Category: Christianity

Leftists are everything they hate about religion. They do not necessarily hate what religion actually is, but rather what they think it is and how it is portrayed by popular culture. Leftists have no idea how to hate what religion is because they do not truly know what it is. It is difficult to hate a position you fully understand even though you may disagree with it because you can relate to the humanity of the individual holding the opposing view.

It has been said that people hate what they secretly know they truly are. Everyone has heard stories such as the preacher who ferociously spoke out against homosexuality yet later turned out to be a homosexual himself. While it is not always the case that we secretly are what we are strongly opposed to, sometimes hatred can a symptom. What leftists are actually hating is their own reflection in the mirror.

Some have postulated that Hitler himself was a Jew. Thus his life’s work was destroying the external representations of his internal, self-directed hatred.

Many times it is true that people are what they hate. And this is certainly true of people who are on the political left. Please note I mean the far political left. It is possible to be slightly left of center or even a little farther and also be a rational person who cares about those he/she disagrees with. But if you are just to the left of center politically, beware, the people on the far left may eat you. They eat their own, as we will discover later.

For the purpose of this discussion, the far left is socialism/marxism and it is these radical leftist positions are that we are speaking about. These groups hate God and they hate religion. Hillary Clinton wants you to keep your religion at home. Which for most people just means business as usual.

If only these far-left groups knew that they manifest all the behaviors they hate in religion today. Let’s take a look at this.

I – Leftists preach and Proselytize

“Be like me if you don’t want to be punished by the gods of shame and pop culture”.

Leftists are very concerned with spreading the idolatrous religion of leftist ideology all over the world. You have never witnessed this level of religious zeal anywhere else in your life. Like malignant cancer, they force their ideology onto anyone they find and are constantly making disciples as they go.

Even though leftists hate when Christians try to share the gospel with their neighbors, they feel fully entitled to spreading their doctrine of pseudo-equality and hatred to everyone. And if you do not listen, they will label you with some kind of “-ism” to shame you into compliance.

The Baals of modernity are the government, the environment and the self.

Leftists are always telling people why their way is the best way. Usually, the explanation is laced with more emotionality and gaslighting than rational thinking. And the gospel of the left is very contagious considering they are recruiting laymen at a rapid rate. This is understandable, the doctrine of unfairness and victimhood are appealing. Though they are never satisfying, they are nonetheless incredibly addictive.

Once people start down this road of victimization and blame, it is very difficult to get them to turn back. Because they will never realize that it is their flawed ideology that is leaving them unfulfilled. Instead of changing their ideology, they simply demand more payment. Some call it “reparations“, others call it “support“. However you want to label this behavior, it is human beings attempting to avoid working while still eating and maintaining maximum life pleasure.

It does not matter how empty they become, they will always try to fill the void with government subsidies, handouts and immorality. Rather than change their diseased ideology they persist in mediocrity and victimhood forever.

Leftists hate when you talk about your God, but they can never stop talking about their own gods. It is wrong for you to preach and proselytize, but leftists can engage in these behaviors as much as they want.

II – Leftists Impose Restrictions on Behavior and Limit Freedom

“You Can’t Say This! You Can’t Do That! Oh, and you can only eat these specific foods!“

If you were to sit down and try to name the 5 most common complaints that worldly people levy against Christianity, the restrictive lifestyle would undoubtedly make the list. If you have a discussion with anyone in the world about the gospel, you will likely hear some version of the phrase, “I want to do what I want” or “You Christians never get to do anything fun“. Perhaps not in those exact words, but you will still manage to discern that this is what they really mean.

The two driving forces of all human activities are the desire to avoid pain, and the desire to gain pleasure. Our efforts to spread the Christian lifestyle are essentially a sequence of attempts aimed at convincing people to give up a life of pleasure in exchange for a life of pain. While that may sound like an exaggeration, it is exactly how the people of the world view Christianity. It does not matter what reality is, how individuals perceive reality through their own biased lens will determine their ultimate impression of that reality. Therefore, it does not matter if the Christian lifestyle is not as painful as people believe it to be, the fact that they perceive it as painful and difficult will turn them off from the idea of religion.

It is true that there are lifestyle restrictions included in the Christian teachings.

