Max Lucado’s Problematic Apology

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Christianity, Culture, Culture War, Emotivism, Epistemology, Language, LGBTQ+, Max Lucado, Postmodernity, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Rhetoric, Truth

            The furor over Max Lucado’s remote preaching for the Washington National Cathedral has caught a fair amount of attention lately.  That Lucado met disapproval from some in the Episcopal church for holding elements of a biblical sexual ethic is as expected; that he was allowed to speak at all is rather surprising, and that those responsible have come to regret it is unsurprising.  But probably the most troubling part of the whole episode is the apology letter Lucado issued afterward.

            His opening paragraph suggests already a misapprehension about the seriousness of defying God’s design for the human person and relationships.  An orthodox Christian preaching to the Washington National Cathedral is undertaking a prophetic task.  This is, indeed, a “high honor”, but not, I think, in the sense that Lucado intends.  Prophets aren’t supposed to hear with dismay that their presence has been “a cause of consternation” to people who reject God’s Word; they’re supposed to expect it.

            Lucado identifies the source of this consternation, a sermon from 2004, and proceeds to apologize.  It is a good apology in that it owns responsibility without making excuses.  But what is he apologizing for?  The hurtfulness of his sermon.

            Here I must allow for the possibility that Lucado has something to apologize for.  I don’t know; I haven’t seen the whole sermon.  He thinks he was disrespectful, and I respect a man regretting being disrespectful.

            On the other hand, it seems far more probable to me that the consternation towards Lucado resulted not from how he communicated the truth, but from the truth itself.  Looking at the snippets of the sermon available in the various articles about this kerfuffle, one finds that Lucado, if not entirely on point with his inferences, was at least significantly less severe in his remarks about homosexuality than the Scriptures are (see Lev. 18:22; Rom. 1:26-27).  Apologizing for oneself is one thing, but we must never apologize for what God has said.

            God has said that He created mankind male and female, distinct and complementary, intended for union in this complementary distinction in covenant sexuality (Gen. 1:27; 2:23-24).  Lucado perhaps apologizes for this, certainly obfuscates it.  He refers without qualification to “the LGBTQ community”, “LGBTQ individuals”, “LGBTQ families”, and “LGBTQ people”, accepting these significations that frame homosexuality et al as a legitimate and morally neutral identity category instead of a rejection for God’s design for humanity.

            “Faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about homosexuality,” Lucado says.  Granted that true Christians can misinterpret the Bible in all kinds of ways, his words in this context surely imply more than that.  If I said, “Faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about theft,” would I not be suggesting that the Bible’s teaching about theft is unclear?  So also the teaching of Scripture about human sexuality; the question is not whether it is possible for a true Christian to misunderstand, but whether God has spoken clearly.

God has spoken clearly.

            To his credit, Lucado does not himself reject the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality, and he is willing to say so here—here, where it will probably nullify his apology, because that biblical teaching is the very thing that so consternates those to whom he is apologizing.  But he includes that pesky adjective “traditional”; if he had only said ‘the biblical understanding of marriage’, and left it at that!  Christians must all come to realize that framing it as the ‘traditional’ understanding of marriage is a concession, a way of putting it positively while granting legitimacy to other understandings of marriage.  If you must put an adjective before marriage, ‘real’, ‘true’, or even ‘biblical’ are all acceptable qualifiers; ‘traditional’ gives too much away.

            All this obfuscation is wedded to the basic burden of the apology, addressing the ‘hurt’ his sermon of years ago has caused.  Here it is an exquisitely contemporary apology, of the kind we are used to seeing from a variety of public figures who have said something of real or perceived offense.  Whether what Lucado said was true or not, biblical or not, appears irrelevant; it was ‘hurtful’, and that is what matters.  For a telling comparison, just look at the similarity between Lucado’s apology and Dean Hollerith’s apology for inviting him to preach.  Both have feelings firmly behind the steering wheel, and truth in the back seat—politely observing the injunction against back-seat driving.  Both suggest a therapeutic model of truth—the kind of conceptual world in which the ubiquitous contemporary sentiment ‘my truth’ is, if not coherent, at least at home.  The locus of morality is not in the voice of God coming to us from without—‘what has God said?’—but in the inward response—‘how did it make me feel?’

