This Is Our Time: Everyday Myths in Light of the Gospel

by Trevin K. Wax

“The job of an evangelist is to connect God’s good news with people’s deep yearnings.”8 We find common ground when we see past myths to the longings behind them.

But it’s not enough to look for the deeper longing behind the myth. We must also challenge what is bad about the myth. The gospel doesn’t simply affirm the deepest longings of humanity; it also challenges and reshapes those longings; and in doing so, it exposes the lie. If we do not expose the lies at the heart of the stories in our society, we imply that the Christian view of the world is just one option among many, just one way of finding fulfillment.

Evangelism is not just convincing people the gospel is true but also that it is better.

Some Christians focus most of their energy on exposing lies. We might call this group “Lie-detector Christians.” They can easily spot the falsehoods in our society’s myths, but they often miss the longing behind the myth.

some Christians focus so much on the deeper longings behind our society’s myths that they never expose what is false. I call this group “Complimentary Christians” because they are always commending others for their beliefs without ever bringing a word of challenge.

The bigger question is how this technology works on our hearts and minds without our even knowing it. It’s not what you’re looking at on your phone but that you’re always looking at your phone. It’s not what you might access on your phone that is most influential; it’s what your phone accesses in you. It’s not enough to ask, “What am I doing on my phone?” Instead, we’ve got to ask, “What is my phone doing to me?”3 The primary myth the smartphone tells you every day is that you are the center of the universe. If your phone is your world, and if the settings and apps are tailored to you and your interests, then with you at all times is a world that revolves around you. No wonder we like to be on our phones so much! Nothing else has the same effect of putting us at the center of things. Nothing else makes us feel more in control, more Godlike, more knowledgeable, more connected.

There’s knowledge about and then there’s knowledge of. On our phones we can easily access knowledge about something, but only personal experience can grant us knowledge of something. Confusing “knowledge about” with “knowledge of” is one of the most common mistakes we make in a connected world. What’s crazy is that sometimes, when faced with the choice of knowledge about or knowledge of, we go with knowledge about.

What the phone does not give you is wisdom. That’s the kind of skilled living in the world that requires thought, contemplation, and soaking in the Scriptures, not just scrolling through a time line.6 The phone offers knowledge, but it’s not the kind of knowledge we need most.

The myth of the smartphone is that in our hands we have all we need to gain knowledge. The phone becomes the seller, and “content” becomes the drug; the phone beeps and vibrates and reminds us that we need the “fix” it offers so we can reach new highs in knowledge.

Once you’ve taken this step, technology is no longer just about informing you; it’s forming in you a desire to hear people who usually affirm and never challenge your assumptions. It’s telling you two things: You have the knowledge you need most, and you are right.

Amen! First, there’s the group that’s ready to affirm anything coming out of this news feed. I call this the “Amen!” corner. These are the people who get their daily dose of “You are right” by frequenting the site or the feed or the time line of the people they agree with.

How Dare You! The second group is ready to challenge anything coming out of this news feed. I call this the “How dare you!” corner because their commentary has a breathless, “Can you believe these idiots?” tone about them. They stumbled across the article or tweet or Facebook post they disagree with, and they are outraged that anyone could be so stupid (Myth 1: They don’t have the knowledge I have) or that anyone could be so evil (Myth 2: I am right). Strangely enough, some of these people may deliberately frequent the sites of people they strongly disagree with—not to learn about opposing viewpoints but to feel better about themselves, that they’re not like these stupid, evil people in the world.

You Betrayed Me! The third group usually likes this particular source of news but is shocked by something that challenged them (the “You betrayed me!” corner). They came to the site or Twitter or Facebook as part of the “Amen!” corner, found something that challenged their perspective, and quickly jumped into the “How dare you?!” corner. These can be the most vicious online because they expected ...

