David Murrow offers a valuable and perhaps helpful narrative to counteract the niceness in the mainline churches, at least in the US, in his book Why Men Hate Going to Church. What he uses to encounter the “be nice” and “be irrelevant” theology of the mainline churches, is the boyish theology (isl. strákaguðfræðin), which I learned in Vatnaskogur Summer Camp in Iceland. Theology of action and fun, lay driven, running thru puddles, getting dirty and wet, competing for the price like Paul, solution based, focused on results rather than community “goody-goody” feeling. Its contains an “Onward Christian Soldiers” worship style, with stories of heroic adventures.
In his writing it is clear that Mr Murrow is surely not a theologian, his glorified thoughts about the early church is way off base, and John Gray’s pop-psychology, Mr. Murrow quotes, is not worth the paper its written on.
However, Mr Murrow is right that there is more to Christianity than kumbaya-ish be good to some, singing about our love to Jesus, and helping out in the nursery. If we are to live Christlike, we have to stop being polite and nice, become risk takers, step up and out, and be ready to get dirty and wet as we run for the price. Or as they say in Vatnaskogur: “Press on towards the goal.” (Phil 3:14)