            Such a therapeutic model of truth is utterly opposed to the Christian faith.  Christianity has, at its center, the gospel: the wondrous message of the saving life, death, resurrection, ascension, reign, and return of Jesus Christ, and the offer of redemption to those who repent and believe.  This message comes with a conviction of the fiery holiness of God and the wickedness of our sin.  We dare not trade the clarion call of the gospel for a soothing affirmation of every man’s sense of self.

            Lucado allows for differing interpretations of the clear teaching of Scripture regarding human sexuality, adding, “but we agree that God’s holy Word must never be used as a weapon to wound others.”  We have met this before, this strange surprise that the sword of the Spirit might prove sharp and pointed.  Of course, we must not twist the Scriptures out of spite towards others.  But where the Word of God cuts truly, we must not attempt to blunt its edge.  The surgeon’s scalpel cuts to heal; the holy Scripture convicts to save. Some things ought not be apologized for.

A-woman Again

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Christianity, Culture, Feminism, Gender, God, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Sexual Revolution, Society, Theology

Representative Eric Swalwell has drawn a little attention from an incidental remark wherein he referred to God using the pronoun ‘herself.’ This sort of blasphemy is not surprising on the cultural left–and blasphemy it is, to willfully feminize God, who has always revealed Himself in masculine pronouns–but it is an instructive reminder of what lies at the bottom of the sexual revolution. This ideology is not, at the last, about freedom or love or individuality; it is about idolatry.

It’s easy to see the sort of logic that might push someone on the religious left towards feminized deity: it’s all about power dynamics, and deity is seen as the highest glass ceiling. How can any woman really get to the top if, ultimately, He is at the top? So feminist theology has, for some now, pursued the quest for a goddess. We see this in academia, in iconography, and, as in the present case, in popular culture.

This is all part of the project of self-actualization, self-centering of the sexual revolution. All obstacles to our freedom are to be abolished. With abortion, it manifests in the denial of responsibility for the life of the child which impinges on our freedom; with divorce, denial of the covenantal union which threatens to make us for-another and united-with-another instead of with and for ourselves; with promiscuity the barriers to self-centering are obvious, and so also with the whole LGBTQ+ alphabet. But feminism, remarkably enough, is what takes the project to its fullest extent.

By feminism, of course, I do not mean what feminism might have once meant (and still touches on in some ways): contending for the simple truth that women are fully human, equal in value and dignity, responsible moral agents. By feminism, I mean what mainstream feminism now is and has long been: a project of revolt against God’s good design for man and woman. In this sense, it is an arm of the sexual revolution, and plays a major role in the revolution’s cultural advance.

But a revolution revolts against some authority or power. Who is the sexual revolution in revolt against? Not ultimately, as its footsoldiers might believe, oppressive patriarchy or antiquated norms. It is in revolt against God, who created man and woman, who created human sexuality, and who has established its nature, purpose, and the good boundaries that allow for true freedom and flourishing. The sexual revolution is merely one particularly consuming aspect of mankind’s rebellion against the maker–and we see this, in stark clarity, with the feminist attempt to feminize God. For while the sexual revolution in its manifold aspects attacks the dignity and identity of men made in the image of God, this final expression of feminism goes after the God in whose image we are made.

All of this is sobering to observe. But do not lose heart. There is good news–very much, very good news.

In the first place, God is invincible. He cannot be disfigured. In His great forbearance, He permits blasphemy for awhile, but idolaters cannot tarnish the glory of the Holy One. God will vindicate His honor, in His time; at the last, every knee shall bend, every mouth declare the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

In the second place, God does forbear, and idolaters of every sort are invited to receive the amnesty of the Almighty. By faith in Jesus Christ, those who scorn God now may yet come to know Him as Father, and the wonderful privilege of adoption as His children. It is not too late.

A fundamental choice is laid before all of us, a call to repentance, with the wonderful promise of restoration, redemption, and resurrection. We may know God–not just abstractly, but personally; not just as the Father, but as our Father. But we may only know God on His terms, not on our own. We may only know Him as He has revealed Himself–as He truly is, not as we would have Him be.

Knowing Him a He truly is, we also come to know ourselves as we truly are, and in sanctification we embrace the selves that He has called, and empowered us, to be. This self is not self-centered but Christ-centered, renewed in the image of the Creator. There, unsurprisingly, lies the secret of creaturely joy.

