Cotton Candy for the Soul

If you can't tweet it in 140 characters or less, if it doesn't fit into a peppy sound-bite, if doesn't download in a matter of seconds, it isn't worth our time. Today it's all about the quick fix. We want immediate gratification. We want what we want and we want it now. Want to be thinner? There's a crash diet for that. Want to connect with friends? There's Facebook for that. Want to find something out? There's Google for that. In the Information Age, everything is one click away. But if the page takes too long to load, we soon lose interest. Our society is undergoing an A.D.D. epidemic in which the attention span of the collective conscious is shrinking by the second. And the same symptoms are affecting the spiritual health of Christianity in America.

We're living in a dumbed-down culture that values tidbits of superficial knowledge over intellectual rigor. And in this context, spiritual fluff has replaced solid biblical preaching in a rising number of our churches. Too many Christian preachers, books, and blogs these days are peddling cotton candy for the soul. It's sweet, it's pretty, it's easily consumed. Cotton candy for the soul is fed to us in lightweight bites that taste good, but melt away quickly. It's fast, it's convenient, but it's spiritual fluff that has no nutritional value. It's a sugar-rush that neither feeds the soul, nourishes the heart, nor sustains the mind for a faith that endures.

As a woman, I am especially aware of the problem of spiritual fluff in Christian books and blogs that target a female audience. Many of them present a touchy-feely portrayal of the Christian faith, relying on emotion-saturated content that lacks the solid substance of biblical truth and neglects Jesus's command to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds (Matt 22:37). Sadly, content like this is in heavy demand. Often, these books call themselves "Christian," but never mention the gospel, quote bible verses rarely, selectively, or out of context, and lack sound theology. They encourage Christians to base their relationship with God far more on their emotional response to Him than on their biblical knowledge of Him. But in actuality, the Christian faith isn't based on us and how we feel, it's about God and who He is.

In a culture that seeks to idolize humanity, the mega church-phenomenon has birthed the unfortunate by-product of celebrity pastors. In an effort to grab the waning attention of the over-stimulated masses, too many of these pastors turn to gimmicks and sound-bite theology for impact. Audiences of spiritual consumers show up to stadium-style churches to get their weekly dose of positive thinking, practical advice, and pep talks. Don't feel down about yourself! You're important! You matter! In an increasing number of churches, it's a self-help ethos that's proclaimed from the pulpit (or the stage in most cases!) and one which often bares little or no relation to the true gospel. These messages cater to human feelings first, and attempt to cheer everyone up. But in doing so they trivialize sin and gloss over inconvenient truths. As a result, they [albeit inadvertently] downplay our need for redemption and the atoning power of the cross. This is the epitome of cotton candy for the soul.

But in our sugar-addicted, self-centered culture, cotton candy for the soul sells. And the demand for it is being met in an increasing number of churches, as seen, for example, in various manifestations of the "emerging churches movement."[1] Many emerging churches tout a "post-evangelical" approach to the Christian faith and try to put a new spin on Christianity in response to the fact that the traditional model is failing to hold the attention of the younger generations. The tendency is to focus on what is wrong with how we've done church in the past and seeks, therefore, to repackage the Christian message to generate mass-appeal in a post-modern context. (Revisionists within this movement go as far as to question whether evangelical doctrine is appropriate for the postmodern world at all). But this approach fails to address the root cause—the heart-problem—that is leading young people to walk away from their faith. Instead of addressing the heart-issue of sin, it starts with emotional heeling or behavior modification, which is like applying mere band-aids to expanding wounds in sinful hearts.

The emerging churches movement promotes a church culture that caters primarily to human needs and feelings. In this vein, emerging churches often preach an issues-driven message, not a gospel-driven message, forgetting that there is no area of human life to which the gospel does not speak directly. By focusing on human needs first, the transformative power of the gospel is marginalized. The tragedy of this is that it misses the fact that living a gospel-centered life is the only true solution to all our issues. 

Gospel-centered churches, on the other hand, endeavor to recenter the Christian faith on the atoning, heart-transforming love of Christ. The gospel-centered movement, which emerged with new terminology several years ago, is certainly one worth jumping on board with.[2] Tim Keller, for example, sums it up as follows: "the Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our life—spiritual, psychological, corporate, social—by thinking, hoping, and living out the 'lines' or ramifications of the gospel."[3] A gospel-centered life, then, is about "acting in line with the truth of the gospel" (Gal 2:14). It is a life that fosters a personal reliance on the gospel that protects the believer from depending on his or her own acts of righteousness or self-help efforts, or being seduced by idols in God's place. Leading a gospel-centered life involves authentic heart-transformation and sincere, daily submission to God. It involves a cognizant realization that our own efforts will never be good enough and that we need to rely fully on Christ not only as our Savior, but as the Lord of our lives. If Christ is truly our Lord, we will submit to Him in obedience because we have died with Him and He now lives in us (Gal 2:20). 

While the gospel-centered movement has gained substantial steam of late, it is paralleled by an increasing tendency within Christianity to focus on a personal feelings- and experience-based relationship with God, while downplaying the need for biblical doctrine to define who God actually is and what His Word actually teaches. In fact, the outright rejection of systematic theology, or even a statement of faith, is common in emerging churches. This approach assumes that absolute truth is revealed through experiencing God rather than through any mental comprehension of His Word. Interestingly, a similar concept has been promoted by Oprah Winfrey, who proclaimed, "God is a feeling-experience, not a believing-experience!" 

