We must be aware of trivializing the gospel, of presenting it in a form that compromises the radicality of its message. If someone is used to seeing or hearing "Coke adds life," he or she will, most likely, understand "Christ adds life" in the same commercial way: Christ is just another consumer item vying for attention. Christ doesn't speak as crucified King, but as a tricky salesman; not as Lord of the universe, but as genius of the slogan.

The slogan trivializes the message and suffocates understanding. So we must move beyond the slogan to the creed. A slogan-saturated society tempts us to demote the Christian faith to the level of a slogan. When we give in, we freeze our understanding at a commercialized level. We are satisfied with a starvation diet.

But the truth of God is rich and full; our orthodoxy is full-orbed and comprehensive. We may credally summarize it without suffocating it with the trivial. We cannot bottle up and mechanically dispense the great truths of our Lord, but we can celebrate our doctrinal inheritance with joy.