Spiritual Masturbation

05Jan08

I went to a large church a fair way from where I live last Sunday night. The building was very impressive. The music was like a rock concert - with swirling lights, loud music, and even a mosh pit. The sermon was comfortable, and at the end we were all asked to close our eyes and bow our heads whilst any new converts “raised their hand” (a rather interesting interpretation of Mathew 10:32). The people were all very young and at the end I asked the people with me if they could find anyone who was not a middle-class, white Anglo-Saxon. We counted 2. Out of at least 400 (it was a night time service over the holidays).

The atmosphere was good. I enjoyed the service. But I also knew that I hadn’t really worshiped God. I hadn’t heard his word. I hadn’t seen people saved. I had jumped to contemporary music with a strong beat. I had listened to a guy preach to the choir. And I had seen some people be converted - only to return to their old lives this week.

I left that service thinking it was like a drug. A spiritual high. An addiction which the congregation was indulging in every week oblivious to the effects it had on their lives during the week.

Spiritual Masturbation

Shane Claiborne calls this feel good spirituality “spiritual masturbation”. I can hardly think of a better term. Countless times I’ve attended worship services more bent on making me feel good than in making me feel God. The lighting is just right. The pews are positioned correctly. I can predict the rhythms of the service - when the beat will speed up or slow down, when they’ll stop for prayer, or when a “clap offering” is coming. Too often I feel like I haven’t worshiped God unless I raise my hands and “ooh” and “aah” in ecstasy.

But when I really encounter and worship God I find myself on my knees. My life laid bare, my failings so clear in the light of His glory. All my pursuits and dreams seem like foolishness and I beg him for mercy. It is a decidedly uncomfortable experience -but a life changing one.

In short, I often seek a counterfeit form of worship that makes me feel good over real worship that is honouring to God. And this is only one issue. I think most Christians are not Christians for God’s sake, but for their own. Consider:

The Building - we spend millions to keep ourselves comfortable. We create spaces where it is “safe” to meet God. Yet did we ever thing that God would be more glorified if we danced in the streets and preached in the parks? If we invited people into our homes rather than just our halls? Or if we invested the money in the poor rather than the Air Con? (Recently at a local church there was a meeting to discuss installing air conditioning for the amazingly ‘cheap’ cost of $18000. One of my friends stood up before this meeting and said that it isn’t all that cheep when you consider that for $17000 we could provide clean water and irrigation for an African community and save thousands of lives in the long run. They ended up installing the air con.)

The Distance - the word “fellowship” is one that is only ever used in Christian circles (and the lord of the rings). I’ve come to conclude that it is code for “making us look like we have a more meaningful relationship than we actually do”. From the moment I walk into church I am handed a newsletter from a woman with such a grin she looks like she is meeting an old friend. I can’t even remember her name. Over biscuits and coffee I people (who I hadn’t seen since the previous service) ask me, “how are you?” but they don’t really care, so I reply, “fine” because I don’t really care either. We stand in pews looking at the back of each other’s heads, only hearing what the people on the stage have to say rather than what the heart of the person next to me is wishing to scream. And in the end we depart for another week, each of us feeling complacent with the “fellowship” but none of us having actually given anything.

The Preaching - I can’t remember last time I heard a sermon in an IC (and I’ve been to a fair few) that actually challenged me. Time and again they do nothing but reinforce what I learnt in my first few years as a Christian; repeating the globally accepted and safe cliches of my religion. I can certainly understand the conundrum of the pastor here - if he challenges us too much people will feel uncomfortable and leave. Oh, how far we have fallen.

I could go on. My my point is that for the most part Western Christianity has become a commodity (we pay in tithes - it is quite literally a transaction for religious services) that promises Comfort and Security - exactly the two addictions the empire of the world controls us with! Religion has become nothing more than the opium of the masses. Rather than creating a dangerous, counter-cultural kingdom we have, as Alison Morgan says, “set up private clubs for people whose leisure interest is religion.”

Loving God

Have we even begun to be Christians? Jesus dies on the cross, giving us hope for new life, and calls us to love him in return. But instead we rape Him; using him for our emotional or spiritual highs, our political goals, or our life improvement programs. Jesus has become nothing more than the solution for our problems (like hell); and whilst he IS the solution to our problems he is also our Lord and King and deserves not merely our requests but also our offerings.

The end pursuit of Christianity is not our salvation, or our “coming alive”, or our healing. It is God’s glorification. We’ll be saved and come alive in the process but those things are not the end, they are the means to an end. In our truly counter-cultural religion Christ literally calls us to abandon or “lay down” our lives for his sake to find what we were really made to live for. Die to find life. It’s a life that only comes when we abandon the pursuit of happiness and instead make the service of God our life goal.

Love is not a feeling we get when we worship in Church. Love is an action. It’s an action that leads to a wide range of feelings - from ecstasy to sorrow. It’s a choice to wake up each morning and say “God, today I will glorify you with my life. Today I will not make my satisfaction my goal but rather hope to find it in the service of you. But even if I do not, I will still live for you because you are holy and the one I love.”

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