Glamor, Religious Hype, or Ordinary Faith?

by A. W. Tozer

The mania after glamour and the contempt of the ordinary are signs and portents in American society. Even religion has gone glamorous. And in case you do not know what glamour is, I might explain that it is a compound of sex, paint, padding and artificial lights.  It came to America by way of the honky-tonk and the movie lot, got accepted by the world first and then strutted into the church - vain, self-admiring and contemptuous. Instead of the Spirit of God in our midst, we now have the spirit of glamour, as artificial as painted death and as hollow as the skull, which is its symbol.

     That we now have to deal with a new spirit in religion is not merely a figure of speech.  The new Christianity has clearly introduced new concepts that face us brazenly wherever we turn within the confines of evangelical Christianity. The plain virtues, so dear to the heart of the prophet and apostle and the substance of the solemn and fiery sermons of our Protestant forebears, have been sent into retirement with the fireman's horse and the blacksmith's bellows.  The new Christian no longer wants to be good or saintly or virtuous. He or she wants to be happy and free, to have "peace of mind" and, above all, wants to enjoy the thrills of religion without any of its perils.  He or she brings to the New Testament a paganized concept of the Christian way and makes the Scriptures say what he or she wants them to say... This person's spiritual models are not holy men but ball players, plug-uglies from the prize ring and sentimental but unregenerate stars of anything but heavenly firmament.

    True Christianity is built on the Bible, and the Bible is the enemy of all pretense. Simplicity, sincerity and humility are still golden virtues in the kingdom of God. The angel appeared to Zechariah when he was going about his regular prosaic business. There was nothing glamorous about the old saint's task. There was no fanfare, no drama - just a good old man doing what he had been taught.  He sought no publicity.  The busy people outside paid no attention to him.  In this dizzy era, is it too much to hope that a few Christians will still believe in the angel of the commonplace?

     Let's turn off the colored lights for a while and see what happens. Maybe our eyes will get used to the light of God...

from chapter 35 of This World: Playground or Battleground