We live in a safety first culture. When I was a kid, we didn’t wear helmets when riding our bikes except on the BMX track. I turned out ok. Today we wear seatbelts, have car seats, and heaven forbid that the kids might actually get to ride in the back of a pick up truck. Not only that but cars now have airbags in the front, on the sides, in the back, on top, and on the bottom. We have disinfectants and sanitizers. I’m not saying that all this concern about safety is bad. What I am wondering about is maybe we have sterilized Jesus. Maybe we’ve sanitized the gospel.

Following Jesus is no longer dirty busy. We’re civilized after all. We pad our pews and our budgets. Our number one goal especially since 9/11 is to be safe and secure, which is why we now have a whole branch of government that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on Homeland Security. I just saw on CNN that New York City is going to be spending millions of dollars on security cameras all over the city so that people are safe from those that might want to harm us.