Southern Bread

I’m finding it so hard these days to cope with the ever-accelerating decent of Christian doctrine in this country. The church is focused on growth, growth, growth. Nothing matters except the numbers. This mindset is shown ever so well in that pinnacle of summer churchiness called VBS. I had commented to my wife before this year’s VBS race(like an arms race kind of, except with kids instead of warheads) began that it seemed like churches were in head to head competition with one another to claim the highest number of kids in their VBS program. That’s when I saw a journal post by everyone’s favorite Christianity-jaded rock drummer:

Also, we now know that “VBS” stands for “Vacation Bible School,” as the back roads and small towns of America are full of signs for that exciting-sounding activity. We were once bemused at passing a yellow schoolbus full of kids, the side of the bus carrying a banner reading “Soccer With Jesus.” What position do you suppose the Son of God would play? Have to be the coach, I suppose. And would that make Mary, the Mother of God, a soccer mom? (And if that’s sacrilegious, it’s certainly not more so than the banner on that bus.)

One Sunday morning in southern Pennsylvania, Michael commented on the Amish carriages we had been passing, with the little boys in their blue shirts and straw hats waving shyly at us from the back. Michael said he wanted to “save” those kids — by buying each of them a BMW R1200 GS motorcycle.

Different prophets have different ideas about saving others— but I guess even “motorcycling with Michael” might be more fun than “soccer with Jesus.”

But let’s talk about the weather.

Neil Peart, July Post

This is the kind of statement that the church needs to hear and heed. He’s right. “Soccer With Jesus” is sacrilegious. It’s also goofy and it doesn’t fool anyone. I recently saw a small church in the town I live in set up a small little carnival type thing on a Saturday where kids could come and jump in a moonwalk and, I suppose, hear about Jesus. What I wondered when I saw it was, what parent in their right mind would stop and let their kid play in some little carnival with a bunch of strangers when they know the whole time it’s just a way of getting you to listen to their Jesus pitch. I wouldn’t stop. Honestly the whole thing was a little on the creepy side when you looked at it from the road. Seriously though, what does Jesus have to do with soccer or moonwalks?

Those Amish kids that Neil and Michael saw really should be saved from that misguided system. But we have to realize that our system is misguided as well. The Amish have rejected modern affects out of hand and ended up with a monastic sub-culture that makes them unable to reach their society with the gospel. The major denominations on the other hand have embraced culture so much that we have made ourselves a caricature that is easy to dismiss because we look so foolish. Take the emergent church movement as an example. They have committed themselves to adapting theology and church life to our “current” post-modern culture. The problem is that post-modernism is anything but current. Nobody seriously embraces post-modernism anymore, and the e-church has become just another thing for the world to laugh at.

We need to rekindle the Christian mind. Our modern churches need to embrace theology, doctrine and clear thinking. True Christian theology meshes well with modern science. It also answers the most fundamental questions about life and meaning. “Soccer with Jesus” totally ignores that in favor of recruiting people so some pastor can say he has the biggest church on the block. Stop making yourself easy to ignore. Talk about the things that matter and God will be honored. Whether you have 100 kids in VBS or 3, or whether you even have VBS at all is irrelevant.