Religion A Salad Bar?

Read this USA Today Article.  Here is a telling opening quote:

Religion today in the USA is a salad bar where people heap on upbeat beliefs they like and often leave the veggies — like strict doctrines — behind. There are so many ways of seeing God, public policy expert Barry Kosmin says, that "the highest authority is now the lowest common denominator."

I just spent last week with the church planters of the Acts 29 Network.  There President Mark Driscoll emphasized that the movement is firstly a theologically-driven one.  I spent the whole time with 91 planters and their wives who have built their whole ministries on God's sovereignty, penal substitutionary atonement, and the like.

Driscoll mentioned that his podcasts get 100,000 downloads.  And that includes his recent "Doctrine" series.  Today, I listened to the sermon on the cross while I ran over at Bear Creek Trail.  There he lays out "penal substitutionary atonement" (God dying in our place to pay our penalty, bringing us back to God) in all its glory.  In this "salad bar" culture, there are glimmers of hope.  People do want doctrine.  Young people are flocking to it.  I'm not discouraged a bit.  God is on the throne-- that's good doctrine, and it gives hope in a day when people resist doctrine.