Christian philosopher James K. A. Smith believes we live in a time when many people feel like they are caught in a “tangled web of angst.” He compares the home of a teenager today to that of previous generations: “The home was a space to let down your guard, freed from the perpetual gaze of your peers. You could almost forget yourself. You could at least forget how gawky and pimpled and weird you were, freed from the competition that characterizes teenagedom. No longer. The space of the home has been punctured by the intrusion of social media such that the competitive world of self-display and self-consciousness is always with us.”

Vacation is not “time off” from work but a change of scenery where, instead of answering e-mails in our living room, we stare at the same screen while trying to avoid the glare of the sun while we sit at the beach.

We are no longer seen doing something; we’re doing something to be seen.”

Here is where our longing to know meets our longing to be known. We want to be affirmed and accepted by others. We want to be seen, to know we’re not invisible, to know that we matter.

Seen in this light, the phone isn’t a narcissistic way for us to magnify ourselves but more like fig leaves to cover our brokenness. Ironically, our constant self-display may actually be an exercise in hiding our true selves. Maybe the time we spend scrolling and swiping and playing mindless games keeps us from ever having to ask tough questions and look deep into our own souls and deal with our own sin.

God doesn’t just know everything about you—the Wikipedia version of your life; He knows you truly. God doesn’t just see the image you want the world to see; He sees what you’d never want the world to know. And He loves you anyway. As my friend Matt said (on Twitter, of course!), “Though you have not seen God, you love Him. Though He has seen you, He loves you.”22 God outshines our self-displays of glory with His sacrificial display of love. He loves you just as you are but also enough to make you more like Him.

Empathy will be increasingly rare in a day when everyone craves self-affirmation. Only when Christians are confident enough in their beliefs to reach across the aisle and engage in good conversations with people who disagree with them will we show the world a better way than the toxic online environment that threatens to poison our discourse.

We live in the age of the smartphone and selfie. Let’s not fret over this era but be faithful in it. While others are enslaved to world-shrinking devices from which they crave affection, we can be free. We don’t have to live for likes; we already live from love.

But stories are more than just the message that comes to our minds. They work on our hearts, too, echoing and forming our desires. Stories stir the imagination.

If we are to be faithful in our day, then we will need to be aware of the formative power of stories. To be faithful in a world of entertainment means we must discover the spiritual longings that fuel the stories we tell, expose the lies people want to be true, and, ultimately, see these stories in light of the gospel—the true Story of our world.

tales. “I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood,” he later explained. “Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. . . . But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency. Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons?”

What if the good and true elements of our stories are seeds that prepare hearts for the gospel? Consider this. Why do so many movies feature a world captive to evil and a superhero who, usually through sacrifice, brings peace and restoration? Why do we resonate with the theme of Star Wars making young characters with no worldly status the key to overcoming the dark side and saving the galaxy? From Jane Austen to Charles Dickens, we keep going back to stories about joy in the midst of difficult circumstances, where character development is forged through patience and suffering. Or take the story of Cinderella, which taps into our longing for what Christian theology describes as the “great reversal,” where those who humble themselves are exalted and those who exalt themselves are humbled.

If the gospel is the light, then whatever is true, noble, and pure in the stories we tell will somehow reflect (even, if dimly) the gospel as the true story of the world. At the same time, if the gospel is the light, then we should expect it to expose whatever is false, wrong, and polluted in the stories we tell. Seeing entertainment in light of the gospel means that God’s Story is the great narrative that makes sense of all of the world’s stories. And it’s a Story that both contradicts lies and fulfills longings.

Do the stories our churches tell and the stories our churches embody offer a taste of heaven so that people are inspired to long for life they didn’t know existed? Do our foundational stories, from both Scripture and history, inform and inspire our deepest hopes and dreams?

If you know the songs of the world better than you know the great hymns of our faith, then the world’s soundtrack will have a greater impact on you than the church’s. If you’ve seen certain movies or shows so many times you can quote from them but have not committed to memory passages of Scripture, such as the prayer Jesus told us to pray (Matt. 6:9–13), or the psalms that served as Jesus’ prayer book, or the sermon that describes Jesus’ kingdom manifesto (Matt. 5–7), then the sermons of the world will be closer to your heart than Scripture.