But undervaluing the conscious belief in biblical doctrine goes against Jesus' commission to teach others to obey His commands (Matt 28:20) and certainly opens up the flood-gates to a whole lot of false teaching. Perhaps this is why Paul urged believers to watch our doctrine closely (1 Tim 4:16). For example, inclusivism (the belief that everyone is saved) is prevalent in many emerging churches. And the emphasis on personal feelings as the basis for one's faith promotes self-indulgence while de-emphasizing the Lordship of Christ. In other words, the self is placed at the center of everything in place of Christ. Gospel-centrality, on the other hand, starts with the Gospel of Christ at the center from which everything else then stems, adhering firmly to the core truth that Jesus is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). 

In light of this, we need to exercise discernment when we pick up a Christian book, attend a Christian conference, or seek a new church home, and ask ourselves, is the teaching I am exposing myself to really edifying? Does it glorify God or something else? It is rooted in the gospel? Similarly, when we lead or get involved in a ministry, we need to be sure that it is God's ministry, not a product of human effort. We should be gospel-driven in serving others—not humanitarian. 

We need to replace cotton candy for the soul with the bread of life—the gospel of Jesus Christ—in all aspects of our lives. For it is the gospel alone that will transform our hearts and minds and prepare our souls for a faith that endures to the end. Satan cannot destroy the gospel, therefore, he will do all he can to distract us from it. So then, let's fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, feeding our souls on the bread of life, not on a cheap, fake-food substitute.

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[1] The emerging churches movement is fluid and multifaceted in nature and is hard to nail down. However, certain traits can be identified that many of these churches share as is touched on above.
[2] Many books, sermons, and blogs have been written about gospel-centrality, and so the term, "gospel-centered," is in danger of becoming cliched in a way which threatens to dilute the hard-hitting truth behind it, through over-use and potential misapplication.
[3] Tim Keller, "The Centrality of the Gospel."

What is Love?

Mysterious, elusive love. It mystifies and enchants. It both elates and sickens. It provides endless inspiration for artistic expression in music, painting, poetry, prose, film—not to mention the nostalgic lyrics of a one-hit-wonder: What is love? Baby don't hurt me no more! Like in this [pretty annoyingly] catchy song, love often mingles with pain in these contexts. Perhaps this is why a heart pierced with an arrow is so often used to symbolize love! The pursuit of love can indeed lead us down a lonely rabbit trail of sin and suffering. Our yearning for it can give rise to desperation, obsession, and compulsion. We are all on a quest to grasp it, to earn it, to experience it. Some of us find it, many of us don't. This is because many things that aren't actually love masquerade as the real thing: lust, infatuation, idol-worship, hopeless romance, people-pleasing, co-dependency, neediness...all these things can feign love.

But what is love actually?

The concept of "love" is central to biblical truth. We know from Scripture that God is love (1 John 4:8). The gospel is rooted in love (John 3:16). The purest form of love is revealed in Jesus’s death on the cross. And we are admonished to love God above all else and to love others as ourselves (Matt 22:37-38). So what does godly love look like?

The Greek term for love used by John to describe God in 1 John 4:8 is agape, a form of agapeis, which is also used by Jesus (agapaō) when he quotes the greatest commandments to love God and others (Matt 22:37-38). The essence of agape love is self-sacrifice. True love, then, is not self-seeking (1 Cor 13:6). And it is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to love God and love others in a truly self-sacrificial way. Because Godly love is self-sacrificial, living it out can be costly to us. It can cost us material possessions, time, relationships, popularity, and can be really inconvenient! It motivates us to die to self (Luke 9:23; Gal 2:20). Because it is not of this world, it is often rejected by the world. But, loving others without the Holy Spirit often involves a self-serving, consumerist form of "love" that actually takes away from God and other people more than it gives.

When John says, "God is love" (1 John 4:8), he points us to the origin of love, for in the previous verse, he writes unequivocally, “love is from God” (1 John 4:7). This brings up the question, can we truly love without God?

Humans are made in the image of God, and so we have an innate desire to give and receive love. Paul tells us that the law—summed up by Jesus in the greatest commandments to love God and love neighbor—is written on the hearts of men (Rom 2:15). We all have a God-given conscience that bares witness to the law in our hearts. We are pre-wired to express and seek love. While the law is written on the hearts of men, however, the fulfillment of that law is another story. Paul says, "but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous." (Rom 2:13). And to fully obey the law is impossible without Christ; Paul also writes: "For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Rom 8:3-4). If we live in the flesh, then, we are unable to fulfill the law to love God and neighbor. But if we live in the Spirit, the righteous requirement of the law is fully met in us, through Christ, not through ourselves. So, God-honoring love is not possible without Christ.

But wait! you might say, I know loving, self-sacrificial people who aren't Christians! This is true. I do too. Because we are made in God's image, we all have an intrinsic ability to love others. Parents love their children, just as God the Father loves His children, for example. We were made in His likeness. It is also true that courageous acts of self-sacrificial love have been performed by people who do not know Christ. But here's the tragedy of a love without God: loving neighbor without loving God doesn't fulfill the first and greatest commandment of the law. It attempts to fulfill the second commandment to love others, but is an act of the flesh, not of the Spirit. And we know that living in the flesh is to live in sin and death (Rom 8:13). This is tough to swallow isn't it? Even courageous acts of martyrdom that have been performed by those who live in the flesh are like filthy rags before a Holy God! As it is written, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." (Isa 64:6). Scripture is clear that to live—and love—in the flesh alone is to be bound by sin and death. Without being made righteous in Christ, we cannot love others in a God-honoring way with a love that endures forever. While acts of self-sacrificial love can be inspiring to many people and can be a blessing to others, they do not glorify God if they are performed in the flesh. In actuality, they are not truly righteous acts of love because righteousness is only found in Christ. But loving others in the Spirit always glorifies God because it cannot be achieved in human strength, so that the glory goes to Him! 