Christian doctrine has rules and regulations about how people are supposed to behave. If you want to be a Christian, there are certain behaviors you must be willing to give up. You cannot use certain words of profanity or gossip. Also, you have to give up some of the pleasures of the world. The Bible places restrictions on sex (which I argue is the primary driver of atheism). There are many so-called restrictions on freedom that God requires of His people.

However, these restrictions exist to give us a better life. What appears to be a restriction is almost always a guardrail protecting us from the consequences of the restricted behavior.

As much as leftists claim to love freedom and desire to do whatever they want, they nonetheless create their own lifestyle regulations that they impose on everyone. Leftists have the same behavioral restrictions that any religious group has, and they enforce them with the same religious zeal. Unfortunately, instead of being guard rails protecting people from pain, the arbitrary legislation of the leftists is nothing more than one power maneuver after another. Leftists impose mindless rules to see who they can get to follow them. Will you bend and break to the mindlessly generated rules and restrictions of the mob? Every law of the left exists to find out if you will contravene or conform.

Many of the leftist rules exist regarding speech. There are millions of rules for what you can and cannot say in the public square. It does not matter if something is a verifiable fact of reality, if it offends someone’s delicate sensibilities, it is a restricted word. The same people who say “words are just words” when it comes to profanity will say that other words are “off-limits” or “offensive” in the very next breath.

They also have additional laws about what you are or are not allowed to think. Imagine that! They will charge you with “unconscious bias” or something of the sort without any proof whatsoever. All they have to do is fling mud at your name and your life and career can take serious damage.

Modern leftists have thousands of things you cannot say, do or even think, yet they still call religion “restrictive“.

To use”offensive” phrases like, “There are only two genders” is enough to have you strung up by leftists. While these people point fingers at religion for being restrictive, they have hundreds of fingers pointing back at themselves.

III – Leftists want You to act a specific way

Along with placing general restrictions on the vast majority of behavior, leftists also have specific ways they want you to act. Mostly this includes keeping your faith to yourself and not expressing the natural disgust that is felt when two homosexuals display their lust in public or on national television.

If you do not comply with the leftist laws of behavior, you are condemned.

This is a slight variation on the leftist restrictions on behavior. But instead of only telling you what not to do, they also want to tell you how to act. Basically, any semblance of self-direction or freedom is something that a leftist wants to trample beneath their feet. Do as you are told or suffer the consequences.

IV – Leftists publicly shame those who do not obey their commandments.

If you should dare to defy the mob of leftism, you risk being shamed into oblivion. These same leftists who hate any kind of shaming, especially shaming rooted in religious principles, will use it as their primary weapon against each other.

You are not allowed to shame people who are fat, homosexual, female, or black, but feel free to shame anyone who does not comply with your leftist dogma.

The left has innumerable commandments. These commandments are disorganized and contradictory. Notice that this contradictory nature of their commandments is one of the same false accusations they levy against the Bible. And the person who sins against one part of the leftist law is guilty of it all.

And it does not matter who you are, if you violate these laws, you will be destroyed. But there do seem to be a few people who are immune to such accusations. If you are a leftist who is high in political office, you are allowed a few infarctions against the leftist gospel. Because leftists cannot afford to shame you yet as they desperately need you to remain in power in order to push their vile legislation in the public arena.

Unless are you are able to make your way to achieving the title of “leftist saint” (think Barack Obama), the second you are finished with your time in office you will have to account for your evil deeds.

V – Those who “sin” are cast into outer darkness where there is no career possibility and they are never allowed back in

There is no chance for repentance or forgiveness with leftism.

You do not have to go far to see people losing their careers, livelihoods, and lives because they violated one of the many thousand vaporous no-nos of leftism. It does not matter where you fall on the political spectrum, if you are not completely absorbed in the radical left, you will get eaten.

There is also no statute of limitations on your sins. If you did something that violated the mob rule of the left in your teens, you are accountable for it today in your 30s. There is no grace or forgiveness with the left. Again notice this is one of the chief complaints that the world levies against religion. The same leftists who hate religion because of the component of judgment are incredibly quick to cast judgment and sentence damnation to anyone who differs from them.

