The Problem with 'You Are Enough'

The message that can sound like good news—until it’s not.

For a long time, Christianity had a reputation for being too harsh. Too focused on sin, too obsessed with guilt, too eager to tell people what was wrong with them. The rise of more progressive forms of faith has tried to correct that by offering a gentler, more affirming message: you are loved, you are worthy, you are enough. And yet, for all the good that corrective has done, something still feels off. The language of grace—the very heart of the gospel—has quietly faded. What if the greatest problem with today’s Christianity isn’t that it’s too harsh—but that it’s too nice?

Zahl Assumes the Ache Is Already There

I recently finished reading David Zahl’s The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace in a Worn Out World. In the book, Zahl highlights grace as the most important, urgent, and radical contribution Christianity has to offer the world. What’s striking to me is that, beyond the subtitle, Zahl doesn’t spend much—if any—time trying to convince the reader they actually need grace. He simply assumes grace meets a need they already deeply feel.

Whereas in the past, much of evangelism and revival preaching aimed to convince hearers they were sinners, Zahl feels no need to argue that people today feel lacking. And this is really striking to me.

From Sin Conviction to Cultural Exhaustion

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I grew up fundamentalist and was trained in evangelism—I literally took a course on it in college—where one of the first steps was to convince someone they were a sinner using the Ten Commandments:
“Have you ever told a lie? Have you coveted? Have you held hatred in your heart?”
The idea was that most people thought they were basically good, and it was your job to break through that self-perception to show them their need for grace.

Twenty years ago, there was an underlying assumption that most people believed they were basically good. Today, there seems to be a growing sense of nihilism—a recognition that we all fall short. And not in a repentant, “Lord have mercy” sort of way, but in a tired, “what’s the point?” sort of way. I’m not exactly sure when the shift happened, but despite the rise of self-help, therapy culture, and constant affirmation, people now carry a deep sense of inadequacy they’ve come to accept as normal. They don’t need to be convinced they’re falling short—they already know. The question now is whether they believe there’s anything that can actually make them whole.

The Never-Enough Scroll

Perhaps it is social media that has brought about this awareness, as we are reminded nearly every moment we’re on the apps that we aren’t:

…strong enough, skinny enough, attractive enough, woke enough, patriotic enough, rich enough, caring enough, kind enough, unkind enough, smart enough, successful enough, productive enough, funny enough, edgy enough, humble enough, confident enough, disciplined enough, emotionally intelligent enough, parenting well enough, resting well enough, hustling hard enough, minimalist enough, adventurous enough, married enough, single enough, progressive enough, traditional enough, well-read enough, well-traveled enough, or even spiritual enough…

Progressive Christianity and the 'You Are Enough' Gospel

I find it interesting that the central message of Progressive Christianity is essentially, “You are enough.” And this is where I wonder if that message actually stems from the core of liberal Christianity within Mainline Protestantism.

As others have pointed out before me, the main task of Mainline Protestantism—especially in the post-war years—was making good, moral citizens. Meaning: where Mainline Protestantism was about helping people be good, Progressive Christianity has taken that up a notch, amplifying it as the central message.

A Pastoral Response to Harmful Theology

To that point, I would add this important caveat: I do think the initial emphasis—especially in more progressive spaces—was explicitly meant to counter the homophobic messaging of conservative Christian spaces.

As I remember from my youth, there were basically two cardinal sins in conservative circles: abortion and homosexuality. So then, for a church to tell a gay person “you are enough” was essentially to affirm that their sexual orientation did not disqualify them from being a Christian—God’s love and forgiveness was for them too, and it didn’t require them to ignore or abandon their identity.

From Pastoral Affirmation to Self-Sufficiency

But these days, it seems things have gone much farther than that. Progressive Christianity often presents the individual as “no longer in need of anything,” as Andrew Root observes in The Church in the Age of Secular Mysticism.

Root argues that in a culture obsessed with individual authenticity and emotional fulfillment, religion becomes a tool to enhance self-expression rather than a means of transformation. In this framework, anything that challenges or threatens that uniqueness is shunned.

As Root puts it:

“There is so much trauma in the discourse of our experiences because inside a society of obsessive positivity, any form of negativity becomes a burden too heavy to bear” (175).

The Loss of Transformational Language

I saw an example of this just the other day on social media: a video of a progressive Christian pastor proudly proclaiming that words like “guilt,” “shame,” “atonement,” or even “sin” were not spoken of in their church.

While this may be well-intentioned—perhaps as a means of protecting people from religious harm—such messaging risks leaving people without the language or resources for meaningful transformation.

