Shifting the Focus

I again must apologize for the depressing nature of the material in this chapter. It is disturbing, but it is real. We know it to be true. Most often we choose to ignore it, considering it a problem for the priests and not the common plebeian. This cannot be the case. The step to overcoming a problem is to admit that it exists. Let us then focus not on the existence of the problem, but in its solution. If we know what we do not want, we come all the closer to knowing what we do.

According to Gallup surveys, 94 percent of Americans believe in God and 74 percent claim to have made a commitment to Jesus Christ. These figures are shocking when compared to statistics on the same group for unethical behavior, crime, mental distress, family failures, addictions, financial misdealings, and the like. 

As I said, depressing. If Christianity is supposed to bring all sorts of new, eternal life to the individual, why do the lives of Christians appear so ordinary and messed up?

Could such combination of profession and failure really be the "life and life abundantly" that Jesus said he came to give? 

NO! The life Christ offers, the life he lived, is so much more than ordinary. It was world changing! It brought about the greatest, most influential shift in human culture to date. It broke the world and reformed it into something new, something lasting, something eternal. This is the life we see in the Bible. Barring a few exceptions, this is NOT the life we see in the world.

Are we to suppose that God gives us nothing that really influences character and spirituality? Are we to suppose that in fact Jesus has no substantial impact on our "real lives"?

Picture you were being sold a car. You are told it is an electric car, full of the latest and greatest gas-saving technology. It starts on a dime, requires less maintenance and work, and will make your life better in a hundredfold ways. You are told Thomas Edison actually drove one of these, and that is why he was able to make so many inventions and spend so much of his time improving the world for the rest of us.

Then you ask to see everyone who is currently driving these cars. Surely, you consider, if these cars are so very life changing, then I should see lives that have been changed. But as you look around your neighborhood at the people who have purchased vehicles from this dealer, you see them driving with the same angry faces. Every two hundred miles they stop to fill up their cars like everyone else. Their vehicles break down, cause them multiple expenses, and many people become so disillusioned with the vehicle that they give up and sell the cars. We would likely go back to that car dealer and ask him if he actually sells any of the cars he was telling us about. To which he would reply, "Well, no. But Thomas Edison drove one, so we know it's possible that some day our models could do what his did."

I think what we are "selling" is irrelevant to our real existence and without power over daily life. 

"But wait!" you cry. "Maybe we are "selling" the right thing, and people just aren't maintaining them correctly." Sure, maybe everyone around is driving their "Christian car" the wrong way in the wrong direction at the wrong time.

But now let us try out a subversive thought. Suppose our failures occur, not in spite of what we are doing, but precisely because of it. Why are we able to claim many conversions and enroll many church members but have less and less impact on our culture? Why are Christians indistinguishable from the world?

I believe there are those who, when sold this unimpressive car, decide to take it directly back to the manufacturer (God, for those who have been lost in my metaphor). After returning the vehicle that was sold to them, they go out driving a totally different model that seems to fulfill many, if not all, of the previous promises. At this point I would greatly imagine that the dealers are where we are getting it wrong.

History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin. Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message.The current gospel then becomes a "gospel of sin management". What is taught as the essential message about Jesus has no natural connection to entering a life of discipleship to him.

 Am I getting the picture across? We have this absolutely wonderful life, shown to us, preached to us, but always seemingly withheld from us. It is as though we are being sold something completely different than every brochure and advertisement we've ever seen. At first glance, the modern Christian message is false advertisement on a global scale. The good news is, we don't have to settle for what we're being given. We can trade-in. We can upgrade. We can get what we were promised and what we ought to have. 

At this point I will leave the metaphor of the car and wholly discuss the life and gospel of the modern day Christian. But not until tomorrow. I'll see you back here then.