Evangelicalism's New Mantra

Evangelical preaching's new mantra: "if you're more disturbed by the sin out there than by the sin within, your faith needs some work."

The old stuff of the Olde South, or Moody Bible, "smokin', drinkin', and cussin', and card playin' and goin' to movies, too" - all bad, so let's preach about it, and preach about it like hell.

In the newer, more up-to-date, guise, the preacher as therapist and the church as couch-cult - inner peace, and better parenting, being a more loving spouse and a better worker, and getting ahead in life, fighting debit and growing rich, and then going to heaven, and so on.

In the Olde South, slavery and war, and then Jim Crow ... and through out the nation, in places like North Dakota and Wisconsin, the devils of racism, homophobia and Betsy DeVos and her schemes to further the interest of wealth at the expense of everyone else.

The "sins within" are seductive, stealing our time, and dominating our prayers, as we cascade into ourselves all the more, obsessing about every spiritual flaw and hiccup, every little blemish of the soul, and every wrinkle in our spirit.

Meanwhile, the world burns, and we go to church to forget the world, and what better way to forget the world (which is really forgetting God), is to focus on our "inner sins." There we go, now we got it - self, self, and more self ... in the quest for spiritual perfection, inner peace, health, wealth and happiness. The church becomes a dispenser of hair coloring and wrinkle cream, nostrums and snake oil.

Preach on preacher and tell me about myself ... but, preacher, please, whatever you do, don't talk about the environment, global warming, or children in cages, or the lies spewing out of the mouths of our leaders, or the greed of Wall Street and the madness of might and power.

Don't talk about the "sins our there," because then I have do something about them ... I have to resist and protest, get organized and get involved, and fight for justice and peace.

I don't wanna bother with that - I want to deal with my inner peace and my nerves.

That my nerves and lack of inner peace might be connected to the "sins out there," I don't wanna hear it.

I wanna feel better; I don't want to be called by Christ to take up the cross of the world, the world's pain and sorrow, the injustice of the places where I work, the cruelty of racism which I mostly want to ignore, even as my neighbors buy their guns and hang confederate flags in their home, and I move to neighborhoods where everyone looks like me.

Nope, I don't wanna hear about any of that "sin out there stuff" ... I want to homeschool my children, or send them to private christian academies, so they don't have to deal with other religions and cultures, so they won't have to think about "the other America" and the children at the border, so they won't have read great literature and learn about science, and learn how to think for themselves. Thinking is painful, and we don't need any of it. We all just want inner peace, and a few charities we can support, so we can feel good about the "good" we're doing.

Ok preacher?

You got that? I hope you do.