Chris​Hubbs​.com

I’ve had my adventures growing up in the church. In 35 years of church attendance I’ve been a part of a C&MA church, a fundie homeschooling church, two independent Bible churches, two Conservative Baptist churches, and now an EFCA congregation. My family has also been highly influenced by Mennonite and Bretheren folks along the way. We’re an interesting crew.

Let me tell a little bit of my story in order to set things up.

In my mid 20s I was getting involved in leadership at the first church I joined as an adult. Somewhere along the line I got acquainted with Mark Driscoll and started listening through every sermon of his I could find. This led me into what has since been termed the neo-Reformed camp.

One year I went with my pastor to a Desiring God pastor’s conference and heard John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Don Carson, Justin Taylor, and Voddie Baucham. I listened intently as Piper encouraged me to not waste my life, and I still have my Moleskine notebook wherein I hurriedly scribbled Driscoll’s 14 non-negotiable points of the faith. I read C. J. Mahaney’s book on living a cross-centered life and heard his friends tout his credentials to write on humility. I was young, still learning my theology (I’m an engineer, not a pastor!) but had found a place I liked.

But then somewhere along the line things started to change for me.

I read N. T. Wright’s Surprised By Hope and came to realize that the dispensational, Left Behind view of the end times didn’t make as much sense as I had once thought. I read Peter Enns Inspiration and Incarnation and realized that the “literal” reading of the Biblical text wasn’t always the right way to read it. My book pile got overwhelmingly Catholic and Anglican, and the Calvinist I found most winsome ended up being an Iowa essayist named Marilynne Robinson.

I resigned from the church plant I was helping lead because I was completely burned out and had no other way to find rest. I eventually saw that church plant transition to leadership of a young pastor who turned it into a real Acts 29 church plant.

Over the past couple of years I’ve seen a lot of other bits of the system that I once idolized come crumbling down.

I saw Mark Driscoll systematically run out the folks at Mars Hill that disagreed with him, and then spend more money than some of my churches have spent in an entire year’s budget just so he could get “New York Times Bestselling Author” added to his resume.

I saw C. J. Mahaney resign from his denomination over allegations that they covered up child abuse and that he was, ironically, one of the least-qualified people to write a book on humility.

I saw Justin Taylor warn authors against interviewing with a Christian radio host who accused Driscoll of plagiarism, with no word of repentance or apology when her accusations turned out to be correct.

I saw Doug Phillips, the head of Vision Forum (a fundie pro-homeschooling organization) and ministry partner of Voddie Baucham, resign from his ministry after confessing to having an inappropriate relationship with a girl young enough to be his daughter.

What I didn’t see was a lot of public acknowledgment of sin or calls to repentance from those folks surrounding my one-time heroes. The talk was all on the “watch blogs”, where people wrote from perspective somewhere along the spectrum between “godly concern” and “reckless rabble-rousing”. What I did see was a lot of wagons circling, and defensive statements that were factually incorrect and either closed to comment or removed when the comments got loud.

I saw Gospel Coalition teachers define the Gospel in such a way that anyone outside of their little group was probably on the outside looking in. One of Driscoll’s 14 non-negotiables I wrote down that day was penal substitutionary atonement. Al Mohler says that Young Earth Creationism is key. For Wayne Grudem, Owen Strachan, and others in the CBMW, complementarianism is up there at the Gospel level.

What I didn’t see was any acknowledgment that there have historically been various understandings of atonement theory, the age of the universe, the role of women, etc, within the accepted bounds of the church. What I didn’t hear was an acknowledgment that there was a lot of room for negotiables within the bounds of the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds.

And I’ll be honest: it made me angry.

I’ve spent too much of the last couple years being worked up about these topics. I’ve written angry posts about neo-Reformed Calvinism, young-earth creationism, Biblicism, and gay marriage. And what have I learned? Primarily this:

It’s not worth it.

These online debates have perhaps won me a few cheers but also caused me a few headaches with people within my own church who didn’t understand my attitude or thought I was just trying to cause trouble. They’ve given me a feeling of righteous outrage and truth-telling, but have also helped cultivate in me an attitude of adversarial cynicism that infected my relationship with my own local church.

What it’s taken me a decade to work through and realize is that an awful lot of it is just noise, just hot air. Yes, there are injustices that need to be addressed, but is my blogging actually doing anything productive there? Not really. Does anyone at my church outside of a few of the pastoral staff care about most of these topics or find them worth arguing about? Probably not.

So while it may be exciting to jump on the bandwagon du jour, I’m not sure it’s all that profitable, at least for me right now. There are a lot of other things I can write about and very positive ways to do so. It’s also more peaceful.

So, there are folks I’m unfollowing on Twitter. There are blogs I’m unsubscribing from. There are debates I’m just going to stay out of. And that’s OK.

