American Christianity has been corrupted by

the dominance of today’s rampant consumerism

Commodification, the economy, and American politics

have become increasingly idolatrous

and threaten the sacred boundaries

between the church and the world

The product 'Jesus' is hocked in

'Christian lifestyle center' shopping malls

That best-selling, inexpensive, factory-made,

lifestyle-enhancing, identity-defining,

eternal-life-giving, easy-to-use,

soul-stain remover – Brand Jesus

An insidious but often used form of idolatry is to attribute our prejudice to God and thereby justify our intolerance.

The latest effort to do that is a complicated plot to imply that Jesus hates homosexuals. Something called the Traditional Values Coalition wants to establish that to defeat a hate crime bill under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives.

All is well when we can make God share our bigotry.

Slavery was absolutely God's intention, according to many 19th-century Southern Christians. Jewish and Christian men have long insisted that God made women to be subservient.

Muslim men using the Quran come to the same conclusion about God's prejudice. Less onerous and more laughable, PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, once argued that Jesus was a vegetarian.

The idea is to instill in the faithful a conviction that God prefers the very things religious leaders prefer and hates what they hate.

The trick is to make God an accomplice in their naked prejudice, clothe that intolerance in divine respectability and establish it as the moral norm. There is no better way to silence critics or recruit supporters.

The Traditional Values Coalition is trying to do that by suggesting that Jesus would be a lawbreaker under proposed hate crime legislation.

It published a "Wanted" poster of Jesus, arguing that if a law forbidding the abuse of homosexuals were passed, Jesus would be a criminal because he thought mistreating them was just fine.

But what about the other Jesus? One that the fundamentalists woul be unlikely to embrace.

Some know Jesus as a social revolutionary and political visionary.

For them, his defining feature is not a myth but a message. He emerged in the agrarian hinterlands of 1st century Palestine and spoke out against the Roman empire and the Jewish enforcers of empire.

He called for a revision of the moral law to enable the emancipation of the Jewish serfs and was crucified for it. Jesus nurtured the prostitute instead of stoning her.

A radical egalitarian who threw the money changers out of the temple, an act whose significance was at least as much economic and political as theological, Jesus sought to reframe the moral conversation of his time.

Brand Jesus

Will the church remain faithful to Christ or allow a society consumed with consumerism to package their Savior like just another brand?

That’s the concern expressed by Tyler Wigg Stevenson in his new book, Brand Jesus, from Seabury Books.

Wigg Stevenson believes that American Christianity has been corrupted by the dominance of today’s rampant consumerism.

He warns that certain forces -- such as consumerism, the economy, and American politics -- have become increasingly idolatrous and threaten the sacred boundaries between the church and the world.

Wigg Stevenson states that the church’s largely uncritical adoption of society’s consumer mentality has allowed the morphing of the message of Christ into a mere brand name, but he offers hope as he outlines how Christians can live a life of faith with integrity despite current trends.

“I hope (this book) can serve as a wake-up call for the American church,” writes Wigg Stevenson.

“We have turned the lifelong activity of faith into the commodity of belief. And in the marketplaces of our churches, from the humble roadside stands to the gleaming “Christian lifestyle center” shopping malls, we hock our product:

That best-selling, inexpensive, factory-made, lifestyle-enhancing, identity-defining, eternal-life-giving, easy-to-use, soul-stain remover – Brand Jesus.”

He points to Paul’s letter to the Romans saying, “Perhaps … American Christians have misunderstood what Paul was writing about to the Romans. Perhaps our gospel isn’t the gospel at all.

"And if our good news about Jesus isn’t the real good news, then maybe we’ve got the wrong Jesus, too.”

Brand Jesus issues a provocative challenge for Christians to read Paul’s letter to the Romans in light of current American society, stop to consider the issues, and to return to a faith of integrity.

“The body of the American church has been seized by Brand Jesus, which seeks to kill us.” Wigg Stevenson challenges.

“And this evil spirit will not be expelled by our continuing to do church business as usual. Our trusted methods, the old stand-bys – they will fail.

"It is business as usual that has opened us to such peril. No, this kind can come out only by prayer and fasting.”

Tyler Wigg Stevenson, 29, is a preacher and writer who graduated from Swarthmore College and summa cum laude with his M.Div. from Yale Divinity School.

He served in the chapel at Yale and as Associate Minister at Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church in Hamden, CT, where he was licensed and ordained. He later worked in London, England, as Study Assistant to the Rev. Dr. John Stott, former Chaplain to the Queen of England.

Since 2001 he has served on the Board of Directors of the Global Security Institute, an organization he helped establish under the late U.S. Senator Alan Cranston. He currently lives with his wife in Nashville, where he preaches regularly. Solanco News