iBarf
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
Hemant over at Friendly Atheist posted about “Jesus Junk” a couple of days ago. He said,” I don’t know what’s worse: that they lack any creativity or that anyone would actually buy these…” It makes me laugh because I used to wear some of this stuff. (To answer the question of why, It’s often cheap and a way to be a “good witness.” Also modest.)
Actually, right after I married Bob, Steve and I sneaked into his closet and threw out TWO GARBAGE bags of these AWFUL Christian T-shirts! He was so mad! I don’t blame him! I really shouldn’t have done it. But those shirts. Oh, those shirts. They were horrible. He was a pretty big guy, and those shirts were either very brightly colored or gray, making him look like giant pumpkins, elephants, etc. Trust me, he may have been mad and rightfully so, but I did him a favor! The thing is, we didn’t even get rid of them all. We didn’t even get rid of most of them. And we didn’t actually throw them out until he discovered what we’d done. Then Steve wouldn’t let him have the bag. I would have given them back when I realized that he was actually upset, but Steve wouldn’t. I was very glad! (Yes, I know. I lacked submission. That’s probably the number one reason why my marriage failed. 
)
One of the shirts we bagged.
My thoughts at the time were, if we come up with these trite advertisements for Jesus, we aren’t being very reverent or worshipful. Plus, I figured they don’t look like we take our faith seriously, and if we didn’t take Christ seriously, how would the world around us? Same goes for those terrible church signs with those horrible and often offensive sayings, like “There are some questions Google can’t answer.” No, really? But the Bible can answer it all, right? Let me just flip right open to the passage that talks about the dna of HIV. Anyways, they had one at our second church, and I cringed every time I saw it. Christian culture doesn’t take Jesus seriously, then get offended when people mock him. If you want people to take you and your faith seriously, the first thing you gotta do is get rid of this kind of crap. (To be followed by many, many more steps!) I felt “convicted” and stopped buying it when I first entered the ministry. Really, I think it could be argued that this falls into the commandment of “taking the Lord’s name in vain” because these shirts are so flippant. What do you think?
Here are some fun examples for your mocking pleasure (note: I am not mocking people’s faith, just the souveneirs of it):
ETA: Bud found this particularly nutsy one:
What was the worst Christian t-shirt/church sign/other piece of “Jesus Junk” you’ve ever seen? Did you ever own any of it yourself? I have suddenly gone blank. I remember wearing a “It’s freedom of religion, not freedom from religion” t-shirt, but I only got it because it was $5 and had an Old Navy look to it. I remember owning a green one I loved, but I can’t remember what it said. And I remember seeing this horrible t-shirt when I was a kid with a box of Kleenex and a fetus on it that said, “This is tissue,” next to the Kleenex, and, “This is a baby” next to this shriveled looking embryo. My mother refused to buy it for me. Good call, Mom!
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December 26th, 2009 at 1:00 am
LOL!! I guess the Christian culture just isn’t as strong in Australia, I’ve never seen anything like those shirts before.
Have you seen these? http://p4cmtshirts.bigcartel.com/products
They say things like ex-masturbator, ex-fornicator, ex-homosexual, ex-abortionist, (???) ex-bisexual on the front. Even when I was at the height of my enthusiasm for Christianity, I always thought those t-shirts were a bit crass.
December 26th, 2009 at 8:50 am
As an early teen I really wanted a “Fear Not” shirt (Christian version of the No Fear shirts), but my mom thought it looked too secular. I didn’t have any of these sorts of Christian shirts but I had lots of AWANA shirts. I think at the time I still thought the advertising shirts a bit corny but truly I wanted to look a little bit more like the kids my age. Oh well, now I’m questioning it all anyway so I guess it’s fine that I don’t have any of those shirts to go through…now I think about getting one of the COEXIST bumper stickers.
December 26th, 2009 at 8:50 am
I wore very few Jesus Junk shirts, but I agree with you about the trivialization of faith notion. Do you remember a chorus called “Give Me Oil in My Lamp,” based on the parable of the ten virgins When I was in college, people made up all sorts of goofy verses for it, “Give me gas in my Ford, keep me trucking for the Lord,” crap like that. I refused to sing them because I felt they cheapened the song. Another chorus people messed up was, “I’ve been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.” An additional I remember for that was, “You can’t get to heaven on roller skates, ‘coz you’ll roll right past those pearly gates.” I think you’ve got a point that Christians sometimes do more to cheapen their own dogma then nonbelievers do.
December 26th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Oh, I remember all of those songs. I hadn’t thought of the song aspect of it. There are lots of kids songs that aren’t particularly reverent.
And Cristi, I have a Coexist shirt that I love and Steve hates.
Hmm, maybe I traded my Jesus Junk for Heathen Hogwash. 
December 26th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Grace- My spam filter caught it for some reason. ?? Guess you are a threat!
December 26th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
One of these days I’m going to make a shirt that says, “In case of rapture, let me drive.”
I just wrote about cheesy Christian shirts on my blog (I wrote it a day before Hemant wrote about “Jesus Junk”). I titled the entry, “Coo Coo for Christ,” because of one of the worst Christian T-shirts I’ve seen in a while: a spoof on the Cocoa Puffs bird. The shirt says, “I’m Coo Coo for Christ!”
My first thought after seeing the shirt was, “I guess that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?”
