Out of fear of coming across as cynical, I want to be clear that I think I Am Second gets an A+ for intentionality. I think the feelings and sentimentalities that fuel this campaign are great. Providing hope for the desperate, relief for the addicted, and fulfillment for the searching is terrific and, I think, absolutely commendable. That being said, I am afraid that their ability to count and/or their understanding of what it means to live for Christ is…well…less than great.

In an age where rubber bracelets pull double duty as sacred relics and indicators that people care, without sacrificing their time or significant finances, these black I Am Second bracelets ostensibly teach that the adorners of said bracelet are not first; Jesus is. This is where their mathematical/ideological deficiencies come in.

If Jesus is first in your life (at least the Jesus found in his proper New Testament context) then you, like me, should understand that you are not second. If I was in fact buying into their hierarchical metaphor (which I am not) then your black bracelet, at best, should say I Am Third. But this is, of course, assuming that you count “others” as a collective noun and assign them a value of 1. If “others” are actually individuals, which is an idea Americans adore, then each bracelet would need to be custom made depending on each believers peer group, church size, school size, and maybe Facebook friend count.

To be both general and theologically accurate I think each bracelet should say I Am Last. But this is, I’m afraid, not very marketable and, if we are honest, inconvenient. But how many other commandments are deemed inconvenient by a majority of people who call themselves believers (turn the other cheek, don’t resist an evil person, love your enemies etc.)

The point is, the people at I Am Second should be producing bracelets with far larger numbers. The fact that they are not is yet another goofy example of how individualistic thinking has invaded the American Church, and how practitioners of the Christian faith can utter phrases that are completely contradictory to the narrative found in our sacred text and yet be completely sure that they are uttering some deep, spiritual, truth.