Peanut Butter Christianity

In his book, RetroChristianity, Michael Svigel discusses the appetite of the current church-goer for all things inauthentic. We have been tasting something manufactured using the ingredients of post-reformation, post-Great Awakening, and post-revivalism faith for so long that we can hardly recognize what is truly authentic.

More than this. When we do taste the authentic faith of Historic Christianity as it was practiced and believed by our forefathers we quickly spit it out. We may even pull back from this authentic product. Svigel compares our reaction to that of peanut butter.

Most Americans today are not really eating peanut butter. We may think that we are eating peanut butter but we usually are not. Look at the back of the jar. Peanut butter is peanuts. Peanuts that have been ground up into a smooth form something like butter. We buy something smoother. We buy something sweeter. In fact, if most of us tasted "Natural" peanut butter we would probably not like it....at first.

But it still looks like peanut butter. It is still labeled peanut butter.

The same is true for Christianity. Current Evangelicals look Christian. They are labeled Christian.

"What I'm suggesting is this: over the last several decades, many of us evangelicals have become increasingly accustomed to a less "natural" form of Christianity. While still essentially Christian, many aspects of evangelicalism have become victims of "enrichment"   by non-Christian ingredients that are meant to enhance the faith. This "enrichment" has been done to make the gospel more convenient, palatable, or marketable. Yet as these added ingredients take up more and more space, the essentials of the faith are necessarily displaced."

 For us to continue forward without regarding the essential elements of Christianity that have been clearly evident in historical practices as they have been believed everywhere, always, and by all is for us to continue to accept a mere imitation of real Christianity.

"The time has come for evangelicals to reclaim the forgotten faith. However, this means doing something many are reluctant to do. It means reflecting on the past to rethink the present and revitalize the future. It means, in short, to think not just biblically and theologically, but also historically."  

We will continue in future posts to discuss a few ways that we can recover a more "natural" reflection of Christian faith.