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Wretched Urgency II: My Not-So-Guilty Pleasures
...I wish I were kidding that evangelicalism is full of people who hate the idea of simple pleasures, but I'm not joking. Verses like, "Do everything to the glory of God" have been translated into, "Do everything, and be deadly serious about it." There are a lot of fine, dedicated Christians who feel it's a sin to go to a restaurant for any reason other than evangelizing the waitress....

...Why just enjoy sports? I mean it can be an OUTREACH. It can have a purpose. If you are involved in sports because you enjoy it, there's probably idolatry involved. (Evangelicals can take any sport from soccer to skeet shooting and turn it into a ministry.)

How about motorcycling? Biking? Civil War reenacting? Video games? Pro-wrestling? These hobbies need not be simple pleasures. They can be ways to fellowship, evangelize, grow as Christians, and most importantly, sell stuff. If you are a serious disciple, you know what I mean.

We recently had a nature photographer visit our school. His work was superb. And, of course, was presented complete with hymns in the soundtrack and various spiritual lessons. NOW LISTEN- there was nothing wrong with this, especially in our setting as a Christian school, but you have to realize that if the photographer had said he did this for fun, and had never talked about God or the various lessons in nature he observed, a lot of the Christian adults present would have felt like something was WRONG. People who just do things because they enjoy them have a problem. They should be doing them for God.


American evangelicals stand at the end of a long line of Christian attempts to make fun into a sin. Simple pleasures and sinful pleasures have always seemed synonymous to a remarkable number of serious Christians. Heirs of a theological mistake that said we are saved by seriousness, American evangelicals feel guilty about more things than a monastery full of Luthers.

Not only should we turn normal activities into "ministries," we shouldn't "waste" our time with frivolous activities when we could be involved in "serious" discipleship. ...