Prostituting God

"I think people use the Holy Spirit the way they would a prostitute."

It was kind of a  shocking statement my friend made in our Sunday morning study. He knew it would be, and he apologized before making it, but still he had a point he wanted to make. 

"Christians use God just to feel better," he said. We're not quite so interested in actually doing what God says; we're not really interested in being like Christ. We want to feel a certain way. God is there to make us feel good, to make us feel satisfied.

I'd been about to say something myself--about how Christians react rather than act, and so we have this tendency to live unbalanced lives--but I was, first of all, caught up in what he was saying and, secondly, not willing to push the study into worship-service time (I'm not the study leader, after all). My friend had just made an important point worth mulling over:  The average Christian values a certain kind of experience over and above actual obedience to God. Christians use God.

It put me in mind of something the late Chuck Colson had written in one of his books--that he'd been studying then-current "successful Christian living" books and had a problem with them. "They were all telling me how to get more out of my faith, while I wanted to know how to put more into it." (Roughly remembered paraphrase here; you get the gist of it.) 

The heart of the matter is simple:  Does God exist for me, or do I exist for him? I can't think of any Christian of any stripe who would say:  "God exists for me, of course!" But I can think of plenty of times when I've acted as if God exists for me. God is supposed to make me feel better about myself, comfort me when I'm sorrowful, and make repentance simple and easy. He's supposed to accept my excuses for sin and forgive me and understand that I'm only human and might just go back and do the same thing all over again.

In the United States at least, people tend to think of "spiritual" experiences as "emotional" experiences. They don't need to involve any lasting change of character or personality. They are like one-night stands. It's all about the pleasure they give; no commitment is required.

Is there a way out of this? Yes; it's called "discipleship." It begins when a person decides to let his/her teacher shape every aspect of his/her own life. That means likes, dislikes, understanding of morality, sense of right and wrong, priorities--everything. And if it doesn't cut against the grain of my life sometimes (maybe even most of the time), then I may be in danger of using God for my own means.

Why “Worldview” isn’t enough

Okay, so “worldview” is and has been the buzzword in conservative Christian circles for a while now. It’s all about worldview, you see. In the great American culture wars, presenting and converting people to your worldview is the key to victory. Or so you’d think, considering all the noise you’ll hear about worldview.

Here’s just one example. Someone I know well and deeply respect recently made this statement:  “The biggest failure of the Church today is its failure to pass on a Christian worldview to our children.” He meant by this that the church, at least in America, was losing teens and young adults because they were being secularized. Their parents, pastors, and youth leaders weren’t teaching them to think in a Christian way, and this was why they were either leaving their churches or straying while staying (staying in the pews but straying from the church’s teachings).

As I said, people I deeply respect are the ones saying these things. I don’t intend to mock or ridicule those who think this way, but I respectfully disagree with the emphasis on worldview. The first problem with worldview is this:  Worldviews are effect, not cause. You hold the worldview you have because you’ve seen certain things from a certain perspective. It’s more than what you’ve been taught; worldview is as much emotional as rational. It’s not rational, for example, to root for the underdog. How you felt about your mom and dad (or church, if you attended one) likely played as big a part in taking or rejecting their values as any rational breakdown of those values
.

The second problem with the worldview argument is that it’s not, in fact, the biggest failure of the Church (or church) today. Our biggest failure has really been the same all along. It’s not a muddled worldview but a simple failure to live up to Christ Jesus. We say all these things about him; we talk about being disciples; we call him “Lord,” and are left in the same place as the disciples to whom Jesus said:  “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46, ESV)

Intellectual arguments are attractive. Obedience issues are not. Framing arguments to influence worldviews will be much more fun than giving food to a beggar or holding our tongues when we’re angry. And, let’s admit it, there’s something convenient about blaming apostasy on something besides the mere fact that we aren’t all that much like the Jesus we call Lord. I respectfully suggest that it is time to work on seeing Christ Jesus as he says we are supposed to see him. Then we can work on how we see the world.

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