by Michael J. Svigel
One day my wife sent me to the store to buy peanut butter—specifically, natural peanut butter. In other words, no fake stuff. This seemed simple enough . . . until I arrived in the peanut butter wing of the grocery store. The options overwhelmed me—creamy, chunky, extra chucky, honey-flavored, jelly-filled, low fat, organic, and countless sizes, shapes, brands, and prices! George Washington Carver himself would have shaken his head in despair. I’m sure that managing that isle alone must be a full time job.
So there I stood, paralyzed with indecision, wanting nothing more than to just grab the cheapest jar of peanut butter and dash for the checkout. Instead, showing due diligence, I searched for “natural peanut butter” amidst the flashy brand names that virtually called out from the shelf like brochure-pushers on the Vegas Strip: “Pick me! Pick me! Don’t you remember all those commercials you saw as a kid? All those smiling faces? Those cool special effects showing golden roasted peanuts magically spread into smooth, creamy Jif [or Peter Pan . . . or Skippy]?”
Lured by the flashy labels, my eyes landed on “Skippy” paired with the keyword “Natural”! How convenient!
I snatched it off the shelf.
I felt rather victorious until I got home and took a closer look at the back label. I then discovered that “natural” peanut butter isn’t always a literal designation. Skippy’s “natural” peanut butter does include roasted peanuts, of course. But it also contains sugar, palm oil, and salt. That’s natural? Really? All those things naturally grow on a peanut plant? I guess from one perspective these ingredients are natural as opposed to, say, “supernatural.” And I couldn’t find any unpronouncable names like monosodiumtriglyceraticidipropylol! Furthermore, to be fair to Skippy, if we were to compare Skippy “Natural” to, say, that peanut butter-ish substance in a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup or a Butterfinger candy bar, Skippy looks like pure gold.
But is junk food peanut butter really the standard? When I contrast Skippy “Natural” with something like Krema Natural, I’m a little less forgiving. The ingredients list for Krema simply says, “Peanuts.” No salt, no oil, no emulsifier, no sweetener, no chemicals added to preserve freshness or enhance flavor. Just plain peanuts. Call me naïve, but to me that’s natural whether we like it or not. Shouldn’t peanut butter made of puréed peanuts serve as the standard for what constitutes “natural” peanut butter?
As I obsessed over the out-of-control peanut butter situation for the next several weeks, something struck me. This failure of most peanut butters to actually live up to the “natural” standard reminds me of the out-of-control state of too much Evangelical Christianity. If I were to liken authentic, classic Christian orthodox beliefs and practices to the truly “natural” form of undiluted, unmixed, real peanut butter, then the multiple forms of Christianity that diverge farther and farther from this standard become, well, less and less “natural.”
As Evangelicals, many of us have over the decades become increasingly accustomed to a particular form of Christianity, which, while it is still essentially Christian, has been so “enriched” by non-Christian ingredients meant to “enhance” the faith—or to make the faith more convenient or palatable or marketable—that the essential Christianity has become difficult to discern. And those who have become accustomed to this diluted form of Christianity have all but forgotten what the pure faith actually tastes like. In fact, many who are then exposed to a less adulterated faith—a form without all the unnecessary additives—find themselves disgusted by the original pure flavor, spitting it out and rejecting it as something foreign and inferior. Or at least unpleasant to the palate.
The great irony is that this purer form of Christianity is the authentic faith once for all delivered to the saints! The Gospel purely preached, the sacraments rightly administered, discipline properly maintained—nothing really fancy about these things. In fact, they are so simple to identify and maintain that churches focusing on these fundamentals and freeing themselves from the frills appear to most big-production glitz and galmmor Evangelicals like washed-out has-beens or incompetent wannabes.
To return to my peanut butter analogy, all those peanut butter products do contain peanuts, and so they can genuinely be called “peanut butter.” Similarly, to varying degrees the marks of authentic Christianity are found in most of the products that fill the shelves of the Evangelical church market. And to the degree that they retain those essential marks they are, in fact, Christian. Yet many forms of Evangelical Christianity have been so coated with sweetness . . . so mixed with artificial ingredients . . . or so drenched in candy coating that they are in danger of becoming cheap imitations that serve merely to distract from—not point to—the essential ingredients of the Christian faith. And just like additive-rich peanut butters that appeal to flavor rather than nutrition, far too many Evangelicals shop for me-centered feel-good church experiences rather than Christ-centered worship, discipleship, and authentic community. In fact, like sour faced kids who reject all-natural peanut butter, many Evangelicals turn their noses up at authentic Christianity and would rather keep playing at church than adjust their tastes to the real thing.
This post is from Michael Svigel’s blog: SvigeLand