VI – Leftists worship the idols of big government, mother earth, and the self.

One of the arguments for the existence of a Divine Creator is the programmed religiousness that human beings have. Everyone worships something. Christians worship God and atheists worship themselves, sex, or money. Leftists also have idols that they bow down to and treat with the utmost reverence. These idols are the government, “mother earth” and the self.

If you say a word against the government, you are a blasphemer and will be ridiculed and exiled from leftist circles. Leftists believe that the government can solve any and every problem, given enough resources. And if they have to take your resources to pay for the legislation because they have no resources of their own, so be it. Leftists believe in centralized political power so strongly that they will sell their own freedoms to have the god of government take care of them. Rather than think or act for themselves, members of the left will abdicate all liberty simply to maintain security.

Individuals on the far left also worship the earth.

The idolatrous religion of environmentalism is the purest form of this worship. The environmentalists believe that any and every measure should be taken to save and preserve the earth from the environmental sins of the human beings who live on the planet. They will gladly sacrifice their own lives, well-being, and freedom to preserve the earth that they assume is decaying due to human action.

Leftists love to worship the earth, and this earth-worshipping religion is nothing new. Humans have been worshipping the creature rather than the Creator for thousands of years, and environmentalists are simply the current iteration of that religion.

The people and historians of the future will look back on the people of the 21st century with the same quizzical perspective as we look back on the pagans who lived thousands of years ago and worshipped the earth.

VII – Leftists suggest there is only one way to “salvation” (Big government and globalism).

Leftists are monotheists. Their god is the government. There is salvation through none other than the federal government. Whether you want to be saved from your poverty or from the consequences of your poor life decisions, the government will help you out. They will facilitate your existence through funding and they will force your neighbors to pay for your children. And if you do not want your children, the government will try to force your neighbors to pay the expense of killing your children.

There is no other way but the way of globalism and government. They are willing to give up all freedom in exchange for the eternal flow of resources. Even if that means only having enough resources to feed themselves for one day at a time.

Leftists believe in no borders and governmental, globalist “salvation for all” who come and bow to the government. Human beings are built to segregate. Different cultures and ideologies were meant to exist. These cultures show us what philosophies lead to prosperity (capitalism and Judeo-Christian values) and which ones lead to poverty and death (Communism/socialism). Leftists would see the destruction of all boundaries and differences between peoples. It is interesting that the members of the ideological left who are so interested in “diversity” are so bent on dumping all of humanity in a cultural blender and mixing until thoroughly homogenized.

VIII – Leftists demand total unity

As mentioned previously, the left praises diversity with their words but they worship abject, mindless unity by their actions. While preaching about the virtues of diversity, they actively and violently reject any and every semblance of a diversity of thought.

For leftists, diversity only goes skin deep.

If you do not have the right skin color, your freedom and ability to think are suppressed. It does not matter if you have ideas of your own, those are irrelevant. Only diversity of skin color matters. And even if you do have the correct skin color, the moment you speak against the leftist dogma you will lose the privileges afforded you by your skin. You are only protected inasmuch as you also comply with whatever you are told.

IX – Leftists are hypocritical (AOC’s green new deal and plane usage)

The world accuses Christians of being hypocritical, but they have not even seen their own hypocrisy. Their hypocrisy is so substantial that it makes them the laughing stock of the world.

One of the purest examples of this hypocrisy is Alexandra-Ocasio Cortex and the green new deal. While she demands that everyone limit their vehicle usage, she flies on planes and violates all of her own principles. Understand that being a hypocrite is more than just making a mistake. It is more than simply failing to live up to a high standard. Being a hypocrite is to preach a specific standard of behavior and then actively live a contradictory lifestyle to that standard.

X – They can eat their own

Comply with the mob or get eaten. This is the law of the jungle. The instant you as a left-leaning individual betray the central dogma of the leftists, they will eat you. Unless you make a great effort to continue to be as radical as possible, you will soon find yourself too far right for your leftist friends to tolerate. At this point, they will eat you. It does not matter who it is or how long they have been on the left; if a leftist is not in perfect submission to the most up-to-date radical policies, he/she will be destroyed.

