Why Doesn’t Jesus Save Us from Disasters?

n September 2022, a meme with a two-panel cartoon of Jesus was posted on a meme site, earning more reactions than another meme insult Joe Biden, posted by the same account. The historic religious icon grabbed more attention than the current US president,  seems strange because people in the world are getting less interested in religions. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022), the percentage of the non-religious population of England and Wales increased to 37.2 percent in 2021 from 25.2 percent in 2011. Similarly, the US saw a rise in the number of adults who do not believe in religion to 29 percent in 2021  13 percent  2007 (Smith, 2021). Despite th growing indifference to , the meme  attracted people'seffective messagethe pictures and words included in the post. his article intends to reveal why th meme featuring Jesus drew much attention 

Methodological Framework

To reveal how the meme obtained engagement, appl a conceptual framework consisting of recontextualization, indexicality, and multimodality.The ideas of recontextualization is involved in th analysis because the meme contains a story similar to  in the bible. The theory explains that a recontextualized text obtains another meaning in a new context even if the text holds the same exact words as the original (Johnstone, 2018). The meaning of the text is altered once it gets  from the initial context (Johnstone, 2018). The notions of recontextualization lead this analysis to focus on how the meme changed the biblical story by placing it in a new context.

In addition, this study applies the concept of multimodality to reveal the consequences brought by employing both dialogue and a picture in the meme. Mthat when multiple semiotic modes are used, researchers should analyze  as a whole, not separately (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996, as cited in Catalano & Waugh, 2020). When several communication tools are put together, they affect each other and in turn develop meanings that extend beyond their individual meanings. The idea of multimodality makes this study look at how the combination of dialogue and an image of Jesus generates another meaning to the meme.

Lastly, to uncover how the meme is understood by the reactors to the post, the notions of indexicality  included in th analysis. The idea of indexicality  the  that any communication tool relies on personal beliefs, backgrounds, characteristics,  social context (Blommaert, 2005). Indexical meaning is what bridges the gap between the dictionary meaning and the social meaning of the semiotic tool (Blommaert, 2005). The indexical meaning of expressions used in the meme will allow  to comprehend the implicit message that was delivered from the meme to the people who showed their engagement. 

The meme this  elaborates on was posted on 9GAG on September 18th, 2022, as is depicted in the Figure below. It was categorized as “funny” and “hot”. 

Figure 1: From 'It is a mystery', by Pez, [@madeintheuk], 2022, September 18, 9GAG. 9GAG

The name of the user who posted the meme is “madeintheuk” with a flag of England. The account has been used for more than 8 years and has posted memes constantly with 13 posts in September and 11 posts in October 2022 for instance. The meme earned more engagement than usual for that account, obtaining 4 thousand up reactions, 520 down reactions, and 310 comments. 

The post was titled  “It is a mystery” and has two vertical dimensions with the same picture of  sleeping Jesus, but each of them has a different dialogue. On the upper side, a person not drawn in the portrait says “Jesus! Get up bro! There is a war in Ukraine, Covid-19 is still here, and inflation is pushing people into poverty” to Jesus sleeping in  bed. On the lower side of the meme, Jesus answers “Tell them I'm working in mysterious ways yo.” The image of Jesus is from a website “SAD AND USELESSNESS -The most depressive humorous site on the internet”, which offers funny posts, articles, and pictures.

Jesus is not saving the world

The concept of recontextualization elucidates that the meme indicates the reality that Jesus is not striving to save  from disasters. The person who posted the meme created the dialogue between Jesus and another figure by recontextualizing a story from the bible, Mark 4 “Jesus Calms the Storm.” The settings of the biblical story resemble the situations that people around the world are now facing. In the bible, Jesus and his disciples were riding on a boat in a storm, placing themselves at a risk. Similarly, people around the globe are suffering from the lasting Coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and worldwide inflation. Both in the bible and in  reality, people are encountering danger and plead to Jesus to save them. However, he behaves differently in the meme and the bible. In the  story, after his disciple asked him if he didn’t care about them drowning, he got up and suddenly stopped the storm. On the contrary in the meme, Jesus continues to sleep in the blanket and does not make any chang to the world, just saying “Tell them I'm working in mysterious ways yo.” By  a biblical story where Jesus saves people in a similar condition as the world today but making changes in the ending, the meme makes the viewers of the post realize that they are still in disaster because Jesus is not working for them.  