Desensitization is not a sign of spiritual progress but of sensual dullness. Do not confuse the ability to be unfazed by depictions of sin with spiritual maturity.

Along these lines, as you observe entertainment today, take note of how movies and books provide both a reflection of our society as well as a vision of where the filmmakers would like society to go. Sometimes, when you watch a movie, you’re looking in a mirror. Other times you’re looking at a blueprint.

Stories do not merely inform and educate us; they inspire our imaginations and shape our desires—telling us not only of evil in the world but how evil can be defeated by good. They ignite our imaginations. Even more, they help us make sense of the world and who we are called to be. The Church also has stories, and we do well to tell them over and over again, as we drink deeply of the stories of Scripture and open our hearts and imaginations to God’s Word. We don’t merely hear stories; we tell them, too.

For starters we need an accurate rendering of the map that directs most people in our society. According to research from Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman, 84 percent of Americans believe “enjoying yourself is the highest goal of life.” How do you enjoy yourself and find fulfillment? Eighty-six percent of Americans say you’ve got to “pursue the things you desire most.” Ninety-one percent of Americans affirm the statement: “To find yourself, look within yourself.” To sum up, most Americans believe the purpose of life is enjoyment that comes from looking deep within to find your true self while pursuing whatever brings you happiness. What’s shocking is that churchgoing Christians have this as their map, too! The research shows that 66 percent of churchgoing Christians agreed that the highest goal of life is “enjoying yourself,” 72 percent said you should pursue the things you desire most, and 76 percent agreed that looking within yourself is the way to find yourself. Apparently, when it comes to questions about the purpose of life and the pursuit of happiness, Christians look an awful lot like the rest of the world. Our maps don’t stand out.26

As G. K. Chesterton wrote: “The self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, but thou shalt not know thyself.”

Following Jesus in an era when everyone is following their hearts is difficult, partly because we think we must choose between two options: be authentic and true to yourself, or conform to society’s constraints.

In our era it takes absolutely no courage to create and live by your own standards. True courage is not deciding for yourself what is “right and wrong” but seeking to discover what truly is right and wrong—for yourself and for everybody else. It takes courage to look outside yourself, to bind your heart to an ideal that is bigger than your own set of standards, to investigate truth rather than invent it. What is our North Pole? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.38 The Christian’s hope is for our greatest desire to meet our greatest Delight. That’s what sets us out on our adventure.

“Apple seems to understand that the people who visit their store are looking for answers to questions deeper than how they should make calls or connect to the Internet,” Laskow says. “On the walls of the stores, framed by the border of a screen, are pictures of planets and star systems—with these flat, luminescent, monolithic devices, they seem to promise, you can understand the entire universe.”6

“Put your treasure where your heart should be, and there your heart will follow.” In other words you should recognize that earthly possessions have a gravitational pull, so you ought to be strategic in putting them where you want your heart to follow.

“Because in your mind, you assume, Of course, I’d be okay without this stuff.” She’s right. I do assume that. “The lie is not that you wouldn’t be okay without it. The lie is that you’re going to be happier with it.”

And suddenly I realize that like most people in this society, I’m just as liable as anyone else to believe the myth of accumulation. The longing and the lie are intertwined in my own heart. I may not believe the lie that money is all I need to make me happy, but I have fallen for the myth that money makes me happier.

“God did not give us local churches to become country clubs where membership means we have privileges and perks,” he writes. “He placed us in churches to serve, to care for others, to pray for leaders, to learn, to teach, to give, and, in some cases, to die for the sake of the gospel.”

Our quest to enjoy the good things in life should be matched by our ruthless efforts to dismantle the myth of accumulation. We are to find our satisfaction in God alone, and not just the gifts He gives us.

