K-Love is our local Christian radio station. It's tag line says it all: "Positive, Encouraging, K-Love." It more or less trades on what could be called "cliche Christianity." Lots of positive, encouraging songs with positive, encouraging news stories at the top of the hour with positive, encouraging sound bytes from dj's in between songs.
I only listen to it when my kids are in the car.
I was talking with a thoughtful student last week who voiced her frustration at cliche Christianity as it was expressed in some small group Bible studies she'd visited. She felt like her desires to press deeper were not particularly welcomed. The people in the small groups seemed pretty content with cliche Christianity.
As someone who tends to be cynical about K-Love, cliche Christianity, I had much sympathy for her. I, too, get tired of easy, pat answers that can be embossed on a trinket and sold at your local Christian book store just in time for Mother's Day.
But as we talked about her/our struggles with cliche Christianity, one thing did become clear to me: just as I want my honest, hard, real questions honored, so, too, must I learn to honor my brothers and sisters who find great comfort, joy and hope in the things that I tend to brush off as trite easy answers.
Jesus has much good to say to those who were simple and pure in heart. He affirmed child-like faith. Of course he calls us to live in wisdom. But for those of us who like to think of ourselves as more nuanced and too good for the simple stuff, Jesus has disappointingly little good to say to us.
And so we must honor those for whom Christ died--all of them, even the ones that find comfort in K-Love cliche Christianity. And for those of us for whom that's not enough, we must do so without giving up on our earnest desires to press deeper into the hard places of faith, disappointments, and questions without easy answers. The Scriptures will allow us to neither despise the more simple faith-walk of another person, nor will it allow us to abandon our own journeys to the deeper ends of the ocean.
7 comments:
Very well said Alex. It's hard to respect other people and let them be comforted by whatever makes them comforted, but I think we're definitely supposed to do that.
thanks for this today, alex. i really needed to hear it.
cheers.
rachel
I'm with you, bro, on your point about honoring other folks' place.
But that does raise the question about why you'd inculcate your children into a version of Christianity that you find vapid/shallow? Won't the, "yeah, I really don't think like that" effect become deleterious in their walk or your relationship with them?
Or do you see it as an ok thing for kids, but something you hope they'd grow out of?
(From your brother who tries to get Cora Marie to listen to The Jim Rome Show and our local indie music NPR station.)
to the peeps:
Jeff, thanks for becoming a regular contributor to PL, I hope to meet you sometime!
Fiercest One, appreciate you checking in, I think we're on the same page with this struggle. I look forward to talking with you on Wednesday!
Daniel, don't be so difficult! I don't like Thomas or The Wiggles or Blues Clues either, but I can appreciate them via my kids.
Similarly, developmentally there's only so much kids will "get" at various ages/stages. Really, they may or may not ever "develop beyond" cliche Christianity. But if they're going to be the types of adults who live on cliches (let's please recognize that there's TONS of people who are satisfied with cliches, not just Christians) then at least they'll be living with Christian cliches and not the even more vapid and annoying humanistic cliches that clutter Hallmark stores.
but then again, bro, you might have a good point in introducing cora marie to sports talk radio early--specifically jim rome. it might really be advisable to develop the kids into becoming one of the "clones" as early as possible.
I have struggled with this, too. I would love to have my kids just listen to NPR with me in the car, but Calvin is too good at picking up lingo like "gay rights" and "car bomb." So I try K-Love, and I don't want him singing those cheesy pop songs either. Anyone who
didn't know they were Christian would just think they were teenager love pop crap. My solution, so far, has been to introduce him to the really good things, Christian or not, that I think he can handle.
Shortly after I brought him home from the hospital, I read him the college football preview issue of Sports Illustrated. He listened to the Beatles in utero. Now that he is older, I am making an effort to bring along good music in the car, Rich Mullins, U2, bluegrass. Both of my boys love it. We do the same with books. I do my best to weed out the junk and find the really good ones to keep. It's sort of a hard fight in today's world, but I think it is a good one. I want my kids to appreciate things that are well created and thus reflect God as the creator.
That said, Alex, you do have a great point about loving those people who find comfort in the K-Love version of Christianity. I know some amazing people who are like that, and I have a terrible tendency to judge. But I don't think people have to settle for that. I think they are capable of more. I don't think anyone is too simple to appreciate real beauty that speaks to the Truth. And I think God wants no less out of those who create, especially those who do it in His name.
Um, my main question after reading this was "WHy do you listen to it when the kids are in the car?" Not like it was wrong, but like "Why any time?"
I would commend to you ANdrew Peterson's CD SLugs, Bugs and Lullabyes as a CD that is kid-friendly and parent-entertaining, as well as Colin Buchanan's 10,9,8 God is Great.
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