INSIPID: tasteless, vapid, uninteresting.
Western culture tells us that religion is unnecessary, bad for you and that it is disappearing all-together in the very near future. What the West does not realize is that religion is not diminishing it is rising. It is western culture that may disappear soon.
Willful blindness
Our world is full of conflicts that are religion-driven, not political. Western thinkers look at these conflicts and are confused. Their eyes are firmly closed to the religious nature of these conflicts, so they see nothing. When Curly tells Larry and Moe that he has gone blind and Larry says open your eyes so I can have a look, we are not surprised when Curly exclaims “I’m cured”. It is funny when the 3 Stooges do it, not when our leaders do it.
Western denial of our human religious nature does not ‘cure’ us of religion. It only sublimates the religious aspects of our being, causing us to trivialize that force within ourselves and hold it in contempt.
Westerners religiously follow sports. They sacrifice their bodies to the gods of exercise and diet. Pilgrimages are made to visit gurus of finance seeking the fountain of Prosperity. The religious force of sex is channeled to sell everything from pornography to deodorant. Television programs have even attained cult status in the western mind.
Western thinkers ARE Religious.
They just pick insipid, vapid, tasteless things to focus their religious forces upon. Sex will not save us. The Big Bang Theory and the Walking Dead will not transform our character. Sport and exercise are trivial, not because they lack any value but because they do not address our SPIRITUAL NATURE.
Change Your Mind – not Jesus.
The Church diminishes in the West to the degree that we comply with the trivialization of faith. It is not necessary for the Church to accommodate Western thinking about religion. We do not need to adjust our theology to Western notions of tolerance and diversity. I do not recommend prejudice or narrow-mindedness. I recommend that the Church stop trying to change Jesus and let Jesus change us.
Jesus is the Rock. He will not change to accommodate us because if He did He would no longer have the power to help us. He would become as insipid and vapid as we have.
Lukewarm faith is worse than No faith
In Revelations Jesus warned about becoming lukewarm believers. Watered-down religion is as useless as watered gasoline. It won’t make your car run or if it does run, the water will destroy the engine. Lukewarm, accommodating, insipid religion is far worse than no religion because it makes you think you have a religion when, in fact, you really have nothing at all.
Jesus and His offer to rescue us from the trials, torments and dangers of this world and those within ourselves, is the Best News that anyone will ever hear. It is worth telling. It does not need any ‘improvement’. If we love the ones we tell it to, they will hear it regardless of their circumstances. The Holy Spirit will give us the words to say.
That is a promise. Matthew 10:19, Mark 13:11, Luke 12:11-12
