Spiritual Fast Food

WWJD. A few years ago these letters appeared on bracelets and were repeated at youth conferences. "What would Jesus do?" It's a great question, but it's application was often superficial and lacked content. Without theological instruction (helping students dive head first into Scripture rather than wading in the shallow end) and thoughtful application (prayer, worship, and obedience) all this movement did was drive students toward cultural obedience and make them more sensitive to peer pressure. Sure, that norm and peer pressure came from the Christian community, but without the depth of theology and personal experience with God, that influence is easily usurped by the world. Social conformity and peer pressure are not the same thing as the liberating, life-changing work of the Holy Spirit.

Gordon Fee writes, "Contemporary Christians have a right to be concerned. In an increasingly secular, individualistic, and relativistic world–dubbed "post-Christian" in the 1960s and now called "postmodern"–the church is regularly viewed as irrelevant at best and Neanderthal at worst. Frankly, much of the fault lies within the church, especially those of us in the church who pride ourselves in being orthodox with regard to the historic faith. For all too often our orthodoxy has been either diluted by an unholy alliance with a given political agenda, or diminished by legalistic or relativistic ethics quite unrelated to the character of God, or rendered ineffective by a pervasive rationalism in an increasingly nonrationalistic world." (Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God, by Gordon D. Fee)

We tend to point our fingers at outside forces to explain the current state of things, but Scripture won't let us do that. Yes, the world is screwed up. It has been since the fall, continues on a suicidal course now, and will continue down that road till Jesus returns. That is a Biblical given. But we are to be salt and light. If we are less effective in that role today, then we have to point the finger back toward ourselves and ask, "Why?" Politics, legalistic responses to the soul-crushing immorality around us, and a rationalism divorced from experience have sucked away the vitality of the gospel. We have allowed ourselves to be shaped by the sin of the world. Our reaction to sin has too often been to look at the effectiveness of the world's methods - the fads, hype, and instant gratification - and adopt its superficial methods of coercion. The result has been spiritual fast food.

Where does Fee find a cure? In the Holy Spirit. This might sound like a pat answer, but such a belief reveals a spiritual cynicism and the diminished role we have given God in our understanding of the Christian faith.

Christianity is not primarily concerned with politics, sexual abstinence, logical constructs of reality, what music to listen to, liturgy, or a multitude of other concerns. It is about God. But not any God, a God who has expressed himself as a Trinity, one God in three persons. And the person of that Trinity that we interact with on a daily basis is the Holy Spirit. It is this Spirit that illuminates Scripture, changing our Bible study into a dynamic encounter with God. It is this Spirit that acts as a counselor and a guide. This Spirit that empowers us and transforms our lives. It is this Spirit that made the early church a force for change in a first century world that in many ways reflects the thoughts and the practices of today.

The cure for spiritual fast food is the real food of the Spirit. Instead of the weak sentimentality of our current understanding of a "personal relationship with Christ," we need to help tomorrow's leaders enter into a dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit. Instead of limiting the Spirit to a still small voice (an image used only once in Scripture), we need to also see him as the hurricane, the fire, and the dynamite of Father God. Our overly rationalistic apologetics will never move anyone without the Scripture's emphasis on the apologetics of the Spirit. Our vague understanding of a relationship with God needs to be replaced with an unapologetic New Testament theology of a dynamic, ongoing, life-giving experience of the Holy Spirit.

I will not argue that politics, morality, and rational thought are not important. Our culture and practices are important to God. But they all flow out of relationship with the Holy Spirit. We don't react to the world. We are led by the Spirit. If our faith does not begin with the Holy Spirit, if it is not sustained by an active pursuit of the Spirit, if we don't strain toward the goals the Holy Spirit lays before us, and if we are not actively transformed and empowered by the Spirit, then it's all just spiritual fast food. By any other name still junk food.