American Christianity is a CyberTruck

Or: Why Wisdom Is Worth Not Fighting For

I passed a Tesla CyberTruck as I was out running yesterday. From what I’ve read there are about 3000 of them out in the wild, so a sighting is still kind of rare (though I’ve seen quite a few around Nashville already). 

These cars are bonkers. They look crazy, they’re wickedly expensive, utterly ridiculous and I totally would love to drive one for a day if I could. 

The news about them, though, is not too hot. It’s full of headlines about these trucks cutting people’s fingers, getting recalled because of faulty acceleration pedals and comically large windshield wipers, and there are many reports of them not working when they get wet. 

It’s obvious that no one is buying these trucks because they are great vehicles. They’re status symbols. And like a lot of status symbols, they often communicate things about their owners that are the opposite of the intent. 

I think you know what I mean.

All that to say, when I saw the CyberTruck yesterday, I will admit, I got a little judge-y and rolled my eyes. 

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That whole morning I had been thinking about two things that have popped up in the Christian culture this past week.

The first was Robert Morris, the pastor of Gateway Church down in Texas, a place where a few of my friends have worked and attend. 

It recently came to light that he had molested a 12-year-old girl for five years back in his early ministry days. His claims to have been forgiven and restored to ministry look to be fairly suspect, and there is simply no excuse for him not having been turned into the authorities, serving jail time or being registered as a sex offender. 

What is pretty clear is that he had a gift for speaking (and marketing) and some people in charge thought that those gifts outweighed the seriousness of his crimes.

Has Gateway, the megachurch he founded, served many people and done a lot of good in the community and world? Absolutely. 

Would the church exist had he been held accountable for his crimes? Likely not, at least in its current form. Though a megachurch in the Dallas metroplex area is a given, and another would have likely sprung up to take its place.

Does the good of his work outweigh the damage of his actions? Does the secret-keeping and justice-dodging undermine the trust of his congregation? Beyond his initial actions, will his and his leadership’s subsequent handling of his actions do more damage than the good he has done?

       Quite possibly. 

                        Very possibly. 

                                            Most likely.

Those leaders, and thousands of churchgoers kept in ignorance, saw a man with some unique skills and gifts. They saw something that looked cool and reflected well on them. A status symbol. 

But it was flawed in a deep way.

To be clear, I’m not talking about his human failings. We ALL have human failings. 

I’m talking about what was down with his failings: the hiding from real accountability, the dismissive language about the victim (calling a 12-year-old girl a “young lady” and labelling the actions “an inappropriate relationship” rather than what it was - child sexual abuse), the claims of restoration which have not been corroborated by the victim’s family… Like in so many of these cases, the cover-up is what does the most damage. 

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The other thing on my mind as I ran yesterday was an instagram post that recently went viral of some of my friends questioning a popular song lyric: “praise is the water my enemies drown in”

As a person who has spent the past decade working upstream of the worship music that flows down to the Church, this caught my attention. 

I’ve never really liked songs like this in the first place. Songs that say “I’m going to praise you, we’re going to praise you, we’re here to praise you, etc…” because the songs aren’t actually praising God, they’re talking about us and how good we are by doing the right thing. These songs use religious language to point to our goodness first, and God’s as an afterthought.

To be fair, I don’t think they’re intentionally malicious, most of the time I think it’s just lazy, first-draft writing.

I can be accused of being too critical, but it’s because I believe deeply that the songs we sing matter. These lyrics get stuck in our heads, we sing them to ourselves all day, and - when they use this kind of spiritual language - they work to shape our thoughts of who God is and who we are. Those songs need to be very intentional, thought through, and ultimately true.

This particular song talks about praising God as a weapon. There’s some Old Testament and Psalm language that does give this some context. Those are passages I never really know what to do with, to be honest.

Luca Giordano - Bergamo, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Italy, 1681

Regardless of the hermeneutics, praising God as a means to do anything other than praising God isn’t really praising God, is it? 

It’s doing the other thing. 

Praising God so you can use it as a weapon is like having kids for the tax break. Kind of misses the whole point.

