Thoughts on Consistency, Part II

You know, now that I think about it, American Christian bookstores operate with such consistency that it is the causa causan of the inconsistency to which I am referring. Christian bookstores, for example, are by and large undergirded by an evangelical faith whose paramount theme is the transcendence of God. However, its inconsistency lies not in the parallel and yet wholly paradoxical belief in the immanence of God, but in the production and selling of books and theological systems that wrangle such a deity to the dust, hogtie it, stand up, and say, "Look at what I can do!" A riddle solved isn't much of a riddle, if you ask me; it's closer to a joke with a punch line that may or may not make us laugh. One doesn't need to believe in God to think that something is askew by making absolute Otherness vapid Sameness. The evangelical faith presented in these bookstores also holds up the Bible as the definitive, awesome revelation of a graceful God to and through humanity; while on the same shelf, the same doctrine is likely deflated into an array of bracelets, glow-in-the-dark stickers, and diet and relationship books that resemble the Bible only inasmuch as they invoke the occasional biblical name and exhort the memorization of biblical stories and verses. In essence, the Christian bookstore both seduces and is seduced by the consistency of its own very peculiar inconsistency.

It hasn't been too long, I'm rather shocked to admit, since I was last in such a store. The reason eludes me, but I'm sure it was not a good one. Impious reasons for my visit notwithstanding, I found myself agog by all sorts of novel knickknacks near the door, specifically "Bible Pictionary" ("Oooo, oooo, I know, is it the rape of Tamar?") and "Adam to Jesus Genealogical Chart" (apparently, God kept a faithful family tree to show Jesus, just to make sure he couldn't cop out when he realized that during that last really awkward dinner with the boys he should've green-lighted Peter's bum-rush of Judas). However, nothing better typified its self-made seduction more than what I came to affectionately call, "The Wall O' Crosses." The highlight, if that is the correct word for it, is the stunning rendering of Jesus' final moments on the cross. The spear had pierced his side, and he was limp with the release of his spirit. A stunning moment, to be sure, made even more stunning by something the Gospel narratives seem to have missed: the garroting of Jesus. It took me several seconds to notice it, but the very placement of the price tag on the crucifix is itself priceless. Capitalism reigns in this interesting but I would imagine wholly unintentional metaphor, as the price tag is wrapped around the strained neck of Jesus. The same dollar that burns deep into our pockets cuts even deeper into the flesh of Christ.

The term "secular" necessarily assumes the "sacred," and vice versa, and yet, particularly with the advent of humanism, both preach the rhetoric that each has overcome the other. Walking through a Christian bookstore, however, is an odd, somewhat unnerving example of a kind of quasi-reality that often mimics what it proclaims to have overcome. For instance, one of the mainstays of Christian popular culture in America is the ubiquitous Christian t-shirt. As I examined the shirts pinned to the walls as though Christ to the cross, I realized that they very intentionally, and often imperceptibly, perverted the logos and images of "secular" popular culture just enough (a) to avoid copyright infringement, and (b) to inject some moralizing, Christian theme that is ostensibly intended to provoke religious conversion or edification (or simply to make the person damned for hell feel really bad about it prior to going there). My visceral reaction was to cry foul at what appeared to be, if nothing else at all, a vacuous lack of creativity. The more I thought about it, though, the more I became impressed. Granted, I still find it all grossly condescending and overwhelmingly cheesy, but I remain ironically impressed by the sheer audacity to conjure up and sell such a product. In other words, in a strange sort of way that made me need to go home and take a shower afterward, I too found myself seduced by the consistency of the inconsistent here, the direct necessity of what the sacred purports to have overcome.

Another of the more interesting products, one that made me search frantically through the store in search of an available electrical outlet, stumbling over a child playing with a Noah's Ark action figure set in the process, was a nightlight. I realize that doesn't sound interesting enough to interrupt a worldwide, cataclysmic flood, but be sure, my friends, this was by no means an ordinary nightlight. In fact, it too was a stunning icon of a religious subculture that, in my opinion, has entirely too much money to spend. The nightlight itself was normal enough, but the cover was brilliant because of the incongruity with its function. The bulb was facing a disproportionately large stained glass inscribed with the characteristically biblical scene of a shepherd tending his flock, accompanied by the words of John 10:14-15: "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep." The sanctified function, one assumes anyway, is the colorful illumination of this image and verse for anyone who might need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

My visit to the bookstore, in the end, left me both amused and perplexed by the things I had seen and, quite honestly, nearly purchased. All the while, however, I remained slightly frustrated. For I, along with everyone else, seek consistency on my own terms -- perish the thought of relieving myself in front of the Good Shepherd seeking his lost sheep! This marriages of heaven and hell, beginning and end, consistency and inconsistency are not generally met with an eager embrace. We naturally balk at the reality that the only fixed point is an ambiguous one. The need for a stabilizing differentiation, for segregation, for opposition is within and without us, or so it would appear. But, as the Christian bookstore shows, and it is but one example out of many, such a need seems to be only apparent. Appearances can be, and often are, deceiving. In the end, the overwhelmingly natural inconsistency within the play of surfaces, of characterization, expectations shouldn't compel us to ask, "How can I solve this problem?" or "How can I be more consistent?", but maybe just "Wow, what now then?" After all life, life goes on, with, and perhaps even because of, its self-deception in tow.