To a large degree, professing Christians in America got in on the fix by rearranging the essentials of the faith to which Jesus calls those who seek to live in his redeeming, counter-cultural way.
Within this big band and brand of Americanized Christianity it is considered essential to “accept” Jesus but optional to follow.
Any good deeds done after this initial and instant “profession of faith” are nice — especially when providing institutional support.
Following Jesus, however, is not required. That is, if escape from hell is one’s primary or sole goal.
This misrepresentation of Jesus’ well-revealed gospel allows modern proponents and adherents to proudly proclaim their Christian identity and faithfulness — all while ignoring what Jesus said identifies his followers.
Some faith traditions add required classes to confirm one’s faith — though Jesus called for more, rooted in the abandonment of self and grabbing a cross to carry.
It takes a lot of ignoring to gloss over or dismiss what Jesus said and did when seeking followers — then and now.
In fact, his harshest words of eternal punishment (in Matthew 25) were directed not toward assumed sinners who had never professed faith.
Rather they were directed toward the assumed faithful (“righteous ones”) who neglected to sacrificially care for the hungry, thirsty and imprisoned “least of these” — oh, and the “stranger” (one belonging to another country).
Jesus’ whole focus is on self-giving in order to express tangible love of inclusively defined neighbors — and to embrace (not demean) the most vulnerable among us.
His call for belief was a first step, not the end. When appealing to his earliest disciples, Jesus called for belief in the good news AND a willingness to sacrifice self-interest and security in order to follow him.
That is a far cry from the prominent Americanized version of salvation that demands only sincerely reciting a so-called “sinner’s prayer” — a rather modern initiation rite honed in revivalism — and then being free to do whatever one wishes if he or she feels a sense of societal loss on the horizon.
J. Daniel Day tackles this matter extremely well in his book, Finding the Gospel: A Pastor’s Disappointment and Discovery (2020, Nurturing Faith).
The low-cost “plan of salvation” proffered widely by Americanized Christianity is permeated with a high degree of self-interest, he noted.
“The crassest expression of this, of course, was the appeal to get saved so hell would not be one’s eternal destiny,” said Day, noting how this approach “appeals to our basic animal instincts for survival and the avoidance of suffering.”
Day summarizes well how this “plan of salvation” or “accepting Jesus” provides “an explainable and marketable gospel, but it is a gospel that carries within it the seeds of selfishness.”
“Rather than calling others to give themselves away, the message is to get themselves ‘saved’ and thereby assure themselves of heaven’s joys without a drop of sweat or interest in others,” he continued.
Living self-sacrificially, as Jesus told and showed us, is not about limited, feel-good charity. It is about justice that shares power rather than pennies.
Most Americanized Christians are defensive rather than reflective about such matters. Yet one only needs to look at how easily professing Christians respond with full allegiance to anything that stirs fear of change — especially the threatened loss of cultural dominance to those who look and might believe differently.
However, one cannot read the Gospels honestly and see merely “accepting” Jesus (which isn’t in there) as the essential and following Jesus as a nice add-on for the few.
Sure, a perverted version of faith that plays to one’s self-interest is quite attractive. But it has nothing to do with the wholistic experience of salvation that Jesus so graciously, sacrificially and continually extends.
So, how did we get here?
How did we get to the point that white American evangelicals — almost en masse — join forces with those who knowingly spread untruth, seek raw power by any means, and heap unfair condemnation on those who suffer the most?
Here’s how: By making being “Christian” something other, quicker and easier than faithfully following Jesus.
But, more importantly, how do we fix the fix?
It so happens that Jesus tells and shows us — if we dare.
John D. Pierce is director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative (jesusworldview.org), part of Belmont University’s Rev. Charlie Curb Center for Faith Leadership.