Nerding Day: The Way of the Christian Samurai (Patreon)

You have never seen nerding such as this. This book is the exposed belly of a nerd forged in the Lockers of Dork. Behold the focused totality of one weeb's devotion to Christ:

THE WAY OF THE CHRISTIAN SAMURAI: REFLECTIONS FOR SERVANT-WARRIORS OF CHRIST is a 2007 book about how going to church and being a samurai are, with the right head injury, not so different. By any standards, Christian or Samurai, it is a desperate metaphor. This book is the world's dumbest baby stuffing the wrong shape into a hole and calling it The Art of Circle Triangle. It's the same baby eating all the toys and calling it Food Shape: How All Shape is the Food. It's a paramedic finding that baby and writing Suffocating Baby / Regular Baby: Same Baby In a Lot of Ways - The 2 Hour Paramedic Work Week.

I don't know why I made this graphic, but you're welcome, God:

The book is overwhelmingly Bible quotes and passages from the Hagakure, which seems to be an etiquette book for 12th century nerds. It fucking sucks. It's boring, meandering, and the author makes points like a Christian trying to explain how going to church is like being a samurai. Hold on, something went wrong. He writes like a… Christian trying to explain how going to church is like being a samurai. Shit, I guess that absurdity is already maxed out. We'll have to do this without analogies.

Since the humiliation is already built right into the premise, let's just embrace it. Let's push up our glasses and assume we live on a world where Christianity is kind of like Bushido, you guys, and see if the author makes any sense. He doesn't. This is trash typed over the course of several weekends by the owner of a Blockbuster membership card with a supportive but very dishonest wife. For instance, he opens the book by saying Bushido (The Warrior Way) is not the same as The Christian Way, and then spends 108 pages hopelessly trying to explain all the ways he was wrong. It's ridiculous. It's like someone trying to explain how going to church is like being a sa– fuck, I already forgot.

You might be worried that at this level of whiteness and weebness, we're about to see some mystical racism. Sure! A little bit! But according to this quote the author found from 1925, that's a good thing.

I mentioned motivated reasoning earlier, the main theme of the book, and this is a good example of it. Someone rewrote the Bible so all of Jesus' friends were Chinese. A normal Christian might say, "I don't think you're supposed to change the Bible." A normal comic book fan might say, "Fucking woke Bible I am going to kill everyone." But a sword nerd working backwards from the conclusion that leads to them being a samurai might say, "In a way, doesn't 'Chinese' only make Jesus seem more magic? Let's give the 1552 man rewriting our Sacred Text and the 1925 man using racial slurs the benefit of the doubt."

I'm worried you already have a full understanding of the book, and I'm probably right. But like a samurai, maybe, let's continue anyway.

This is basically the author's entire inspiration. He learned most of a fun fact about the word "samurai" and thought, "Wait, serve? Serve!? I do that every day here within this fellowship of Christ! Why, look at this very bake sale I didn't want to attend! You know, totally sweet ancient warriors of Japan, we're not so different, you and me." It's too embarrassing to describe. It's like pitching a book called The Way of the Christian Samu– shit, this is going to be such a hard article to write.

To be fair, the author does know a lot about samurai. Let's try to take in some of his samurai knowledge, which we'll need if we're going to follow his complicated logic.

Paul mentions one of the eleven Seven Samurai remakes, Star Wars, just like in general, and The Last Samurai. I think that should do it, right? The author did, because we're almost done!

Samurai were awesome and dedicated, except when they weren't. The only thing left to tell you is a kickass full page drawing of a samurai.

Fuck yeah! That's you! That's us!!

Paul mentioned earlier how the word samurai translates to "one who serves." He clarifies that here by explaining how the word samurai translates to "one who serves." And in many ways, most of them, all of them, that's exactly like being a Christian.

You might be saying, "Ha ha, didn't samurai, like, sword fight to the death?" It's an interesting point, I'm glad you asked that. Christian Samurai love the challenge of a skeptic.

So yes, admittedly, a samurai's service was pretty demanding. "Go get torn apart by those ninjas," he might be told by his master, sure. Okay, but, and listen carefully to this part: isn't that the same as church, kind of? Maybe more so. If you understand, pause the anime, get right in your big brother's face, and tell him, "This is me! I'm this guy! My commitment to stamps club? The way I went back to swimming lessons after I got a boner? I am who this swordmaster would be if he came down from the stars and were alive today!"

"Don't worry about it if you're a piece of shit and can't do anything," says the author, like a real life samurai.

After this inspiring message, Paul quotes a famous story about the samurai so dedicated to his boss that during a house fire, he cut himself open and stuffed his master's family tree into his body. He heroically used his own wet corpse to protect it from the flames. Amazing! Obviously, this isn't the kind of thing you'd do as a Christian. Except… m-maybe… yeah! Yeah it is! Totally!

In an act of stoicism singular across all of history, this motherfucker made himself into a filing cabinet with a sword and Paul says every missionary understands this! "Um, I fully get taking your own life in blind dedication to a cause because after high school the church made me spend 9 days in Bolivia, and you can't even fly there direct from Boise."

So there you have it. Being told what to do makes you a samurai. "Is that it? Isn't there anything else?" you might be asking.

"S-shit, what? Anything else? Ye-yeah, of cou… yes. Yes," says the author while typing this stupid shit.

According to the Hagakure, samurai often learn by taking in knowledge from other people. We don't really have a word for it, but you take things other people tell you and then remember it. And in many ways, this same principle of learning things is also used by Christians. Speaking of learning, this demonstrates how badly an amateur philosopher can fuck things up when working backwards from their goal. The author thinks he's made a point, but he has, probably unintentionally, equated every person who has ever had a boss or learned a thing with the ancient warrior class known as "the samurai." This is how Fox News would tell its viewers that going to church is like being a samur– god damn it, I forgot again.

