This was the coolest buzzword for the longest time. Now it’s just a lame excuse to co-opt it for other uses and names.
But the idea of WWJD was revolutionary in how it woke up the Christian community to understanding more of what Jesus was, is and will be. And today we’re still struggling to understand the pieces of Jesus and how it relates to our lives. WWJD was applied to nearly everything (and regrettably politics was one). What people forgot was that Jesus was not simply a Stay Puff Marshmallow man or a happy Care Bear.
At times he was a bat out of hell (no pun, well, actually yes. Pun intended!) with little or no concern about what people thought of him, his ways or beliefs. He was God, after all. He had a mission. He had those that followed him. And he did indeed have a plan.
When I go through my daily life I rarely think of the WWJD idea in relation to what I do. This changed a little over the last few days. An old friend whom I trust and love with just about no abandon confronted me on a few things. It brought back the haunting taunting of WWJD.
Do we actually know what Jesus would do? Bases on his teachings, parables and other assorted Biblical anecdotes, yes. We certainly could. There are gray areas of course that require some deeper reading and additional intellectual talents such as understanding, comprehension and the ability to put it all together. This of course hardly ever happens because pieces of God’s word are always twisted, run through the wringer and then put in a new box with less meaning and more fluff.
My bitterness for new translations has bled through. Oops!
The reality is that there is no bedrock WWJD statement. There is what we know in our Faith and what we’ve read in His Word. It is a helpful thing for individuals to work on. On a larger scale? I think that goes against what God’s about, in my unprofessional opinion. Your relationship is personal with God. The whole idea of What Would Jesus Do is that as well.
Applying it to cars (The popular comback is ‘He’d walk!’) , politics (God would probably smite both Obama AND McCain), relationships, and the list goes on and on. This isn’t a well thought out thesis, but I wanted to get this thing out of my head and onto the interwebs.
More certainly to come on this.