When we bring together the myth that Christianity is private with the idea that Christianity is polarizing, we begin to see why many Christians don’t feel as “at home” as they used to. Still, I wonder why so many Christians expect to feel at home in American society. If we know that true Christianity will never be popular and that the claims of Jesus are polarizing in every generation, then why do we feel disoriented when we are pushed to the side? Why does this feeling surprise us? Chasing the answer to that question leads us back in time, to pulpits and pastors from 250 years ago, when an idea about America got encoded in our society’s DNA.

This idea that God has a special relationship with America and that we are a special kind of people who have God’s favor is coded into our country’s DNA. It may not be as common today to hear sermons that mimic Nicholas Street in boldly applying multiple Old Testament texts directly to America, but we still see preachers and pastors applying Old Testament promises to the United States, as if there’s a correlation between the Old Testament people of God (Israel) and the American experiment today.

Just as it is problematic to compare America to Israel, so it is also problematic to compare America to Babylon. Because we are in a democratic republic, we still have a say in the direction of our country and the people who represent us. Daniel and his friends didn’t have that luxury. Taking back America isn’t the way to go, but neither is pulling back into a posture of passivity that robs us of our prophetic calling.

And when the church gives up its rightful place as the conscience of the culture, the consequences for society can be horrific.”12 Indeed. And our culture needs a conscience.

Some Christians fear that to disagree with their political party or their country’s policies is to be disloyal. Not so. Sometimes dissent is the greatest form of patriotism. William Wilberforce loved his country enough to expose the evils of the slave trade. Because he loved England, he wanted his country to live up to its virtues and values. Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not betray his German heritage when he opposed the rise of Nazism. He died a truer German than Hitler could ever have hoped to be. The main reason we should not feel “at home” in a political party is because we already belong to a political society. It’s called the Church.13 It transcends national borders and breaks down worldly barriers. There, we don’t vote for a president; we bow before a King. As the people of God, we should always feel in the world but not of the world, in America but not of America, in a political party but not of a political party. Embracing that tension is not weakness but faithfulness.

The only way you will ever be able to withstand the hatred of the world is if you are immersed in the love of God. The only way you will ever be able to live without the approval of others is if you are assured of God’s approval of you in Christ. The only way you can stand against the world when everyone is jeering you is when you know God is there, cheering you on, calling you His beloved child. Unless we are overcome by the love of God, we will be overcome by the fear of man.

Instead he says, “Abstain from the desires of the flesh that are waging war on your soul.” In other words, “I’m less concerned about what unbelievers will do to your body than I am what sin will do to your soul.” To update that message for panicked Christians in the twenty-first century: “I’m less concerned about what the government may do with your church’s tax-exempt status than what compromise and complacency will do to your congregation.” Peter’s focus flips our expectation. We should be more concerned about this war than any culture war.

Maybe we should put up an “honor filter” that will help us control what goes out of our devices. Consider what questions an “honor filter” could ask of our Facebook and Twitter statuses. Is my point of view offered with respect to those who disagree? Do I assume the best of those who are my political opponents? Does it look like I am raging against injustice or against people made in God’s image? Am I showing honor when reviled or slandered? It’s not about winning an argument but winning over people. Holiness and honor go together, and one of the ways we will stand out as God’s faithful people in our generation is in the way we engage people in our neighborhoods and online.

Too many choices can paralyze you. Barry Schwartz made this case in a book called The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.2 He argued that an abundance of choice leads to increased levels of anxiety, depression, and wasted time. We spend too much energy deliberating between restaurants, what TV shows to watch, what career path to take, or what can of soup to buy from the store. When we’re given so many opportunities, we second-guess ourselves, wondering if we have chosen poorly. Or we postpone our choice as long as possible, just to make sure we don’t find something better. After all, who wants to settle for less? “Nobody makes plans because something better might turn up,” Schwartz says. “And the result is that nobody ever does anything.”3 Or as Aziz discovered, you wind up with a peanut butter sandwich because you waited so long to figure out which incredible restaurant to visit. Or, as statistics now indicate, people choose to cohabitate in a series of relationships rather than marry, just in case someone better is on the horizon.