Has the Church assumed a “Quick Fix” posture?

Has the Church assumed a “Quick Fix” posture?

     In a word…yes!

     Somewhere along the line, (or perhaps lots of “somewheres”) the Church has moved from understanding the process of following Jesus to misunderstanding it as an (solitary) act of following Him. One is about the fact that following Him is a journey, while the other defines it as an event.

     Evangelical Christianity in particular has reduced the whole of experiencing Christ to a single experience with Him. Having been raised in a conservative Christian home, I was raised to believe in an experience that we called, “being saved.” I still hold to this basic theology but see crossing the line of faith as the beginning of an eternal relationship with Christ, the beginning of a process, not the end. Paul seems to agree with this in Philippians 3:12-14. 

     There are many metaphors in Scripture given to help us understand this relationship. One is the metaphor of marriage. Anyone who believes the marriage ceremony and honeymoon to be the end of the marriage process have either not been married or have most probably not been successfully married. The exchange of vows and consummation of marriage is only the beginning. Every day of marriage is another step in the process of knowing one another on a deeper level, responding with love to the desires of the other and discovering the joy that comes by pleasing the other person.

     Another metaphor which describes “the way” is the maturation process of human beings. Jesus talked about the “birth process” and Paul describes “stages” of maturity (babies who drink milk and more mature believers who eat meat, for example). Babies aren’t born as mature adults, for which birth-giving mothers are thankful, and yet all mothers expect their babies to eventually learn to take care of themselves and become independent adults.

     Defining Christianity as an event rather than a process is problematic for several reasons. One, we set expectations unrealistically high for new believers which frustrates both them and the Church. Two, we remove both the new believer’s motivation to spiritually mature and our responsibility to disciple them. Three, the attrition rate is unsatisfactorily high because those who have come to faith are quickly disillusioned because the trouble-free, prosperous life which was advertised cannot be delivered. But perhaps most troublesome is that defining Christianity in a one-stop, quick-fix, easy answers kind of way, robs those who choose to walk with Jesus the beautiful experience of building a lasting, trusting, and progressive relationship with the Savior. What God desires, after all, is to be in meaningful relationship with His creation…us.

     So the next time you are tempted to simplify the adventure of following Jesus to “a formula and a prayer,” remember this: If that’s all your relationship with Christ consists of, it is most likely a shallow relationship at best and perhaps no relationship at all. Don’t cheat others out of the “bigger-than-life” adventure of getting to know Jesus.