An Easy Question

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America, Christianity, Culture, Culture War, LGBTQ+, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Secularism, Society, Tolerance

Jason Jimenez, writing in the Christian Post, asks a question both pointed and quite easy to answer, “Why does the media give a pass to Biden’s faith?” The question might be more broadly applied, as Jimenez does, to the better part of the cultural and political left. In an era where consistent Christian beliefs are frequently tarred by the left, and a particular season where a wide variety of orthodox Christians are being painted together with the pejorative label ‘Christian nationalism’, why is Biden’s professed Catholicism, not only personally but in his politics, so gushingly held forth?

The answer, again, is rather obvious, and Jimenez knows it: Biden is advancing the leftist agenda. While some on the cultural left object to Christian faith per se, the more usual objections are to the Christian worldview and its whole outlook on human flourishing–particularly, in recent times, to the Christian teaching that mankind is made up of men and women, who are neither changeable nor interchangeable. Opposing this worldview calls for championing secularism and labeling Christians as dangerous, nationalists, bigots, and so forth.

But when you find political champions who claim Christian allegiance but promote your secular pluralistic worldview, that’s a different story. Now you have an avenue for claiming that Christian faith is consistent with the sexual revolution and its anthropology–which is what the religious left consistently provides. Not everyone in the cultural left will like it; as Religion News Service recently observed, “Secular groups praise Biden’s agenda but express concerns about religious rhetoric“. But you’re advancing the secular policies. At the end of the day, as Rachel Laser of Americans United is quoted in the article, “actions are so much more important than words”. As long as its just ‘religious rhetoric’, not actually an applied Christian worldview, its fairly tolerable to the hard secularists, and useful to the religious left in general.

In the end, the common ground between leftist disdain for the Catholic identity of Justice Barrett and promotion of the Catholic identity of President Biden is the advance of secular ideology. Reaction to Christian identity is conditioned on whether the professed Christianity is challenging or bolstering the secular worldview.

Is there a hypocrisy and inconsistency at work? Of course. But is there anything surprising or hard to understand? Not at all.

“In the Name of…”

Tags

America, Christianity, Culture, God, Government, Idolatry, Pluralism, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Secularism, Society, Truth, United Methodists

            I mentioned a couple of days ago the silliness with which Rep. Cleaver ended his prayer for the opening of congress on Sunday, and I certainly wasn’t alone in observing the nonsense of it.  But that little detail has gotten more attention than the fact that the prayer was problematic in more significant ways.  How we end our prayers matters, but may not matter as much as the basic question of who we are praying to.

            I am no connoisseur of congressional prayers, and would be unsurprised if they were blasphemous as a matter of course; I make no claim that Cleaver’s prayer stands out from the pack (though it might, for all I know).  But the ending has claimed so much attention that we might as well draw people’s eyes up a few lines from “amen and awoman.”

            You can view the whole prayer on C-Span (there’s also a transcript, but it is both incomplete and unreliable).  And the prayer is not all bad, as concerns its content: there is humility, and an expressed desire for unity (if rendered somewhat incredible by the prayer’s conclusion).  But the question of great concern is, to whom is he praying?

            Towards the beginning, he invokes, “Eternal God,” which is an acceptable, if not explicit, Christian address.  He says, “The members of this august body acknowledge your sacred supremacy,” which seems to me unlikely, but we shall return to that.  Various phrases biblical and Christian phrases suggest that it is the one true God whom Cleaver addresses—without ever bringing in any of the key terms, such as “Jesus,” “Holy Spirit,” or “Trinity,” that might really seal the deal.  Nonetheless, one is left with the impression that he might actually be praying to the actual God—and making the audacious claim that the U.S. congress operates in submission to the Holy One.

            But, at the end, he concludes, “We ask it in the name of the monotheistic god, Brahma, and god known by many names, by many different faiths.”

            Beg pardon?

            It would appear that Cleaver has been praying to a hypothetical shared god of the world’s religions.  He conflates “the monotheistic god”—an inadequate catchall that could conceivably have reference to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, “Brahma”—the Hindu creator god, and a general reference to the gods of other religions.  In this secularized, pluralistic prayer, Cleaver seems to be trying to include everyone—thus effectively excluding most people.

