Andy Kaufman and the Authentic Christian

July 24, 2007

I’ve been listening to REM’s Man on the Moon lately ( Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah), which of course has prompted me to think a bit about Andy Kaufman, which has prompted me to re-watch the 1999 movie Man on the Moon, which is making me want to read an Andy Kafuman biography.

As a performance artist, Kaufman was best known for his constantly changing characters and personalities. He could be an innocent, gentle man, singing songs of love and hope, or he could be extremely offensive and hated by many. Famously, he angered the entire American South by very seriously and condescendingly telling them they should start using soap and toilet paper. His act regularly spilled over into real life, thus obscuring who the “real” Andy Kaufman was. Maybe this is best exemplified by his appearances on the comedy show Friday’s, a show on ABC similar to Saturday Night Live. Wikipedia describes his appearances in the following:

Kaufman’s first appearance on the show proved to be memorable. During a sketch about four people out on a dinner date who excuse themselves to the restroom to smoke marijuana, Kaufman broke character and refused to say his lines.

The other comedians were embarrassed by the position that Kaufman had put them in on a live television show. In response, Michael Richards walked off camera and returned with a set of cue cards and dumped them on the table in front of Kaufman. Andy responded by splashing Richards with water. Show emcee, comedian Jack Burns stormed onto the stage, leading to a brawl on camera before the show finally cut away to commercial. It was later revealed that this incident was a practical joke, and not all the actors were aware of this, although Kaufman added to the confusion by denying this.

Regardless, Kaufman appeared the following week in a videotaped apology to the home viewers. Later that year, Kaufman returned to host Fridays. At one point in the show, he invited a Lawrence Welk Show gospel and standards singer, Kathie Sullivan, on stage to sing a few gospel songs with him and announced that the two were engaged to be married, then talked to the audience about his newfound faith in Jesus. It was also a hoax.

Kaufman was constantly reinventing himself, becoming whoever he wanted to be whenever he wanted to be him. Inauthenticity and Andy Kaufman went hand in hand. And this is why I’ve been thinking on him lately.

Whether intentional or not, Kaufman exemplified the kind of schizophrenic life many live today. Like Kaufman, we are constantly reinventing ourselves, becoming a different person for different situations. Who we are at work may be very different than who we are at home or at church. For evangelical Christianity, this is an especially pervasive problem. A recent Barna survey found that for the most part, Christians are no different than non-Christians in their behavior. This means that who we claim to be in one situation is not who we actually are in another. Too often inauthenticity and the modern Christian go hand in hand.

It seems to me that for Christianity to capture the hearts and minds of our neighbors, we must first and foremost live authentic lives in this world. As WCK says, “We must first believe and live the Gospel before we can proclaim it to others.”

David Wells picks up on this idea as well:

The postmodern reaction against Enlightenment dogma will not be met successfully simply by Christian proclamation. Of that we can be sure. That proclamation must arise within a context of authenticity. It is only as the evangelical Church begins to put its own house in order, its members begin to disentangle themselves from all of those cultural habits which militate against a belief in truth, and begin to embody that truth in the way that the Church actually lives, that postmodern skepticism might begin to be overcome. Postmoderns want to see as well as hear, to find authenticity in relationship as the precursor to hearing what is said. This is a valid and biblical demand. Faith, after all, is dead without works, and few sins are dealt with as harshly by Jesus as hypocrisy. What postmoderns want to see, and are entitled to see, is believing and being, talking and doing, all joined together in a seamless whole. This is the great challenge of the moment for the evangelical Church. Can it rise to the occasion?

The moments of the Church’s greatest influence… have not been those when the Church reached for worldly power, or when it adapted to its culture, but when it sought to be authentic. The Church has been most influential in those moments when its contrition reached down deeply into its soul, when in its known weakness it cried out to God from the depths, when it sought to live by his truth and on his terms, when it sought to proclaim that truth in its world, when it was willing to pay the price of having that kind of truth, when it was willing to demand of itself that it live by that truth…. (Above All Earthly Powers, 315-316).

The apostle Paul’s gospel proclamation would have meant nothing had not his life reflected the truths he proclaimed. In 1 Thessalonians Paul reminds his readers that he shared not only the gospel of God, but his own self as well (2:8). The gospel was authenticated by his authentic life.

The difference between Andy Kaufman and the rest of us is this - at least Andy didn’t try to hide the fact that he was inauthentic. And so, in his life of multiple personalities and confusing hoaxes, maybe he was actually more authentic than any of us will ever be. Let’s pray that this be not the case.

Until then, watch these Kaufman clips - you’ll see that Kaufman was never who he claimed to be.

Clip 1 - At about the 5:50 countdown mark (3:50 into the clip), Andy begins talking about his newfound faith in Jesus:

Clip 2 - Here, you’ll see a completely different Kaufman.

Posted by Aaron | Filed Under Blog, Church and Culture, Humor 

Comments

One Response to “Andy Kaufman and the Authentic Christian”

  1. Chris on July 25th, 2007 11:29 am

    I have a copy of Lost in the Funhouse. Haven’t read it yet, but I’ll bring it with me tomorrow and loan it to you. See you then.

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