Blog #10: The T-shirt of Turin

To tell you the truth, the saturation of religion in American (and apparently foreign) lives is scaring me. I've seen these "Jesus is My Homeboy" t-shirts around, and every time I do I roll my eyes in disgust despite knowing that most of them are just parodies. My first reaction, to those doing the parody, is why validate the beliefs of others that you don't agree with by showing the world that you care enough to wear a t-shirt that you bought specifically to show your own beliefs? It is either

A) you are a self righteous prick who insists everyone knows your personal views on religion (which is exactly the same as the religious people who want to flaunt their beliefs by wearing equivalently non parodic t-shirts or apparel)

B) you are so clueless to reality that you somehow think that wearing these shirts will actually convert some of the believers to non-believers through its sheer wittiness.

or

C) you actually think these are funny, at which point I must tell you that "what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."(Billy Madison) You have absolutely no real grasp on humor, and these vain financial acquirements don't make you any less stupid or any more funny than you were before you bought them.

Now if you are one of the people who buys them because you love Jesus and you think this is the best way you can show the world just how much you love Jesus, all I can say is "holy shit go get your head checked." Your faith is supposed to be about your personal relationship with Jesus, not about you trying to spread your faith through distasteful marketing mechanisms. You might as well be Joel Osteen (oft criticized for not having any true faith content in his television show). Do you want to be Joel Osteen? Well maybe you do. The fact remains that the people who are already religious might think "hey, there is a nice guy or gal wearing a 'Jesus is my Homeboy' t-shirt", and the rest, the ones that are supposedly your target audience, will think "" nothing about it because none of them care about Jesus being your homeboy.

By the way, you missed the entire joke with the t-shirt, and now you are wearing it despite its anti-religious connotations.

The shirt on the left is an interesting item. For one, the first thing I notice is the lettering, which reminds me of those 1950s movie posters about space aliens coming down to earth and taking over the brains of unsuspecting townspeople and turn them into zombies. This is an interesting parallel to religion. Jesus is himself an alien, sent to earth by God to save the world, he too becomes a zombie after being in his tomb for 3 days after dying on the cross, and since then the small towns all across the world have succumbed to brainwashing by religion to turn into mindless minions to spread the word. Jesus looks like he is wearing an outfit out of the Fantastic Four, though I think he is supposed to be shirtless, he looks rather ripped so I'm thinking he must have a fantastic diet plan that you would probably like to buy. I think if religions really want to get a legion of followers, they should see if they can do something about the obesity problems of middle America.

In the other shirt, which graces us with a little color, Jesus is holding up two fingers in a peace sign, a white do rag that holds his red locks back (Jesus was middle eastern, so the chances of him having bright red "ginger" hair seem very small to me), and hippie garb. The man is definitely hippiefied in this shirt, which seems to me to be an obvious parody. Overall both shirts are just ridiculous to me.

Paul Mitchell's story "Faith and Fashion: The Power of T-shirt Evangelism" implies in the title that there is some power in the t-shirt, but his entire article is about how no one cared at a rock concert that he was wearing a t-shirt praising his faith. "I was expecting someone to say something, anything. But no one did," he writes on page 324. Interestingly, he also says, "What I was doing that day was what Christians have tried to do for centuries--make some kind of outward sign of their inner conversion, to show the world that yes, I'm different." Different from what? The millions of other Christians who do the same thing on a daily basis? If you want to do something different, as far as Christians are concerned, set yourself on fire and don't scream. Buddhist monks do that to show their devotion. You wear a t-shirt. I"m not trying to judge, but you seem like you aren't all that interested in actually showing the world how different you are when you do the same thing that everyone else does. You just look like an exact copy of another Christian created from some generic template.

Do yourself a favor, Paul. Do something original.

If the t-shirts only conveyed the text, they would only seem slightly less parodic. Let's face it, the slogan "Jesus is my Homeboy" screams of parody without the need for any visual aids. First off, homeboy is a word that was first used in the 70s and 80s to denote that someone was in the same gang or from the same turf that you were. As The Free Online Dictionary defines it, homeboy is slang for a close male friend from the same town or neighborhood, or a fellow male member of a gang. Gangs connotate violence and mischief, so representing Jesus as a fellow gangmember doesn't honor his memory, so obviously these shirts aren't meant to be taken seriously. For those wearing them in response to their hatred or disgust of religion, get a life and do something good with your time. Nothing good comes from destroying or trouncing others beliefs. Expanding their minds through logic and reason is the only cure for what you consider disgusting.

Back to the t-shirts. They are unnecessary. I know some of you can't help but be offensive, but realize that you make yourself no more righteous by using these t-shirts to convey your shallow points. And to those of you who think this is the best way to show your faith, the best way you can show your faith is to live by Jesus' words by doing the right things, offering help to those in need, and not hurting others. Live by his very words, not by some false idol on your chest.