            This notion, that all religions (or at least certain religions) really worship the same god under different names is not at all unique.  It is unsurprising to see it on the religious left, and perhaps the only safe course on the political left.  It is also blasphemous.

            When we read the Scriptures, we do not find God regarding worship of other gods as really being worship of Himself.  We find God profoundly distinguishing Himself from the gods of the pagans, “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens” (Ps. 96:5, ESV).  God declares the idols worthless (Jer. 10:15), and the worship of such idols futile (Isa. 42:17).  We find not that God may be sought by any name, but that there is one name we must confess, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

            To whom, then, was Representative Cleaver praying?  Whose “sacred supremacy” does he (and, he presumes, the rest of congress) acknowledge?  Not, apparently, the one true God.

            And that is the real problem behind all the other problems.  If our leaders submitted to the true God, our nation would not advance legislation that defies God and denigrates, devastates, and destroys people made in His image.  Idolatry is the problem, and as long as we worship idols we will harm image-bearers.  All hopes grounded in idolatry are vain.

            But there is a light in the darkness, and hope for any who will have it.  When we acknowledge the one true God, when we confess the name of our Savior, then we find the path of life.  “Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).  He is the true hope, light, and life eternal.

The Liberal Chimera

Tags

Christianity, Holy Spirit, Liberalism, Progressive Christianity, Scripture, Truth, United Methodists

According to an article that appeared Monday on RNS, liberal United Methodists have recently declared they are starting a new denomination (but not really a new denomination) within (and also outside of) their denomination: the Liberation Methodist Connexion. Those familiar with the history of theology in the past century may immediately detect Marxist vibes in the use of “Liberation” in the title; the choice of Anglicized spelling for connection is, apparently, a Methodist thing.

The United Methodists have been going through the same struggles as other historic Mainline denominations over whether or not to surrender to theological liberalism, particularly in the area of sexual morality. The general Mainline consensus has been to surrender, and continue to enjoy a drastic decline; the American Baptists are, I think, still deciding; the United Methodists decided last year to buck the trend and not embrace the LGBTQ+ agenda, largely because of strong participation from their African churches. But the conservatives have been quick to compromise, and the general impression was that the denomination would split this year–a break prevented by COVID-19.

The new news is that some of the liberals are tired of waiting, and have organized a new movement ahead of the scheduled (and postponed) break.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the LMX is how up-front they are about truth taking a back seat to action. Of course, they claim to be responding to “The timeline of the Holy Spirit”–although they are going directly against what the Spirit has said in Scripture. But, “Correct doctrine is less important to the new denomination than correct action, collaborators said during Sunday’s presentation.”

This is not an oversight, but a conscious decision, emphasized from the beginning of the article. “Its theology ‘is not written in stone,’ the website said”, which contrasts quite decidedly with God’s ten commandments, which were written in stone. As one of the leaders puts it, “We seek not answers that lead us to correct doctrines as to why we suffer. We seek correct actions, correct praxis, where God sustains us during the unanswerable questions”; so, for her, correct doctrine is not just undesirable but impossible–the questions are “unanswerable”. One of the destinations you may reach by the road of doubt is the cul-de-sac of ignorance.

In fact, the liberal antagonism towards truth finds direct expression in the words of another leader: “There are no doctrinal litmus tests in the movement. We are moving beyond the supremacy of a single belief system”. This is to say that to hold that there is such a thing as truth is a sort of violence, an attempt to assert supremacy. Such a view is worlds away from the perspective of Christianity, where believing the truth God has revealed is an act of humble obedience to the Creator and Lord of the universe.

Of course, the LMX does have united doctrine, even if they want to pretend they don’t. How could they have united actions–“correct praxis”–without it? What would they act towards? Here is what they act towards: “That action includes reparations, caring for the earth, and finding new ways to live together outside of systems like colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, clericalism and heteronormativity, they said.” See, the difference is not that they don’t have doctrine, it’s that they eschew historic, orthodox Christian doctrine in favor of trendy worldly ideologies. And I do wonder if someone within the ranks tried to dissent and say, advocate ‘patriarchy’ or ‘heteronormativity’ (I do not say this is likely, just speculate with me for a moment), if they might not find themselves up against “the supremacy of a single belief system” after all.