December 26th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Laura- Darn, your filter caught me. I may pose as a 20 year old girl, but in reality, I am an eastern European spam lord named Istvan who looks like this http://tiny.cc/DodYu
Is it possible for you to delete my second comment?
December 26th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I love the bumper sticker, especially since most Christians I meet always say only God can judge us, yet here they are assuming they are going to heaven. So much modesty.
December 26th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Now, I stop just short of calling it un-creative. There’s something to be said for parody. I used to love the parody products from Mad magazine, for example Head and Boulders, the shampoo for people with rocks in their heads. I guess the Jesus junk is just not really funny.
I don’t see how there could be any legal action done against the “Jesus Junkies.”
December 26th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
My Evangelical period was from 1972 thru ~1984 (age 15 thru 27 for me), and they had this stuff back then. The one I recall is “Jesus: He’s the real thing” (from a Coca Cola slogan of the period). I don’t recall them showing up so much on T-shirts; I think maybe the slogan-T-shirt thing hadn’t caught on yet.
A note of intro: “Eamon Knight” is a nym. I got here from Hemant’s place, and this blog for now in my RSS (like, I sooooo need another feed to follow….). Brief bio: raised agnostic, became a fundie as a teenager, mellowed out to liberal Xn in my 20s, atheist for the past eight years. Married with grown kids (about Laura’s age, actually).
Any typos in this comment, I blame on the wine. #2 Son is home for the holidays, and made a very nice pesto for dinner tonight. As usual, my wife had one glass, and my son and I split the rest of the bottle between us….
December 26th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
BTW. three posts up from mine is Dennis Markuze, a notorious troll base in Montreal.
December 26th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Grace–your comment is deleted!
Yeah, Eamon, he’s commented on my blog once before and I’ve seen him around. Last time, I just deleted the comment, but this time I deleted it and banned him. (Just so everyone doesn’t think Eamon was talking about Grace!)
December 26th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I had one that said “Bad Apple” or something like that under a half eaten apple – It was elusive enough to wear out since you would just think it was mocking Apple the company unless you knew better. I was never “bold enough in my witness” to wear anything too outrageous
December 26th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
My neice and nephew wear this Jesus Junk: Christ Orange Crush
I just want to distance myself from them when they wear them in public. I really need to get some sort of subtle atheist shirt to wear around them.
December 27th, 2009 at 1:04 am
The T_Shirts are NOT the worst Jesus Junk. In my early years as a Christian, I worked for a fundie retail store owner. His wife would bring in such things as pencils with scripture verses, plastic race-cars, with ‘Win With Jesus’ stickers on it, and best (worst) of all: Testamints. Yes, they were mints. For Christians.
December 27th, 2009 at 1:20 am
oh, I remember Testamints. HAHA!
December 27th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Cat and Girl had a funny comic about Jesus Junk some time ago.
http://catandgirl.com/?p=628
December 27th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I wonder if they’ll be sued for trademark infringement, or if the companies who were copied are afraid to be labeled anti religious (as if thats a bad thing) and afraid of eternal hellfire?
December 27th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Kinda funny. I would never wear any of them though.
Kriss
December 27th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Yeah, cheesy co-opting of advertising and pop-culture/political memes by fundies seems to be a thing with them. “No Jesus, No Peace – Know Jesus, Know Peace” is one that sets my teeth on edge. The Calvin & Hobbes rip-offs of Calvin kneeling before a cross is another current “favorite” of mine. Usually see them on pickup trucks for some reason.
Though not exactly in the category of cultural co-opting, one I haven’t seen lately is the “God Said It. I Believe It. That Settles It” bumper sticker. Perfect summation of the passive-aggressive, proudly ignorant attitude of fundamentalists.
BTW, found my way hear via Hemant, and to him via PZ and BlagHag. Damn Atheist blogosphere -sucking me in deeper and deeper!
December 28th, 2009 at 9:02 am
My all-time favorite bumper sticker:
In case of Rapture, can I have your car?
Ha! ~ I’m still laughing at that one.
And then some entrepreneurial genius comes up with this:
http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/Home_Page.html
In case of rapture, atheists will save your pets who will be left-behind (for a nominal fee).
December 28th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I have seen many of these at a truck stop I sometimes frequent on long bus trips, but I didn’t know anybody actually bought them.
Back in my christian days, I had the following jesus junk:
http://tinyurl.com/yzqn5bm
http://tinyurl.com/yjb3kyj
I also had a little pewter shield with a cross on one side and the “put on the full armor of god…” verse on the other. I kept it on my keychain.
I think I laugh at these memories to keep from crying about them.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:03 am
My parents got me Jesus chapstick for Christmas! The flavor is ‘virtuous vanilla’, and it ‘restores lips to near virgin quality’. And yes, it’s a joke, but there are actual Christian cosmetic products. My housemate had psalms-inspired lotion once…
All of you need to read “Rapture Ready”. There’s a whole chapter on Jesus junk, and it’s hilarious.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said “Exposure to the Son may prevent burning”.
Sweet Jesus, do I love a pun.
February 28th, 2010 at 12:10 am
This is the place for funny religious merchandise:
http://www.prattle.net/religious-tat/christian-religious-tat/
They have pages of it and they cover many religions – and even the religion free!
One item leads to this
http://www.christiandomesticdiscipline.com/home.html
which makes one wonder if Poe’s Law is at work!