I entitled this blog Jesus' Nerd for the simplest of reasons: I am a nerd who belongs to Jesus. This means two things for me in the posts I would want to make: one, I talk about Jesus a lot. Whenever you have a nerd, whatever term they use to preface that statement is usually what they talk about most of the time. There are many subcategories of nerdom, fiefdoms where the masses plant their flag. And you will find out quickly from which land they come and to which land they long to return. So, if I pursue Jesus in a nerdy way, I will love Him, learn about Him, and share what I learn. And in that regard, I believe the blog lives up to its name.
Where it has failed, more than not, is the second type of post: I talk about nerdy things and see how they connect to Jesus. There are multiple reasons to do this. One, I think that nerd culture has begun to move out of the dark, dank basement to which it had been consigned and into the light of the larger culture. This is certainly not a new phenomenon. The aughts belonged to the nerds. Video games are mainstream. Comic book movies have owned the summer box office. Computers are in everything. Even our president is a nerd. This is not to say that all things nerdy are cool. D&D is never going to be the thing to do at the club scene (or Magic: the Gathering; or Warhammer; or a thousand other things). But being a nerd is far from the insult that it used to be. In fact, it is next to impossible to not like something nerdy in this present age of geek.
The next reason is that I am a part of this culture. I have watched 95% of all Star Trek media (the only thing that I have not seen the bulk of is the original series and the animated series). I have read at least 200 Star Wars books (not including the comics, which I never really got into). I have been reading comics for over 15 years and own over 3,000. I have played games on every console ever made and have stood at more than one midnight release. By any standard (and maybe every standard), I am a nerd. So now, how can I be in this culture but not of this culture?
And that leads to the final point. We have a growing population of a subculture, a subculture spread out all across the country. Even if it is only 1% of the country, that's over 3 million people. And my guess is that that is an extremely conservative number. When World of Warcraft has had a subscriber base as high as 11 million plus just 2 years ago (and that "game" is one part fun, three parts job), we have a lot of nerds. So, what is the Gospel to them? Sometimes, it's real simple. The reluctant hero story is about the most common Sci-Fi story. Scripture is littered with such characters. Nerds love Tolkien; Tolkien loved Jesus. Even D&D creator, Gary Gygax, professed belief in Jesus, even while his most vehement opposition was from those who claimed the same.
Often, it takes more time. Paul didn't just walk up to the Greeks at the Areopagus (Mars Hill) and casually toss out that he noticed that they had an idol to the unknown God. At the very least, that was one idol among dozens, if not hundreds. Unless you knew to look for it, you would probably never find it. That is, unless you searched, long and hard, for some point of contact to get your audience from where they live to where God dwells, waiting in eager anticipation to welcome people into His home as sons from every nation and race and people. And every culture. Even if it is really nerdy.
So, I have at least a dozen posts on my docket. These are all things I am interested in; some of them that may actually be interesting to others. But I have a couple that are specifically nerdy, and those will take precedence for awhile. The first one (which is actually the one I set out to type as this one before I got swept away on a "Nerd Apologetics Mission Statement") will be about George Lucas. I realize that is a little on the nose for a nerdy post, but come on. I mean really, come on. You can't be a nerd and not have an opinion on the man. And for that reason alone, it's worth tackling.
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