The Simpsons Go To Church
According to a recent Neilsen’s Rating Poll, it is the number one watched show among young people between the ages of 13 and 25. The same poll shows that it is also cthe most hated show of their parents. It has been called “A Modern Masterpiece,” “Great Family Fun,” and “A Perfect Satire of Family Life.” It’s also been called “Irreverent,” “Socially Unacceptable,” and “A Mockery of Christianity and All It Stands For.” I’m not talking about Desperate Housewives, Survivor, Dawson’s Creek, CSI, or even MTV’s Road Rules. Surprisingly the show I’m talking about is a cartoon that is aired multiple times each day and too many times to count throughout the week. It’s called The Simpsons and I’m sure most of you have passed by it while channel surfing for something worth watching. Unfortunately, a sad reality is this show is teaching a new generation the lessons of life.
The days of Leave It To Beaver, My Three Sons, and Little House on the Prairie have come to an end. Worse still, even if those shows were still being produced today no one would watch them.
According to Dr. Anna Swern, a noted Sociologist studying early childhood development, an odd change has overcome the American people in the last 50 years. She says that “By the age of 11 an American child is able to tell the difference between right and wrong, recognize themes on television and in movies, and put those ideas into their view of the world.” By the age of eleven.
I don’t know about you, but at the age of eleven I was still playing games of hide- and-go-seek and kick-the-can. I wasn’t aware of the world around me. Or at least I doubt I was as aware as children today have become. There were forts to be built and trees to be climbed. Unfortunately those days are over.
Now I have to worry about the world. My children have to worry about the world. And like a number of people we look to the church for the answer. But the answer is no longer there.
The message I have for you today isn’t a happy one. Many will leave here with a bit of dread filling their heart. I’m not here to give you warm fuzzies. This message does not 26 "But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."
28 And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, 29 for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. come lightly. It has come with prayer, worry, reading, and tears. I face a crisis. In fact the church faces a crisis like none it has faced before.
I’d like you to turn in your Bibles with me to James chapter one. If you’re using a pew Bible you’ll find it on page 1072. Beginning with verse 21.
James 1:21-27
21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does.
26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
NIV
So often I feel we as Christians are missing something these days. We come to church wanting to feel good about ourselves when we walk out the door. We want to believe that God loves us. We want to know that our happy world is still shiny and untarnished.
But it isn’t. We live in a world that is full of sin and corruption. And it carries over into the church because of our very nature. We come through the doors with our worldviews; with our idea of how the world should be. Then we look around and realize the church around us is dying. It’s not that the members are getting older. There are just less people.
I’m going to share with you some startling facts; facts that you may not even be aware of. According to a 2004 Gallop Poll 76% of all Americas claim to be Born Again Christians. The same poll same that only 32% of those go to church on a regular basis. I’ll guarantee you if you and I were to go around this town knocking doors this afternoon most of the people we spoke to would tell us they’re Christians. But they’re not in church. Not today. Not even most days of the year. Most of them don’t even go to church on Christmas and Easter.
Why?
Because like most eleven year old children, they can connect the themes with the reality that appears before them. They see the way the people in churches act and they wonder why those people claim to be any different than the way themselves act. They can see what goes on in the church and they know they’re not any different than we are. In fact sometimes the only difference is where one sits on a Sunday morning.
We’ve forgotten something along the way. We’ve forgotten that the world is right. We’re not any different than they are. We’re sinners too. Even with our salvation we are still sinners. We still face the same problems they do. We still bleed the same way they do. We still carry hurts and wounds. We still look for an answer to life’s problems. But we’re forgetting the most important thing. We’re forgetting to practice what we preach and the world can see it.
Recently I was speaking with a younger co-worker. During our conversation he told me he was a Christian. I said, “Really? Where do you go to church?” Do you know what his answer was? He looked at me and said, “I don’t go anymore. There are too many hypocrites in the church.” That answer hit straight to my core because I knew he was right. You see I’m one of them. I don’t always practice what we teach here in this building. And the sad truth is neither do many of you.
We teach forgiveness and yet we are unwilling to forgive. I’ve heard of people holding grudges for decades over petty things. The comedian, Stephen Jones, tells the story of growing up with a mother who held grudges with everyone at the drop of a hat. He says that every family reunion would begin with the car ride where he would have to ask what relatives they weren’t talking to this year. There’s Aunt Betty, of course, because she still hasn’t returned that aluminum pie tin from Thanksgiving in 1974. It was probably thrown away the same year. More than thirty years have passed. By now she could have returned it, right? Oh and don’t forget sister Gwen. Did you know she didn’t even send us a Christmas card this year? You know she didn’t send one to anyone else but the least she could have done was return the one we sent to her.