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Our natural response to this would be: but I can't be perfect! That is true...who has ever succeeded in loving the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and their neighbor as themselves? We have a problem: our fallen, sinful nature. But we shouldn't be discouraged when we fail to love God and others perfectly. Christians are not perfect. We are in a daily battle against the temptation to live in our own strength and take back control from God. When we fail, the important thing to remember is that our righteousness is imputed to us through our faith in Christ—not through our own effort. And for those who are in Christ there is no condemnation (Rom 8:1)! So, we need not be slaves to guilt! 

Indeed, love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8) and the love of God endures forever. Take a moment to absorb this...God's love never fizzles out, or shrivels up like a leaf. It cannot be swayed by sin. It is unconditional and unchanging. Godly love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Cor 13:7). It endures in perfect form for eternity! Godly love never ends in pain like the tragic love of a hopeless romance or in the death of an unbeliever. (Instead of an arrow-pierced heart, perhaps a heart with a crown over it is a more fitting symbol of love!). Godly love never fails (1 Cor 13:8). How amazing it is that Godly love never fails. 

And Godly love rejoices with the truth (1 Cor 13:5). Love without God, on the other hand, is not rooted in absolute truth, and so it is relative. It is vulnerable to being tossed back and forth by waves of human teaching, emotion, and circumstance because it is not anchored in truth. But Jesus said, "I am the truth." (John 14:6). So to love God, as Jesus commanded us, is to love the truth. Paul further demonstrates this when he says: "wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." (2 Thes 2:10). The truth of the gospel is the purest expression of love. God is love just as He is truth. Truth and love are inseparable—inextricably intertwined. Truth and love are completely submerged and saturated in each other! In Christ, therefore, love actually is truth!

The Jesus of Jihad

The world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to population projections by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Islam is the fasted growing religion in the world, mainly due to high birthrates in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe—not in large part due to conversions. Despite the enormous global impact of Islam, many Christians in the West are apathetic toward, or uninformed about, the religion and what it actually teaches. Yet having an understanding of Islam is important in helping us pray more specifically about, and respond knowledgeably to, the rapid growth of the religion.

Christians in the West are often surprised to learn that Muslims revere Jesus, who is referred to in Arabic as Isa, and is declared in the Qur'an to be a prophet of Islam. Consequently, Muslims lay claim to Jesus, not as the Son of God, but as the prophet who foretold the coming of Muhammad, and performed [some pretty outlandish] miracles. In an era of Western pluralism, it is becoming common to hear the argument that Christianity and Islam should share Jesus, and that He rightfully belongs to both religions. In this vein, the concept of the “Abrahamic civilization” of the West is gaining ideological clout in place of the former emphasis on a “Judeo-Christian civilization.” This shift of thinking reflects the growing influence of Islam in the world today.[1]

If we are to share Jesus with Islam, let's consider the implications of this. Firstly, it's useful to be aware of the common ground Islam and Christianity share when it comes to Jesus, as much is made of this in the interfaith movement and in the pluralistic schools of thought that prevail in most American colleges and universities.

Jesus in Islam & Christianity: The Similarities
The Qur’an holds that Jesus was the only sinless man to have ever lived, telling us that Mary was given a pure son who was faultless in the eyes of God (Surah 19:19). Muslims believe that all people are born sinful, so in his sinlessness, the Muslim Jesus is unique, which is consistent with the biblical perspective.

The Qur’an also teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that he had no earthly or physical father. As it is written, “…she who was chaste, therefore We[3] breathed into her (something) of Our Spirit and made her and her son a token for [all] peoples.” (Surah 21:91) The language of the Qur’an is unambiguous about the virgin-birth of Jesus. In Surah 4.156, Mary is cleared from the charge of the Jews that she had conceived Jesus out of wedlock. 

Another point of agreement between the Qur’an and bible is found in their accounts of the ascension of Christ. The ascension is mentioned in the Qur’an in these words: “Allah took him up to Himself” (Surah 4:158). While the Qur’an and the Bible differ on the timing and nature of the ascension of Jesus, they both agree on the fact that it did indeed occur. 

Certain titles given to Jesus in the Bible are also used in the Qur’an. For example, He is called the Word of God and the Messiah in the Qur’an. The Qur’an and the Bible both give Him titles which are applied to no one else, thus setting him apart as unique.

Jesus in Islam & Christianity: The Differences
There are important, deal-breaking differences between the Jesus of the Qur’an and the One of the Bible, however. In the Qur’an, Jesus performed miracles that are not recorded in the Bible, including breathing life into clay birds (Surah 5:110) and speaking as a baby in his cradle (Surah 3:46; 19:28-34).  

Islam teaches that while Christians believe “[Jesus] died on a cross, and Jews claim they killed him, in reality he was not killed or crucified, and those who said he was crucified lied” (Surah 4:157). And further, “[Jesus] did not die, but ascended to Allah” (Surah 4:158) and at his second coming, “[Jesus] himself will be a witness against Jews and Christians for believing in his death” (Surah 4:159). This is not only a denial of Jesus' atoning death on the cross, but also of His resurrection.