This happens to comedians, actors, and businessmen. No one is immune from the effects of leftism. No one is safe from being attacked and eaten by the leftists who eat their own like hamsters.

XI – Leftists use passive aggression as their primary weapon.

The worst aggression of all is passive aggression. Individuals who resort to passive aggression are too cowardly to fully step into their position, but not smart enough to keep their opinions to themselves. Most people accuse religious people of passive aggression and poorly calculated political maneuvers, but really the blame is to be laid at the feet of leftists.

Leftists make every one of their positions into a vapor. You cannot attack it because it is poorly defined. They lack the clarity of thought to articulate with precision their position and goals. They do not know what they want, all they know is that they are willing to destroy anything or anyone who disagrees with them. And they will do this for no other reason than to quash every bit of resistance to their ideology.

A position that can be clearly articulated can be attacked. I do not think leftists are smart enough to directly and purposefully use the vapor strategy. I believe they accidentally use this strategy because they are too stupid to express in simple terms exactly what they want and what they believe.

So they resort to passive aggression because they have no real position with which to be actively aggressive.

XII – They rely on the god of government to provide for them

Christians trust in God. Leftists trust in government. Most leftists want to let go of the wheel of their own lives and allow the god of government to take care of them instead. They do this even though they ridicule the religious for this same reason.

Christians are stupid for praying to God for their daily bread, but will gladly support political positions that end with them standing in a bread line.

XIII – leftists hate those who do not believe exactly like them.

Secular people accuse religious people of being xenophobic. Allegedly, Christians hate “the others” and should be attacked for this. Though this is identical to the behavior leftists engage in. They hate anyone who does not join their cause and blindly follow them as they march into oblivion in the name of nothing.

Conclusion

You can likely now see the striking similarity between leftists and religion. This is because leftism is its own religion. Leftists simply do not call it “religion” because that is a “grimy” term that would make them sound too much like a cult. The religion of leftisms grows, but at least now you can see that everything that the left hates about religion is something they themselves also engage in.

The majority of the teaching and preaching that occurs in our churches is shallow. It is rudimentary in concept and emotionalistic in delivery. Whenever a position is weak, men will paint over it with emotionalism. An open outpouring of emotion can hide some of the weaknesses of a discussion. Or in the case of church teaching, can make a topic appear to be deep when in reality it is emotionally driven.

The modern American education school system has seen the introduction of the “no child left behind” and common core ideas.

The core philosophy is that the content of school must be watered down in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator. This watering down is done irrespective of differences in individual family situations, which seem to be one of the primary driving factors behind the academic success. It stands to reason that the family who places a high value on education will create a familial culture of an appreciation for education that manifests in good or excellent academic performance. Barring those with exceptional gifts and anomalistic intellectual defects, all individuals have the ability to succeed in school at a relatively consistent level based on their mental faculties alone. The use of those mental faculties and the effort placed in developing them on an individual level will be a prime driver of differences among the individual performance.

Despite those realities, the school system nonetheless marches ahead with the philosophy of common core. Rather than maintaining a certain standard for academic performance, the school waters education down so the person who cares the least can still “succeed” with flying colors. Instead of taking additional time with the individuals who struggle academically and pushing those who work hard onto advanced course work, the state-sponsored indoctrination camps give the same cookie-cutter education to every individual.

It is easy to understand that this has disastrous long-term effects on cultural education (and the NAEP scores demonstrate this fact). Yet many religious groups mindlessly plod down the same pathway. Instead of taking the time and effort to be autonomous in the development of training programs for religious individuals, the church and other religious entities simply copy the school system method of common core in their teaching. The same system that is producing academically retarded individuals is copied in religion and produces spiritually retarded individuals. 

Instead of creating bible classes and having high-level teaching and preaching, we have common core.

Related: Tips for Improving Bible Class

Adult Bible lectures are becoming indistinguishable from the children’s classes, as most adults are still on the same developmental level as children, both in spiritual knowledge and overall spiritual development. 

The application of the common core method in the church is producing generations of people who have no idea what the Bible has to say about any given topic. They could have grown up their entire lives in the church, yet their knowledge is still almost zero. You can test this by asking any given individual in your church where to find a certain topic or story in the Bible. 75% of the time they will not be able to tell you. And why should they need to be able to tell you? In reality, no one is ever going to come up to them and ask them a question about the Bible.

