Article on Increase of “Fake” Christians

I came across this article on CNN the other day regarding one author’s spin on the state of American “Christian” teens today. She described them as “fake”, “indifferent and inarticulate about their faith”, riding in the swell of “therapeutic moralistic deism” only to find themselves lost at sea when they realize they’re in a boat without paddles, which is why so many who grow up in church, seemingly raised well, end up abandoning their faith once they move out of their parents’ homes.

This epidemic is not just confined to teens – I think she’s identifying a much larger problem spanning people of all ages across the Western world and now infiltrating even places like Africa and Asia; when the Gospel is altered to be more marketable (“do this and say that and then you’re in the club”) and it’s astounding truth and beauty is covered up to make it less “offensive”, we end up peddling something we think everyone wants but the cries of our innermost being cannot find satisfaction in, and so we enter into a vicious cycle of disappointment, thinking “There must be something more… but nothing satisfies.”

I really appreciate this quote from the article: “We think that they want cake, but they actually want steak and potatoes, and we keep giving them cake.”

We keep watering down the Gospel concerned about making it more palatable. It’s easier that way. In keeping with the above analogy, it’s easier to pour out a box mix for cake, bake it, and smother it with icing than it is to serve a perfectly grilled steak, and the overabundance of cake-theology is, rightly so, making people nauseous. You can’t survive on cake. Your faith can’t survive on just the parts that tickle your ears and boost your self-esteem – a faith without any substance, any meat, will eventually be vomited up and you’ll go looking for something else to chew on to get that bad taste out of your mouth, and millions of people are doing just that.

But the true Gospel is very meaty. To be sure, there are parts that are sweet, but when we pick and choose from the Gospel like a buffet we miss out on having a full-course meal. And so people who are served watered-down, sugar-coated theology are starving, but in the name of seeker-sensitivity we keep jamming down their throats the same things they’re spitting back out. It’s no wonder people leave the church because they “just aren’t getting anything out of it” – they come hungry and leave starving.

This may appear as a call to pastors and preachers, but it is a call to every Christian to step up our game and quit feeding ourselves and others garbage, to get out of our comfort zones and remember what is at stake – God’s glory being made known around the world, and the souls of the millions upon millions who don’t know Him or have been so inoculated to the Gospel that they think they know Him but are clueless about Him. When you look at each conversation, each encounter with a friend or stranger, each spare moment that could be used to grow in your relationship with the Lord, and put it in perspective with eternity, we should be taken aback with the gravity of our call to share the Gospel in word and action. Those are very deep, meaty things.

While my comments seem to go on a tangent from what the CNN article is about, I am thankful that God used it to remind me of the weight of the task He has given to me and to all who claim to be Christians – to nonbelievers and “believers” alike, our first and foremost task is to share and live out the Gospel. When that doesn’t happen, we leave ourselves and others starving.