Jesus Didn't Tap

If you're a Christian who also likes to watch people pummel each other senseless in ultimate fighting bouts, well now there's a line of active wear aimed squarely at you. "Jesus Didn't Tap" is a line of t-shirts and whatnot that live right where the Prince of Peace meets the armbar and the choke hold.

That's funny enough, but you just know that something like this is going to inspire some amusing commentary from the Christian and non-Christian alike.

For instance, here's something from the site SportsByBrooks.com, and I'm just guessing here, but I don't think they're coming from the Christian perspective:

Regardless of the religious fervor incorporated in the message all of
the shirts transmit a cruel undercurrent of sincere irony: How can a
company revolving around the popularity of the world’s most gruesome
fighting sport base in message in the symbolism and idolatry of
history’s greatest pacifist?

I appreciate this author's effort at analyzing a seeming contradiction.  Based on the conventional wisdom about Jesus in the year 2009, his analysis is right. However, it makes me sad that he knows so little about the Jesus of the Bible that he would tag Him with a cliche like "history's greatest pacifist."

It reminds me of Barak Obama's supporters during the election, who, in defending their man's resume, took to saying, "Jesus was a community organizer." Here's what I wrote about that at the time:

As far as I can tell, a community organizer is someone who agitates
people to bitch at elected officials and bureaucrats until they get
some kind of handout. On the other hand, Jesus Christ was the living
incarnation of Almighty God, who came to earth, took on the sins of all
mankind, and offered Himself as a sacrifice so that we could have
eternal life. I feel that someone who would compare the Son of God to a community organizer doesn't fully grasp the whole Jesus story.

Now I'm no fan of MMA; I don't even know enough about it to judge how the level of violence compares to say, other forms of martial arts, or rugby, or jousting, or anything else where people knock each other around for fun.  But I find it fairly insulting when people think that just because something is violent, Jesus would declare it icky and unacceptable.

I believe that God made men, and when He did, He designed them to enjoy doing rough and dangerous things.  Sometimes they go too far, but that doesn't make aggression evil.  I think that when Jesus took the form of a man, he took on the spirit of aggression that comes with manhood, so He would understand it well, and I daresay even embrace it. I like the portrayal on the "Jesus Didn't Tap" shirts a lot more than the namby-pamby connotations of "history's greatest pacifist." A commenter on the post sums it up well:

In addition to researching MMA, some time should have been spent
reading and studying the New Testament before the this article was
written. Jesus wasn't "history's greatest pacifist" and many would
argue that he wasn't a pacifist at all.   Jesus Himself said, “Do not
suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to
bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34