The Qur’an and Hadith[2] do prophesy the second coming of Jesus. But Islamic teaching disagrees with the Bible on the nature and purpose of the second coming. Islam teaches that Jesus will have a pivotal role in the end times, destroying all other religions and establishing the authority of Islam. As one tradition of Muhammad teaches, Jesus "will break the cross, kill pigs,[3] and abolish the poll-tax. Allah will destroy all religions except Islam. [Jesus] will destroy the Evil One (anti-Christ figure) and will live on the earth for forty years and then he will die.” (Sunan Abu Dawud, 37:4310). This image of the Muslim Jesus violently attacking the cross personifies him as the final destroyer of Christianity.

In Islam, Jesus is not part of the Trinity. The central belief that God is an unassailable, singular entity exists at the core of Islamic theology. To perceive Him in terms of having multiple “natures” or to ascribe “partners” to Him, as Muslims believe Christianity does, is considered deeply blasphemous. The Qur’an calls Muslims to what is portrayed as unequivocal monotheism: “Allah does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills. And he who associates others with Allah has certainly fabricated a tremendous sin.” (Surah 4:48). The Christian view of the Trinity is frequently misrepresented in Islamic teaching as a belief in three Gods. In fact, many Muslims are under the impression that the Trinity is made up of God, Jesus, and Mary! Muslims believe that Christianity is heretical, therefore, viewing it as a polytheistic religion. 

Despite the fact that Muhammad founded Islam in 622 CE, the religion is regarded not as a subsequent faith to Judaism and Christianity, but as the primordial religion, the original faith, from which Judaism and Christianity broke off in corrupted forms. Islam teaches that the The Gospels (the Injeel) that were originally given to the Muslim Jesus, were corrupted later by Christians (some believe this began with the Apostle Paul). The Qu'ran, therefore, that was given to Muhammad in a series of revelations (that were later recorded) 500 years later is the only trustworthy version of God's word. 

The Same Jesus?
Despite a few minor similarities, the fact that the Muslim Jesus is not the Son of God, but merely a prophet, means they are two very different persons. One is central to the Christian faith; the other is expected to demolish the Christian faith! Efforts to achieve theological syncretism between Islam and Christianity (as is attempted by the "Chrislam" movement, for example) are futile; the two faiths are completely incompatible. 

Furthermore, seeking common ground between two disparate Jesus figures, which has become a popular practice among Christians in Muslim ministry, is more confusing than it is helpful in dialoguing with Muslims; it blurs the truth about His identity from the beginning and gives the false impression that the Qur'an is a credible source of truth about the Him. In actuality, the common ground approach, while a good "conversation-starter" and as well-intended as it may be, is a disingenuous and misleading way to talk about Jesus.

So what? 
Islam is presenting a growing challenge to the Christian church, which should not be ignored. This is in part because the religion acts as a political institution (in fact it is intrinsically political in nature), which often has dire implications for Christians living in Muslim-majority countries and can impede missionaries from reaching unreached people groups in these contexts. Many Westerners, including Christians, however, seem largely unconcerned about the worldwide impact resulting from the rapid growth and radicalization of Islam in spite of the warning signs of unrest in the Middle East and Africa or the growing problems in Western countries like Great Britain, for example, where due to pressure from the British Muslim community the country is becoming incrementally Islamized. 

Samuel Huntington in his well-known, much debated thesis that was first laid out in his article, “The Clash of Civilizations,” holds that the fundamental source of conflict in the post-Cold War era will not primarily be ideological or economic, but cultural, in shape of an ultimate clash between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations, which will dominate global politics. Huntington's position on Islam has been passed off by many academics as an "over-simplification" or an "unhelpful" point of view. But, if he is right—and certain factors seem to indicate he may be—then we as Christians need to be all the more aware of what is happening in the Muslim world and help to educate others. 

This is because the truth about Jesus is under siege. Within the context of world politics, great significance has been placed on the figure of Jesus, with prominent Islamic leaders laying claim to Him. To give just a couple of examples, Yasser Arafat, addressing a press conference at the United Nations in 1983 called Jesus “the first Palestinian fedayeen who carried his sword,” implying in other words that He was a freedom fighter for Islam. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, employee of the Palestinian Authority, broadcast live in April 2002 on Palestian television: “The Jews await the false Jewish messiah, while we await, with Allah’s help…Jesus, peace be upon him. Jesus’ pure hands will murder the false Jewish messiah. Where? In the city of Lod, in Palestine.” 

Essentially, then, the Muslim Jesus is the Jesus of Jihad. In fact, Muslim apologists frequently misquote Matthew 10:34, which mentions a sword, to show that the Bible also claims Jesus endorsed jihad. 


The figure of Jesus is, and has historically been, used as a weapon in the realm of international politics. As Christians, however distasteful we find the nature of politics to be, we must be confident in stating who we believe the true Jesus is in the face of such tragic misuse of His Name. We are called to speak up in defense of the Gospel and to answer the very question Jesus asked of His disciples, "Who do say I am?" (Matt 16:15) without fear.

Now what?

We are called to show Christ-like love to Muslims. This shouldn't mean turning a blind eye to the injustices that take place in the name of Islam, however. When we talk about, and form opinions on Islam, we need do so accurately and understand what we are really dealing with. It is important to know that the violent verses in the Qur’an from Muhammad’s later warlord years abrogate (nullify) the more peaceable verses from earlier in his life as dictated by Islamic tradition. These verses command Muslims to “fight and kill [non-Muslims] unless they convert” (Surah 9:5), for example, which is a principle that Muhammad himself practiced, personally beheading infidels. And Muslims are taught to model their lives on the Sunnah, Muhammad's perfect life example. This is deeply unsettling when we consider that Muhammad was also a polygamist who took many concubines and married a six-year-old girl, consummating the marriage when she was 9 years old and he was 53. To understand this, is to understand the true evil and violence that is at the core of the religion of Islam. True Islam, Muhammad’s Islam—not the peaceful Islam of liberal Muslims or that which is presented to the West by Imams who are permitted to lie for the furtherance of Islam as under the law of taqiyya—is a religion of the sword.  Many injustices against Christians, women, and minorities living in Muslim-majority countries occur as a result. Violent jihad is at the heart of Islam—it is not just the misinterpretation of a peaceful religion by extremist fringe groups. There are hundreds of Qur’anic verses on the subject of jihad, as well as the "Book of Jihad," which found in all Hadith collections. 

