I realize it makes people awkward when I am as adamant as I am about righeousness as a standard for those who truly believe. But really, this is what our world is waiting for, whether we believe it or not. All of creation groans and waits for the sons of God to be revealed.
I could go into more scriptures to talk about this, but the problem is that there are line by line doctrines out there to help you support whatever you want to believe. So if you’re still reading what I say, then you’re either a glutton for punishment (like a die-hard Nancy Pelosi fan who listens to Sean Hannity) or you have enough of a heart for truth that you’ll endure my rambling to get something of value.
What I call our “anemic” Christianity can be traced back, in many cases, to conversion. I’m going to give a more natural example today to make my point … which I could support scripturally … I’m just going a different route.
Did you know that in much of the world, they potty train their children by the time they are a year old? Well, it is true. They begin training them at 6 months, usually as soon as they can sit, and most, if not all, are trained by the end of their first year.
Did you also know that a bulk of your foundational personality is formed during the same time frame? These children are taught, early, that this is what it means to be a person: you poop and pee in the potty. They don’t really know a different definition or expectation.
And this isn’t the “rage” or “new” in these places. These are age old cultures. It takes our extreme progress to retard children at least an extra year or two (or three) before they can learn to put their waste in a toilet.
Let’s look at what we, as Americans do. We wait until the basic aspects of their personality are set, until they have a firm grasp of themself as a person, and they are also in the most stubborn stage of their life so far. NOW we try to teach them how to put that junk in the toilet.
Do you realize what we do? Their waste management identity is in putting poop in a diaper. And they are naturally beginning to assert their independence (walking, running, jumping, talking, exploring, etc.). At this stage, we attempt to retrain their whole minds, against their will many times, to do something totally different.
But why would they want to? We have to manipulate them with rewards, or “wait ’till they’re ready” to be a big boy or girl. They were actually ready more than a year before, when they were completely caught up in mommy and daddy and not stubbornly trying to assert their independence.
Not to mention that we’ve made it comfortable to crap in a diaper. Our plastic technology has allowed these children to exercise no self control, no inconvenience to them, all in complete comfort. Ah, America.
So how do these other countries do it? First of all, they believe that they can. It is amazing what you can do with faith. Second, it is out of necessity. It takes time, deep relationship with the child (you have to know their “poop face”), and it is very inconvenient. You must be intentional. You use cloth diapers so it becomes immediately uncomfortable. Which means you, the parent, has to wash poopy diapers instead of just throwing them away to take up space in our nice landfills. And laundering diapers is motivation for the parents, too, to get this potty training on the road.
And we’re not even talking about the places where diapers aren’t much of an option, so potty training is even more of a natural necessity.
I don’t ultimately care when you potty train your kid, but this is an analogy for what we do with baby Christians.
Upon conversion, in usually the most formative time when Christians will believe ANYTHING because they are so wrapped up in the God that takes away the sin of the world (a sobering time when many things can go very right or very wrong), they aren’t taught to rely upon the Holy Spirit for everything and that living a righteous life will be the result. Many aren’t given any real teaching at all, except come to a service and tithe ten percent (in other words, be a Christian consumer, not a participant). And some of the teaching that is given actually tells them they will sin all the time and not to ever expect to live up to a righteous standard.
We, in effect, place spiritual pampers on these people and convince them this is what it means to be a Christian. And while my son had the example of his father using a toilet, most of our professional ministers walk around wearing the same spiritual diaper, so the anemia is reinforced.
God forbid we tell them, at the very outset when their identity in Christ is being formed, that they have the power of creation within them now, the Christ that was there at the creation and died and rose again, and that with God “all things are possible.” They might actually go out and turn the world upside down instead of attend our nicely organized programs.
Instead we wonder why we have a whole generation of immature Christians without any spiritual self control. And since our experience in such matters (i.e., our common Christianity) doesn’t match up with the testimony of the New Testament, we have to re-interpret scripture to feel like we’re okay, coming up with doctrines like a “second work of grace” or “carnal Christians.”
Why would “carnal Christians” ever change? We’ve made it completely comfortable and convenient for them to be so. Just sit back and be entertained and moved. It’s even online now. You don’t have to leave your house to feel like you’re participating. And leaders are not inconvenienced when maturity doesn’t materialize … unless people stop attending and giving. Then they pay attention.
And the few Christians in the pew who try to live and spread the Kingdom of God either become dangerously frustrated or we make them missionaries or give them positions in our organizations. God forbid such passion becomes “normal Christianity.”
The “paradigm shift” needed is so fundamental that it goes beyond models of organic church or megachurch. It goes way deeper than that.
And lucky me, I get to be one of the men that people whine and pout about because I tell them it’s time to take off the diaper and wear Big Jesus pants.
Peace.
Amen!