Photo Credit: acinta lluch valero

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas was once asked what he thought was the greatest threat to American Christianity. His answer was surprising. It wasn’t atheism. It wasn’t radical Islam. It wasn’t civil religion or consumerism. No, Hauerwas stated that what threatens to undo American Christianity is sentimentality.

Sentimentality is a kind of self-indulgent emotionalism. Oscar Wilde wrote that “a sentimentalist is one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion wi...