As Christians, we cannot show authentic Christ-like love to others without upholding justice. By faith we are called to be administrators of justice (Heb 11:33) and to correct oppression (Isa 17:1). In doing so, we should of course be careful to distinguish between individual Muslims and the institution of Islam, standing against bigotry, hatred, and the demonization of Muslims or the negative stereo-typing of Muslim people. In the same vein, we should distance ourselves from absurd protests against Islam such as Qur'an burning. The challenge of Islam to the Church calls for a balanced, informed, reasoned, prayerful response—and our total submission to God. 

Speaking the truth in love is a biblical approach to showing authentic Christ-like love to Muslims. In doing so, we don't have to gloss over our fundamental differences—but we don't have to lead with them in an adversarial way either. In talking with our Muslim neighbors, we can pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal the authentic Son of God to them, through our truthful, loving, respectful witness, remembering that it is the role of the Holy Spirit to convict the heart, not ours to finesse or tweak the gospel message to make it culturally sensitive or more appealing. 

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[1] http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/durie/islamic_jesus.html
[2] The Hadith  is a collective body of traditions recording the sayings or actions of Muhammad, together with the tradition of its chain of transmission, which is used as a basis of Islamic law
[3] In Islamic tradition, pigs are associated with Christians.

The Convenient Christ

The Convenient Christ is on the rise in our churches! He's a lovable, Santa-esque figure who wants to make us happy and bless us abundantly. He wants us to be comfortable in the world and for the world to comfortable with him. He refrains from saying things that might offend people. After all, can't we all just get along? The Convenient Christ loves us, so why would he ever call us into trials, sickness, or poverty? He never wants his children to suffer hardship or persecution. That wouldn't be loving. He wants us to be successful, wealthy, and healthy! He wants us to shine as his victors!

Each Sunday, tens of thousands flock to hear Joel Osteen deliver the message of the Convenient Christ at Lakewood Church in Texas, which boasts the largest congregation in America, topping 45,000 in attendance every week. And millions more tune into his sermons, which are televised weekly on national TV. Why the popularity? As Michelle Vu of The Christian Post explains, "Joel Osteen doesn't like to ruffle feathers; he is known for his open-arms, positive-thinking, God-wants-to-bless-you approach to Christianity, which has earned him a loyal following of millions worldwide and the largest and fastest growing church in U.S. history."[1] Osteen does indeed present a very attractive, very convenient, version of Christianity: "God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us," Osteen wrote in a 2005 letter to his flock.[2]

It is this God-wants-to-bless-you mantra that is promoted in the hugely popular prosperity gospel, or Word of Faith theology, preached by heavy-hitting Christian leaders like Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, and Kenneth Hagin. And this brand of health-and-wealth preaching has certainly garnered the world's attention. Bravo TV's new reality show, Thicker Than Water, for example, features prosperity Pastor Ben Tankard and his southern family, as they "integrate their strong religious conviction with their penchant for the finer things in life." While Jesus clearly taught that it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and urged His followers to store riches in Heaven and not on earth, the prosperity gospel turns this teaching upside down. And the world is watching.

Despite the fact that Osteen has no theological training, he has claim to the title of most successful pastor in America. As would be expected, Osteen's Word of Faith pronouncements have been eagerly embraced by Oprah Winfrey who has glowingly endorsed his mega best-selling books. This makes sense considering Osteen's preaching certainly reflects the same self-help ethos that exists at the heart of the other spiritual gurus she promotes, like Ekard Tolle, for example. Just like Osteen, many New Age spiritualists, have adopted their own Convenient Christs (in a variety of forms, including the concept of Christ-consciousness, for example) who fit neatly into their preconceived worldview or religious convictions. 

Staying true to his Convenient Christ, Osteen's message is devoid of inconvenient truths. He sticks to positive, crowd-pleasing topics, dodging bible verses that could ruffle feathers, like perhaps those that record Jesus' own words: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Matt 16:24-26). There is certainly very little emphasis on cross-bearing and denial of self from within the Word of Faith camp.

Creating your own Convenient Christ is tantamount to setting yourself up as God. It is not surprising, therefore, that there has been an effort underway among prominent Word of Faith teachers to redefine themselves as "little gods." Prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland, for example, has stated "You’re all God. You don’t have a God living in you; you are one! … When I read in the Bible where God tells Moses, ‘I AM,’ I say, ‘Yeah, I Am too!"[3] Word of Faith preacher, Kenneth Hagin, wrote that God "made us in the same class of being that he is himself," and claims that the believer is "called Christ" because "that's who we are, we're Christ!"[4] According to Hagin, by being "born again" the believer becomes "as much of an incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth."[5] This teaching mirrors closely the self-deification of both Mormonism and of New Age philosophy alike; just like them, the Word of Faith movement veils an underlying desire to become our own, self-autonomous, God. It is an old story, far older than the Gnosticism and the destructive greed sects that first infiltrated the early church. It is a story that began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve made that first, fatal grasp for godhood themselves at Satan's beckoning. It is a pattern of human behavior that repeats itself throughout history, reemerging over and over again in various forms, but always motivated by the same age-old desire for personal godhood.

