I really like going into photo booths and getting my picture taken. Call it vanity. Whatever. Photo booths are fun. They cost $3. I make a bunch of goofy faces and get something to take home with me from my experience at the mall. Plus, the pictures make for a great bookmark.

But last week, I had a bad thought. A mischievous thought.

I would go into the booth and flip off the camera. I'd offer four different poses in which to give "the middle finger of Christian charity." And then, I'd post this image on Next-Wave for the August issue-- the editor-in-chief giving the bird to his faithful readers. Lovely.

Would my wife disapprove? Would Charlie stop me? Would readers revolt? Would you even care? Once I got in the booth, I instead shrugged my shoulders.

Why bother?

But I wonder: As playful as the sentiment was, why did I feel the impulse to do this? Maybe I wanted to see if I could upset someone. Call it a tolerance test. "Who is still offended by the middle finger?" Even if done in jest.

This mischievous impulse (however tame it may seem to some of you) came from a deeper longing. Lately I've been uneasy, restless. I've wanted to set some fires. Shake things up. Be subversive. While the Christian faith promised me a counter culture life, a life lived in conflict with the current system and age; I have felt too darn mainstream. Too status quo. Too predictable. I'm bored. I feel like a wuss.

For this reason, we create enemies. We yearn for something to fight against. When there is nothing to fight against or fight for, it becomes increasing difficult to rally people towards a cause. Many Christian communities search hard to find enemies. We give the "middle finger of Christian charity" not because we see the real enemy, but because we have troops and no real battle.

Maybe this isn't my best moment, but I need something to shove. Something to pick on. And nothing in particular comes to mind.

Of course, we do have a "war on terrorism." But our enemy is elusive. It's not the people of the Middle East. It's not the Islamic faith. It's not even the various governments in the Middle East. It's an ideology. And ideologies are difficult to blow up.

Give me an enemy that has a face, a symbol, a gang color--but an ideology? Geez, my middle finger needs an audience and I don't know how to flip off a philosophy.

When Jesus says, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." Did we not take him seriously? Christians, like me, have been too quick to live by the sword--to find enemies to wage war on. Evangelical Christians picked up the sword against Madeline O'Hare, against Planned Parenthood, against Marilyn Manson, against the "liberal media." But Evangelicals have died by the same sword they wielded. Instead of seeming strong in the face of evil, they just look like bullies.

It's becomes too easy for me… as a higher evolved POSTMODERN KINGDOM-MINDED MISSIONAL CHRISTIAN™ to make my enemy those bullies on the Christian Right. But then I commit the same sin they commit; I live by a sword.

I am no different than the Apostles. I am too eager to start a war, seek and destroy, while Jesus asks me instead to lay my life down. Because in the end, there is no boogey-man, no monster in the closet, no big bad wolf, no homosexual going to steal your children in the night. In demonizing these groups, we turn the sword on ourselves. To use another parable image, the wheat and weeds grow together. God will uproot at the harvest. Not us. Not me or my middle finger.