Off-the-Counter Christianity
It was said in jest, but not without some accuracy. The statement suggested that we, Americans, are the healthiest hypochondriacs in the world. Indeed, people often go from doctor to doctor, or from pharmacy to pharmacy, seeking a prescription, or off-the-counter medications, for what they fear may be physically wrong with them.
And just as this is true with real or imagined physical maladies, spiritual hypochondria is also becoming an increasing reality in American society. While several individuals manifest a spiritual hunger, many others seem to be seeking satisfaction in the wrong religious outposts. Oriental faiths are gaining new followers, while cults of various origins continue to multiply in today’s society.
Even within Christianity, some people now appear to prefer theological “fast-food” or even “junk-food,” which they get not from one supplier only, but from many. So, individuals or entire families go to one place for “praise and worship.” somewhere else for “Bible study,” then to another dispenser for the “preaching,” or still elsewhere for “fellowship” or a small group experience, and so on. Instead of manifesting the “communion of the saints,” they practice the “circulation of the saints.”
As good American pragmatists, they dislike the ways which previous generations of Christians maintained in diligently seeking all things from God, in equipping themselves for God, and in developing a more thorough understanding of what God has revealed in His written Word, the Bible. All that used to be done under the oversight and discipline of one local assembly of believers, recognized as a Christian’s spiritual home, is now being substituted. And this diversification is a problem which most do not realize!
Alas, the religious priority of many is now shifted into what will make them feel good, often with the least effort or commitment on their part, instead of the sometimes painful obedience which God never stopped demanding from all His children, not to mention the more severe allegiance and full homage which is due unto Him alone.
In this instant, push-button, contemporary society, many expect the “celestial bellhop” to provide swift, ready answers to whatever whims they wish to see satisfied, whenever they make the request. In some ways, the attitude is summarized in the words of a popular Christian song, suggesting that “just a little talk with Jesus makes it right.” But it doesn’t! It requires much more than that! And because of a person’s hurry and impatience, when things don’t happen as anticipated, disappointment sets in, and even God Himself gets blamed, though the real problem is one’s faulty expectations.
The hypochondria may continue but the remedies sought, and the nourishment they go after, won’t provide consistent healing either, unless there is a rediscovery and practice of the old imperatives of commitment to God and His Truth, accountability to those appointed as spiritual overseers in one local congregation, diligent focus in both learning and living out the faith.
Christians in general, and leaders in particular, are to teach others how to avoid short-cuts in their daily walk. In so doing, people are reminded that in Christian living as in any other major endeavor, the dictionary is the only place where “success” comes before “work.” A superficial, weak faith, will never suffice in meeting new challenges which confront us with greater intensity today than ever before.
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Can you share a story of what this means in your local context? Can you share what you see God doing to help people move to places of greater faith and love? I always find it so hard to summarize all of what God is doing in one country and perhaps even harder to know what to do with a mass of humanity when God so often directs me to the individual.