“Ultimately, becoming a Christian was THE MOST REBELLIOUS AND RISKY THING I’VE EVER DONE.” After all, “who’s the biggest rebel to ever live?”

Can you guess who said it?

The answer is Alice Cooper!  For my birthday, my son gave me his autobiography, entitled “Alice Cooper: Golf Monster.” What a fun romp through the world of rebel rock and the life of someone who epitomized that world. Here’s a guy, who changes his name to a Alice, wears eye makeup, and who not only kicks life-destroying addictions, but eventually decides to follow Christ.

His testimony confronts our notions of Christianity as the polite, unremarkable, religious pablum of the conservative old-school American. Even Alice’s choice of words scrape against the sensibilities of our tame images of what it means to be a Christian.

However, what if he is hitting the nail right on the head? What if becoming a Christian is literally a counter culture, revolutionary, even rebellious, action? What if following Jesus is the pathway away from the insignificant and dead end search to a whole new kind of life?

Jesus lived the most amazing life ever lived and his invitation to us is an invitation to a radically different life–a life that participates in the fundamental redemption of a world mired in brokenness. To quote Gary Haugen, the real stuff of Christianity is far from the recycled adventureless uncompelling life of Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day. It is a revolutionary life.

Thanks for the reminder, Alice.

Gary

[for another great read, I highly recommend, Gary Haugen’s book, Just Courage.]