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J. I. Packer schreibt in seinem Aufsatz "Hot Tube Religion" (1987) über die Religiosität der Spätmoderne:
Stimulation, aber bitte ohne Anstrengung!
Modern life strains us. We get stimulated till we are dizzy. Relationships are brittle; marriages break; families fly apart; business is a cutthroat rat race, and those not at the top feel themselves mere cogs in another's machine. Automation and computer technology have made life faster and tenser, since we no longer have to do the time-consuming routine jobs over which our grandparents used to relax their minds. We have to run more quickly than any generation before us simply to stay where we are. … No wonder, then, that when modern Western man turns to religion (if he does-most don't), what he wants is total tickling relaxation, the sense of being at once soothed, supported, and effortlessly invigorated-in short, hot tub religion. He asks for it, and up folk jump to provide it. What hot tub religion illustrates most clearly is the law of demand and supply.
Die Saat der Freude wächst aber im Boden des Dienens
… Granted, it is wrong psychologically, for the paradoxical truth is that to seek pleasure, comfort, and happiness is to guarantee that you will miss them all. On the spiritual as on the natural level, these subjective states become heart realities only as by-products that come from focusing on something else, something perceived as valuable, invigorating, and commanding. The seeds of happiness, it has been truly said, grow most strongly in the soil of service. …That joy is deeper than and not dependent on pleasure is the first thing that needs to be said. Until this distinction has been established, discussion about pleasure in the Christian life is premature.
Wir wollen nicht anerkennen, dass wir zur Freude unseres Schöpfers geschaffen sind
Hot tub religion is radically wrong. Why? Because it expresses both egocentricity, whereby one declines to deny oneself, and also eudaemonism, whereby one rejects God's disciplinary program for oneself. Thus it becomes doubly irreligious. By "egocentricity" I mean the central core of the image of Satan in fallen humanity. This can be described as unwillingness to see oneself as existing for the Creator's pleasure and instead establishing oneself as the center of everything. The quest for one's own pleasure in some shape or form is the rule and driving force of the egocentric life. … Eudaemonism says that since happiness is the supreme value, we may confidently look to God here and now to shield us from unpleasantness at every turn. If unpleasantness breaks in, we expect God to deliver us from it immediately, because it is never his will for us. This is a basic principle of hot tub religion.
Die Frucht des Geistes wächst durch Erfahrungen des Leids und der Ungemütlichkeit
… The lifelong training course in holy living in which he enrolls us challenges and tests us to the utmost again and again. Christ like habits of action and reaction-in other words, the fruit of the Spirit … are ingrained most deeply as we learn to maintain them through experiences of pain and unpleasantness.
