The fad has mostly come and gone, but for a while, in
1990s America, every gas station, department store and quarter vending
machine operator offered some kind of impulse item for sale (bracelets,
rings, pendants, key chains, pens, erasers, bumper stickers, etc.) emblazoned
with the now-famous acronym WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? Since the
fad was marketed primarily toward middle class teens and pre-teens, the
expected response to all honestly-queried WWJD?s, in every possible even
slightly morally-ambiguous situation, was some version of “Follow the rules
like a good boy or girl…”, eschewing any serious consideration of whose
definition of “Christ-likeness” one’s response was being compared to, and
therefore who’s theology one was assenting to by participating in the fad
in the first place, and marking WWJD, by virtue of both its function of
keeping young brains corralled within the confines of a restrictive religious
thought pattern, and its mind-to-mind, word of mouth, viral method of dissemination,
as an obvious, and, briefly, quite influential pop-culture meme.
But, when explored with intellectual honesty and moral
integrity – as opposed to being used as a springboard to intellectual laziness
and conformity to the opinions of self-appointed, self-serving ethical
judges, which is how the fad played out – What Would Jesus Do? is actually
a great anti-meme question, especially for 21st Century Christians.
In culturally modified form, it’s just as great a question for the followers
of any religious Tradition. Faced with the looming global crises outlined
in Chapter I of this book – global warming, the depletion of oil reserves,
terrorism and militaristic responses to it, war, famine, pestilence, death
on a mass scale resulting from all of these causes and more, let alone
the more human-scale needs of the modern world’s literal billions of poor,
hungry and sick – just exactly what would Jesus do? How would Buddha,
Mohamed, Moses, Lao-Tzu, Paramahansa Yogananda, Mother Theresa or Gandhi
respond? Are the actions of contemporary leaders of the religions
founded or followed by the enlightened ones of the past in line with the
teachings on which those Traditions are based? What about our own
words and actions, especially if we identify ourselves as Christians, Moslems,
Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, Jews, etc.?
The unflinching integrity with which Jesus lived from,
and died for, his highest values, as detailed in the New Testament of the
Christian Bible, remains a commanding example of human potential that two
thousand years of dogmatic Theological camouflage has not been able to
erase. Though memes have done a great job of distracting many contemporary
Christians into confusing the values Jesus exemplified with cruel fundamentalism,
conser-vative politics and nationalistic "Americanism" (in the USA), the
real character of Jesus' ultimate values, and his behavioral expectations
for his followers based on those values, is preserved for all to read in
the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25, Verses 35-40 (King James Version):
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye fed me: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
The next few verses are a reversal of the text above,
in which Jesus rebukes those who failed or refused to feed the hungry,
attend to the sick, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, etc., relegating
such moral misers, with utter disregard for any public or personal piety,
sincere belief in Jesus as "personal savior," blind acceptance of the Bible
(which didn't exist when he spoke the words) as the inerrant Word of God,
or strict adherence to official Church dogma, to eternal punishment – an
uncompro-mising condemnation the poetic Old English of the King James Version
phrases, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for
the devil and his angels."
To the credit of American Christians, the WWJD fad faded
into obscurity when sincere and thoughtful followers of Jesus’ teaching,
from a variety of Christian denominations, recognized that the ultra-conservative,
right wing ideologues positioning themselves behind the question as authorities
on the will of Christ more often reflected, in their words and actions,
the polar opposite of the values expressed in Matthew 25 – as when former
Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry reportedly cheered on a crowd of
Christian anti-abortion protestors, saying, "I want you to just let a wave
of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over
you. Yes, hate is good ...." A symbolic counter-movement arose, attack-ing
the obvious hypocrisy of the Christian Right's ideological grip on the
WWJD phenomenon with a panoply of leftist sloganeering – Who Would Jesus
Bomb? and Who Would Jesus Torture? (anti-war), What Would Jesus Drive?
(anti-SUV), Who Would Jesus Refuse Health Care To? (anti-discrimination
against the uninsured poor), etc.
What Jesus would do in response to hunger, disease, warfare,
terrorism, and the many global crises that threaten to throw a blanket
of suffering over the whole Earth is really no mystery. His life
was a model of active, moral response to the equivalent issues of his day.
His criteria for assessing "right action" and for judging the responses
of his followers to suffering and need are right there in Matthew for anyone
to read.
The real anti-meme question WWJD places before us, and
which has universal relevance to all human beings, everywhere, regardless
of religious affiliation (or lack thereof), is not what Jesus would do
when faced with the challenges that beset our personal and collective lives,
but rather, what would we do in response to need, suffering and moral ambiguity
if we felt free to act with integrity from our highest values? – the inescapable
follow-up to which is, What’s stopping us? What are we afraid will
happen if we hold ourselves to the same standard of integrity as exemplified
by our spiritual heroes? What beliefs or forces prevent us from acting
in each moment from what we know to be the best in ourselves, from our
highest ideals, our deepest compassion, our greatest gen-erosity, kindness,
self-sacrifice and strength? Why does even the suggestion of applying
such a standard to ourselves ring so reflexively unrealistic in our ears?
With the lives of Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, Lao-Tzu, and all the enlightened
ones of history as our examples, what convinces us that such full-throttle
integrity is impossible in our own lives? By what compulsion or weakness
are we driven, time and time again, to violate our personal, often hard-won
understanding of "right action" in favor of easy, expedient or self-serving
wrongs?
_________________________________
KEY QUESTION EXERCISE #2
"What Would I Do If I Wasn't Afraid?"
For the next three days, every time you must make any
kind of decision – however large or small, moral or practical, purely personal
or involving others, whether you are on the job, at home, at school, out
with friends, interacting with strangers, etc. – pause before choosing
to sincerely consider the choice in light of the question, “What would
I do if I wasn’t afraid?” You don’t necessarily have to take the
action you decide on, but do make note of it. Keep a notebook or
binder nearby while working with this exercise in which to privately record
the choices you faced throughout each day, your responses to the WWID (What
Would I Do…?) question, and what you actually did in the situation, especially
if they differ. Review your list at the end of each day. What
fears most frequently attempted to divert you from acting on your highest
values? Which were the most successful, i.e., which most effectively
convinced you to compromise? Was your “compromise quotient” on day
three different than it was on day one? In what way? Why?
In Key Question Community groups, agree to practice the
individual exercise a second time, with as little contact between group
members during the three days as possible. Where contact is unavoidable,
as when friends, family members or co-workers are part of the same Key
Question Community group, agree not to discuss the exercise or share observations.
At the end of the three days, meet together as a group. Exchange
notebooks. Take turns critiquing each other’s self-insight.
What does the group see in each member’s responses and final decisions
that he or she may have overlooked? What self-knowledge are members
protecting themselves from by turning a blind eye to insights obvious to
the group? Discuss how the questioning and decision-making process
differed when each member did the exercise on their own, just for themselves,
VS the time period they knew would be reviewed by the group. Why
did the differences occur, and what do they reveal?
Once the individual and group exercises above have been
completed, go ahead and leave your notebook or binder at home, but never
stop asking the question, “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?” Keep
WWID…? continually open in your mind until it becomes an ingrained habit
of consciousness, an automatic extra step in all your day to day, moment
to moment interactions with the world.