The Dangers of Christian Minimalism: Half-Hearted Love

Introduction

Minimalism is an art movement that seeks to eliminate everything that’s unnecessary. I first heard about it a few years ago because more homeowners are attracted to a minimalistic design (e.g., white colors, straight furniture, no pictures). You sacrifice the beauty of a Victorian townhome for the simplicity of box.

Christian minimalism is a term describing the faith of the modern evangelical church. Although many individual Christians may strive in various ways to fully live like a Christian, many churches teach the bare minimum of the faith. The great commission in many churches is something like “some authority in heaven and none on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and invite as many people as you can on social media, baptizing the name of their own personal decision, teaching them I want them to follow their own heart; and lo I am only with you when you have a really powerful devotional time.” Obviously, there’s problems with this. Let me lay out some (not all) of the problems as well as a solution. My hope is to encourage us all of us to be Christians all the time.

The Text

One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31 

Love God Not Like Your Neighbor

After Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, He spent the next few days rebuking the Jewish leaders around the temple. One scribe heard Jesus’ preaching and decided to ask Him a Bible question on the most important commandment. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6, which just lists heart, mind, and strength. The addition of soul can be explained in translating a Hebrew idea into Greek words. Jesus summarizes the entire law as love God and love neighbor. But notice, the love for God and the love for neighbor are different. We need to avoid loving God like our neighbor.

Minimalistic-interior designers usually encourage all of the house to be the same white color. Minimalistic Christians usually believe “love God and love neighbor” is the same type of love. For some, this means loving your neighbor with the total love you are to give to God. These minimalistic Christians love their lost neighbors with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, which eventually leads to Liberal Christianity and heresy. For others, this means loving God like He’s your neighbor. “And hey, since God is my neighbor, He’s supposed to love me like I love myself.” Minimalistic Christians like this tend to leave the faith entirely become apostates/deconstructed Christians. Jesus is not a tame lion you can see at the zoo. Although Christians should pursue a close relationship with God, that closeness should be on His terms, not ours.

Personality-Test Faith versus Tested-Person Faith

We also need to avoid loving God to the standard of our personality. A Personality-test faith is when we make our personality the standard for the Bible instead of the Bible the standard for our personality. You have the gift of gab and a way with words. Every now and then you exaggerate a story or divulge too much information someone else confided in you about. You say, “I’m just a talkative person. The Lord made me this way.” Or you’re a quiet contemplative person. You would rather read the Bible for hours on end than go to church. You say, “I’m just worshipping the Lord in my own way.”  

C.S. Lewis said in the Abolition of Man that he naturally despised the company of children. It was only after realizing this was a deficiency on his part that he sought to improve this, which is possibly a motivation for him writing The Chronicles of Narnia. We must find the places in our life that we’ve cut off from the Lord and give it to Him. This kind of faith is proven pure in the crucible of trial and testing (James 1:2-4). This requires all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). God requires you to lay it all on the altar, so He can give it back to you as a gift.

Love According to God

Trade your Personality-Test faith in for a Tested-Person Faith. A tested-person faith constantly goes to the word and tests your faith to see if it measures up. First, do you love God with all your heart? The heart is the seat of our emotions and our will, our feelings and choice. This category is the most important because requires you to choose to love God in the first place. Are all your emotions calibrated to God’s will? Or does your “relationship” with God rise or fall based on how you’re feeling in the moment? Do you bend your choices to God’s word or do you justify your choices as “God wouldn’t make me feel this way unless it were true.” We act as if a subtle feeling in their heart or a burden on their conscience is the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit. Instead, we give our passions, emotions, and choices to God with gratitude, reverence, and awe (Heb 12:26).

Second, do you love God with all your soul? The idea here is all your life. Do you love God with all the time you’ve been given? Has your love for God matured as you’ve aged, or has it remained the same? Young men show love in their physical strength while older men in their wisdom (Prov 20:29). Are you still the same Christian you were 20 years ago, or have you matured?

Third, do you love God with all your mind? Do you look at ways to apply the principles of God’s word? Do you meditate on God’s word day and night (Psalm 1:2)? Do you memorize scripture? My grandfather had a 7th-grade education but was one of the most biblical men I knew because He meditated on scripture and applied it.

Fourth, do you love God with all your strength? Do you work for the Lord? Do you rest for the Lord? One reason we move around now when we worship on Sunday is to show us that we can love the Lord with our muscles and skeleton too!

Conclusion

Everything we do as a church should be focused on the love and glory of Jesus. We know we are doing it the right way when the love we share with one another is a love that gives glory to God.