Chreaster Christians

It's that time of year. Every church knows that their church service closest to Christmas will be one of their best attended services of the year. The other, of course, is Easter. I call them "Chreaster Christians," those folks who feel some compunction to show up on Christmas and Easter, as if this makes them "Christian" in some sense.

What is this compunction? What are these people doing? I talked to someone just the other day who told me, "I like going to this church once in awhile because I can just go and no one will bother me." "No one will bother me." What is that all about? What is it that makes people go to church when they don't actually want to be part of church? What is it that makes people feel like they need, somehow, to "touch bases with God" without actually being involved with God?

When you think about it, it's really quite bizarre. They obviously recognize that they are not in line with what the Bible teaches is "right living." To put it in actual, Christian terms, they obviously recognize that they are sinners. They further sense, at some level, that they aren't right with God. There is a problem. So they think, I suppose without thinking, that they can make it right by showing up once in a great while where God is and that makes them right with God.

It gets more bizarre if you take it apart and look at what's really going on. If you could get them to actually admit what's being said, it would look something like this. "No, I am not actually concerned with repentance. I'm not really interested in doing what God wants me to do. All I'm really looking for is absolution. I want a god who will tell me that whatever I'm doing is perfectly fine with him. I have no intention of bending my will to the will of the Almighty. I will not, of course, change anything about myself, my choices, or my lifestyle. I just want a god who will be pleased that I showed up ... once or maybe twice a year ... and has nothing to say about what is right, wrong, or what to do about it." In other words, "I want a god who I can come to on my own terms to make me feel okay without any demands, regulations, or, well, truth involved."

It's at these times that you can begin to see going to church as idolatry. This is a substitution of god for God, of the Sovereign Lord for "my puppet". Who, in this instance, is "god"? Well, I am, of course. What I want is my god, and anyone who disagrees is the devil. Unfortunately, that particular god isn't found at any real church. And if you find yourself comfortable or comforted on Christmas or Easter or any other Sunday when you use that approach, it's not because you had an encounter with God. It's because you found a building that isn't church and you closed your ears to God and in no way can that be considered absolution or a correct relationship with God.