sipping cocoa in a coffee shop

I am sitting in a coffee shop in northern Illinois. Although they have a wi-fi available, I come to the conclusion that I am too cheap to purchase access which means that I will compose now and post later from a free internet connection.

The other oddity at play here is that while I am sitting in a coffee shop, fully taking in the atmosphere, I am not drinking coffee. I never drink coffee. I can’t stand the stuff. I love the aroma of brewing coffee and find that the coffee shop itself is a great place to find oneself, especially in the cold northern winter. Actually drinking coffee, however, is another story.

So it all comes down to atmosphere. Perhaps other people. Perhaps the feeling of authenticity of some sort. Nonetheless it is a personal anomaly that I come to coffee shops with no intention whatsoever of drinking a cup of coffee.

And so it is with many who pass through the doors of a church. People come for many reasons. Perhaps people, the search for authenticity,* a feeling of warmth from the cold world – but something. I think it all comes down to atmosphere. Fundamentally there is a culture of Christianity that participates in all the tradition but never really has any intention of partaking of God.

In fact, I would suppose that there are a good number of churchgoers who, when face-to-face with God, find that they really cannot stand him. Yes, I said it. . .I’m talking about those of us who really cannot stand God. This is a little discussed problem with the Christian subculture which begins when an individual experiences a lacking faith experience. When our churches ignore the foundational aspects of a true biblical faith, then we find an ecclesiastical culture so addicted to a counterfeit that cannot accept the legitimate.

I have witnessed this phenomenon firsthand, while teaching an overview/introductory course on the Bible at my last church. There was a woman in that class who had spent a large amount of time in church for many years. She was so taken back by some of the events in the Old Testament (which would bother many of us) that she told me, “I just do not like this picture of God and do not think that I need to know this side of his character.” Point illustrated.

She – along with many, many others – had been left with such a misrepresented portrait of God that her image of Christianity was nothing more than a cultural read-back of what was comfortable to her. The result of this was a God who resembled a figure who was idealized from a human perspective rather than finding its definition in the transcendent divine. By her response, it seems that her spirit was rejecting Scripture just as my body convulses when the bitterness of coffee hits the upper pallet. The danger of biblical illiteracy among Christians keeps building.

Perhaps I’ll go force down a latte as an act of empathy and spiritual discipline.