Whiplash Politics and Microwave Christianity

David Brooks of the New York Times hits the nail on the head today. (HERE.) We think so highly of ourselves, we just think we can whip this economy back into shape without realizing the depth of the problem and that TIME will really help in pulling ourselves out of the mess.

This is leading to what I call “whiplash” politics. We get tired of the Republicans, so we vote them out. We give the Democrats two or four years, then get tired of their lack of “response” and vote in Republicans again. We want instant solutions when the issues are far deeper than something that can be talked about in a two year election cycle.

I have found the same fallacy in American Christianity. We don’t want to talk about time as part of the healing process. We have a problem and we want it fixed NOW. We need a good worship service… NOW. And if we don’t get “moved” by the Spirit in that service on that day, we’ll go try the next place down the road. We want microwave solutions.

Many years ago there was a youth pastor who was in one of his first churches as youth pastor. He took the kids away on a weekend retreat. The next week a mother confronted him in the church lobby because her daughter went to that retreat and nothing had changed!

“Lady,” he said, “Don’t ask me to undo in one weekend what it took YOU 14 years to do!”

We may not get out of our whiplash political mode for quite some time. As the Church, we need to get out of our microwave mode soon. We need to learn walking with Christ is, as Eugene Peterson puts it, a long slow walk in the same direction.