The attempt to dispense with doctrine is a chimera. When you attempt it, what is most likely is that you will dispense with true doctrine, and end up captive to deceptive ideologies and worldly fads. As the self-contradictory, almost farcical nature of the LMX shows, the supposed rejection of doctrinal orthodoxy is both a Trojan horse for paganism and a bizarre antagonism towards truth itself. Christians must seek to know the truth and love the truth, remembering that our Lord is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6, ESV).

The Final Word

Tags

Authority, Bible, Biblical Interpretation, Christianity, Church, Church of England, Faithfulness, God, Homosexuality, Humility, Liberalism, Progressive Christianity, Same-Sex Marriage, Scripture, Sexual Immorality, Sexual Revolution, Theology

This week’s Tuesday Tea-ology focused on the finality of Scripture; the relevance of this aspect of the authority of God’s Word is easy to illustrate.  Consider, for instance, the current convulsions in the Church of England.

            The C of E has seen tragic theological degeneration over the years—though, like many liberalizing Christian bodies, they have remnants of orthodoxy in the ranks.  And, like other liberalizing bodies, the temptation to compromise with the world is very strong in the area of sexual morality.

            At the beginning of 2020, I saw with some surprise that the C of E managed even the banal statement that “Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purpose for human beings”—a notably anemic statement compared to the strong words Scripture has for homosexual relationships, but more orthodox than I would have expected from the Church of England.

            But the pleasant surprise of orthodox theological anthropology coming from the C of E was short-lived.  The archbishops of Canterbury and York swiftly apologized for having been so insensitive as to maintain basic Christian moral teaching.  Such a move, they hold, was inappropriate, considering that the C of E is presently engaged in deciding whether or not they still hold to Christian sexual ethics—these matters are being re-evaluated in something called “the Living in Love and Faith project.”

            That is the setup.  The other day, news came that this project has yielded up its fruits, and the C of E will now, according to the Christian Post, “begin a formal ‘discernment and decision-making’ process ‘about a way forward for the church’ in regards to its teachings on sex, sexuality and marriage.”  Though the description is broad, and apparently does consider the issues generally, same-sex marriage appears to be the focal point.

            Considerable sophistry can be involved in these situations.  A discernment process sounds careful, perhaps even reverent; but, when what you are trying to discern is whether or not to obey God, it turns out to be a process of deliberate rebellion.  Engaging in a thorough discernment process to decide whether or not to declare stealing or adultery valid, to offer a parallel example, signals not wisdom but moral frailty.  Even considering redefining marriage to accommodate sexual immorality is a denial of God’s authority, of the finality of God’s Word.

            From the description, this discernment process is based on a three-year study “to help people participate in honest discussions, listen to life stories and understand each other’s views.”  Honest discussions are good (much better than dishonest discussions!); listening to people’s stories is important; understanding one another’s views is valuable.  But none of that has any bearing on the church’s doctrine regarding human sexuality.

            That is the application of the finality of Scripture.  God’s Word is final.  The authority of Scripture overrules human experience, and declares us in the wrong when we attempt to contradict God.  The Bible also overrules human rationalizing, theorizing, moralizing, philosophizing, obfuscating, and platituding—any and all reasoning and rhetoric that goes against what God has spoken.  God is God, and what He says goes.

            God created human beings, He knows what is best for us, and what He says goes.  He designed man and marriage; they are not ours to redesign or redefine.  To re-evaluate marriage in light of honest discussions, life experiences, and our views is to reject God’s authority as Maker and Master, Lord of life.  God has spoken very clearly about these matters.

            And God’s Word is final.

Ultimate Authority

Tags

America, Authority, Christianity, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Freedom, God, Government, Pandemic, Progressive Christianity, Secularism, Truth

Back in August, RNS ran an article entitled, “John MacArthur believes the Bible trumps COVID-19 public health orders. Legal scholars say no.” Here, in a case study of church-state relations, we see the basic failure of a secular worldview.

RNS is, after all, a basically secular organization. “Wait a minute. RNS stands for Religion News Service. How can that be a secular organization?” Because it uses “religion” in the generic sense, various religions, without any conviction as to which religion is true; it is a secular platform for liberal religious views from various traditions, and thus represents a secular society’s approach to religion.

