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I am almost finished with Phillip Cary’s book, Good News for Anxious Christians—10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do. When my brother-in-law gave it to me at Christmas, he remarked that it seemed like a good companion to my book, and he was absolutely right. For example, on the first page of the preface, Cary writes:

Some folks may find it odd when I say Christians need the gospel, but this is something I firmly believe. I don’t think you just accept Christ once in life, and then move on to figure out how to make real changes in your life that transform you. It’s hearing the gospel of Christ and receiving him in faith, over and over again, that makes the real transformation in our lives. We become new people in Christ by faith alone, not by our good works or efforts or even our attempts to let God work in our lives.

Good stuff.

Cary teaches philosophy at Eastern University, where he has dealt with countless students plagued by various teachings prevalent in today’s evangelical church that are meant to provide practical ways to transform our lives, but as he says, “They’re ideas that promise practical transformation, but in real life they mainly have the effect of making people anxious, not to mention encouraging self-deception, undermining their sense of moral responsibility, and weakening their faith in Christ.” (Cary also has a few courses available at The Teaching Company, which I highly recommend.)

I think Cary’s background in philosophy—and especially the history of philosophy and religious thought—gives him a unique perspective from which to view the present. He  paints a very clear picture of the contemporary evangelical church, emphasizing first that it is a contemporary phenomenon—the thinking behind many of the ideas he discusses would have been completely foreign a couple of generations ago.

While he deals with ten specific “things you don’t have to do,” there are three key themes that appear. First is the trend toward an individualistic spirituality (something about which I’ve blogged about in the past). Next is the related theme of looking inside oneself to find God.

The third theme—which I found most interesting—is the consumerist aspect of the contemporary evangelical church. I’ve heard a lot of about “consumer Christians” over the years, but nothing with the depth that Cary presents. He describes the various characteristics of consumerism and shows how it perverts teaching and evangelism in the church, hiding the gospel and creating anxiety-ridden Christians.

It occurred to me as I was reading, that the consumerist approach to church is actually necessitated by the first 2 themes. If Christians turn individualist and self-centered, they no longer have a need for the church. Therefore, the pastors need to present their church as a commodity the consumer needs, in order to get them coming to church. More on this in a future post.

I already liked Cary from his Great Courses series, but really appreciated his thinking in this book.  I plan to write 2 or 3 follow up posts dealing with a few things in more detail, mainly for my own edification, but also to solicit some thoughts from others.