Of course the ten-ton gorilla in the first-person Jesus contest is Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in his Presence, Sarah Young’s devotional book that has sold ten million copies in ten years. This book has quietly made its way into all sorts of places in the past decade; read about it and its author in theNew York Times). If Coffee With Jesus was a quantum leap beyond Facepalm Jesus, then Jesus Calling is another qualitative jump forward. Young is not engaged in satire, but is giving actual spiritual guidance; and she is not on the radio, but in the well-respected medium of devotional book. But just like the memer, the cartoonist, and the DJ, she gives her guidance from the perspective of Jesus, in his voice, first-person.

An earlier generation asked What Would Jesus Do? But these days, people are increasingly comfortable with skipping the hypothetical, shifting out of the subjunctive, and just telling us What Jesus Would Say, in their opinions. If he were really here, that is: if he were talking, if he were blogging, or meme-ing, or cartooning, or writing devotionals.

What seems new in all of these media is that this Jesus, or rather these diverse Jesuses, these Jesi, speak for themselves, in the first person.

Boutique Jesi have begun popping up in various media. In the medium of internet memes, there is facepalm Jesus.

The gesture, intended by the original artists as sorrow but re-interpreted by our sarcastic eyes as comic exasperation, is eloquent in itself. But the superimposed words let you know what he’s thinking: “Oh brother,” or “for me’s sake.” It’s impossible to deploy one of these images with any reverence; the irreverence is the frisson of putting words in the mouth of Jesus. Posting one of these implies that you know the answer to the strange new question, What Would Jesus Facepalm? (I’ve seen him facepalming dorky tablet photographers, which I take personally, okay?)

Internal evidence suggests that Facepalm Jesus is propagated by non-Christians of the “Lord, save me from your followers” variety, but I have no doubt that Christians also use them after applying the universal prophylactic of irony: “I’m not making fun of Jesus, I’m making fun of what people think about Jesus.” Irony is actually not as effective a prophylactic against irreverence as young people think; it just hardens the heart in a different way.

Far, far better than the anonymous hive-mind’s Facepalm Jesus (faint praise, I admit) is Coffee With Jesus, the clip-art online comic strip written by David Wilkie. It’s a website, it’s all over your Facebook wall if you’ve got that sort of friends, and now it’s an IVP book.

The basic joke, beyond the campiness of clip art, is that Jesus is sassy and gets to deliver all the good punch lines. Wilkie gives him the last panel and the best zingers. But in the dynamics of a four-panel strip, that also means Clip-Art Jesus is always reactive, responding to the set-ups that the other characters provide him (especially in panels 1 and 3). That reactive quality is symptomatic of the whole Coffee with Jesus project, which is at its satiric best when it’s puncturing somebody else’s ideas about Jesus –characters like clip-art Carl really are charmingly clueless– and at its creepy worst when it gives cartoon Jesus a few lines to present himself as he really is.

Wilkie generated Clip-Art Jesus as a way to mock inferior Jesi, and is clearly concerned, in his own way, to present a believable, lovable, real Jesus to his readers. This intent comes across in the book, but also in the deletion of some strips from the website’s archive, where he says “some of the cruder, earlier ones we’ve removed as they seem to have given license to mockers and imitators who’ve abused this concept.” This is a far cry from Facepalm Jesus: comic strips can do more than memes can, and Wilkie is not only a good script writer but a person intent on actual ministry.

But in spite of the more complex medium and the more skilled writer, some of the same limitations apply to the basic, underlying decision, which is to compose new dialogue for the character Jesus as a way of broadcasting your criticisms. And then when coffee Jesus gets the mic, he’s only interested in a fairly limited circle of things. Mainly, he wants special, relationship-building coffee time with you. The main theology he is pushing is a theology of quiet times, of daily devotions, of remembering that Jesus is in charge and keeping your eyes open for where he is at work in your life. Jesus with coffee understands you, and says so.

Read More