3 Dangers of (Merely) Messy Christianity by Jonathan J. Routley for The Gospel Coalition
There’s a recent trend in American Christianity to speak of spiritual life as messy.
We’re sinful, broken people, this view argues, and even in our redeemed and reconciled condition we make mistakes that affect our and others’ lives. The messiness is pervasive, constant, and unrelenting. There’s no hope for the eradication of sin this side of Christ’s return, so the best we can do is embrace the mess and encourage one another to keep wading through the mire. The Christian life is a series of messes with a few mountaintops in between.
No doubt, this description is often used with honorable motives. We want to express humility and provide solidarity and support for our struggling brothers and sisters or new Christians—as we should. But there’s something about describing the process of sanctification only as “messy” that seems a little off. It’s certainly true that believers struggle with sin, pain, failure, and turmoil. I continue to wrestle with those things and more, so there’s a sense in which sanctification is messy. I definitely feel that myself.
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Yet I also realize that Jesus didn’t die so we could live a merely messy Christian life. His desire isn’t for us to simply hop from crisis to crisis, doomed to failure, discouragement, and depression this side of glory. The gospel is more about joyful transformation than messy complacency.
If we’re not careful, a merely messy Christianity fails to do justice to a biblical view of the Christian life in at least three ways.
1. It Risks Normalizing Sin
One of the biggest dangers with “messy theology” is that it can create a sense of permissiveness among the people of Christ. If my sinful mistakes are just the natural outworking of my messy life, they can be shrugged off as normal, even unavoidable. The phrase “life is messy” can, if we’re not careful, sound like “I sin, you sin, we all sin.”
True enough, but should we settle for sin?
We mustn’t be indifferent toward sin. It’s not to be normalized or brushed off. We should never grow comfortable with indwelling sin. It must be attacked and destroyed. In Matthew 5:27–30, Jesus said sin is so serious we must be willing to rip out our eyes or cut off our limbs to eradicate it.
The apostle Paul didn’t write about coming to terms with sin or seeking a healthy balance between sinning and winning. He consistently spoke of overcoming sin through the Spirit’s power: “If you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
Life according to the flesh necessitates death. Life in the Spirit means killing sin. In the classic words of the Puritan John Owen, be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.
2. It Risks Minimizing Struggle
Unintentionally normalizing sin through a mindset of messiness minimizes the Christian’s daily struggle. This mentality seems too quick to settle for failure instead of striving—by God’s grace—toward victory. The Western church is already characterized by complacency in Christian living. We don’t need additional permission to become lazy in our spiritual struggle.
