Low carb religion

One current diet craze is low-carb, but we’ve been here before—about ten years ago, in fact. The last time that diet craze swept through the country, it brought with it more than 3,000 new food products on the wings of just three simple words: Eat less fat.

This time carbs are the enemy. “Eat fewer carbs and you will not only solve your weight issue but nearly everything else as well.”

Let’s get back to carbs later. 

More than thirty years ago the progressive German theologian Johann Metz studied the decline of church attendance in Europe. Metz argued that the problem with the churches was the direct result of a watering-down of religious tradition and the rise of what he called “bourgeois religion”—a comfortable, middle-class Christianity that asked nothing of its adherents.

Having sat in the pew at various churches, I find it hard not to find some agreement with Johann. How else would one feel after hearing a pastor give a sermon on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus without mentioning our responsibility for the poor or even one another? What about listening to a scholar present data on how students at Christian colleges see no connection between spirituality and sexual behavior? Yet I do not believe that the entire problem is that pastors, parents, and religious-education teachers are soft-pedaling dogmatic formulas and sexual ethics. It is just as likely, in my mind, that people may simply not agree.

My deeper fear is that people have grown accustomed to superficial religion, sometimes even masking it under the guise of “grace.” We go to worship on Sunday (or not), greet one another over coffee and doughnuts, gripe (proudly) about how busy we are, and then go home without ever concerning ourselves with the power of the Gospel to transform our lives, our society, and our world. There is little expectation that we ought to attend to the things that exemplary Christians from St. Paul to Mother Teresa have always attended to, such as personal conversion; an ever-deeper spirituality; a more comprehensive and nuanced theology; a complete imitation of Christ in our personal and social lives.

It is time to get back to those essential spiritual carbs, because, in some sense, if Jesus is the bread of life, we may be practicing a low-carb form of religion.

In John 6:35, Jesus is identifying Himself as the bread of life. When we eat at a restaurant and order steak, servers bring out a basket with bread. That is just an appetizer before the main course.

In the ancient world, bread was the main course. Bread was what you would have lived on every day. If you could find a little meat or fish or some dates to eat with your bread and some wine, then you were doing well. 

Many of those following Jesus were hungry, but for all the wrong things. ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.’ Jesus calls them out on their spiritual diet. They are following him to get a free meal. What Jesus will point out is that their true need is bread. Bread from heaven. 

Bread is nourishment for the body, but Jesus offers spiritual bread that feeds our spiritual lives. Nothing wrong with giving a pass to the bread on the table. Don’t settle, however, for a low-carb spiritual life. Examine your life and see if there is any likeness to what Johann Metz called a “watering-down of religious tradition … a comfortable, middle-class Christianity that asked nothing of its adherents.”

Pass me those spiritual carbs.