The irony of recreation with fellow Christians is that there is never an intense Biblical discussion to be found. We might sit around, have an emotionally and Biblically shallow “devo” while singing the latest songs from the liberal press, but we will never discuss the bible in a way that actually requires us to think.

And that is the problem with Christian and men as a whole: they never think.

They never take the time to develop their own mental faculties to the point where they are able to use them independently. And that is what humans want. These men want other people to do the thinking for them, they do not want to do any of the thinking themselves. Henry Ford was correct in his observation that “Thinking is the most difficult labor of all, which is why men do not do it”.

The more liberal or emotionalistic or Biblically ignorant a religious group becomes, the more the entirety of the group will mindlessly look to their leadership and accept everything they have to say without a moment’s thought. Just look at the Catholic church for a perfect example of this.

Catholics notoriously know nothing about the Bible. They could not tell you where any Biblical topic is located. The majority of their knowledge is limited to their priest or the occasional “missile” publication. And the Catholic religion as a whole of course looks to the pope for guidance and answers. Rather than using their own minds and looking to the Bible, the word of God, for the answers, they trust other men to find the answers for them.

So strong is the urge to avoid the labor of thinking that men will stake their souls and eternal destination on some other man’s interpretation of the word of God. 

Part of the epidemic of low-thought level teaching is the laziness of so many preachers. It is a rare thing to find a preacher who presents original content anymore. When thousands of sermon outlines are available online, why should any man bother to write his own unique material?

The lack of work ethic among our religious leaders is a topic all in itself. But I would argue that 70% of the people who intend to go into ministry or who, bless their hearts, go to college to study the Bible are not nearly as concerned about the Lord’s work as they are about avoiding their own work. Most college Bible majors want a cushy youth ministry job so they can be paid to do nothing. And that is exactly what so many do. Not all leaders are like that, of course, but many are.

It is reflective of the safety of the times and the convenience of religion. Religion is fast, cheap, and easy, so we have no problem engaging with it as a part of our lives. Add a sprinkle of difficulty, persecution, or war and everyone will sing a different tune.

The main point, of course, is that the teaching in the church has become so watered down that no one is improving their overall knowledge or spiritual development.

When lectures become common core, those who are far beyond the level of that core have nothing to stimulate their minds and are forced to resign to reading their Bible and doing their own personal study during class time. Does that sound like an effective use of time? The entire purpose of the class is to provide subject matter at a rather advanced level. If I can get the same level of new knowledge from simply reading my own Bible and doing approximately 5 seconds of focused thinking about it, then the class is a waste of time.

A class session should represent a full week of study, digging, and focus on the part of the teacher. But rather what it often reflects is the ability to search online for a topic to speak about on Sunday. A class should be a graduate-level learning session for people who have spent their lives and hundreds of hours studying and improving their understanding of the Bible. But rather we get the adult equivalent of VBS for adults with not a soul in the entire room having to stretch their minds to accommodate new ideas or difficult passages. T

his is not a new development, it has been happening for years. Generations who thought that sitting their kids in a pew for a few hours was sufficient for their spiritual development are now seeing the results of that mentality: hordes of biblically ignorant young and middle-aged adults passing on mutated forms of doctrine that are nothing more than emotionalistic propaganda. 

The common core mentality that has leaked into the church has made religion into nothing more than a social gathering with a light dusting of spirituality.

And everyone knows that if you can manage to lightly dust anything in religion, you can call it a “religious gathering” and shame people who do not want to attend. Regardless of the fact that you offered cookies, pizza, blow up houses, and games you dare to call it a “devo” because there is about 5 minutes of nominalistic nonsense vomited out by a teacher who found the devo outline online and decided to share with the group.

Common core is crushing the education system, and now it is crushing the religious system. And no doubt it is or has tried to creep into your church. You would do well to stand guard against that nonsense, provide intellectually and spiritually stimulating lectures, and hold people accountable for their spiritual development because they are obviously not strong enough to hold up themselves. Maintain the heavy spiritual discipline; the alternative is to give way into the spiritual rot or religious common core.

