THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARY - White Horse Inn
October 12, 2008 Commentary:
Getting Stupid
Hello and welcome to another broadcast of the White Horse Inn as we continue our series "Christless Christianity" and in this broadcast "Getting Stupid." Turn off your mind. Just follow your heart. I don't want to know about God; I just want to love him. I can write the Gospel on a dime. Not head knowledge, but heart knowledge. My theology? I wasn't aware I had any. We don't need some guy standing up front telling us what the Bible says; we need to experience community and just love each other and show the love of Jesus to the world. It's deeds, not creeds. I don't know why; I just love the Lord. Looking for a church that will give you a lift rather than a let-down? That will help you fix daily problems instead of give you a bunch of doctrines and rules? If you want to reach the unchurched, you've got to show them how faith can work for them, not bore them or burden them with the intricacies of religion. These and countless other quotes like them are drawn from evangelical writers from D. L. Moody to Rick Warren.
According to a host of historians, American evangelicalism not only was influenced by the culture of entertainment, pragmatism, and marketing but helped to shape it. In politics and religion alike, it seems, it's not what is said that matters as much as the way it is said, the spectacle that surrounds it, the tone, the publicity it generates, and the moving power of its sheer presentation. In church and state, we're ripe for anybody who can make us feel better-or at least feel better about feeling better, even if we can't exactly remember what he or she said.
In short, as a host of secular commentators and sociologists are documenting, we're becoming a stupid nation; a nation that regards stupidity as a virtue; shallowness as openness; silliness as relevance, and ignorance as bliss. Besides the obvious downsides of this trend in our culture more widely, it's probably the most dangerous threat to the Christian Faith. Stupidity is more dangerous than heresy; lazy minds are more of a threat than atheism. That's because the gospel is not a feeling, an experience, a slogan, a therapeutic technique, or a program, but news. And news has to be communicated, understood, explained, defended, explored, and interpreted. Christianity doesn't tell people to empty their minds, to turn within and contemplate their oneness with the universe. It doesn't advance its claims on the basis that it's a better, more helpful, more efficient, more fulfilling, or happier form of life. Rather, the whole thing rests on certain historical events that determine the meaning of creation, history, and our existence; that tell us who God is, who we are, how we are lost and how God has found and redeemed us, inserting us into his new creation. We're not just born with this gospel in our hearts; it isn't already there in our minds. It's not something that we just experience as spiritual beings. It's something that has to be delivered; truth that has to be taught and investigated. Folks, where the stakes are this high-with the last judgment still up ahead-you just can't afford to join this party. There's a time and place for being silly, for having fun, being entertained, going shopping, and hanging out with your friends without a lot of stuff on your mind. But if the world doesn't take the church seriously today, maybe it's because the church isn't serious about the things that matter most. "Getting Stupid" that is our tragic, but important subject in this edition of the White Horse Inn.
GettingStupid