Watered Down Whiskey and the Glory of the Gospel
The Protestant Liberalism of the early 20th century often spoke of finding the kernel at the heart of the Bible's teachings while removing the accretions of religious myth and miraculous language. This reductionism was their attempt to salvage the Christian message in a scientific age where things like a 6-day creation or resurrection from the dead were offensive to reasonable secular people. J. Gresham Machen wrote his masterful Christianity and Liberalism in response to this movement redefining American Christianity. He observed that what was left was an entirely different religion, not to be confused with historic Christianity. With those "accretions" stripped out, the remaining kernel had been distorted and reshaped according to modern man's thinking such that there was no Christianity left but something else.
This pattern has continued with much preaching and teaching in modern Evangelicalism, though the stripped-away portions have changed. There are a variety of opinions and debates about what one is allowed to remove and what kernel of biblical teaching should remain. But the effect is the same; what's left is something different than Christianity. What's left is an entirely different sort of thing than what has been passed down to us in the Creeds, Confessions, and most notably in the Scriptures themselves. What is no longer of much concern is the materialist problems in the text of Scripture and the teachings of Christianity - things like miracles and resurrections and God's remarkably efficient six day creation. These things are of little concern to modern pop culture. What is always stripped away in these scenarios is what our neighbors find offensive or unsettling. In our day, that means essentially two things: 1) The Bible's teachings on sexuality and sex, and 2) the troubling language of judgment, the infinite divide of the antithesis, and the death of the myth of neutrality. Regarding the first, we must strip it or water it down because it does not fit our age's flat, egalitarian emphasis. Or perhaps better to use the Bible's language here: It does not serve our lusts. and the Second must be stripped away because, in our therapeutic age, such distinctions make everybody feel bad - as though there might be people we know at enmity with God.
The troubles with this are legion, but I want to focus on one: This approach to Christianity strips it of the richness, beauty, and joy that is given freely by our God. It is of particular concern to me because it leads to the anemic Christianity that has rooted itself in and around Denver, Colorado. The sort of Christianity grown up in the front range of Colorado is like watered-down whiskey. Not whiskey with a drop or two of water added to unlock the flavor, but the sort of "watered-down" where you can't taste the whiskey. Like a high schooler's Jack and Coke, the Coke is present in quantities sufficient to drown out any taste of whiskey. But what you're left with is simply flat cola with a funny taste.
Instead of homes filled with the cheerful tumult of children chasing dragons, the smells of warm bread, and the joys of marriage, we have the never-ending frat scene of 30-year-olds sipping cocktails, gutting themselves for a feeble and impotent promiscuous sexuality. Instead of the glory of the church gathered to sing with artistic beauty and wonder, the thundering of God's word, and the feasting joy of God's table, we have smoke machines, professional musicians, and therapeutic messages designed to avoid offending the sensibilities of the people who aren't in the room yet. Instead of strong men and beautiful women embracing the full range of God's diverse and often gendered wisdom, we have an increasingly genderless monoscape sipping well-made coffee (Why is it that no matter what else is dying in a civilization, the coffee just gets better?)
Most of all, we are left with a domesticated god. A God who rarely offends without extended qualifiers. Preachers who spend 15 minutes warning their audiences and qualifying with all the linguistic nuances before they mention a text like "Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord" or "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man" or "The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers." God is no longer free to offend us. He is no longer allowed to frighten us. He is no longer allowed to contradict us. He is only allowed to delight and comfort us. The gospel bids us to come and die, but instead we celebrate a gospel where the God revealed in Scripture must hide himself lest we feel unsafe or uncomfortable. But in domesticating this god, we have killed any chance at the sort of fullness of life, joy and glory Jesus promises us. We live in an age of unbearable lightness, lacking the weighty substance God created us for. We have what we have demanded of God and Christianity, a thin, comforting accouterment to our modern, largely secular lives. We've drowned our whiskey in store-brand cola, forsaking the difficulty and the glory of what God has given us.
The road forward entails a rebellion of sorts. We must rebel against every instinct which winces when it reads the text of Scripture. An older, faithful minister sat in my living room a few years ago, answering questions from a room full of younger pastors and church-planters. He was asked what one bit of advice he would give the young pastors in the room. He responded, "Resolve now, before you ever step into the pulpit, to follow the text of Scripture wherever it leads." One young guy in the back blurted, "But everyone will leave my church!" The older pastor responded, "Follow the text wherever it leads."
This is no mere fundamentalist rigidity. This is the path to savoring the very fatness of life. It is simple, but it is hard. Most glorious things are difficult. Raising children with joy and to know and fear the Lord is difficult. Worshipping with God's people, in the beauty of holiness is difficult; it involves things like learning music and learning how to use our voices together. Warm hospitality with rich food and wine is difficult, but it is marvelous. Learning to trust and delight in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is hard, but it is the fount of real faith. Stop looking for the kernel that does not offend. Stop watering down your whiskey. Drink it straight, share it straight. Eventually, you'll stop wincing, and with some practice, you'll begin to taste the richness and its multiplying flavors.