The Convenient Christ is an enabler of selfism. He panders to our fleshly desires and lures us in with false promises of earthly security and happiness. He preys on the desperate, the weak, the sick, and the financially strained—and he is readily received by a voracious audience of religious consumers. As followers of the true Christ, we need to recognize this insidious counterfeit in our midst and stand firm against his false doctrine. Speaking out against false prophets is biblical. Jesus warned us to watch out for wolves in sheep's clothing (Matt 7:15). The Apostle Paul was by no means accommodating to, or conciliatory with, false teachers who propagated heresy in the early church. He called them out as dangerous deceivers and urged Christians to avoid them. However successful Word of Faith preachers may be, however big their following, however many books they sell, we must have the courage and conviction to stand firmly against them. Maybe the Convenient Christ calls for a little table-flipping in the Temple so-to-speak.  

This is because of the sheer tragedy that so many seekers are being led astray by the Convenient Christ. Unlike counterfeit Christs of false religions or cults that more blatantly misuse the name of Jesus, the Convenient Christ is not so easily spotted, and can certainly seem like the real deal—especially when a few misinterpreted or selectively used bible verses are thrown into the mix. For example, prosperity preachers often give out-of-context emphasis to the widely-popular verse from Jeremiah: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jer 29:11). While this verse should rightfully give us a sense of hope, it is pretty much always delivered—in the health-and-wealth context—without any acknowledgement that this was God's promise through Jeremiah to the people of Israel while they were in exile to Babylon. This is not to say that the promises of the old covenant (given to Israel under Old Testament Mosaic law) are not applicable to Christians today under the new covenant (in which the law of Moses has given way to a new life in Christ). Paul clarifies this: "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ." (Cor 1:20). Because all God's promises are now fulfilled for us in Christ, the realization of these promises for believers today is different from how they were fulfilled for the Israelites. As promised, the Isrealites came out of exile after 70 years. But for us, the promise of prosperity, hope, and a future now has eternal meaning in Christ. Hebrews 9:15 declares, “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” Prosperity preachers, however, misapply this verse claiming that God promises us an earthly life of material prosperity.


The problem is, the prosperity gospel relies on soundbite theology with a feel-good twist that neglects huge chunks of Scripture and replaces the gospel of Jesus Christ with a cheap substitute. It is short-sighted preaching that is of this world, not of God. While the Convenient Christ wants nothing more than for us to get cozy in the world and to chase after the carnal pleasures it has to offer, we are reminded by Scripture that this is not God's best for us. It is not "our best life now" to coin an Osteen-phrase. Paul teaches us that we "must no longer live as the pagans do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed." (Eph 4:17-19). We are described in Scripture as sojourners in an alien world, as "foreigners and strangers" whose "days on earth are like a shadow, without hope." (1 Chron 29:15) . The beguiling pleasures of this world can deceive us into losing sight of the true riches that await us in Glory. Peter reminds us of this when he writes, "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul." (1 Peter 2:11). Our earthly lives are vaporous (James 4:14), but living life in the here-and-now clouds our Eternal perspective. 

Despite all this, I am often stunned by the number of (even mature) Christians who have told me how much they like Joel Osteen's sermons and books. Osteen does have a slick interview style, often giving vague, evasive answers to tough questions, which he occasionally peppers with choice Bible verses and smothers in Christianese. But a closer look into what Osteen actually teaches reveals very quickly that his message is actually more akin to that of New Age philosophy than sound biblical teaching. In his most recent book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, Osteen tells his readers: “You have to begin speaking words of faith over your life. Your words have enormous creative power. The moment you speak something out, you give birth to it. This is the spiritual principle, and it works whether what you are saying is good or bad, positive or negative.” As is often the case with false teachers, Osteen mixes partial truths with heresy. It is true that the tongue is a powerful force for good or evil, but human words have no sovereign power. Only God's Word does. God doesn't have to do what we say; the Bible teaches that God's will determines the answer to our prayers (Rom 8:26-27). Yet Osteen is committed to the notion that faith is a force that shapes our lives and our own words are conduits for that force. It is a concept that is shared by New Agers like Rhonda Byrne, for example, whose best-selling book, The Secret, "teaches us that we create our lives, with every thought every minute of every day" and is based on the idea that the law of attraction determines our destiny (i.e. positive thinking brings good health and prosperity, negative thinking brings the opposite). The difference between the Word of Faith movement and its New Age counterpart is largely semantic; the former talks of a "faith force," the latter refers to "the power" or "Christ force" depending on whom you are reading. Yet the Word of Faith movement is still mistaken by many as authentic Christianity.

The Convenient Christ can creep into our hearts if we let him—if our eyes aren't fixed on Jesus. Authentic Christianity is counter-cultural. As soon as our faith starts to mirror the worldly values and teachings around us, or feel a little too convenient, we need to check ourselves and ask, who is it that I am actually following?

