Is Jesus Truly Present When Christians Gather in His Name?
A Modern Pilgrimage from Becky Garrison
Friends,
This week, we’re thrilled to re-release Jesus Died for This? A Satirist’s Search for the Risen Christ by Becky Garrison, former senior contributing editor to the Wittenburg Door magazine.
Here’s an adapted excerpt you’ll enjoy that offers a peek into what this book is about. We hope you’ll check it out and get a copy!
And watch for a new Lake Drive title from Becky in 2026 called Gaslighting for God: A Satirical Guide to Save Yourself from Spiritual Narcissists. Lake Drive will be partnering with Becky on a Kickstarter campaign about this well-researched book next month. Stay tuned!
Although I possess this inborn hunger to connect with the Jesus that I encounter in the gospels, I often wonder if he’s truly present when Christians gather together in his name. Are we really trying to put his teachings into practice or playing the Sunday morning God game? Watching the Christian cliques gather—the holy hipsters, the Promise Keeper/Suitable Helper couples who put Ken and Barbie to shame, the prayerful powerbrokers who keep the minister and the church coffers on a tight leash—reminds me that I’m not the “right” kind of Christian.
How could I ever be one of God’s girls when my deceased dad was a renegade Episcopal priest and college professor? The Rev. Dr. Karl Claudius Garrison Jr. might have hailed from the Bible Belt, but he sought salvation from a bottle of Southern Comfort.
Then again, take a good look at Jesus’ crew. They were the unclean, the unchosen, the unloved—the very people discarded by the religious establishment. What a bunch of missional misfits. No way would they be allowed to play on most Christian teams.
Here’s what I don’t get: Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection turned his followers’ lives upside down. So if those disciples were willing to give up everything they had, including their lives, to follow Jesus, then why are many Christians, myself included, such misguided messes? In the words of Mike Yaconelli, the founder of The Wittenburg Door and my first editor, “What happened to the category-smashing, life-threatening, anti-institutional gospel that spread through the first century like wildfire and was considered by those in power dangerous?” What the J is going on?
As we’ve seen all too often, some Christians seek out the glare of the media spotlight as though this man-made electricity represents the true light of the world. In their mission to become the ringmasters of the Religious Ringling Brothers & Biblical Barnum Bailey Circus, they compete with their fellow clowns to headline “The Greatest Show on Heaven and Earth.”
Ever wonder what Jesus thinks when Christians pretend to glorify his name while placing themselves in the center ring? Does he ever turn to his dad and go, “I died for this?”
Christians may claim to love this humble carpenter from Nazareth, but we don’t act Christlike a lot of the time. Wading through biblical bunk, evangelical excesses, and undemocratic dogma searching for signs of Jesus reminds me of the eager desperation one finds in small children trying to find Waldo (or Wally, if you’re based in the UK). It’s tough, but eventually, they spot Waldo’s striped shirt and goofy glasses.
Likewise, once I look beyond the ungodly glitz and Jesus junk, I can spot ordinary radicals operating below the spiritual radar. They’re so busy trying to figure out how to put the Beatitudes into practice that they don’t bother to pimp out their products (Matthew 5–7). You don’t find them issuing manifestos, proclamations, and declarations as pious proof they’ve created this magic elixir that will somehow “save” the Christian church. They remind me a bit of holy hobbits—for years I seldom saw them in action, but once I started training my eye to look out for these everyday saints, I kept noticing them everywhere I looked.
In January 2007, I began a series of business and personal travels, starting with my first trip to Israel. I chronicled this time in my newly re-released book, Jesus Died for This? While traveling and what I’d say was research for my faith, and for the book, I stumbled upon Phil Cousineau’s book The Art of Pilgrimage, a slim volume that proved to be a valuable tool to help ground me in my journeys. Cousineau defines pilgrimage as “the art of movement, the poetry of motion, the music of personal experience of the sacred in those places where it has been known to shine forth. If we are not astounded by these possibilities, we can never plumb the depths of our souls or the soul of the world.”
Anyone who knows me will testify that the thought of me engaged in quiet contemplation gives them the giggles. I resemble a chatterbox, not a contemplative. From a very early age, I learned to use humor as a defense mechanism that enabled me to survive as my nuclear family detonated. So naturally, I turn on the snark and fast-talk my way out of a prickly situation.
But something kept tugging at my heart, telling me I needed to go deeper, much deeper. After all, I am related to John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley and John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, who were four passengers aboard the Mayflower. Perhaps there’s some presence of this ancestral pilgrim spirit embedded into my DNA.
Despite this tenuous historical pilgrim connection, I confess that I’m a newbie in the whole pilgrimage process. Hence, I began a flurry of emails with the Rev. Kurt Neilson, author of Urban Iona. How could the insights he gleaned from his pilgrimage to Ireland and Scotland assist me in my conversion from traveler to spiritual seeker? He reminded me that I need to be open to see, taste, hear, feel, or smell whatever I come across and then let that transform me. Accept whatever happens and don’t try to fight it. Not exactly words a control freak like me likes to hear. But the nudging in my gut kept telling me he was on to something, and that I should stop talking and listen for once.
After I quieted down, I had to admit to the painful truth that, while I interviewed people all the time about the junky Jesus life that passes for Christianity, I forgot the last time I really spoke to Jesus. I forgot how I never felt much of Jesus’ presence in so much talk about him. And every time I myself tried to pray, I felt like this rabid dog trying to catch its ever-elusive tail. Every so often, though, my circular motions would land me into a labyrinth, where I could stop for a bit and catch my breath. But then it’s right back on the holy hamster wheel once again.
But Kurt’s gentle voice kept pushing me forward. “The journey is the goal. And the road is made by walking. Been said by many, in so many words, more or less.”
Becky Garrison
Adapted with permission from Jesus Died for This? A Satirist’s Search for the Risen Christ by Becky Garrison.
Becky Garrison is a religious satirist and journalist and was Senior Contributing Editor for The Wittenburg Door (1994-2008), and is now on its board of directors since its relaunch in 2021. She’s the author of eight books including Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church (PW starred review) and Distilled in Washington: A History. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and covers its craft culture including food, beer, wine, spirits, and more. Her forthcoming book is a satirical self-help book that will offer a guide to the different types of narcissism in spiritual communities.
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