Americans are 5 percent of the world’s population, but we consume 65 percent of the world’s psychotropic drugs, tranquilizers, and mood enhancers.

Is there any doubt that there is a problem with America’s soul?  Of course, the reason for this mess is that a mother smacked their child in Wal-Mart when he threw a tantrum.  The embarrassment of it all scarred him for life–it’s mom’s fault.

We must come to terms with the failure of the victim mentality approach.  This has proven to be woefully  ineffective and we see the failed results all around us.  No one can be held accountable for anything anymore.  The victim mentality approach does nothing more than coddle blame-shifting and cultivates a culture of personal irresponsibility.  This is an unsustainable path for treating the real problems in the American psyche.   We must get to the heart of the problem.  Questions dealing with our origin, nature, and purpose are absolutely critical to treating the real problem with America’s soul.  Psychotropic drugs will never fix our inability to cope with the crushing pressures of this life.  Why?  Because they attempt to treat a soul issue as a physical issue.  This would be like a mechanic adjusting the temperature gauge of a car that is overheating.  He only fixed the indicator of the problem not the problem itself.  Thus, your car is still in disrepair.  We cannot attempt to effect change from the outside-in (the physical to the spiritual).  This is entirely backward.  The problems we face are rooted in our hearts.  Jesus made this abundantly clear,

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, [22] coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. [23] All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person (Mark 7:21-23, ESV, emphasis added).

Yet true and lasting change is possible.  There is hope for those who need effective and lasting change in Christ.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV; see also 1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

Until we seek change from the inside out, genuine heart change that we can only find in Christ, we will continue to see the disturbing trend cited above rise.

5. Hitchens revealed the danger of cultural Christianity and exposure to tepid, lifeless, superficial Christian teaching.

In his childhood, Hitchens was exposed to the mild Christianity of his father and the Hitchens home. (Later in life, he discovered that his mother was, in fact, partly Jewish.) As a schoolboy, Hitchens received the customary dose of tame religious instruction. In God is Not Great, he wrote of Mrs. Jean Watts, “a good, sincere, simple woman, of stable and decent faith,” who taught him religion at his school near Dartmoor. Even as a boy, Hitchens was not impressed by her emotivist expressions of doctrine and her answers to his questions. He wrote also of a school headmaster, who seemed, among other failings, to believe that belief in God served a mainly therapeutic function. Hitchens described himself then as “quite the insufferable little intellectual,” but the damage was done. Unlike others who, as he wrote, might have rejected belief in God because of abuse or “brutish indoctrination,” Hitchens simply developed indignant contempt for a belief system that seemed so superficial and fraudulent. An exposure to tepid, lifeless, thoughtless, and intellectually formless Christianity can be deadly (emphasis added).

This is a particularly important point for Christian parents, pastors, and church members to note well and never forget.  We have to own and be serious about our faith if we intend to pass it down to the next generation.  We can blame the world, the public schools, evolution, atheists, etc., etc., etc.–all the “culprits” we can think of–but the reality is that the greatest enemy to Christianity is a professing Christian who shows little to no interest in living like a follower of Jesus.  In this sense, the biggest enemy of Christianity may be inside the walls of the church not outside of them.  Of course, the best thing believers can do is to own their faith and live it, love and serve Jesus in a way that is so inter-woven with their daily lives that it is impossible to separate the so-called sacred from the secular.  Our aim should be the sincere kind of Christianity Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 2:15-17 (ESV):

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, [16] to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? [17] For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

As a pastor, I see just how much a consumer mindset has infiltrated believers when they are 1) looking for a church and 2) serving in a church.  When people are looking for a church, they “shop” around to see which church will serve them best  When these same people join a church it impacts their service because they remain committed to getting rather than giving–or giving nominally rather than sacrificially.  I liken church membership to a bank account.  A person typically makes deposits and withdrawals.  A balanced church member does both.  A church member who only withdraws (benefits from ministry) just drains resources–it’s an unsustainable pattern.  A church member who only deposits (participates in ministry) burns himself out.  As church members, we need to do both.  I appreciate the congregation of Bible Baptist Church (BBC), the church at which I serve.  There are a good number of people involved in the work of the ministry.  This post is not a backdoor critique of the congregation I shepherd.  On the contrary, it’s a joy to do the work of the ministry with many of the saints at BBC.  At the same time, every American Christian has marinated long enough in a consumer oriented culture that we cannot escape its influence.

This brings me back to where I began.  The Apostle Paul’s teaching on the body of Christ reveals that a consumer mentality (a focus on me and what I can get)  is the polar opposite of a ministry mindset (a focus on others and what I can give).  The two cannot peacefully coexist.  So believer, do you want to be counter-cultural?  According to the Apostle Paul, if we are going to be anti-consumerism as believers we must be pro-body of Christ.

I’ll close with a citation that prompted this post.  Paul Tripp communicated the importance of the body of Christ when he wrote,

Many of us would be relieved if God had placed our sanctification in the hands of trained and paid professionals, but that simply is not the biblical model.  God’s plan is that through the faithful ministry of every part, the whole body will grow to full maturity in Christ.  The leaders of his church have been gifted, positioned, and appointed to train and mobilize the people of God for this ‘every person, everyday’ ministry lifestyle.

The paradigm is simple: when God calls you to himself, he also calls you to be a servant, and instrument in his redeeming hands.  All of his children are called into ministry, and each of them needs the daily intervention this ministry provides.  If you followed the Lord for a thousand years, you would still need the ministry of the body of Christ as much as the day you first believed.  This need will remain until our sanctification is complete in Glory (Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, ix).