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[1] http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-joel-osteen-on-prosperity-gospel-crystal-cathedral-and-jesus-74040/#Y4H2sJJWGfJzjRkO.99
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/outlook/worst-ideas/prosperity-gospel.html
[3]Kenneth Copeland, "The Force of Love", (Teaching tape, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1987)
[4] Kenneth E. Hagin, Zoe: The God-Kind of Life, (Kenneth Hagin Ministries, Inc., 1989)
[5] Kenneth E. Hagin, "The Virgin Birth" in Word of Faith Magazine (December 1977)

My Search for Significance in a World of Stray Cheerios

When I had my first baby seven years ago, I experienced a text-book case of identity crisis. I had recently left my job—a job in which I could walk around in business suits and heels, call meetings, and hold conference calls. People called me on my extension to ask me questions. And I had answers. I was significant. But then I quit. I found myself abruptly thrown from a busy world of downtown DC streets, metro stops, bustling lobbies and conference rooms into the quiet solitude of our town house. It was a beautiful Victorian on Capitol Hill, but suddenly the house I had loved, and in which my husband and I had envisioned an idyllic family life, seemed more like a prison cell with its window-less walls on each side and the bars in front. The depth of the floor plan, which had initially been an appealing feature to us as home-buyers, now felt claustrophobic, like I was trapped in a long, narrow tunnel with the only source of light filtering in dimly from each end. To make matters worse, we lived a stone's throw from the Capitol building. Exciting things were happening just blocks away, but I was completely shut off from it all. So near, yet so far! I would walk past soaring monuments and imposing buildings with my baby stroller feeling extremely small—almost invisible. There was a nice security guard I would often pass on my purposeless treks to Union Station, and he'd always wave and shout out something friendly. But he was the only one who seemed to notice me. When at home, I often half-joked to myself that I was like Mariana in the Moated Grange, watching the clock, waiting for my husband to battle rush hour traffic and return home!...

All day within the dreamy house,

   The doors upon their hinges creaked;

The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse

   Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,

   Or from the crevice peer'd about.

Old faces glimmered through the doors,

   Old footsteps trod the upper floors,

   Old voices called her from without.

She only said, "My life is dreary,

    He cometh not," she said;                           

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

    I would that I were dead!"

It was all very tragic. Logically, I knew we were blessed to live in a such a wonderful place and to be able to provide for our child in ways that many people in other parts of the world could not. But my identity crisis, clichéd and admittedly quite comical as it is in retrospect, was seriously crippling at the time—preventing me from appreciating all that God had given me and, more importantly, all that God is.

The problem, it seemed, was that I had lost my sense of purpose. Some would say, I had lost my sense of self. I had a graduate education and eight years of work experience, but rather than using my skills, I now spent my days at home with our baby, who slept most of the time, leaving me alone to clean up a perpetual mess of misplaced sweet-potato spoonfuls and stray Cheerios. I was often on my knees scraping the kid-crumbs out of the cracks in our old wooden floors, the charm of which was now lost on me. My big-picture world of international development had been reduced to a myopic one that magnified floor grit and dust balls. 

But my gloomy outlook wasn't a product of my circumstances. It was rooted in a deep-seated heart problem that presented itself in my desperate need for significance. What is my purpose? I would ask my harrowed husband as he walked in bleary-eyed from the DC rush-hour craze. I am here all day, not using my God-given gifts. Has God forgotten about me? Why did He give me gifts if I can't use them?

In my frantic search for significance, I read The Purpose-Driven Life, and prayed for God to reveal to me my purpose...for God to impart to me His plan for my life and my special calling. But the more I prayed, the less I heard. And I was left more confused than ever. I wanted to serve Him, but I didn't know how. I knew that my identity was in Christ, not in my career, in my family, or in anything other than in Him. But I hadn't understood the depth of what this really meant. I still felt insignificant.

But the Bible teaches that our true significance is found in God's love for us. We each are significant because there is a mighty God, the Creator of the universe, who values and loves each of us individually, for even the hairs on our heads are numbered (Luke 12:7). And He loves each of us intimately for He knows every word we will utter before we speak it and He is familiar with all our ways (Psa 139:3-4). He cares about the details of our lives, because every day ordained for us was written in His book before it came to be (Psa 139:16). And we know that He loved us so much that He laid down His life for us (1 John 3:16). 

In actuality, I had been seeking my sense of significance in my "calling," rather than in God's love for me. This realization hit me one Sunday when our pastor pronounced: "It's not about what we can do for God, it's about what He's already done for us!" It was then that I began to understand the need to stop focusing on myself and to instead fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, who had endured the cross for me (Heb 12:2). Up to that point, it had been about all about me; my calling, my gifts, my purpose. Without realizing it, I had been trying to fit God into my own self-centered world, in which I was the star. But it wasn't about me at all. It was about Him. It wasn't about some lofty purpose or grandiose calling on my life. It was all about Him.  

It can be very confusing for us as Christians when we are constantly told we need to identify our special purpose on Earth and access our spiritual gifts in order to function more effectively as servants of God. But, actually, the more we focus on these things, the more we take our eyes away from Jesus and the more egocentric we can become. It's good to know what our gifts are and how best to use them, but we shouldn't build our lives around our gifts. We can trust God that He will lead us to use the gifts He has given us in His perfect way, in His perfect timing. The pressure is taken off us, as we surrender more fully to Him. This is especially true in ministry as I was to find out some time later. I learned (sometimes the hard way) that as soon as I made my ministry about myself instead of God, I was working in my own strength, not His. Rather than treating our gifts as the starting point, then, we should start out by responding to the needs of others first. If we see a need, we should prayerfully try to meet it according to our ability. If God opens up an opportunity to reach out to someone with His love, we should take it. This enables us to step out of our comfort zone and grow in our faith.

So, instead of getting bogged down in a quest to find our special purpose, we can rest in the knowledge that our purpose as believers is singular: it is to glorify God. We know from Scripture that we were created to please God, for He said, "Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth—for everyone who is called by my name, I created for my glory, whom I formed and made" (Isa 43:7). There are many ways in which we can glorify Him, through obedience, service, ministry, worship, and witnessing. But the end goal should always be for His glory—nothing more, nothing less. 

