There are some words which certain kinds of Christians recoil from – especially if they're used to describe other Christians. If you're known as "lukewarm", as "backslidden" or "liberal" it's a kind of code for "bad news".
One of the classic words in this genre is "spineless". The word immediately conjures up the kind of believers who are, in the words of James 1:6, "double-minded and unstable in every way". It gets used in election season by Christians on one side of the partisan divide or the other to attack those who they perceive as having surrendered their ethical position to a secular political party.
It gets used more generally by Christians to bemoan others. "Why Some Christians Are So Spineless"? Asked one article. "No More Spineless Christianity" declares another.
This criticism of spinelessness was there in spades in the teaching of Mark Driscoll. He once said, "I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up." It isn't just Driscoll, though. Even Billy Graham's daily devotional includes lines such as, "A great problem in America is that we have an anemic and watered-down Christianity that has produced an anemic, watered-down, and spineless Christian who is not willing to stand up and be counted on every issue."
It's clear then, that for many parts of the Church, being 'spineless' has become one of the contemporary deadly sins. But is being spineless really as bad as it sounds?
This question was buzzing round my head when I listened to a song I hadn't played for years. It's by Keane (yes, I have a weakness for sappy indie-pop) and it's called 'Perfect Symmetry'. The title track of the band's third album, it includes the lines, "Maybe you find, life is unkind, and over so soon/There is no golden gate, there's no heaven waiting for you/Spineless dreamers, hide in churches..."
Along with some other references on the album (released in 2008 at the height of the New Atheism fad), it's clear these words were an attempt to discredit religious believers. I suppose the rational, sensible, practical listeners were meant to feel superior to the 'spineless dreamers' hiding in their churches. I had the opposite reaction.
When I heard the words to this song, I agreed with them. Of course churches are full of spineless dreamers. That's kind of the whole point of Church. Didn't Jesus say, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners"? Didn't Pope Francis say, "I see the Church as a field hospital after battle"?
The Church is full of spineless people. The foolish things of the worlds who were chosen by God to shame the wise.
Some of the great heroes of the Jewish and Christian faiths were 'spineless'. King David not only committed adultery, but then had Uriah murdered on the battlefield. That sounds to me like the very definition of spinelessness.
Peter, who'd known and loved Jesus for three years and followed Him everywhere, promised he wouldn't deny Him. Yet, when the time came, Peter denied Jesus not once, but three times. How much more spineless could he be?
Jonah ran away from God – yet another example of a spineless man who ends up a pivotal figure.
There's a risk of turning spinelessness into a virtue, of course. That wouldn't be wise. It's important to have values and virtues and to be able to stand up for them – indeed those who don't stand for something will fall for anything.
Yet it's important to realise just how radical the gospel actually is. If the Church is being true to its calling, then it will always contain people who are struggling to stand up for themselves and for others. It will always contain people who are floundering – and simply telling those people not to be spineless isn't actually going to help.
There's another song that's going round my head now and it's one for the people who feel attacked for being spineless. It's a Brenton Brown song that seems perfect for this subject: "You are the God of the broken, the friend of the weak/You wash the feet of the weary, embrace the ones in need..."
