Voices In My Head
I live with two voices in my head.
Those who know me personally are aware of this and it sometimes makes them as uncomfortable as it makes me.
It was easier on everyone when I just read Packer…
One is the voice of Jesus—through the Spirit, through the Scriptures, through the red letters that won’t let me rest in an easy conscience. The other voice belongs to Charles Bowden, the sand-blasted witness of the borderlands, the writer who climbed down into the pit while others wrote from the safety of the bleachers. It’s an odd pairing, perhaps even heretical by some standards, and it might explain at least part of my renowned irritability.
But I’ll tell you this: if Bowden wasn’t a man of God, he was certainly a man haunted by Him. Maybe haunted is better than branded. Because the truth is, I don’t think you can love Jesus without also coming to terms with the kind of world He entered—and the kind of lies it prefers to live by.
Bowden had no patience for lies, especially the ones we use to soften injustice, those smooth phrases we polish in church sanctuaries while another body is disappeared into a confinement camp. He believed in telling the truth, even when it made people hate him. Jesus knew something about that too. Neither of them would be welcome in most pulpits today. I never have been either.
Jesus speaks in parables and grace-soaked rebukes, offering the Kingdom to the poor, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers. Bowden, on the other hand, doesn’t speak. He growls. He bleeds story. He walks the desert with ghosts and comes back with nothing tidy, nothing you can turn into a nonprofit slogan. When I read him, it feels like being dragged into the room where the real cost of our conveniences and policies sits in silence, staring at me, daring me to look away.
And maybe that’s the overlap—Jesus and Bowden both know the truth and both refuse to sanitize it.
One breaks bread with sinners and preaches forgiveness even as He’s executed by the state. The other catalogs the violence that festers when forgiveness is replaced with policy and human lives get a price tag. Jesus invites us to pick up our cross; Bowden reminds us what the weight of death smells like.
I don’t know how to reconcile them, exactly. Maybe I’m not supposed to. Maybe the tension between them is holy.
They both demand I speak…if for no other reason than to remind some on judgement day that they were told…
See, too many Christians have made peace with empire. They call it “order,” “law,” “prosperity.” They pack sanctuaries on Sunday and back policies on Monday that leave women and children choking on dust beneath razor wire.
They say they love scripture, and maybe they do—in the same way a man might love a woman he never listens to.
Charles Bowden was no theologian. He was certainly no altar boy. But he understood the sanctity of the human person far better than many who visit the communion table every week. He wrote about the broken, the crucified, the discarded. Isn’t that what Jesus did? Isn’t that who Jesus became?
Some days, I don’t know which voice is causing the ache inside me. The Jesus who tells me to love my neighbor—or Bowden, who makes sure I know exactly what love will cost if I dare to mean it.
I’m just writing to clear my head…kind of like coughing up mucous when you have a respiratory infection…
“I don’t know how to reconcile them, exactly. Maybe I’m not supposed to. Maybe the tension between them is holy.”
I don’t think they need to be reconciled, Michael.
Lyrics by Todd Agnew (one of my favorite artists who never quite fit the whole CCM scene):
Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ,
Why do you look so much like the world?
Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant
So which one do you want to be?
Blessed are the poor in spirit
Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand
Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins
He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich
So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow?
This picture of the American dream
If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side
Or fall down and worship at His holy feet
Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
Is how you see Him as He dies for your sins
But the Word says He was battered and scarred
Or did you miss that part?
Sometimes I doubt we’d recognize Him
Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?
Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud
and I think He’d prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry it out loud
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus
You see I’m tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus but I’m not sure what that means to be like You Jesus
Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me
Can I be like You Jesus?
I want to be like you Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
CK,
Bowden saw all this coming…understood that it was inevitable.
I’m steeped in all that…and I’m steeped in a different Jesus than many are worshipping.
Keeps me up nights.
Todd Agnew, favorite artist, especially Preachers & Thieves.
Don’t know how they didn’t kill him at seminary.
I’ve heard of Bowden, but I haven’t read him yet (I need to change that!). But I’m thinking of the author of “The Poisonwood Bible” who “explores themes of colonialism, cultural clash, and the consequences of religious zealotry through the story of the Price family’s missionary work in the Belgian Congo.” (compliments of AI when I googled it). The book brought up all kinds of things for me because it brings up a lot of the ugliness of missionary work-some of it by people with good intentions, but terrible practice. Others are wonderful, but are often in the shadow of the incompetent and evil. I remember when I first ran into this newly arrived on the field. I realized that we had a couple that really didn’t work in any area of “missionary” except for keeping up their lovely home and spoiling their daughter. They were eventually sent home because of complaints from the national church, but i never figured out why they were allowed to stay so long. I guess it’s part of the paradoxical world in which we live, so heavily tainted by sin.
Something positive from church today-our Spanish-speaking leadership has come up with some guidelines for our members as we navigate the current peril. Our pastor also prayed for local and state leaders, and prayed for the salvation of Trump! I have yet to have heard any Christian pastor I know say that he isn’t a Christian, and it’s a small step in the right direction.
Linn,
You shouldn’t read Bowden.
You already get it.
You would find him rather brutal and disturbing…which some people need.
You don’t.
If you were interested, the only one I would suggest is “Down By The River”… it will give you a clear understanding of how the drug war actually works.
You’re too kind for the rest of his works.
I have no such problem, as it were…
Linn,
Are they recommending or using IceBlock?
Michael,
Just recommending from the pulpit and asking people to a) pray, b) be wise where they go, c) have a plan (docs ready, place for the kids, etc). My part of the world has been pretty quiet so far, and I’ve been very surprised. Maybe Trump doesn’t hate us as much as he hates LA.
We have others in our English congregation who think that Trump is a caring Christian man (although I think that is beginning to wear off). He is also accomplishing their goals, but as they see the fallout, I see some softening beginning. I think that they were so turned off by Biden and all the drama around COVID, plus the riots and the trans stuff, that they went totally over to the other side without thinking about the ramifications. We haven’t had any moderate views in the voting population for years now, and it’s scary.
Linn,
When they get all the new hires in place they’ll come right into the church and take them.
There will be no quiet part of the country.
UnCCed,
Good question. What I experienced in four different seminaries is that if you are able to make a good defense, they might not agree, but they will give you room to express your views. I bucked the system in all four schools. Actually, I found that the school that was the most restrictive was also considered the most liberal.
https://www.dts.edu/employee/todd-agnew/
Michael,
I’m sure you’re right. We do have a rapid response team in our area where ICE sightings can be called in and where they will send out warnings if something is up. I continue to pray.
Jesus tells us to count the cost. It sounds like Bowden helps you do that.
Robert F,
I had a deep respect for his courage and what it cost him…and he used words in a way that I never could.
When he died suddenly in 2014…I kind of lost my own way…the last of the truth tellers was gone.
He and I plowed similar ground in different fields…
Michael, the last of the truth tellers is not gone …..you’re still here, speaking it.
Keep holding up that torch, many of us need it .