The Stockhom Syndrome

 

Morning Ponderings, December 14, 2020

American Christianity reminds me of puppies chasing their tails, except it isn’t cute. The quote below is from the early 20^th century, how much more true it is today!

“Our modern Christian life so often lacks the poise and stability of the eternal. Religion has come so overmuch to occupy itself with the things of time that it catches the spirit of time. Its purposes turn fickle and unsteady; its methods become superficial and ephemeral; it alters its course so constantly; it borrows so readily from sources beneath itself, that it undermines its own prestige in matters pertaining to the eternal world. Where lies the remedy? It would be useless to seek it in withdrawal from the struggles of this present world. The true corrective lies in this, that we must learn again to carry a heaven-fed and heaven-centered spirit into our walk and work below.” Geerhardus Vos

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American Christianity is like Coney Island, a carnival midway; everyone hawking their wears; lots of pretty lights, junk food, noise, games to play.

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When Jesus Christ isn’t enough for the professing church, we no longer have Biblical Christianity. O yes indeed we still have a story from the Bible, but it is the story of the promiscuous wife, the adulteress, the whore, not the story of the virgin Church.

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Those who are prisoners of heresies, such as Christian nationalism, must have the Stockholm syndrome; how else could they defend that which is contrary to the Gospel and the Bride of Christ?

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Have we forgotten (of course we have!), that the early Christians only needed to worship the Emperor and the State to avoid persecution? We won’t make that mistake…will we? Let’s worship both!

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It is amusing, in a pathetic fashion, when American Christians dramatically talk of coming persecution and of dying for Jesus Christ. For one thing we love money and comfort too much to be faithful in persecution. For another thing, if we aren’t living for Christ and others as a way of life, and if we aren’t taking up our cross and denying ourselves daily as a way of life, we are hardly going to confess Christ and deny ourselves should we be faced with the choice of physical life or death. In this sense, it is harder to live for Christ than to die for Christ…and if we have not learned what it is to “die daily” and to live for Christ daily, it is unlikely that we would “love not our lives unto death.”