Choosing the Right Beer

I was listening to an interview with Dick Staubs this afternoon on The Kindlings Muse about his new book, The Culturally Savvy Christian. He’s speaking of the horrendous “parallel universe” that modern Evangelicals have created for ourselves…Christian bookstores, Christian coffeeshops, Christian schools, etc., in an attempt to make our own pop culture and be separate from everyone else (exactly the opposite of what Christ modeled)…and likened modern Christianity to beer. The allusion goes something like this: our current generation(s) want strong, pure ale, but what the modern church is giving them is “Christianity Lite.”

Essentially, Staubs echoes my sentiment that we have digressed into producing pop-culture expression, art, and surface explorations of spirituality instead of engaging and transforming our culture with depth and truth.

It’s funny, because just last night Karen and I were discussing a lack of passion. It seems as though life sucks the passion out of us as we’re doomed to year after year of selling our souls to the industrialized machine in exchange for money instead of engaging in what truly matters.

Staubs points out that the digression began after the 60’s, when the art that was created during that passionate decade that was supposed to transform culture was taken over by corporate interests when everyone moved into the “real world” and got jobs on Wall Street.

I think he has a point.

I don’t like the real world, but I’m stuck here for the time being. Maybe we should try to engage it and change it with something of depth instead of stupid Christianized cliches on youth group T-shirts? Who knows? If we come out of our bubbles and start serving real beer, people just might become intoxicated with it.

Of course, we’re too comfortable for that. But, it was a nice thought. Pardon my interruption…you can go back to sleep now.

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