my christianity is a toyota prius

I’ve been thinking about hypocrisy recently, and the following half-baked idea came to mind:

My Christian life is like
the ridiculous consumer driven
‘green eco-friendly’ products.

We Americans are an idealistic lot on the whole. We like to dream big. We like to talk about change—though the actual following through is where we often fall short. How often have we all watched the olympics, gotten inspired to do some great athletic feat, only to make it to the gym once, if at all.

Take the ‘green’ movement sweeping the country. It didn’t take long for the large corporations to jump on the band wagon. Now with just about any purchase you have the opportunity to do your part in making a clean planet. So instead of actually making substantial changes in how we live, we just buy this light bulb instead of that one or this car instead of that one. Somehow all this is justifiable to ourselves & others. I’m outraged at the state of the gulf coast, so damn it I’m boycotting B.P! Make no mention of how I’m not going to stop purchasing petrol, lessen my consumption, nothing that would actually cause some inconvenience or substantial change of my lifestyle.

So is any different with spiritual life, my relation to the divine? None.

How often have I tried to buy my way out of actually changing? Instead of walking the difficult road of transformation I take the interstate {paved with comfort & good intentions}. It is much easier to show up every Sunday to Church (& maybe even teach a Sunday school class) than it is to live by faith. Maybe for some going to church is an act of faith, though for me and anyone else who has grown up in the church it is far from an act of faith, rather simply an act of repetition.

A faithless Christianity can include lots of things that on the surface seem spiritual or pietistic: Bible reading, formal prayer, giving, service, or even leadership. There is much I can do to make myself look very spiritual though without much if any spiritual transformation.

Transformation is much harder, impossible to truly quantify—as it then would become objective, rational, & therefore definable, thus losing its power—even harder to accomplish through our own powers.

So this is why I’m a Toyota Prius. All to often I find myself faking it, trying to buy a transformation through my broken cisterns. All too often I deny the reality of my faults, to the harm of those around me {read: faulty pedals/computer systems} all the while boasting of my excellent qualities of goodness. Only after my faults have reached a critical mass will I acknowledge my failures.

Maybe we should all look to the simple answers for these problems. Environmental problems won’t be solved simply through scientific discoveries, but through people radically changing the way the live their lives. The same goes for our relation to God, we won’t find the answer to our problems in the latest Christian 5 steps to glory but rather through the simple process of abiding, following the simple command of loving God & neighbor.