In a secular society’s approach to religion, there is an implicit relativism on spiritual truth, and an elevation of the authority of the state above the church. The separation of church and state becomes one-sided; it is invoked when there is an attempt to bring the church into the state, but ignored when the time comes to bring the state into the church.

A secular approach to religion is not the same thing as religious freedom. Religious freedom is a Christian idea, and happily coexists with the public acknowledgment of Christian truth–as was the case in America for most of its history. A secular society, we are beginning to see, actually impinges upon religious freedom, as atheistic ideologies become public orthodoxy.

We see this in the hypocrisy of certain government officials as they select which gatherings are essential and which are not during the pandemic. Thus we come back around to RNS and their assumption of secular authority: ‘Does the Bible trump COVID-19 public health orders? Let’s ask the experts on government orders.’ That is begging the question.

Of course, the opinions of legal scholars may vary. There is a legal tradition, evidenced in the founding of our nation, that rooted human rights in the authority of God. Then there’s the opinion of one scholar quoted in the RNS article:

“We have rights from the Constitution, not the Bible,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State. “Biblical duties don’t trump our laws. Period. Full stop.”

When confronted with that kind of attitude, what can a Christian say but “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, ESV)? God, not government, is the highest authority. Jesus Christ is Lord.

Legal experts cannot tell us whether the Bible has authority over legal pronouncements–though, if a legal expert is a Christian, he might know the answer. The most legal experts are equipped to tell us is whether or not the law acknowledges the authority of Scripture. If it does not–as is often the case–that tells us nothing about the authority of Scripture vis-à-vis human government. All that tells us is that human government claims to be the ultimate authority.

That is the case in a secular or secularizing society. But that doesn’t make it right.

In this pandemic, Christians have had to wrestle with how the church should respond to public health orders; in particular, we have had to wrestle with how the Bible’s command to submit to governing authorities does or does not apply in these situations. That is a valid and sometimes complex question to work through. But that is not the question RNS is asking; RNS is asking whether God or the government has ultimate authority in these matters–and that is an exceptionally easy question to answer.

The Bible is the Word of God. Of course God’s Word has authority over the word of the state. The state’s opinion on this matter makes no difference, except that it is a potent reminder that what our nation needs most is to return to an acknowledgment of the ultimate authority of God–an acknowledgment expressed at our nation’s beginning: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”

Sojourners and Slander

Tags

Christianity, Justice, Liberalism, Progressive Christianity, Righteousness, Truth

I was first exposed to Sojourners at college, and my impression of them has always been negative. It was the obvious disingenuousness of the whole thing that irked me; why should such an overtly leftist publication pretend to be bipartisan? Were they fooling anyone? What had such messaging to do with the Christian faith, and why should it be promoted at a Christian college? Maybe the fact that I was studying rhetoric made me especially attuned to the duplicity of ‘GOD IS NOT A REPUBLICAN…or a Democrat.’

Sojourners is still around, and nothing on their website suggests a Christian centrism. They seem quite sold to the left; maybe they don’t pretend otherwise anymore. As such, they present a compelling picture of how putting politics in the center makes us vulnerable to buying into the culture’s lies.

Case in point, an article that caught my eye a little while back: “#DEFUNDTHEPOLICE BECAUSE THEY WON’T REFORM THEMSELVES“, by Chanequa Walker-Barnes. It addresses issues of police brutality and reform, with the headlined perspective of supporting the defunding (possibly even abolition) of police. A careful analysis might draw attention to the one-sided argumentation about a complex issue, and a theological analysis might address the basic naivete of thinking that fallen humans can do without law enforcement (as an aside, the writer is a professor at McAffee School of theology, for whatever that may indicate about that institution).

But I will highlight a single statement, and the point that can be drawn from it: “We live in a militarized police state wherein law enforcement officers view themselves as our overlords and conquerors rather than as servants and protectors of the public.” Unless Walker-Barnes is utterly ignorant of the diverse reality of American police, that statement is slander. Even if Walker-Barnes is ignorant of the American police forces, it is difficult to believe that the editorial team at Sojourners is so ignorant; and, barring this vast ignorance of reality, they have willingly published a slanderous accusation against the police force. But perhaps the editors can defend themselves with a ‘the views in this commentary do not necessarily represent the views of Sojourners‘ disclaimer? No. They highlighted this very statement of Walker-Barnes’ article on the sidebar so that readers could tweet it.