Most Christians are spiritually retarded. Now I do not mean this in the medical sense. I do not mean they have an actual mental disability. And I certainly would not want to hurt the delicate sensibilities of anyone who finds that word “offensive”. What I mean is that literally, Christians are retarded. They are delayed. Their understanding is far behind where it should be given the amount of time they have invested in the church and religion.

You can easily test this for yourself. Go to any random church member and ask them basic Bible questions.

“In the Bible, where can I find the qualifications for an elder?”

“Where is the story of David and Goliath Located?”. 

“Where is the sermon on the mount?”

“What are the rules for marriage and divorce?”

“What Does Christ say about worry?”

Now you may not be able to answer these questions yourself, which should give you a hint as to where you are in your development. But the most concerning fact in the spiritual retardation of Christians is the fact that they are doing nothing to improve themselves. Not only are they retarded, but they are content to remain retarded. They are content to sit in a pew week after week and learn next to nothing. They are content to change next to nothing about their lifestyle. And they are perfectly happy just floating along in a stream of contentment and emotionalism for their entire Christian life. 

I am pro-contentment. But we should never be content about where we are in our spiritual development.

We should never be content without our current level of spiritual maturity. Most people are happy right where they are so they never improve. They use the godly admonition of contentment as an excuse to justify sitting back and doing nothing about themselves. This is human nature, but it is also Christian nature. The days of the protestant work ethic and have died and been buried. Now Christians sit around and try to find any biblical backing for a lethargic lifestyle.

They attack money as “the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) so they can justify not working hard on their careers. They attack the physically fit because “bodily exercise profits little” (1 Timothy 4:8) as an excuse to never improve their bodies. And they use contentment as an excuse to never push their own physical and mental limitations. Christians are always looking for an easy excuse to avoid some sort of labor, especially the labor of thinking. 

Christians have done the same thing with their spiritual growth. Instead of constantly working to improve themselves, most people are content knowing that God will forgive them or that His grace will cover them. So they never do anything to grow or improve. Why should they?

Really, at the end of the day, there is no external incentive for learning more about God. Or perhaps there is an incentive, but we never talk about it in the church. Because people might get angry if you suggest they need to work and improve their spiritual knowledge. 

There is also no negative motivation; nothing for Christians to run away from.

We do not call each other out for a lack of knowledge anymore. If someone knows nothing about the Bible, he can live his entire Christian life without anyone ever knowing. He will never be asked to teach a class. He will never discuss any spiritual matters inside or outside of the classroom. When it comes to conversion, he will be unable to articulate the “reason for the hope that is within him” (1 Peter 3:15). But he can live this way for decades because no one will ever ask him to demonstrate his knowledge (or the lack thereof). No one will ever ask him to prove himself as a Christain man and demonstrate what he knows and the knowledge he has gained over the years. He knows this and he is content with this, so there is no need for the common man to improve. 

The common man sits content in the church pew maintaining (or rather decaying) his own spirituality. This is an epidemic in the church and something must be done about it.

Solutions

Require knowledge demonstrations in the church. When kids are given standardized exams in the feminine-dominated, state-sponsored indoctrination camps known as public schools, no one bats an eye. Everyone knows that tests, while inadequate in many ways, is a decent way to test the knowledge and understanding that kids have about a particular subject. Why not have something similar for the church?

It would not even have to be a test of a public nature. But there could be exams provided that test the knowledge of Christian about different areas of the Christian lifestyle. This could include basic Bible knowledge, topical knowledge, apologetics, etc. Anything that comes to mind can be tested. And we know from research that testing, or forcing the mind to recall information to articulate it to someone else is one of the best possible ways of increasing knowledge. We learn when we recall. We learn when we explain a concept to someone else. 

These tests would not even have to be public in nature, though that may be useful since most people would not take advantage of the tool without some sort of pain to run away from. The hardcore among you could require test scores to be made public. Or oral examinations could be used. Anything Is better than sitting on our rear ends doing nothing, as we commonly do these days. 

Create groups of men who test each other’s knowledge through questioning.

Every man should be able to clearly articulate and defend his own faith. But how many men do you know of who are able to do that? I know of only a handful in each congregation. 

