La La Land: When Christianity Stops Asking What Is True

In 1997, All Star United released “La La Land,” a cheerful song with a brutal message. Its narrator enjoys a convenient Christianity: agreeable verses, blessings on demand, pleasant sensations, and a Jesus who keeps trouble away.

The song begins with its governing confession:

The question isn’t whether it’s true

His real concern is whether religion works for him. The song is satire, exposing a counterfeit. It is easy to hear it as a jab at televangelists. But the temptation it exposes reaches much further.

That temptation is to put our desires above God’s revelation while continuing to use Christian words. Who gets to define Christianity: God speaking in Scripture, or the person seeking His benefits?

When “Does It Work?” Replaces “Is It True?”

Pragmatism judges beliefs by results. Christianity judges them by God’s Word. Results cannot make false teaching true.

A sermon may encourage while misrepresenting Scripture. A ministry may grow while neglecting repentance. Intense religious feelings do not establish God’s approval.

Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). Paul wrote that all Scripture, including its correction and reproof, equips God’s people (2 Tim. 3:16–17). The Bereans tested even Paul’s preaching against Scripture (Acts 17:11). The Second London Baptist Confession likewise identifies Scripture as the supreme judge in religious controversies (1689 LBCF 1.10).

The principle is simple: read each text in context, interpret Scripture by Scripture, and submit our conclusions, including the ones we cherish most. Truth is not determined by how well it serves us.

A Bible With the Hard Parts Removed

The song’s narrator knows just enough encouraging verses to avoid the rest. Trials and demands that threaten his comfort can be left unread.

A promise becomes a slogan; its context disappears; uncomfortable passages are excluded. Scripture becomes a collection of quotations supporting conclusions reached in advance.

Yet Paul declared “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Jesus required His followers to deny themselves and take up their cross daily (Luke 9:23). Hebrews says the Father’s discipline is painful but produces righteousness (Heb. 12:5–11). Those passages do not cancel God’s promises of peace and comfort. They tell us what those promises actually mean.

Encouragement is commanded (1 Thess. 5:11). The error is encouragement purchased by withholding what God has said. Routinely omitting repentance, holiness, judgment, and suffering teaches a different Christianity.

Blessings We Have No Right to Demand

The song next parodies claiming health, wealth, romance, and comfort. In the prosperity gospel, faith becomes a transaction: God must deliver the life we order.

The method depends on selective reading. Jeremiah 29:11 addresses Judah’s exiles collectively, after a promise that restoration would come when seventy years in Babylon were completed (Jer. 29:10). Many original hearers would die before the return. It is no personal guarantee of success. Philippians 4:19 comes after Paul describes contentment in hunger and abundance (Phil. 4:11–13) and thanks the church for its sacrificial support (4:14–18). True promises are bent to support promises God never made.

We should pray for provision (Matt. 6:11) and healing (James 5:14–16). But gifts are not debts, and faith is not leverage. Christ answered Paul’s plea for relief with sufficient grace (2 Cor. 12:7–10).

The problem runs deeper than greed. This false gospel relocates the center from what Christ accomplished for sinners to what believers expect to obtain from Christ. It borrows biblical language while changing the substance of the message.

The Saints Who Supposedly Missed Out

The song imagines martyrs demanding less suffering and more gain. Prosperity teaching often treats faithful sufferers as exceptions, failures, or people lacking faith.

Hebrews 11 makes that explanation impossible. Some believers escaped danger; others were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Both groups are commended for faith (Heb. 11:32–40). Paul says suffering for Christ is granted alongside believing in Him (Phil. 1:29), and warns that godly believers will face persecution (2 Tim. 3:12).

Christians may seek relief and help the afflicted. But hardship does not mean God failed. The martyrs counted Christ more valuable than the comfort they surrendered.

A Jesus Kept on the Dashboard

The song also ridicules prayer cloths, spiritual tingles, and a Jesus decal functioning as a protective charm. God has become a religious accessory under the owner’s control.

Acts 19:11–12 records extraordinary miracles associated with cloths that touched Paul. It does not establish a repeatable technique for acquiring divine protection. The same chapter describes the disastrous attempt to handle spiritual power as a commodity (Acts 19:13–20).

The Holy Spirit is not a supplier of pleasant sensations. He glorifies Christ (John 16:14) and produces holy character (Gal. 5:22–23). Experiences may be genuine, and Christian symbols may express sincere faith. Neither can certify doctrine or substitute for repentance and obedience.

The chorus draws the distinction: rather than discover what is real, the narrator prefers to trust whatever he feels. We do not judge Scripture by experience; Scripture judges our interpretation of experience—whether dramatic spiritual episodes or everyday impressions.

Prosperity Without the Private Jet

The same substitution can occur without promises of riches or miraculous healing.

Softer prosperity preaching promises confidence, relationships, relief, success, and fulfillment. Such desires are not necessarily wrong. The question is whether Scripture governs them or merely supports goals already chosen.

A sermon may start with a felt need and rightly apply biblical truth. But consistently omitting sin, the cross, repentance, holiness, and obedience teaches people to approach Christ primarily as a means of self-improvement.

Paul warned that people would gather teachers suited to their desires rather than endure sound teaching (2 Tim. 4:3–4). The responsibility belongs to listeners as well as preachers. What we want to hear can become the authority governing what we are willing to believe.

The Deeper Problem: Who Gets to Decide?

All these absurdities expose one deeper problem: when comfort, experience, or success determines what we believe, we have made ourselves judges of Scripture—even if we still profess its authority.

The decisive test is what happens when Scripture contradicts a cherished desire. Do we examine the passage in context and submit to what it teaches? Or do we search for a more agreeable interpretation until the difficulty disappears?

This gives us a practical way to evaluate a sermon, ministry, or cherished belief. What does the passage actually teach in its setting? Are its demands explained as carefully as its comforts? When Scripture contradicts the hearer’s preferences, does the teaching call for repentance or find a way to affirm those preferences? These questions do not require a theology degree. They require an open Bible and the willingness to be corrected. A sound biblical argument must withstand the same scrutiny it applies to competing ideas.

Whether Reformed or charismatic, traditional or contemporary, we must submit our traditions, favorite teachers, and previous convictions to Scripture. Nobody gets an exemption merely because his convictions seem obvious or his cause seems righteous.

The authority of Scripture is demonstrated not when it agrees with us, but when we allow it to correct us.

The Gospel Is Better Than La La Land

Christianity is not joyless; God comforts His people (2 Cor. 1:3–4). But the gospel offers more than comfort on demand.

We are sinners before a holy God, unable to justify ourselves. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, became man, died for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, and rose bodily from the dead (1 Cor. 15:3–4; 1 Pet. 3:18). He commands repentance and faith (Mark 1:15). Those who trust Him receive forgiveness, justification, adoption, and a hope that outlasts suffering and death (Rom. 5:1; 8:15–18). These blessings are secured by Christ, not earned by successful techniques or strong emotions. Christ promises resurrection and life with God—not exemption from every hardship before then (John 6:40; Rev. 21:1–4).

Both forms of prosperity preaching exchange lasting treasure for temporary benefits. Christ is not a means to a better treasure. He is the treasure.

A song from 1997 still cuts deeply because the question has not changed. Will Christianity be shaped by what we want from God, or by what God has actually said?

The test is whether it is true. And the authority for answering that question is the Word of God.

Case study: “La La Land” by All Star United, track 1 on the band’s 1997 self-titled album. Written by Ian Eskelin and Douglas McKelvey. Related studies: What Scripture Says.