Unfortunately, we’re like that as Christians. We don’t forgive the person three pews over because they brought a green bean cassarole to the last potluck dinner and we have planned on being the only ones doing so. But we can’t speak to them over a few beans, cream of mushroom soup, and a dish.
It’s like that with the way we judge people as well. When Storm and I were first married we went out looking for a church home. At one church we attended everyone was dressed in three piece suits and long frilly dresses. There we sat in comfortable jeans, dress shirts, and a Noah’s ark dress. When the time of welcome came no one shook our hands. We placed a card in the offering plate wanting to speak with the pastor and no one returned a call. We were judged based solely on what we wore that morning. All across the nation churches are acting just that way. We’re worried about what a person wears into the building. We accept people on how they look, what their last name is, and what part of town they live in.
We teach that we’re not to judge. Yet we pass judgement on total strangers every time they walk through the door. Sometimes those judgements are based on the local rumor at Casey’s or the café. But they’re still judgements.
We teach acceptance but we have our own little cliques. We associate with the same people each week. We sit with those people at the potlucks. We call those people on the phone. They’re our friends. But we don’t usually willingly allow someone from the outside in.
The problem is the people out there see those things too. Recently I have read two very powerful books. One is called The Last Christian Generation by Josh MacDowell. The other is Repenting of Religion by Greg Boyd. Unfortunately they both have the same message for the Christian world. American churches are dying. We’re failing to follow what we teach and the outside world sees it can no longer trust what Christianity is. These books are only two of a growing number of books all pointing to the same fact.
So why would I begin by telling you about a show like The Simpsons? Because the Simpsons go to church. If you’ve never watched the show based solely on what the religious news tells you, you’ve missed something along the way. Despite poking fun at their over zealous religious neighbor, the Simpsons attend the local church. In fact, during the average season the family attends church at least three times. There they sit in their Sunday best. Homer and Bart are dressed in suits and ties. Marge wears a blue dress that matches her hair. The girls are dressed in frilly outfits. If it were not for the major themes of the show, one could imagine them to be the very epitomy of Christianity.
In fact the show addresses issues we as Christians need to be addressing. Homer and Marge have a monogamous, loving marriage. Both have thought of having extra marital affairs but neither has based on a conviction of the conscious. The entire family has heard the voice of God at one time or another. The parents discipline their children even to the point of allowing their son to be caned for vandalizing a building. They are teaching their children sex is not a bad thing. In fact it is intended to be pleasurable, but it must be kept within a marriage. They have forced their son to apologize multiple times to everyone else in the series. Homer drinks Duff beer and yet in only one episode has he appeared to be drunk.
And the real problem, these are the very themes and values they are teaching young people across the country. In the meantime the church sits by quietly and ignores the problems inside its very walls.
I have even more bad news for you. Across the country churches are searching for a way to end this trend of the dying church. We add new programs. We change our services to reach out to a new generation. We add youth and college age ministers to reach out to this younger generation hoping they will stay. And they still leave. In the book The Last Christian Generation, Josh MacDowell says that within 12 months of teenagers graduating from high school 86% of them will leave the church and never walk back through the door. Eighty-six percent. It’s a horrifying number to a Christian parent, knowing that their child may be one of those.
The real problem is these young people have seen the theme. Why should they continue to go to church when the very thing the world is doing is going on right inside the church? What difference does a church make if it’s the same as the world?
None. Not one bit of a difference.
So how do we change this trend? We begin on a personal level. The writer of James knew the answer. According to the Living Translation, “It’s a message to obey, not just to listen to. Don’t fool yourselves.”
We’re supposed to be obeying the Word of God. We’re supposed to be a new creation. We’re supposed to be loving, not just to those we like but to everyone. We’re supposed to be taking care of each other. We’re supposed to be helping the poor, the orphaned, and the widowed. We have ministries in our own church that are supposed to reach out to these people and yet our lives are just too busy to help. And our children see that. They recognize what we’re doing and what we’re not doing.
And how do you know that you’re following what the Bible teaches? You’re supposed to examine yourself. Paul in 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourself to know if you are in the faith. Test yourself.” Find out if you’re following what God tells you to do.
We need to stop letting the Simpsons determine how the world sees us. We need to get back on track and show the world what being a Christian is really all about. We need to show the world we are Christians because of our love.