But when men are forced to do combat in the secular world, this is exactly how that combat will look. When you discuss something of a spiritual nature with a person of the world, you are forced to articulate your point to them in a convincing manner. If you cannot articulate it, you look like an idiot.

The Christian who cannot articulate the reason for the hope that is within him is spiritually retarded. 

All training should look exactly like the situation you are training for. If real-world combat requires a man to give an articulate description of why he believes what he believes, then a man should train for that event. A man should plan what he will say and how he will say it when he is approached with any of the common questions of a worldly person.

Can you clearly articulate your faith? Can I clearly articulate mine? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves. And if the answer to that is “no”, we need to accept that in our current position, we are spiritually related and in desperate need to improve. 

Do not sit idly by, whittling away the hours and days of your life without making any progress towards your goals. Do not be idle and make no progress on your spiritual progress. Never use your Christianity as an excuse to be lazy. Most men do this, and you have a responsibility to be unlike most men.

Conduct yourselves like men.

The church makes a big deal out of its members being connected with each other, and for good reason. I have heard it argued that we should want to spend time together more than we should want to spend time with worldly people. I suppose in some cases that is true. Who would not want to spend more time surrounded by people who think and act in similar ways and who believe in similar ideas? We are drawn to that kind of group behavior as humans. Forming tribes of sorts is what we are all about. However, when we get to a point of hyperconnectivity, it can actually start to become a problem.

What happens when connectivity goes too far?

What happens when we get too connected? I can tell you my own experience and also what I hear anecdotally over and over again from religious people. Being hyperconnected is draining people physically, emotionally, and mentally. In some cases, it is even draining them financially. They get worn out with constant, unnecessary demands on their times from so-called Church events. Now I know how that last line sounds, and I am not trying to say that church events are unnecessary. What is unnecessary, however, is to create a bunch of pseudo-church-related activities that simply disguise socialization.

Social gatherings are what many “Bible studies” or other weekly activities become, and you can easily see if you attend these. You quickly notice that the intention was not to have a great Bible study, but instead to have a mini devotional and then spend the next two hours conversing about trivial matters.

Sure, there is nothing wrong with conversation and socialization. But let us not just try to make ourselves feel better by calling this a religious activity. I think we somehow believe we will get extra points if we throw in a second-grade level study into our dinner party.

Why not just admit that you simply want to socialize with fellow Christians. Is Christian fellowship not honorable as well?

But no, we feel the incessant need to constantly spiritualize every event we create, even if those events are only 5% spiritual and 95% social. I am often reticent to speak for God, but I can assure you that God will not get mad if you admit you simply want to socialize and forgo the ill-prepared, kindergarten-Esque devotional you were planning to have at your next church-related gathering.

Personally, I find most events emotionally and mentally draining most of the time. That is simply by nature of my personality. I am not complaining about it, that was the hand I was dealt and so I deal with it. Therefore, I am always reluctant to attend these “Bible study” type events because I know what they really are – a cover for socialization.

These studies are the equivalent of opening a bag of chips only to find the bag is filled with 70% air. Except, in this case, the Bible study itself is filled with 90% air (socialization) and 10% Bible.

I am not a fan of social gatherings. In fact, attending worship services on Sunday is sometimes the most emotionally draining hour of the week. But perhaps that is the way it should be. If you are truly focusing, concentrating with the power of your mind, and exerting effort in that way, perhaps we should be tired afterward.

I – We are more connected now than we ever have been.

We not only have regular church services but also lunch groups, study groups, and a host of other groups (the necessity of which is arguable). These groups are sometimes created without thought and without purpose. How many people in your group, if you asked them, would be able to simply and clearly articulate the primary purpose for the various groups in your church? Most people would stumble around with their words then give you some vague, emotionally saturated answer befitting their religious nature.

It is my proposition that connectivity simply for the sake of connectivity is a waste of time. There must be a higher-order purpose to these gatherings because they are costly to the mind, as well as literally costly, requiring payment in the form of a person’s time.

In addition to that, we are in constant connection with one another through our phones!

