Walker Percy once commented that the Christian in the American south is like Lancelot in search of the Holy Grail who, at the end of his quest, finds a tupperware party. Unfortunately, much of Christendom reflects this reality. The pearl of great price and treasure worth everything, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, has been transformed into a consumer-oriented, market-driven mess of pottage, or pot of message, that is empty and unfortunate. The mysteries of the faith have been reduced to moralistic principles for living communicated in a non-abrasive atmosphere of pop-culture entertainment. As a result, the Christian church often appears to be as exciting and significant as a tupperware party. It offers products that are cheap, practical, and disposable. And their relative worth depends on the needs of the consumer. We can only hope that a margarita machine is present!

There is reason, however, for hope. The banality of our larger American culture has created a measure of anxiety in the human person, which is evident in the growth of secular therapy, the legal and illegal abuse of drugs and alcohol, gross consumerism, pervasive violence, destruction of sexual identity, depression, and widespread escapism among other things. Obviously, such resorts are incapable of providing any lasting significance. Thus, the possibilities for the human person in such an environment appear to be limited to destruction, disorientation and delusion, or maybe, just maybe, redemption. Such limited options can only lead to despair or hope, and I am hopeful.

As a believer in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I am convinced that every human being is in need of redemption from sin, death, and hell. And faith in Jesus Christ is God’s means of redemption. The problem, however, is that human beings are idolatrous by nature. We worship gods of our own design, follow after vain philosophies and empty theories, and live according to the consumptive and beastly desires of our flesh. When we live in such disoriented ways, our end is destruction. We destroy ourselves and we destroy those around us.

If we look around our culture and ourselves at the beginning of this century, we ought to recognize that we are restlessly wandering in a vast wasteland. Walker Percy observed that “In the old Christendom, everyone was a Christian and hardly anyone thought twice about it. But in the present age the survivor of theory and consumption becomes a wayfarer in the desert, like St. Anthony: which is to say, open to signs.” I believe the Holy Catholic Church possesses the only signs that can give meaning to the survivor of this age.

As people sojourn through this present wilderness, the signs of Jesus Christ offer the hope of redemption. The sign and mark of the cross, the pulpit that proclaims Christ and Him crucified, the font of Holy Baptism where God redeems, the altar of the Holy Eucharist where the body and blood of Christ are present, and the Body of Christ that gathers around these gifts of God are the signs of hope in our wasteland. Not merely signs, these are the ways that Christ is actually and really present for His people and the world until the end of the age. If the Church becomes infatuated with anything other than Christ and His Gospel, then we turn the great treasure of the Gospel into the bauble and trinkets of our strange land. But for those who survive the theories of the age and the consumption of the flesh, there are signs of life as Christ gathers His holy people together around His gifts, His Word and His Sacraments.

This blog is my indulgent discussion with both the culture and church in an attempt to diagnose their respective diseases by observing symptoms; and directing our attention to Jesus Christ, the only medicine that can deliver us from certain death.