In the Presence of the Divine

"And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

-Exodus 3:5

This morning's headlines called me up short with a story in the UK Guardian about the sudden proliferation of Christian energy drinks.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/04/jesus-christian-energy-drink

The author took a tongue-in-cheek approach to the topic, and how could one not when trying to review with a straight face products like this?

Just the thing to put a little gas in the tank for that Sunday morning praise service, after a late Saturday night rockin' with all the other White Christian Nationalists at Gulf Coast Jam.

I don't get it. The revelation of God's grace and mercy as part of a shill to make a little lucre, whether it's Yahweh's "Berry Blessed" drink or a t-shirt or a sticker in your back window of a cowboy kneeling before an empty cross. It is all so very vulgar, so very 2026 America as the world sees us these days.

I look at my own bookshelf this morning and sense that I occupy a different theological space.

There's Spong and Ehrman, Bill Moyers and C.S. Lewis, William James and Elaine Pagels. Augustine, of course (and oddly wedged between Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor). All friends who've helped me over the years experience the moment when Jacob wrestles with the angel, trying but never succeeding into wrangling this majestic and transcendent thing into a construct I can understand, an impossible task but worth the lifetime of effort.

None of that fits well into a religious framework that has a place for a Jesus energy drink or a billboard quoting Chronicles out of context to browbeat the rubes, with the Divine Brow, into voting Republican.

I realize all this sounds a little judgmental, and suppose I can't help myself. I also recall the old saw about an evangelist meeting people where they are, exemplified by a very successful hipster pastor I once represented who wore Converse high tops in the pulpit and apparently was a mean skateboarder. But that fellow likely never read a syllable of Greek, never wrestled with anything other than how to sell this Christian version of the Big Mac to the lost souls all around us.

Does it matter that the Holy Big Mac has no flavor and no nutritional content, that this feast of consumerist Christianity inevitably leaves the soul as hungry as before?

For lots of folks, apparently not. To each his own, I guess. I'll stick with the mysterium magnum, and engage in my own wrestling match, where the trip is worth more than the goal.