A powerless and lazy human

The concept of indexicality discloses that the meme does not regard Jesus as a supreme existence who deserves to be respected. In the conversation illustrated in the image on the meme, the person who pleads to Jesus uses the slang “bro” in talking to him. Likewise, Jesus also uses  “yo” in responding to the person. Slang is an informal language that is utilized when talking with friends or family who are close to the person. The use of informal words can lead to  positive interpretation that Jesus is in a close relationship with the person who is talking to him. However, when the slang is used in  recontextualized story  the bible which shows Jesus is not saving humans, the slang indexes that he is not admired as a person to whom formal language should be used. Making Jesus use the slang “yo” also indexes him as not a supernatural being but rather an ordinary human, who use slang for daily communication. The slang used in the meme contributes to degrading Jesus from a horrible supernatural power with esteems who saves human to a mere human being who does not have to be spoken to with formal words to show respect.

Indexicality also reveals that the meme portrays Jesus as a powerless person who does not save the world by expressing his incredible work as a mystery. The work of Jesus for saving people is usually called a miracle. However, the meme describes his work as a mystery as seen in  reply to the plea that he is working in “mysterious ways.” While miracle is a word that implies astonishment and appreciation of the activity, the word mystery indexes that his work is literally strange, meaning  reasonable and does not deserve reverence. By  his work as a mystery, the meme ridicules the work of Jesus as meaningless, which is believed to be a fearful and respectful act that saves human. 

The word “mysterious” contributes to  light o Jesus in another way. When the word is combined with the picture of Jesus sleeping, he looks like an idle person who makes excuses for not getting up from the bed. In contrast to the biblical story, Jesus continues to sleep in the meme, saying “Tell them I'm working in mysterious ways yo” even after he was told that people are in danger. As far as he insists that he is doing something for human in mysterious ways, people cannot accuse him of not  up because they cannot rule out the possibility that he is doing something while sleeping. The word “mysterious” sounds as if he is making clever excuses for not doing anything but  asleep. As the notion of multimodality implies, the word “mysterious” compounded with the portrait of a sleeping Jesus leads people to associate him with a lazy human who makes excuses to avoid accusations of not getting up. The consolidation of the picture of sleeping Jesus and the word “mysterious” tailored him as an idle figure, which is the opposite of a savior of human.

Is Jesus a savior of human from disasters?

This meme succeed in gaining attention because  depiction of Jesus in the meme matched the doubt in the minds of people that Jesus doing anything to save them from catastrophes. At the time that the meme was posted, inflation started to influence life all over the world. Since people had already endured the long-lasting coronavirus  and the Ukraine war, they were tired of th new global crisis that is out of their hands. While Jesus is known to have come to the world to save human, the multiple disasters have already made it uncertain whether he is going to . The recontextualized biblical story in the meme implicitly explained that Jesus is not saving people. The meme visualized the doubts about Jesus that people had in the continuous disasters and encouraged them that they are not the only  doubting his superpower. 

In addition to denying him as a savior of human, the meme is making fun of him as a powerless and rather lazy person who is reluctant to  up even after knowing people suffering from disasters. Jesus is explained as helpless through the interpretation of his work as a mystery, which indexes that his work is far away from a superior work that saves human. Further, the multimodal effect of the word “mysterious” and the picture of a sleeping Jesus degraded him from a supernatural existence  fear and respect to a spoiled human being who keeps sleeping even though he was asked to save human. The informal language use seen in the slang “bro” and “yo” also indexes that Jesus is not a person who astonishes and scares people with supernatural power.

These effective transformations from the hero who saved  in the original story into an incompetent  sounded funny to the people who were in doubt  Jesus  doing anything to save the world. Th meme succeeded in gaining popularity by visualizing a question that people had somewhere in their minds during  difficult time disasters in a funny way, which insult the redeemer who is supposed to save human.

This type of meme which denies Jsupernatural  can influence religious beliefs, especially of those who do not strongly believe in religion. If there is a correlation, the popularity of such memes can be an indicator of predicting the trend of religious belief in the future. Some empirical research is called for to see whether the insulting memes  religio can trigger people to start to doubt or strengthen their skepticism of the religion.

References

Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge University Press.

Catalano, T., & Waugh, L. R. (2020). Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Discourse Studies and Beyond. Springer Cham.

Johnstone, B. (2018). Discourse analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Office for National Statistics. (2022, November 29). Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021.  

Smith, A. G. (2021, December 14). About three-in-ten U.S. adults are now religiously unaffiliated. Pew research center.