#bibleschoolpickuplines

Over on Twitter, one of my favorite young (clearly a relative term--she's older and much more experienced than me) pastors, Carol Howard Merritt, started a new bit of hashtag craziness by asking us to come up with our best/favorite Christian pick-up lines with the #bibleschoolpickuplines hashtag.  Because we've been tackling some more serious stuff here and I learned in prepping for last night's Bible study class on Luke 5 that Jesus did believe in having joy and fun in life, here are a few of my favorites from the recent re-tweeting madness...

BUT--on a serious note first, I also think these are fascinating from an anti-language perspective (see the immediate previous entry).  All of these are us using general, contemporary language in very specific ways to impart specific double-meanings known to the "in" crowd (that is, Christians or folks with a working knowledge of Christian culture).  As a 21st-century version of a 1st-century phenomenon, I think it is terribly interesting how God geeks like me are getting their funnies these days.

After all, one of the most tried and true genres of humor is the "it's-funny-because-it's-true" variety, and these fall into the absurdist element of that genre...most of us KNOW that Christian subculture is both oddly and endearingly a bit unusual at times, and poking fun at it is, for me at least, how I show my love.

But that knowledge is what makes the jokes funny to begin with.

(and if you are on Twitter, CHM is definitely worth a follow.)

And now for a few of the tweets themselves:

@dan_nelson42 and @PedestrianLife: "I was going through the Book of Numbers and realized I don't have yours."

@revngeek: "Am I worthy to untie the thong?"

@TwoFriars: "For those of us in Christ, all is lawful, baby."

@AndAFool: "If there's gonna be an altar call, we might as well make sure we need it," and "Is your body complementary to mine, or am I just happy to see you?"

@MeredithGould: "Want to explore tongues?"

...and all of this began with the tweet, "I'd like to amplify your Bible!"

PS: I tweeted a few myself, including:

"You wanna get freaky, Song of Songs-style?"

"Whaddaya say we go back to my tent and uncover those feet?"

"I'm needing to practice my laying on of hands, can you help?"

What would be YOUR Christian pick-up lines?  Feel free to post your best in the comments, or tweet them with the #bibleschoolpickuplines hashtag!

Yours in Christ,
Eric