This is one of the big focus points of this section. We are far more connected to each other than first-century Christians could ever hope to be. You might say that is a good thing, but I am not so sure. If God had wanted us to spend that much time together, would He not have commanded it in some fashion? Or perhaps some of the New Testament Epistles would have made mention of it?

While it is true that in the early church people were going into one another’s homes and breaking bread, we do not have a specified frequency for this, unless you make the cause that this was an everyday occurrence. There is one instance where we are told the following in Acts 2:46.

“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts”.

So, you could take this verse and argue that we should be in each other’s home every day. But I think there needs to be more context for this verse. Is everyone eating in everyone’s home every day?

Sure, there is the importance of spending time with Christians, eating in one another’s homes, and so on, but with the advent of the smartphone we are far more connected than would ever be beneficial. Most people are “connected’ with the brethren 24 hours a day, seven days per week.

Some people are even taking the brethren into bed with them (via their phone)! If you want to talk about something weird, just talk about that fact for a few minutes.

Because of our constant hyperconnectivity through technology, we are never getting any real, meaningful breaks from one another.

We are suffocating each other with togetherness!

Say you and I are in a church together. That means that once or twice a week, you have to deal with whatever annoying personality characteristics I have. I may get on your nerves in some way, but you can tolerate me because we are all human beings pursuing the same spiritual goals, and you do not have to see me that often. You can handle one or two days a week dealing with me (even though that itself may be quite a stretch).

But if we are both on social media, now you are reminded of me multiple days per week, if not multiple times per day! Now you are thinking about me, remembering how annoying I am, and having those thoughts marinate in your mind. This is the breeding ground for long-term resentment. You should only be required to deal with someone as annoying as me twice per week at the maximum.

II – Familiarity Breeds Discontentment

Too much time together means we do not value the time together that we do have. If we are continually bombarded with one social gathering after another, we will soon become desensitized to these events. They will not longer have any specialness to them if they ever had it before. This is just a simple fact of human nature that can be studied even on the biological level.

If I drink 3 cups of coffee per day, eventually I will not get the same “buzz” that I was getting before simply because I have become desensitized to it. I have sizzled off the caffeine receptors, so I cannot take up and use as much caffeine in my body. Everyone knows what it is like to build up a tolerance to something. And I argue that we can build up a tolerance to social gatherings. The church events can lose their specialness, even if you are an extrovert.

We are not taking advantage of our time apart. I call this time “recovery time”.

If you are introverted or even if you simply do not like people, it takes a large amount of recovery time to recuperate from spending time with large groups of people. This is simply another component of human nature. It is amoral, being neither good nor bad, but is simply a fact that we have to contend with about ourselves.

We need to be regularly taking advantage of recovery time and enjoying time alone. We cannot make good progress without recovery. Every period of intense focus or socialization requires a period of rest and recuperation. Without this, our fatigue will accumulate and eventually turn into resentment. If there was anything we would ever want to avoid, it is a resentful attitude towards the church.

Many times, small, trivial matters can start to annoy us. This annoyance later blossoms into full fledge resentment towards having to wake up Sunday morning and head to church to deal with “the most annoying people to walk the face of the earth”. It is critical that we avoid this attitude of the mind.

III – Solutions

So, what is the solution here? It is actually quite simple. We need to be incredibly mindful of the time we are spending together. If you are in a church group, do not mindlessly create more social gatherings just for the sake of having a social gathering. And certainly, do not call it a “Bible study” if it not really a study. Many people create bible studies that are social gatherings in disguise and then guilt other people into coming because after all, it is a bible study.

Focus on your recovery time. An easy way to help correct the hyperconnectivity disorder that we have is to quit social media. I have written about this before, as I do not believe that social media is useful for anyone. Especially for Christians. Completely disconnect from the outer world. It is not doing you any favors.

Sit down and write a list of all the benefits that come from using social media. Then cross off the items that you can tell are just excuses that allow you to maintain your social media addiction. Then on another list, write down all the benefits that would come from quitting social media. Of course, not even the least of these is the elimination of the hyperconnectivity problem that we have.

It is our job as human beings to develop our own identity, and constantly modeling ourselves with one other over the internet is not useful for this.

Do not be too connected to the people around you, it will drain you and lead to resentment.