What if you and I could set aside all the church bullshit for a little while? I'm serious. Just for the purpose of a good conversation we would forget all the huge buildings and the tortured, organizational labyrinth that supports them, the marketing sound bites, the appalling TV shows, the whole Christian subculture that is such a mystery to the outside world, the creepy “I love Jesus so much” language, the stunning hypocrisy, all of it. What if we could just forget all of that for a time?

I know we can't really set all that aside because McLuhan was right. The Church is our medium and this medium is now our message. Most definitely our message. The only message we know anymore. There's no escaping that. But you and I are friends, and we can do whatever we want when we've had a couple of beers and are talking about crazy things that should be but are not and perhaps never will be.

You see the battered, black New Testament sticking out the back pocket of my jeans, and you ask to look at it. You bend the leather back and forth, noticing how loose and worn it is. The gold letters are long gone from the cover and the pages have pulled away from the spine.

“Wow, you really read this thing, don't you?”

“Yep.”

“So you think it's a good thing to read? I mean, there's good stuff in here, right?”

“Absolutely, but it takes some work. It's not easy reading. I wouldn't recommend doing it alone. Not in the beginning anyway.”

“Well, just could you maybe tell me what the deal is with Christianity? What's it all about? Is it just learning everything that's in the Bible, like an academic exercise or something? Cause that's kind of unsatisfying to think about, you know? Actually, I'm sorta interested in why Christianity exists in the first place. Is there something fundamental you guys are saying about reality? I know this is kind of impossible, but could you sum it up for me or something?”