A particularly confusing expression of this kind of thinking is “glitter ashes.” Traditionally, ashes on the forehead are the most conspicuous mark of a Christian during the year. Signifying mortality and repentance, they are a visible sign to the world on Ash Wednesday that a believer is preparing for the season of Lent.

Such moves—like glitter ashes—may come from a desire to affirm marginalized identities, but they risk confusing core Christian symbols of repentance and mortality. As Rev. Ruth Meyers points out:

“To try to combine that symbol with glitter, which seems to be about a celebration and an affirmation of a particular group of people, seems to confuse the symbols in a way that doesn’t allow either symbol to work.”

When Grace Becomes Sentiment

Such moves—however well-intentioned—risk confusing the message of grace, reducing Christianity to sentiment or affirmation without transformation.

As Zahl notes:

“…it is a lot easier to eschew ‘atonement theology’ when you haven’t been convicted of any crimes—or when life circumstances have allowed you to avoid guilty exposure thus far… sometimes the aversion to atonement theology is… an aversion to the concept of guilt itself, afforded by privilege and fortified by prosperity” (90).

Is it any wonder, then, that some corners of Progressive Christianity—like that pastor’s example—seem to have no use for words like sin and grace?

After all, if, as Zahl notes,

“God’s grace is fundamentally incongruous… the gift does not match the recipient. The gratuity does not match a person’s deservingness” (15),
what does that say about us as humans?

The Treadmill of Partial Atonement

But I think this is why Progressive Christianity struggles to resonate long-term. Not because following Jesus doesn’t ask us to make hard choices or do unpopular things, but because—as Zahl says—

“…There is always one more good deed to do, one more apology to give before the slate is wiped clean. Partial atonement wears us out” (86).

Sure, according to Progressive Christianity, we may not be bad—but we also can never really be good.

We Don’t Think We’re Awesome—We’re Worn Out

And this is really the point I want to make. Not only is the whole “you’re okay, I’m okay, we’re all really okay” approach theologically empty—it’s also wildly out of touch with where most people are today.

The fact is, most people don’t think they are awesome. Quite the opposite.

Author Chuck DeGroat writes:

“While some might contend that our core problem as humans is that we think too highly of ourselves, I’d argue that most of us live with an underlying sense of worthlessness” (80).

And Zahl adds:

“Guilt is more a default state of being, exerting constant pressure and wreaking havoc on mental health... In left-of-center circles, many people feel pressure to demonstrate their contrition and regret over cycles of injustice… In right-of-center circles, many people feel pressure to assert their innocence and reject any framework that might imply otherwise” (83).

Grace Is the Real Relief

The core of the gospel message, I believe, is that though we may be bad, we can actually be good—not by our own merit or efforts, but through the grace of God.

And that is, to borrow a phrase, a big relief.

As another author puts it:

“Forgiveness is God’s unfathomable gift of grace to humanity, a gift that enables us to be set free from the power of guilt and sin to destroy us” (Hunsinger, 64).

Rescue, Not Just Reassurance

To close out the book, Zahl shares the story from 2018 of the Thai youth soccer team trapped deep in a cave after a rainstorm. Despite the dire circumstances and complexity of the rescue, all the boys were saved.

Zahl writes:

“There was not pretense that these boys could save themselves. They needed much more than a helping hand or a detailed map to the surface… It was either rescue or death. So it is with us” (154).

What a Relief

In truth, despite the efforts of some within Christianity to tell us that all we really need to hear is that we are enough, I think most of us already know we aren’t. And more—we are worn out and exhausted from trying to make ourselves enough, yet continually falling short.

The gift of grace says that, because of Jesus, we are now enough—not through any explicit action or effort of our own.

Like the Thai boys, we simply have to say yes to being rescued.

What a relief.

Sources:

DeGroat, Chuck. Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself--and to God--When You're Wounded, Weary, and Wandering. Tyndale House Publishers, 2024.

Episcopal News Service. “Glitter+Ash Wednesday Takes Ritual, Adds Glitter, Mixes in Meaning, Sparks Debate.” Episcopal News Service, 28 Feb. 2017, https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2017/02/28/glitter-ash-wednesday-takes-ritual-adds-glitter-mixes-in-meaning-sparks-debate/. Accessed 7 June 2025.

Hunsinger, Deborah van Deusen. Bearing the Unbearable: Trauma, Gospel, and Pastoral Care. Eerdmans, 2015.

Root, Andrew. The Church in the Age of Secular Mysticism. Baker Academic, 2024.

Zahl, David. The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace in a Worn Out World. Brazos Press, 2025.