Piece of Christ

We crucify Him daily, then cast lots for the fashionable trinkets | Tony Woodlief

The city of Wichita, where I live, has a "Christian lifestyle store." That phrasing set me against it from the start. The word lifestyle connotes shallowness, selfishness, and self-deception. To the store's owners and shoppers, is Christianity just another lifestyle? This was my judgment before I'd even set foot inside.

Confession: I've always had a highbrow bias against such places, with their Jesus trinkets and pithy books on becoming a better mother or husband or prayer warrior, written in oversized font and with an overabundance of exclamation marks. I scowled while walking the aisles of this particular store, noting the lawn ornaments and wind chimes and doormats that could be sold in any garden store—except that each has a boldly lettered Bible verse. I studied the pictures of Jesus—not a dark-skinned or unattractive Jesus, mind you ("There is no beauty that we should desire Him"), but a golden-skinned Jesus with flowing hair. I scribbled notes like a Pharisee documenting offenses on the beach at spring break.