I realized that my God-given role right then was to take care of my new baby and husband both of whom I was really thankful for. It wasn't a high-profile role in ministry or missions, but it was where God had me at that time. This was a good lesson in humility because I began to realize that I didn't need to be significant in the world's eyes. I didn't need to seek credibility in the approval of others. What really mattered was glorifying God in all I did, even if He was the only one who noticed. And even if my job was picking up stray Cheerios that day, I needed to do it for His glory! 

Now, when I see a stray Cheerio on the floor (which I often do), it makes me chuckle as I'm reminded how something that seems so small and insignificant can actually carry so much meaning.

From Astrologist to Apologist: A Testimony

In her amazing testimony, Marcia Montenegro describes her unprecedented metamorphosis from professional astrologer into Christian apologist. She had been very active in the New Age movement for twenty years and had practiced astrology for eight years. Yet the longevity of her entrenchment in the occult did not prevent God from pursuing her, even when her conversion may have seemed unlikely by earthly standards. 

Marcia recounts how an “unexplained compulsion” caused her to begrudgingly walk into a church one Sunday. For some time, she had resisted the urge to act on this compulsion with all her might. She hated Christianity and feeling this strange and undeniable compulsion had made her angry. But she couldn't shake the feeling as much as she tried, so eventually she decided to give in, hoping that doing so would get it out of her system. This decision was to become the beginning of a transformation in Marcia she would never have expected. She recalls her experience:

In the opening minutes of a service in a large church in downtown Atlanta, I felt a love I had never known wash down over and through me, so powerfully that I started quietly crying. I knew this love was from God, not from the music, the people, or the place. I returned the following Sunday, not to have another experience, but so that I could be where that love had happened to me.

Marcia knew she had experienced the love of a personal God—one whom she did not yet fully believe in or understand. So powerful was her experience of this personal God that she felt compelled to read, and subsequently to study, the Bible. Studying the Word of God would eventually lead her to commit her life to serving Him and to make the difficult, costly decision to give up her career—and her entire life—as a New Ager. 

Prior to accepting Christ, Marcia had subscribed to a New Age perspective on God. Spiritual counterfeits of the New Age masquerade as the "real" version of God—a plausible alternative to rigid religious doctrine and the "old man in the sky." New Agers claim that they are releasing God from the constraints of religious dogma, freeing him [or the amorphous energy-source that he really is] from a man-made construct that limits, reduces, and distorts. New Age ideas are the result of thinking outside of the religious box! Or are they...? The problem with New Age perspective on God, is that it merely replaces one believe system with another. Through an elaborate voyage of self-exploration to access one's inner truth, the New Age movement seeks to deify the self in place of God. But in actuality, beliefs that are contained within the limits of our earthly imaginations are far more constrained than the transcendent knowledge that can be imparted to us by the One who truly is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Rev 22:13). I'd pick God-sized ideas over self-truth any day!

Rather than seeking self-truth, we are called to fix our eyes on Jesus as the author and perfector of our faith (Heb 12:2). When we seek to know ourselves, it should ultimately be to confront the reality of our sinful state, and our true, deep-seated need for God. As Kevin DeYoung so aptly puts it, "Know God. Know yourself. Know yourself to know your need of God. Know God to know you are not gods." We should point ourselves and others to God and move away from ideas and practices that distract us from centering ourselves on the gospel of Christ.

Perhaps the most tragic downside to the New Age perspective on God is that because theirs is an impersonal God, a mere energy-source, there is no experience of relational love involved. But as Christians, we know that it is the love of God as our Father, that changes everything...

Marcia’s story demonstrates how being exposed to a loving, personal God can touch the heart of an unbeliever. How comforting it must be to someone who's been struggling in their own lonely journey to realize that there is a God that loves each one of us individually, and with whom we can have an interactive relationship. Psalm 139 is my favorite of all the psalms because it illustrates the intimacy of God's love for us so powerfully. Sharing personal stories with unbelievers about the ways in which we have experienced the love of God in our lives can be a powerful witness, especially to those who subscribe to the New Age concept of God as mere form of energy. We can talk about specific ways in which we have experienced this interactive, Father-child relationship through answered prayers, life-transformation, and heart-changes, for example. 

New Agers are trapped in a perpetual struggle to attain spiritual enlightenment through their own efforts—through practicing meditation, hypnotism, yoga, creative visualization, past-life regression, channeling, or other spiritual disciplines. It must be exhausting! Yet as Christians, we can rest in the knowledge that we do not have to strive to attain spiritual fulfillment in our own strength, for we can be confident that He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6).  It is by grace that we have been saved, through faith, and not by works (Eph. 2:8)—the work of our salvation is already accomplished for us in Christ. For those who are wearied by the futile struggle to achieve spiritual enlightenment through New Age disciplines and practices, or through the lonely process of self-actualization, this news can offer a powerful sense of relief.  We can prayerfully share with them the truth that they can be justified by faith, and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1).

Prayer is the most important thing we can do for unbelievers who are caught up in the New Age movement or in a quest to self-actualize. As Marcia was to find out later, it was the prayers of her Christian coworker and his small group that had been answered that day she felt an unexplained compulsion to walk through those church doors. When things seemed impossible, the prayers of the faithful were answered in a powerful, unprecedented way. Now Marcia is a full-time missionary and founding director of Christian Answers for the New Age (and a personal friend of mine).