Paralytic Piety

Many, if not most, American evangelical Christians seem to suffer from paralytic piety. This paralysis seems to cross most intellectual, denominational, personality, and other boundaries. It keeps many from serving the Lord with the full potential that He gave them. This paralysis seems to affect many, but in varying degrees. Some become quadriplegics, others paraplegics, and a few only suffer from occasional numbness. Pious paralysis is more subtle than most sins, because it masquerades as holiness and because it infects so many, it seems normal, not pathological. Even those who can see its effects rarely have the tools to combat it. Unfortunately, it is often leaders in the Church that are hardest hit with the paralysis and least capable of helping others recover from its effects. Even the few who see the symptoms and some of the underlying unbiblical thinking have a difficult time expressing themselves without using words, phrases, and attitudes that subtly reinforce the very problem they are trying to combat.

Most of the Christians I've met are infected with some strain of paralytic piety, even if it is fairly symptomless in themselves. If you could sit down with me for an afternoon and discuss the problems of the modern pious view, you would walk away with a glimpse of the problem. However, it would take a much longer interaction to demonstrate the full implications of the disease, let alone illustrate the direction to take for finding a cure. It is almost like taking someone who has had very bad eyesight for a long, long time and putting glasses on them. The new glasses help make things clearer, but simultaneously cause disorientation because it provides such a strong change in perspective (I speak from experience). Over the next few posts I plan to discuss this paralysis in more detail and comment on some of the changes needed to combat this disease of the mind and replace it with the healthy perspective of citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

I am certainly not the first to have observed this piety problem, but I encounter it frequently enough that I feel compelled to address it. At the very least, this will serve as a repository for my thoughts, so that I do not have to recreate them from first principles every time I encounter the problem.