What place has slander in a Christian publication? None. But that is what happens when worldly ideologies infiltrate and influence your thinking.

An instructive warning for Christian institutions, and even churches, in America today.

Really Urgent

Tags

America, Christianity, Culture, Episcopal Church, Faith, God, Gospel, Humanity, Jesus Christ, Liberalism, Life, Progressive Christianity, Redemption, Salvation, Theology, Truth

Writing a couple days ago about the call of the gospel involved expressing that the gospel call is urgent.  It matters whether or not people hear the message of Christ, and whether or not those who hear believe; it matters because there is judgment to come, and where you stand in the day of judgment depends entirely on whether or not you are in Christ.

This is the perennial scandal of the Christian faith.  True Christianity will always be scandalous to the world, though different aspects of the faith will be scandalous in different times and places and cultures.  But the exclusivity of the gospel message is a perennial scandal, because it stands against every worldly ideology and religion, and because it is at the irreducible core of the Christian message: eternal life is found in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ alone.  You have to place your faith in Him if you are to be saved.

This claim is denied not only by avowed secularists, but by some who claim to be Christians.  I came upon the website of a liberal Episcopalian church in San Francisco, noteworthy (among other things) for how they use their sanctuary for a popular yoga program–the sentence “Colorful mats cover the labyrinth, the aisles and even the altar” has a certain resonance with 2 Kings 16.  I saw that they had sermons online, audio and transcripts; I wanted to see what their preaching was like, but didn’t want to give it a lot of time.  I needn’t have been concerned; my sampling suggests that, in keeping with typical liberal practice, their sermons range from fairly brief to very brief.  Given their beliefs, brief is probably for the best.

So here is a sermon from “The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clements Young.”  He’s the dean of the cathedral and has a Doctorate of Theology from Harvard, so no one can say I’ve chosen a straw man.  His text is John 3:16-17…and if you say, ‘Why just through verse 17? …aha, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

John 3:16 is quite understandable a beloved passage, a one-verse encapsulation of the gospel.  Dr. Young, in his short message, says a number of things, some of them good.  But things get particularly suspicious about halfway through–manuscript page 3, that is–when he turns to examine Jesus’ reference to the bronze serpent, a story detailed in Numbers 21.

The Israelites were complaining against God, and the text says, “Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them” (Num. 21:6, NIV), but Dr. Young says “God allows poisonous snakes to come among them”; perhaps the change from God’s direct action to divine permission is unintentional.  But stranger is Dr. Young’s assertion that “In both this exodus story and the Gospel of John sin is less a punishment from God than it is a self-destructive human choice.”  Well, yes, the sin of the Israelites is a self-destructive choice–and if that’s all he meant, that’s one thing, but we’re still going to have to grapple with Romans 1–but the punishment from God is clearly present: they chose to grumble against God, but God sent the venomous snakes.

Dr. Young brings this back to John 3, which is good, and Jesus’ statement that “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (Jn. 3:14).  But this is Dr. Young’s comment:

“In this world which is poisoned by envy, greed, fear, betrayal and death – Jesus promises that we can be healed by experiencing him near to us in our suffering, and the hope that we have for the resurrection”.

Is that all Jesus promised, His nearness in our suffering?  Why no mention of the atoning significance of His death upon the cross?

After this suspicious beating-about-the-bush about the wrath of God and atoning work of Christ, Dr. Young makes his last point quite clearly:

“My last point has to do with what my friend Matt Boulton calls the “anti-Gospel.” Gospel means good news and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really good news for all people, not just Christians. It is the message that God does not condemn the world, but always reaches out to save us even when our choices have led us disastrously astray. But somehow many Christians warp Jesus’ words into an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”

The Gospel, for Dr. Young, appears to be a message of universal salvation.  Faith in Christ is not necessary, and those who say that it is are guilty of promoting “an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”  This is the rhetoric of the religious left, where ‘inclusion’ is good and ‘exclusion’ is bad, and where the other side is regarded as showing hatred or contempt.  But how does this message square with the very text of Scripture being expounded?  Dr. Young quotes John 3:16 in its entirety, so he has right there before him that the verse says “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  It does not say that Christ gives life to everyone; it says He gives life to those who believe in Him.

