This is surreal, no, not that, this:
Last Sunday my now Catholic m-i-l helped my mother take my father to Easter service at their Nazarene church. My father had a stroke last Thanksgiving and the recovery has been slow and difficult. Easter was the first Sunday he was able to go to church after the stroke.
My m-i-l has been a Catholic for five years after a long time bouncing from one church to another (from "the Vinyard" to Presbyterian to Methodist). She attended the Vigil for Easter and then helped my parents on Easter morning.
A few minutes ago I asked my mother-in-law how last Sunday went. She said, and I quote "It was just so shallow". That's the word she used... shallow. She said that was the only word she could come up with to describe it. "Anyone can get up there and sing for an hour" or preach for forty-five minutes. My m-i-l is no theologian but she reads her Bible every day (and every other Catholic book she can get her hands on). Somehow without prompting she nevertheless identified the problem.
Based on the timestamp that conversation happened just about the time you posted. She's freaking out and even I'm a bit weirded out by it.
I post this not to stir things up (which is why I didn't ping all and sundry to this) but only to make the point that, yeah, "Bible Christianity" as we know it in the United States is shallow. The liturgical Protestant churches that have their roots in the reformation have depth to their theology but there aren't many of them left standing.
I grew up in the Church of the Nazarene and by the time I was sixteen and a senior in high-school I had "outgrown" all that church had to feed my intellect with. My best friend (a priest) outgrew the depth of the Southern Baptists when he was twelve so I'm no prodigy, he is though.
None of this is to say that "Bible Christians" aren't Christians or that individually there aren't deeply spiritual Christians among their number (deeper than many a Catholic I might point out), my parents being prime examples. But the intellectual life just isn't there.
I would suggest that true "Biblical Christianity" is intellectually challenging if it is done correctly. I think a lot of pastors, and I would include priests, don't prepare, don't study, or take their call seriously. They just mail it in.
I recall one church I briefly attended. The sermon was 15 minutes and the whole service was over in 30 minutes. That was shallow.
Personally, I think if a Christian is not being intellectually challenged, then it is incumbent upon the Christian to do something about that.
It may require a change in churches.
It may require you to have to study on your own. This is something many don't want to do. They want to be spoon fed and not "dig" out those golden nuggets that are in the Word of God.
Personally, I'm working on a Graduate Certificate in Biblical Languages to help me better understand the New Testament. Why? I want to know more so I can be a better Christian and teacher of the Word.
Peter noted:
1Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 2like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord (1 Peter 2:1-3 NASB).
Now it is fair to call a slogan, a statement, an argument, a sermon or a book "shallow," but it is not fair to call a whole group of people "shallow." Even a thoughtful individual can sometimes make a shallow argument, an in such case, you call out the argument, not the individual.
Interpersonal and inter-group statements of contempt have become a hallmark of this forum. I have seen people of various denominations guilty of it, including my own --- and including myself, mea culpa.
We can do better than this. Those who cannot do better than this, should refrain from posting.
On days when people are jigging on my last nerve, and the spirit of contempt is clearly getting the upper hand with me, I promise I will try to abstain!!
Shallowness isn’t a matter of lack of liturgy.
Yes, I have been in non-Catholic churches which are shallow, and I’ve been in many that are far deeper that Catholicism.
It’s NOT the denomination. It’s the relationship with Christ, the seriousness with which it’s taken, the amount that one gets into Scripture.
Throwing around the accusation of *shallow*, which has become the slur of choice amongst the Catholic recently, is really no different than accusing someone of being a heretic, or not being saved, or anything else.
It’s passing judgment on another’s spiritual life based on nothing more than what is perceived about someone else by the one making the slur. It is not based on fact as the judgment of *shallowness* is a value judgment, hard to define.
Those throwing the term around with such abandon are not doing their credibility any good. If the best they can do when confronted with something they cannot or will not address is to accuse the other person of *being shallow* then they have clearly lost the debate.