How Christians Spend Money

Maybe it's because I spent the morning reading about missionary work in Kenya and thinking about other work going on in Uganda. Maybe it's because Sunday night I finally watched The Departed and felt inimitably sad afterwards because of this world's brokenness and how we brought Noel (albeit broken too) into it, such that I am more eager than before for our righteous God to make this world right. And fast, no more dilly-dallying.

But whatever the reason, when a coworker sent an email flyer about a Christian comedian coming to town, I was slightly more than frowny. After all, who but Americans would think "Christian comedian" is a legitimate career choice?

Maybe there's nothing inherently wrong with it. I can imagine a gazillion reasons why it seems ridiculous, but those hinge more on the teleological worthlessness of amusement in general, and I'm just not willing to make the argument that we should only pray and feed the poor but never read novels or watch films or even enjoy silly comedic business from time to time ("am I right?" she asks in that Monty Python way).

But the reality of Christian comedians speaks to our affluence in ways that unsettle me. The emailed flyer essentially declares that American Christians are so rich in time and money but so stressed in energy and affection that they need stand-up comedians to make them happy. And we rich American Christians have so many ways to spend our money that the church needs to organize entertainment for us so that we can feel like we're doing Christian things when we're really just laughing at clean jokes instead of dirty ones. We love to disengage our minds and spend money, and we're practiced at both. We must do them, must.

So it may not be wrong (I certainly don't mean to pick a fight with the coworker about it), but it bugs me. Then again, maybe I'm just a bitter codger who needs to laugh a little.