How does Dr. Young deal with this?  He doesn’t, really.  He emphasizes that the text is saying this is a demonstration of the way God has shown His love:

“The Greek doesn’t mean to emphasize “how much” God loves us but instead shows us the character of God’s love, that God loves us in this way, through not even withholding his own son. The point is not that Jesus only saves the few who believe, but like the Israelites looking at the snake, everyone is healed by God through Jesus.”

Like the Israelites looking at the snake?  But it wasn’t all of the Israelites who were healed by the bronze serpent–it was only those who looked at it.  In the same way, it isn’t all people who are saved by Jesus, but only those who believe in Him.  The parallel seems to work rather against Dr. Young than for him.  Can he really justify such a shaky interpretation in the face of the clear teaching of the biblical text?

He can try.  Here’s the clincher:

John confirms this interpretation and writes, “God did not send his son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn. 3).

He’s quoting John 3:17, a wonderful verse about God’s love.  Jesus came to save.  God sent His Son to be our Savior.  And, if this verse was all we had to work with, we might conclude that it teaches a universal salvation, regardless of whether people know Jesus or not.

But this verse doesn’t stand alone, and a basic principle of biblical interpretation is that verses must be interpreted in context.  The verse before it, verse 16, says that it is those who believe who are saved.  What about the verse that follows?

And this is why it is so interesting that Dr. Young stopped with verse 17.  Now, I can’t read his mind.  Maybe he forgot what verse 18 said.  Maybe he just didn’t have time to bring it up.  But it is awfully interesting that he didn’t mention the verse that says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (Jn. 3:18).

So we have an Old Testament parallel and two clear assertions that a response of faith is required in order to receive the life Christ offers, sandwiching the ambiguous verse that Dr. Young tries to use to nullify the clear message.  It is overwhelmingly obvious that Dr. Young has misinterpreted the Scripture, and has done so in a way that shows either a remarkably careless disregard for the context or a deliberate desire to twist the message of the gospel.

He wants to do away with the exclusivity of the gospel.  In the process, he has thrown out the urgency of the gospel, for a message of universal salvation is not a message that anyone needs to hear; and, if heard, it is a message that perfectly suits the individualistic self-determination of the (post)modern west, because it means that how you choose to live your life doesn’t really matter in the end.

Can Dr. Young’s own charge be reversed?  Is he guilty of teaching an anti-gospel?  I think so.  Maybe he teaches that people should repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus, but he doesn’t preach that such is necessary in order to be forgiven and receive eternal life.

The true gospel is urgent, because it proclaims that God’s gracious offer of life is found exclusively in Jesus Christ, is received exclusively by faith in Jesus Christ.  You need this gospel, and you need it now.

And you may have it, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done.  Turn from your sins and place your trust in Jesus Christ, who died for your sins and rose from the dead to bring you life.  Accept His mighty hand reaching down to draw you to Himself.  Be cleansed, forgiven, made whole, adopted as a child of the Most High.

The time is now.

 

What Church Is For

Tags

Christianity, Church, Cultural Engagement, Culture, God, Gospel, Jesus Christ, Liberalism, Progressive Christianity, Salvation, Sin, Society, Truth

I was struck by the tragic verisimilitude of a bit of poetry today:

“And ev’ry old cathedral that you enter / By then will be an Area Culture Centre. / Instead of nonsense about Death and Heaven / Lectures on civic duty will be given; / Eurhythmic classes dancing round the spire, / And economics courses in the choir.”

These lines come towards the end of John Betjeman’s satirical poem “The Town Clerk’s Views”, published sometime towards the mid-20th century.

But it is hardly satire, when you compare it to the (post)modern liberal vision for the church.  The true church has a profoundly spiritual vision, with inescapable implications for life in this world.  The ‘progressive’ church too often loses sight of the otherworldliness of Christianity and becomes utterly pre-occupied with social matters unmoored from the doctrines of sin, salvation, and eternity.  As a result, even their social agenda comes to be guided by the pagan impulses of (post)modern culture.

It is tragic to see historic churches become little more than cultural centers, that teach not the atoning death and saving resurrection of Jesus Christ, but social justice (as defined by American culture) and yoga classes.

However, it is not (yet) “ev’ry old cathedral”.  Many are the faithful churches that care for the vulnerable and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And it is for each generation of believers to hold forth and pass on the faith, to keep the church the church, for the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom.