Where is your joy?

Glum Christianity is false religion. Sour, suspicious, fearful of small religious errors yet committing colossal uncharity, it is nothing our Lord has called us to.


A certain amount of Roman Catholicism shows itself to be false worship because it is colored by fear not joy. You see grim Catholics laboring along with mechanistic ideas of religious observance, fearful of making mistakes. But perfect love casts out fear and the Holy Spirit wants to make us joyous. He wants us free and happy so that we can serve others spontaneously, and cooperatively, and sometimes in original ways that do not fit into our stereotypical patterns. We cannot be original if we are afraid.

It is also a problem that afflicts parts the Protestant world. Roman Catholicism has had that heavy spirit within it at least since the late medieval era and some kinds of Protestantism brought it with them when they split off. The lack of freedom it brings makes unity impossible with those of other churches, because everyone is afraid that the outsiders are breaking some little rule or other. They are worried that other Christians from other churches are doing something wrong in the way they worship, or are guilty of holding a flawed idea somewhere or other in their house brand theology. If we say, with the apostle, that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, we can infer that the Spirit of the Lord is often not involved when Christians meet. Too often we give those other Christians no liberty at all.

When we meet Christians of another stripe we should be fairly dancing with glee at one another. "The Lord has touched your life? Mine too! Oh, it's a miracle, it's wonderful, the most wonderful thing that can happen to human beings!" Instead, though, we begin at once to criticize (whether silently or aloud) the ideas and faith traditions of those other Christians.

If we really think they are in serious error, we could try becoming their friends and in love, by our superior example, show them how to do Christianity better. Somehow that is not how we have done things historically; instead it is an occasion to find wood, kindling and a stake.

Looked at that way we are obviously in error in how we treat one another, the error of not putting first things first, and it is an error that will make unity impossible so long as we persist in it. The trouble is that nobody looks at it that way. The centuries have conditioned us to be critics of the other fellow's prayer book or his communion service or the kind of music employed in services.

Glum Christianity is false religion. Sour, suspicious, fearful of small religious errors yet committing colossal uncharity, it is nothing our Lord has called us to. So snap out of it if you are in it. In the words of the old song, "Hallelujah, come on, get happy, Get a-ready for the judgment day!