As astonishing as this may sound, Paul has more to say about this super cool connection between Christian learning and Samurai learning.

You know how you've heard the story of Noah's Ark a hundred times? You're never going to believe this, but…

Now that we're certain we are samurai as proven by service, service again, learning, and learning again, you might be concerned about the dangers. Not from sword fighting, obviously. I mean, we're having fun, but despite being exactly like samurai, some part of the author understands we're not anything like samurai. No, our main concern is what will happen if our master asks us to do something like die wrapped around a book to protect it from a fire. Or the Christian equivalent, pick up cups on our way to the Christmas recital. Well, we don't need to worry about questioning orders. Because our master is Jesus, dumbass.

This is all such ordinary Christian nonsense it might bounce off your brain, but I want to point out how in one paragraph Paul has wormed his way from an immutable truth to a bunch of whining about how the opposite is kind of true, and how that, when you think about it, is not unlike the samurai. If you gave this man a dime, a tube of toothpaste, and a blue ribbon cabbage for Most Not Like a Samurai, he would say, "Thank you for handing me three samurais."

While we're talking about samurai, you know what's cooler than samurai? Ronin. A Ronin or "Wave-Man" is a masterless samurai who wanders through awesome movies trading murder for steamed buns. Unfortunately, being a Christian is not the same as being a Ronin. Unless… unless, hold the fuck on, maybe they're exactly the same!?

Sometimes on the way to church you might say to your wife, "Why are we doing this? What are we, five-year-olds trying to stay up to trap a tooth fairy? Watch this. Hey, God! God!! See, nothing. He's just the club we had to join because we don't have any hobbies. You shrew. You harpy. Our religion is your fault for throwing out my Pokemon cards." It is in those periods, those "dry spells," where you are not too unlike the ronin.

Some of these ideas probably sound strange to Americans, or as they are known in the original Japanese, amerikanzu. Let's explore this culture gap some more with Paul Nowak, P.h.Christian.Samurai.

This is an idea smoothie dripping from the ears of a determined idiot, but it demonstrates one of the problems with Jesus logic. When you play with words for too long you eventually get to a point where nothing means anything and you accidentally do something like, I don't know, claim ancient Buddhist murderers understand Christianity better than Christians. Paul has fucking lost it, and remember: he started from a premise beyond the capacity of human crazy. To make matters worse, he still has more than half a book to write.

This is a problem. Does he even know how to do a second thing other than compare things to samurais? Like, does he understand human love outside the context of samurais?

I guess not. Let's keep going.

I'm not sure what he's getting at here. Not doing good things… because Jesus asked you to stop? Is… that? There's no way t-thats…

Paul actually tries to explain the last point, but I promise this won't help:

As promised, it won't make any more sense when you find out you're like a samurai when you ignore the bidding of your kind-hearted pastor. "We could really use you at the…" he starts to say as your blade, or "katana sword," sings through his torso in one powerful stroke. "Canned food drive," he finishes, unaware he's already dead. Speaking of, this next part is pretty rad.

A samurai lives his life as though his body has already died. A blameless ghost weapon. So fucking cool, and probably how Jesus would have framed His teachings if he read the same comic books as this author. I mean, the things are practically identical. Name one way they're not. Or better yet, let Paul name one way they sort of are:

Holy fucking shit, that's it? Paul says Christians are like invincible swordsmen living as though already dead because t-they sometimes wear cross jewelry and the cross is, when you think about it, a reminder of death? If I saw an ape write this on a chalkboard I would shoot it in the head and tell the other scientists, "Getting these damn things to think is never going to work."

Paul understands he's kind of stretched his metaphor linking Christians to samurai. After all, not every Christian will be lucky enough to get dismembered in a Shinogi-Zukuri duel. But on the other hand, maybe the metaphor is fine? Maybe worrying about your job is, in some ways, most ways, every way precisely like the concerns of the samurai? Never mind all that, though. I think what the book is getting at is that you Christians are super cool. You worship Jesus, own crosses, have concerns, learn facts– all traits of the Bushido warriors. You know you kick ass. But here's my concern… do other people know you're cool?

Hell yes, they do. People can tell you're cool just by looking at you, in many ways exactly like a samurai.

Let's move on to what I think is one of the most distinguishing aspects of the samurai, which is something the author will never have and immediately fucks up.

It only took this man one sentence to go from praising the single-mindedness of the samurai to waffling about several different topics and settling on none of them. This is fancy, high concept comedy. A love letter to resolve that wanders into five different words for doubt arranged in a meaningless order? I came here to make fun of you for pretending to be a samurai, you fucking weeb, not watch you teach a graduate course on irony. This book is like watching a below average Paul try to explain how going to church is like being a samurai. Damn it, I hope that gets fixed.

Of all the comparisons in the book, this is my favorite. Paul tells the story of Tesshu, the samurai who fought 1,004 duels in a row, stopping only to eat and sleep. It's an astounding feat, so impossible Google can only find reference to it in this book. Still, think about it. This man fought 502 men and told the next 502, "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up when one of you bitch asses figures out a way to beat me." That rules. And then after imagining such a majestic achievement, this clown, this absolute fucking dork, comes in and says, "You know, in a lot of ways? I did that."

He thought beating 1000 men in a row had something to do with paying attention at church! That's not a comparison! That's like a waiter saying, "We don't have Coke, is three bedpans of stolen bathwater okay?" Wait, did you see that? I made a different analogy! The curse is broken! All I need now is some kind of climax. Something so weeby it shouldn't be able to exist. Something like oh holy shit, something exactly like The Prayer of the Christian Samurai. Perfect. Arigato, Paul Nowak, PhCS.

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