Save us from trendy religion

For the past few years, I've been thinking about Christianity, specifically western Christianity.  In the West, Christians have created a culture that has its own music, art, literature, even its own language.  As a Christian, this worries me.  My concern is that, as a faith, we are more focused on our external appearance than on the person of Jesus Christ.  We seem to have lost our awe of Christ and replaced it with a disturbing familiarity.

Rich Mullins, in his song "Save Me" penned the line "Save me from trendy religion, that makes cheap cliches out of timeless truths."  As I look around at western Christianity, I see that we are doing this very thing.  "Got Jesus?" and "Jesus is my homeboy," our shirts read.  We drive around with fish symbols on our cars, sometimes one for each member of the family.  Our Facebook pages are strewn with "If you love Jesus, you'll repost this" messages.

But, really, does any of this bring us closer to knowing, obeying, and serving Jesus?  Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commands." (John 14-15 NIV).   He also said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Matther 16:24 NIV)  These are just two of the myriad references of Jesus describing what it takes to be His disciple.  But, never once have I found a reference that says following Him requires wearing certain clothes, listening to certain types of music, or using particular verbiage.  There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these, but they must not be what defines us as Christ's followers.

We should be defined by our love for God and for our neighbor, no matter who they are, (Matthew 22:37-40) and by our care for fellow Christians.  Our lives should demonstrate a compelling desire to see His Name receive glory as people truly follow Jesus.  We should be passionately dependent on Jesus.  Apart from this, we have nothing to offer the world that they can't get elsewhere and probably get a lot easier.  We are just a religious culture with great words, but no power.  With it, though, we can change the world.