Do you want Italian food? You can have the whole experience because look\u2013there\u2019s a fake Tuscan villa you can go to. Mexican? Welcome to the adobe brick hacienda. You vant ze Cherman? Vee can do zat. Welcome to the German restaurant complete with beer steins and waitresses in those cute\u00a0little dirndls. You want Australian? Welcome to the Australian themed restaurant. Here\u2019s the Irish pub. There\u2019s the Indian Palace.<\/p>\n
The whole place is like a plastic Disneyland.<\/p>\n
Everything is a \u00a0themed experience. Even when you think you\u2019ve found authentic Americana it turns out to be Cracker Barrel with country memorabilia pasted to the walls and a phony General Store.<\/p>\n
Perhaps I am being harsh, but this lust for the artificial buzz, the fake experience and the stimulating crap is deeply demoralizing and the constant fakery we live with every day erodes our efforts at authenticity, genuine reality, honesty and truth.<\/p>\n
While we suck up the fake experience we also run as fast as we can from the harsh realities of life. We watch \u201creality TV shows\u201d which we know are staged and crafted, but we go along with the fakery because it is more pleasant than our own reality.<\/p>\n
Even worse, American Christianity\u2013which should challenge the plastic elastic culture, bolsters and supports it instead. Television preachers with lifted arms and lifted faces preach a fake gospel of prosperity and pleasure. Phony priests parade a happy clappy\u00a0Coca Cola\u00a0religion in which everyone will be saved if only we can \u201cteach the world to sing in perfect harmony.\u201d Hip hop pastors fill their mega churches with a Christianity that is more entertainment than discipleship while progressive pastors spout politically correct feel good messages promoting an artificial inclusion<\/p>\n
and hot\u00a0air filled\u00a0\u201ckindness.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fact of the matter is, truth hurts, and genuine love and authenticity is hard work. It requires listening, vulnerability, risk and danger.<\/p>\n
True Christianity is authentic, but it is only so when the disciple hears the Master say, \u201cYou must take up your cross and follow me.\u201d<\/p>\n
From all that is elastic and plastic\u2013Good Lord Deliver Us.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you want Italian food? You can have the whole experience because look\u2013there\u2019s a fake Tuscan villa you can go to. Mexican? Welcome to the adobe brick hacienda. You vant ze Cherman? Vee can do zat. Welcome to the German restaurant complete with beer steins and waitresses in those cute\u00a0little dirndls. You want Australian? Welcome […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19250","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n