GK Chesterton famously responded to The Times’ question, “What’s wrong with the world?,” by answering simply, “Dear Sirs, I am.” Sheldon Vanauken made a similar point when he remarked that “the strongest argument against Christianity is Christians.” Both men refer, of course, to sin.
But today, we Christians have really outdone ourselves. We’ve somehow managed to become into an argument against the faith even when we’re not succumbing to immorality at all. For in addition to the ubiquitous scandals of our sin, contemporary Christianity has another problem, perhaps responsible for even more damage to its evangelical efficacy. Our faith has become, in a word, cheesy.
We live in a land of WWJD bracelets, Jesus-is-my-homeboy t-shirts, Jesus-is-my-boyfriend music, and “Tebowing.” We traverse a “Christian” landscape as garish as a Thomas Kinkade painting, strolling to the beat of that sickly sweet poem about footprints.
With these as the most recognizable symbols of our faith, is it any wonder its former adherents fall away disillusioned, or that potential newcomers fail to take it seriously? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.” First impressions today would suggest that God is something more like a Care Bear.
Frankly, despite having been inculcated with all of this indulgent silliness from a young age, I find it hard to sympathize with the cheerleaders of this style of discipleship. There are good principled arguments against much of this sentimental excess, of course. But to be honest, my reaction is more visceral than principled. It actually turns my stomach to see the fullness of truth so belittled.
As the CS Lewis character in Freud’s Last Session says of his church’s hymns, it’s rather “like dipping a chocolate bar in sugar: unbearably cloying.” The problem with them, he says, is that “they trivialize emotions I already feel.” (The real Lewis, by the way, commented that such songs were just “fifth rate poetry set to sixth rate music.” We Christians built Chartres and crafted the Pala d’Oro; I’m confident we can improve upon “On Eagle’s Wings.”)
Contra the intentions of those sketching this Technicolor caricature of Christianity, such indulgent expressions diminish rather than augment the grandeur of the faith. The issue with cheesiness is that it makes Christianity appear unserious—not in the sense that it looks joyful as opposed to somber, but in the sense that it looks like a pleasant (if sickly sweet) fantasy rather than the ultimate truth about life, the universe, and everything.
The Church’s doctrine answers the most important questions we can pose. Her instruction infallibly guides us in moral living. Her sacraments effectuate our very salvation. Yet we would trade the blood of Christ for the Kool-Aid of pop Christianity. Even if we don’t drink judgment upon ourselves, we’ll still end up with one hell of a stomachache.
These widespread bastardizations of religious devotion inspired Thomas Bergler to write an entire dissertation on the immaturity of our contemporary faith lives. In The Juvenilization of American Christianity, he argues that the twentieth-century focus on making religion palatable to our young people had the pernicious consequence of making youth-group devotion the default model for Christians of all ages. As he puts it, like it or not, “We’re all adolescents now.”
And ironically, as is apt to happen when we edit the faith to fit the times, our cheesy rebranding has made Christianity seem irrelevant to the very young people it was supposed to be made marketable to. The reason is simple: This dumbed-down version of orthodoxy offers them nothing they cannot attain without it.
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