I don’t know if the pollen was extra bad this spring or what, but I had a sore throat for months. The watery eyes and post-nasal drip got so bad I began avoiding going outside entirely.
Allergies are annoying. Some are even deadly. But there’s a kind of spiritual allergy in the church that can be debilitating for those seeking to walk faithfully before God.
Last year I heard a pastor say, “Evangelicals are allergic to the practical.” The phrase stuck with me, because my ministry gives me a front-row seat to that aversion. Christians who otherwise love biblical teaching often react badly the moment you get specific about application.
We like principles. But when it comes to the doing, we get skittish. Most evangelical sermons, whatever the text, conclude with some version of “therefore, go read your Bible and pray more.” I’m all for spiritual disciplines. But it’s strange that we rarely get more concrete than that.
Vagueness is easier to excuse in preaching. Be too precise and the application fits no one—or fits one person so well he thinks you’re calling him out. But the same fog hangs over Christian content far from the pulpit. Books labeled “Christian Living” are often so general they might better be called “Theory of Christian Living.”
The generous reading is that we want to avoid legalism. We don’t want to bind consciences beyond Scripture, like the Pharisees tying up heavy burdens. But we overcorrect. We steer clear of the pragmatic altogether—and when we do dare to get specific, we bury it in so many caveats it poses no danger of changing anyone’s life.
A brother at church recently said to me, almost whispering, “Want to know my unpopular opinion? I think nearly every Christian should delete their social media.” Even as I type those words, I can hear the objections lining up because that’s exactly where my mind went too. Though he offered it merely as an opinion, and even gave examples of people for whom it wouldn’t work, I rushed right past the wisdom of the statement to hunt for exceptions. And I agreed with him!
It was like an allergic reaction. I felt compelled to poke holes in it.
Why? Part of it may be that we conflate wisdom issues with sin issues. Scripture forbids some things as violations of God’s law and warns against others as simply bad ideas. Proverbs is full of specific instruction for wise living, that don’t carry the weight of moral absolutes. But it must be more than that, because even when advice is explicitly framed as opinion, we still take it personally.
Whether it’s fear of legalism, fear of man, or all of us just being sensitive snowflakes, the result is the same: faith reduced to theory.
We live in an age of prolific Christian content, yet even the most obvious practical advice must be soaked in a brine of qualifications before being presented as “mere suggestion.” The merchants of milquetoast turn out book after book, podcast after podcast, all saying the same things but never anything concrete. It’s an anemic faith that spills a lot of ink but never a drop of sweat.
Theoretical Christian living reduces our faith from a walk to a notion. It builds a vision of the Christian life that never has to leave the armchair. We might think differently from the world, but God help the man who suggests we live differently. Change does begin from the inside, but the Christian life is not stationary; it’s ambulatory. It starts in the pew, but it must move to the pavement.
It is not legalism to pursue holiness, to set a goal to grow in faithfulness, to wake up early to get a jump on your habits, to make radical changes in how you use technology, or to suggest that it might be wise for others to do the same. We don’t do these things to earn God’s love. We do them because we are already loved—chosen in Him before the foundations of the world, bought by the blood of the Lamb, new creations in Christ Jesus, indwelt by the Spirit.
Christianity is a living faith, an acting faith. So let’s be specific. I don’t think I’m alone in wanting a practical faith that actually changes how I live, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it puts me out of step with the world.
And even if sometimes it makes my brothers and sisters sneeze.
