8. Evangelize like it’s 1999. You know what I miss? I miss the raw, politically incorrect turn-or-burn messages that used to be part and parcel of the evangelical world before it went limp and moved from sola scriptura to sola cultura.

Evangelism proper used to mean a message of salvation via the sacrifice of God’s only son (that would be Jesus Christ for you ignorant secular darlings) from God’s temporal and eternal wrath, brought about not by driving an SUV, but by intrinsically rebellious men and women constantly giving God the middle finger by what they both say and do (that’s my definition of moral depravity, thank you very much).

Classic Christ-centered evangelism, as you can imagine, used to scare the bejesus out of the contumacious crowd. The good news only left the hell-bound heathen with the warm and fuzzies after it fully woke them up regarding how damned they were and what a great escape Christ’s death, burial and resurrection was for their sorry backside. It was a beautiful thing. Oh! And it also changed not only their constituent makeup but also altered the culture around them.

Yep, the internal transformation from being a self-obsessed me monkey to being a Christ focused follower had not only great internal ramifications for the sinner but also positive external cultural effects everywhere the “good news” was preached and received. Need an example? The United States of America was founded by Christian men who were not a part of seeker-friendly, spayed and neutered churches. The gospel they were served was the old school Puritan brew that solidly shook both the sinner and shaped society. This untainted, untamed “good news” that humble men embraced not only caused them to bank heaven via Christ but also spawned the US of flippin’ A. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

The reason our nation is going to go down the latrine is because evangelism has had its teeth pulled. The message now gently gums the sinner versus fanging their carotid. It’s culturally correct and man-focused instead of being Christocentric and Bible-based. How cute.

The Detergent Church, however, does not try to sneak Jesus into people’s lives like he’s a 16-year-old chick trying to get into Liquid on her sister’s ID. No, we preach it raw and real even though we’ve been told by the church “experts” that our PoMo crowd can’t take Jesus straight. The Detergent Church doesn’t dial Christ down; we don’t de-radicalize Him for postmodern puss-n-boots. We’re too afraid we’d turn the good news into bland and false news that has no power either to truly deliver a person or culture from sin’s corruption.

9. Push lazy Christians to get a life or join a Satanic Church. The Bible condemns the slacker, Christian or not. Plain and simple, “Christian,” if you’re a gum smackin’ indolent Lurch who moves through life with the vision of Cyclops and the vigor of a Xanaxed slug crawling up a sheared cliff in the intensified gravity of the planet Jupiter, then God’s getting ready to axe you. Where do I base my claims, you ask? From the Bible you never read, that’s where.

What’s weird is that the church is stuffed full of whining babies, welfare brats, and apathetic complainers who simply refuse to get a life. I have friends who are blind, crippled, have brain damage, cerebral palsy, or have been raped or experienced incest who are powerful and productive Christians of which you would never know that they had any kind of serious setbacks. With the odds tremendously stacked against them they have slayed their dragons, conquered their mountains and have been insane examples of faith at work.

Then we have the little wussies who have found within the church an extended womb of enormous proportions where they can live and wallow in the warm amniotic fluid of gooey fellowship that affords them the wherewithal to never, never grow up.

The Detergent Church, on the other hand, expects folks to get a life and to sport the bulldog attitude that Christ had, especially if you’re an able-bodied guy between the ages of 18-40. The Detergent Church has no room for poodles trying to milk the church or the government when they have, in Christ, the means to overcome whatever stuff gets shot in their faces.

10. Demand that if a Christian gets involved in the arts that their “craft” must scream excellence and not excrement. Traditionally, when the Church has been at the top of its game, not burning witches or applying thumbscrews to petty thieves, we’ve had a high view of the pen, the paint brush, the piano and the chisel. Art itself needed no rationalization, and for five hundred years brilliant art emerged from the Church. Orthodox, biblically-based, non-wacky clergy and laity took pleasure in living, the arts, culture, their own talents, and the abilities of those around them. They got the message that beauty and culture come from God and therefore are good, and they didn’t need a mediocre column written by a smart mouth to defend it.

The Bible shows off God’s love for artistic endeavors and creativity as much as it scares the heck out of the general public with the moral law. Matter of fact, the first people to be “filled with the Spirit” were not apostles or prophets, but artists (see Exodus 35).

And that leads me to ask, where has the brilliant art gone? Where is the mind-blowing stuff, y’know, the paintings, sculptures, architecture and music that make you dribble your Slurpee down your shirt? Where are the books that are weighty and transcendent, books with a shelf life of 500 years, versus the five weeks my last book had? Where in the world is clever and tasteful Christian TV, and why do we have to wait twenty years between solid movies like Chariots of Fire and The Passion of the Christ?

I’ll tell you why . . . The Church has embraced a low view of the arts. God hasn’t changed His high view of art, we have. And here’s the painful reality: If the Church doesn’t shed this point of view regarding quality artistic endeavors, if we stay removed from creativity and human expression, then we will forever live on the peripheries of the public square, whining about Michael Moore movies.

The Detergent Church understands the power of the arts and doesn’t avoid them or produce shoddy stabs at artistic endeavors but instead tosses up to God our utmost for His highest.