Reap What You Sow

I read an article on Slate magazine today called "Pop Goes Christianity" by Hanna Rosin. Reading it would probably throw at least 50% of American evangelical Christians into a tailspin. Read it here and enjoy the ride.

I've lived in a Christian bubble most of my life. When I tell someone about my religious upbringing I feel a bit like the apostle Paul when he called himself a "Pharisee of Pharisees." I've graduated from a Christian college, seminary and post-grad university, worked for a Christian denominational headquarters as an editor of Sunday School curriculum, served as a youth and worship arts pastor, and on and on.

And it's not that I think that's all wrong, or wrong at all. I'm glad for those experiences and certainly don't take them for granted or fail to recognize that God opened the doors for me to those places throughout my life's journey.

Still, Ms. Rosin's article feels like a splinter in my religious finger, and I thank her for pricking me there. There's no denying that her observations and critiques are fairly accurate; she's not caricaturing modern American evangelical Christians. Rather, she paints a disturbingly life-like portrait of us albeit from a particular angle--that of our Christian sub-culture or Christian pop-culture. (To glimpse at the subject she's questioning, simply walk into any Christian bookstore and take a good gander.) This subculture we've created for ourselves she aptly describes as "like coming across another planet hidden somewhere on Earth where everything is just exactly like it is here except blue or made out of plastic."

And here's where I think she's spot on: She asks, "Isn't there something so thoroughly wrong with commercializing all aspects of faith? . . . What does commercializing do to the substance of belief?"

What does it do indeed?

I preached a sermon once in which I poked fun at just the sort of thing she's decrying. I asked how the heck a box of test-a-mints or a Thomas Kincaid bible (or some of my favorite pieces of Christian kitsch--You go Jesus!) bring us any closer to God (let alone aid us in sharing our faith). There was consternation on the part of more than a few to be sure. Yet the question still remains: If we as Christians have so cocooned ourselves in our own synthetic universe, how are we to reach out and touch the real (albeit fallen) world with the reality of Jesus Christ? And let me be the first to admit, I'm a lot better talker than I am doer.

Jesus employed the metaphor of salt to describe those of His kingdom--the Kingdom of God (Matt. 5:13). Salt alone on your tongue stings, it bites, it's that strong. It makes bland food desireable. It preserves meats left to cure in it. It heals wounds. The kind of crap our Christian pop-culture produces is more akin to sugar than salt. It's sweet on the tongue. Satisfies temporarily. Eventually it leads to corpulence and decay.

Sometimes I think we're (myself included) living so far from the Kingdom of God that we're not going to be able to find our way back when we wake up and come to our senses. We look and taste and behave nothing like salt. We have become high fructose corn syrup!

Forgive my french, but why in the frick would anyone want to be a Christian when they look at the sanitized culture, our ersatz faith? Seriously. Or closer to home, what about it makes me want to continue on my journey with Jesus? Why have so many of us verged on giving up on our faith or even walked away altogether?

In his letter to the Christians in Galatia, Paul warned (in the good ol' KJV), "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting" (6:7-8).

What in God's name are we sowing these days?

Kyrie Eleison. Have mercy, Lord.