“His focus is not on a loving communion with his father, but simply what he can accomplish for his father”

Skye Jethani puts words to the unease I’ve felt upon reading and hearing calls for a “radical” Christianity to replace the consumerism we find in our Western version of Christianity:

I’m reminded of the parable of the lost sons (Luke 15). The self-centered younger son only cares about his father’s wealth and squanders it on debauchery. He is an extreme model of consumer Christianity in which we focus on our Heavenly Father’s gifts, not the Father himself. But in the parable Jesus shows that the older, obedient son is just as lost as his wayward brother. His service for his father, his tireless activism, results in an equally estranged heart. In the end his focus is not on a loving communion with his father, but simply what he can accomplish for his father.

Are our calls to radical missionalism, to use Gordon MacDonald’s word, simply making younger son into older sons? Are we exchanging one false gospel for another…? Consumer Christianity is a pandemic in the American church, on that I agree. But a prescription of radical activism is not the remedy. It robs people of their joy, burdens them with guilt, and fails to draw people into a passionate communion with Christ.

Read the whole thing.