Is Your Christianity Pagan?

Pagan religion, fundamentally, uses formulas to manipulate one’s god. Brandon O'Brien admits:

I’m ashamed to say that I catch myself from time to time beginning to think about my personal relationship with God in pagan terms.

Here’s an example: My wife and I are nearly three years into a painful and spiritually disorienting struggle with infertility. “Delight yourself in the Lord,” says Psalm 37, “and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The one desire of our heart left unfilled at the moment is the blessing of children. So we have prayed fervently for the Lord’s favor. In light of James’ teaching that the “prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective,” it has been easy for us to feel as if God is unhappy and is punishing us for something. Each of us at one time or another has thought, If we could just figure out what we’re doing wrong, we could fix it and then we’d get pregnant. We’ve been tempted to think that if we could just figure out how to please God enough, if we appeased his anger over some offense, whether real or imagined, that he’d finally behave the way we want him to. That’s pagan Christianity.

This impulse to manipulate God can show up in our preaching, too. I heard a preacher not long ago quote the passage from Proverbs, “Raise a child in the way he should go, and when is old he will not depart from it.” This verse is a promise, the preacher said. If we raise our children in the faith, God has no choice but to honor his promise. If we do our part, God does his. Friends, anytime we start talking about our relationship with God in terms of what God must do in response to our service or obedience, we’ve drifted into pagan Christianity.

Read the whole thing and ask yourself how much you approach Christian prayer and practices in a pagan way.