Episode 8: Spiritual Maturity
“We’re all adolescents now.” So begins the treatise by Thomas Bergler called The Juvenilization of American Christianity. He has written extensively on this topic, essentially lamenting the lack of spiritual maturity in American Christianity due to the shift of priority toward youth ministry during a specific time in history. Additionally, Todd Brenneman wrote a fascinating assessment of modern American Christianity in his book Homespun Gospel: The Triumph of Sentimentality in Contemporary American Evangelicalism, and in this work he demonstrates that sentimentality has overtaken modern evangelicalism to such a degree that maturity isn’t something Christians think about. I believe juvenilization and sentimentality have combined to assault the Christian ideal of spiritual maturity and a response is necessary. I offer a brief attempt in today's podcast.