anywhere were unclean spirits, the correct answer -- or at least it was up until last week -- is that Jesus would drive anything but a gas-guzzling, air-fouling sport utility vehicle. According to the Evangelical Environmental Network, sponsor of the original campaign, he would have been a card-carrying greenie, getting about on a bicycle, public transportation or, if he really had to be somewhere in a hurry, in a hybrid gas- and electric-powered car such as a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight. (There is never any mention of the single biblically certified mode of Christian transportation, the donkey, but then, donkeys are known street-polluters.)
The backlash was inevitable for several reasons. "WWJD?" was far too easy to make fun of (best joke, attributed to a San Francisco Chronicle contributor: Jesus would tool around in an old Plymouth, because the Bible says God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden in a Fury). There were too many Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists and others who did not care what Jesus would drive, or do in general. Finally, it was clear that the SUV lobby was not going to sit still much longer watching their environmentalist foes corner the Christian market. What, they must have asked themselves, could be more Christian than the right -- the freedom -- to drive about the country in whatever kind of legally available vehicle one chose?
And so, last Monday, the backlash duly took effect, with the U.S. launch of a funny, clever advertising campaign sponsored by a fledgling association of SUV owners and aimed squarely at the "WWJD?" market. The Sport Utility Vehicle Owners of America found a middle-aged SUV driver named Jesus Rivera and ran an ad in the nationally distributed USA Today newspaper that essentially said: You want to know what Jesus would drive? Well, we asked him; he drives an SUV, and here's why.
Although the jury is still out on its effectiveness, as a crowd-pleaser the SUVOA ad seems like a slam-dunk. It will undoubtedly catch people's attention, make them laugh, make the WWJD-ers look silly and sanctimonious, and thereby reverse somewhat the tendency of non-SUV drivers in the United States and elsewhere to demonize fellow-drivers who favor the oversize vehicles.
There is an upside and a downside to that. The downside is that it could very well detract from the seriousness of the environmentalists' case against SUVs. Never mind what Jesus would or would not have driven. The plain fact is that the big road hogs have higher fuel-consumption rates than cars and on the whole emit more pollutants. On those grounds alone, in Japan, Europe, Canada and Australia -- quite as much as in the United States -- anything that helps diminish pressure on the global automobile industry to come up with solutions is undesirable.
The upside to the ad is that it may help push the whole "WWJD?" question out of the public realm and back to where it belongs, in the private space where individuals form and act on their own hard-won religious convictions. That is not to say that questions of public policy, like questions of private behavior, do not have a moral component. They should and do. But in secular, pluralist societies there are numerous measures of morality besides Christianity; and besides, Christianity itself is ill-served by the assumption that it provides a fixed set of answers to questions that are inherently unspiritual.
What would Jesus drive? The only answer one can credibly imagine from the figure in the Gospels is a slightly impatient: Drive whatever you want, but go, and sin no more.
When I was I kid we used to sing:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,
He was driving down the highway in a '57 Ford...
He don't wear no fancy clothes
He'd rather take the bus
He would pay air tourist fare
So He could sit with us
He don't have no tambourine
Guitar or slide trombone
The music we make here on Earth
But the words are His own
And when we finally reach His home
And walk among the stars
He'll join our band then we'll understand
Why God don't own a car
Jimmy Buffet
Everytime someone answers that the thread goes bye bye.
So in the word of 41 "Not gonna say it, wouldn't be prudent, at this juncture"
Every liberal is a Christian-hating thug.
LOL! Do ya think Jesus would sign on to killing babies, legitimizing homosexuality, and forcing the Boy Scouts to accept gay scout leaders? Not!
It's a funny article. Get over it.
Gee, I thought athiest's (sic) didn't worship anything.
Doesn't the writer have Gore and Bush confused? I thought W. launched the "Jesus" debate in pop politics. But, hey, this commercialization of "Jesus" is not all that new. We ought to send some conservative History teachers out there in the field to add some perspective.
Jesus once said that His sheep know His voice
And that The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep
and That He laid down His life "willingly" and that NO ONE takes it from Him
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