It seems like there is a lot of discussion by news pundits
and educators these days about whether or not children should be vaccinated.
Some parents fear the possible side effects, while others maintain the
importance of vaccinations for our health and well-being.
The discussion about medical vaccinations will have to wait
for another day. Today I want to make the observation that there are a lot of
folks in our society who have been inoculated with Jesus. What?!? What does
that even mean?
Consider this: according to the dictionary, a vaccination is
the “administration of antigenic material to stimulate an individual’s immune
system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen.” Usually that means an
injection of a small dose of a virus (either live or dead) into an otherwise
healthy individual so that person can develop anti-bodies and be more prepared
to fight off a particular disease. Many of us get a flu vaccination each year
so that, if we get the flu, it will be less severe and our bodies will be more
prepared to deal with it.
The 21st Century American culture has been called
“Post-Christian,” and for good reason. Many Christian values and ideas, many
biblical stories and sayings, which had been a part of Western culture for
decades, and even centuries, are no longer taught in schools, homes, and,
sadly, even in some churches. The culture in which we live today is one which
seeks purposefully to marginalize church, faith, and God.
While it would be easy to chase the white rabbit of
religious freedom vs religious oppression, that is not my point. My point is
much more simple and much less controversial. What I mean by saying that we
have raised a generation of children who have been inoculated against Jesus is
that we have given them just enough of Jesus and religious faith that they have
developed an “adaptive immunity” to the real thing.
Lots of people today think they know about God and about
what Christ and the church are all about, but they really don’t. They know just
enough to know what they don’t like, and so they dismiss this image they have
of Jesus and Christianity. They have become immune to the real thing.
I have seen it in some of the conversations I have had,
particularly with young adults. They talk about things they don’t like about
the church, many of which are some of the very things I don’t like either. But
rather than embrace what the church could be, what I would say it is supposed
to be, they dismiss the Christian faith as irrelevant and (God help us)
old-fashioned. They have been inoculated against a living faith by a dead virus
they swallowed years ago.
What can we do? Is there any hope?
I take comfort in the fact that a virus is a living thing.
It can change. It can adapt. That can be bad if you are fighting disease, but
good if you are encouraging faith. Therefore, it works well in my metaphor. Peter
told the Christians in his first letter, “Praise be to the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into
a living hope through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1 Pe 1:3). Our hope and our
Savior is not dead, but alive!
Things are changing all around us. The church is changing;
it is finding new ways of expressing the faith, new fields for mission and
evangelism. In ten years, or twenty, it may look completely different than it
does now. I am almost certain that will be the case. But one thing does not
change. Jesus is always the same. Hebrews says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday
and today and forever,” (Heb 13:8). Our challenge in the church is to present
Jesus, the real, living Jesus, in such a way that people will believe and
embrace his love. Try it. It’s catching!
