My DeviantART feed has a lot of people breaking down in it.

I think I’ve probably seen at least five to seven posts about people who can’t take it any more, who obviously suffer from some level of depression. DA in general is filled with off-kilter people, except for the massive amount of foreign artists sending you llamas and looking for commissions for their weird adoptable art. But man, you can’t help but pray for them, because so many people are broken these days.

So what does Christianity do for them?

No, seriously.

Have you ever heard anyone say “God is calling me to minister to DeviantARTists?”

Does anyone know what that place is?

If you go to a Christian bookstore or browse the Christian section at the local chain bookstore, you see that a lot of the books are concerned with the mental state of soccer moms. Mostly about marriage, relationships, mild forms of self-actualization, etc. Mostly different ways of living your best life now for people who more or less  have it together. There’s a smaller amount of books for soccer dads, as soccer moms often buy them books too, and most of them are similar in their inoffensiveness. Most of the rest is soccer mom wish-fulfillment novels, soccer dad conspiracy books (blood moons! bible codes!) and Christian stuff about perpetuating Christianity.

All of that is useless for the artists on my feed.

Like for example, the weird guys who like Sonic the Hedgehog. Do you know that Sonic is THE longest lasting continuous comic currently, having started in 1991 or so? People talk about bronies, but Sonic has had a similar fanbase for at least a decade now. You’d be surprised at how big that fandom is. But we don’t even see a real Christian furry fandom any more, let alone something that tries to reach to Sonic guys. Even in a general, bland sense, they might as well not exist for Christians.

Or the depressed guys. Depression and various forms of mental illness are things modern Christianity has yet to even address, and either ignores it, or worse, tries to cast it out. The sufferers tend to get warehoused or looked side-eyed at. Would you tell your pastor you might be suffering from manic depression? Would he even know what to do?

Or MMO players. You know how incredibly rare it is to meet a single one that’s Christian and will admit it? You realize that it’s very easy to find associations of Christian athletes but a Christian guild is near impossible?

Modern Christianity seems about the soccer moms. It’s moved from a faith of outcasts to a faith of self-actualizing the petit and elite bourgeoise. Churches just exist to be churches. I don’t think many people bother to bring others to them any more, because it’s obvious they aren’t for people, but people for them: people adapt to the liturgy, perform it, and are cogs in the machinery.

So many people just slip through those gears.

I don’t really have many solutions any more. The broken can’t always fix the broken, and a lot of changing this requires people and resources. This isn’t a solo thing or one someone can just throw up a blog to address. Either Christianity changes or becomes more irrelevant every passing year.