To the lyric in question: “Praise is the water my enemies drown in” - The instagram post has hundreds of comments defending this, saying that the enemies are metaphors or spiritual forces or “the deep state”, whatever that means. (The comments eventually had to be shut down as they got too violent.)

Here’s the whole verse:

      I'll praise in the valley, praise on the mountain

     I'll praise when I'm sure, praise when I'm doubting

     I'll praise when outnumbered, praise when surrounded

     'Cause praise is the waters my enemies drown in

I get it. I’ve been in a room, writing songs with friends, and you get a line that just sings really well and ties it all together and everybody is stoked and feels awesome. It’s a great feeling! It’s kind of what songwriters live for. And that line, in that context, kind of crushes, to be honest. It’s got energy, a great rhyme, it’s a solution to the problem in the line before it. I see how they got there.

BUT… 

This song doesn’t tell us who the enemies are. It’s left to the listener. And I’ve read the research, the people most likely to listen to this song are also listening to a lot of news that is telling them very explicitly who their enemies are. Fox News doesn’t do metaphors.

The line in and of itself, within the context of its own song, could mean spiritual forces or depression or many other things, and that can be an empowering message. But that line in our cultural context, and without any further definition, I would argue, is unwise.  

I should add here: This is a public critique of a public work, not a criticism of the writers as people, to be VERY clear. Our social circles overlap quite a bit and, by all accounts, these are good men.

However, the song, and many others like it, are part of a larger issue. The target audience might get it, and feel encouraged by it, but anyone outside of that ecosystem who might hear it would probably not feel the same way. 

Imagine a Christian radio listener hearing a Muslim song about drowning their enemies. There might be a call to Homeland Security in the near future.

If a non-christian is flipping around the radio and hears that line, what will they think? Does this lead them to the beauty of the heart of Jesus?

If our enemies are spiritual forces, then God has already defeated them and is working on our behalf against them even now. Our praise of God (or lack of it) can not manipulate Him to do what He has already promised to do! 

And what has Jesus actually told us about our enemies?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:43-48)

I’m not a scholar, but I don’t think that means drowning them. How about “They will know we are Christians by our love”?

There’s a critical piece of thoughtfulness and wisdom missing when lyrics like this make their way into the ears and minds and hearts and marrow of the Church. 

It feels good to sing. It makes us feel powerful in a world out of control. But it doesn’t really work, does it? 

It’s not the worst song ever, by any means, but it probably could have used another round of prayerful revision. A little more R&D before it was put into the market.

It’s a CyberTruck.

Robert Morris is a CyberTruck. 

They, and so many other things like them, operate as symbols that make us feel good about ourselves, but don’t actually work very well. 

Leaders like Morris and songs like this, as well intentioned as the people behind them might be, are tiny parts of a larger Christian culture that has traded responsibility, kindness and humility for looking good, making money and being first to market.

The commercialization of Christian culture has led us to sacrifice wisdom for influence, and thus we are losing both.

These songs and leaders (and books and conferences, etc etc) might get us where we want to go - a big church, a #1 single, a senate seat - but to anybody outside our little circle, it just looks ridiculous. 

They don’t take our faith seriously, because we have not taken our faith seriously.

The CyberTruck might get you to Target, but people are going to roll their eyes when you get there. 

I don’t know what kind of car Jesus would drive, but I do know that He has asked me to love my enemies, to pray for those who persecute me, to give what I can to the poor, and to pick up my cross and follow Him.

What if the world saw a young pastor turn himself in for his sexual abuse, offer his guilty plea, do his jail time and then live the rest of his life quietly doing good and serving others? What fruit might grow from that true repentance? 

What if, rather than weapons or drowning, our big sing-along songs were about loving those who persecute us? How might that change the nature of our cultural conversations?

In many ways it feels like the sun is setting on a particular era of American Christian empire. Its leaders are crumbling like pillars of sand and the institutions feel like empty shopping malls.

In the grief and pain of so much damage, may our tears water new fruits of kindness and humility, thoughtfulness and wisdom. The world doesn’t need Jesus-brand products, it needs to see Jesus in our eyes, hear Him in our language, and feel Him in our actions.

^“Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:8-10)