It’s not that I’m getting less opinionated; I’ll just be sharing my opinions less, and hopefully in more meaningful ways and circumstances. It’s not that I’ll be less upset by injustice and misconduct by church leaders, but instead I’ll stop thinking that my blogging is doing more good for the situation than my praying would be.

Not having the ability to magically make peace for all of America’s evangelical theological battles, I’ll content myself with striving to blessedly make peace and demonstrate love in ways that are meaningful to the people around me. That, for me, is choosing the better part.

To those of you who have been hurt or offended by these posts of mine over the years, my sincere apologies. Let’s talk over coffee sometime soon. I’m buying.

And to those of you who do feel called to continue that sort of blogging, please continue. Go and shout from the rooftops. But also try, as much as it depends on you, to live at peace with all men. Give the benefit of the doubt. Quote accurately instead of selectively.

Loving and defending the innocent and helpless doesn’t mean you always have to be an ass to the oppressor.

There’s been a lot of virtual ink spilled in the Christian blogosphere on the gay marriage topic the past couple of weeks after the World Vision U-turn. One of the benefits of not saying anything about it myself is that eventually someone comes along who says things a lot better than I would. Today that person is Jen Hatmaker. (All the emphasis in the quotes below is hers.)

First, she says,

…the reason I’ve always held this conviction [about where she stands on homosexuality] close, inviting only my real friends and family and community in, is because I am loathe to be a pawn in a hateful public war. I refuse to be a point in some win column, used for my influence and lumped into ancillary groupthink I don’t share. I’ve said before that this conversation best belongs in true relationships, around dinner tables, over coffee, in real life, and I still believe that.

And yet for the sake of those following her as a leader, she is willing to lay her cards on the table:

I want you to know that I land on the side of traditional marriage as God’s first and clear design. I believe God’s original creation is how we were crafted to thrive: in marriage, in family, and in community, which has borne out for millennia in Scripture, interpretation, practice, and society (within and without the church).

But wait, she’s not done, and her follow-up point is important.

However, I remain disturbed and pierced at how many Christians have handled the gay community publicly. It is a source of extreme grief. We may share theology, but the application of that truth remains a disconnecting point. While Scripture does command us to “speak the truth in love” (and surely Facebook is the dead worst place to exercise that practice), that is not the end of our biblical responsibility.

She then recounts Jesus’ summing up all the law and the prophets as “love God and love your neighbor”. Powerful stuff. And the man wanted to know “who is my neighbor”? What’s my out? And Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Here’s Jen’s words again:

As I lay in bed, it was instantly and perfectly clear that the gay community has been spiritually beaten, stripped of dignity, robbed of humanity, and left for dead by much of the church. You need only look at the suicide rates, prevalence of self-harm, and the devastating pleas from ostracized gay people and those who love them to see what has plainly transpired. Laying next to them, bloodied and bruised, are believers whose theology affirms homosexuality and allows them to stand alongside their gay friends. (Again, you don’t have to agree with this, but there are tens of thousands of thinking, studied people who hold this conviction.) The spiritual gutting of these brothers and sisters is nothing short of shameful. The mockery and dismissal and vitriol leveled at these folks is disgraceful. Also wounded on the side of the road are Christians who sincerely love God and people and believe homosexuality is a sin, but they’ve been lumped in with the Big Loud Mean Voices unfairly. Painted as hateful intolerants, they are actually kind and loving and are simply trying to be faithful. The paintbrush is too wide, the indictments unfounded.

And then she brings it home:

We don’t get to abandon the theology of love toward people; the end does not justify the means. That is not Christ-like and it is certainly not biblical. As a faith community, it is time we relearn what “speaking the truth in love” means. Something that actually feels like love is a start. If the beginning and end of love is simply pointing out sin, then we are doomed. … I am convinced we need no more soldiers in this war. We need more neighbors.

Thanks, Jen, for a powerful word.

There’s been a lot of talk about Christian celebrity the past several days, but Richard Beck hits on something important this morning by making the distinction between being popular and being a celebrity.

In short, the diagnostic test that you are dealing with a Christian celebrity isn’t the fact that the person is in a spotlight speaking to thousands. Because that might just be a talented and popular person up there. And there’s no shame or elitism in that. What makes the person a celebrity or not isn’t the size of the crowd. What makes the person a celebrity is where the person is before and after the talk. Let me repeat that. The test of Christian celebrity is where the person is before and after the talk. If the person giving the talk is in the audience before and/or after the talk then that’s not a Christian celebrity. That’s just a talented and popular speaker. By coming “down from the stage” to be with the crowd–it’s an Incarnational move here–the speaker is erasing any elite distance or distinction between themselves and their audience. Connecting with the crowd before and after is an act of solidarity, hospitality, humility and service. The speaker is making themselves available. And that availability is the exact opposite of celebrity.

This is a very helpful distinction. I remember attending a Desiring God pastors conference probably a decade ago and seeing Mark Driscoll ushered in by security after everyone else had already been seated, and quickly ushered out after he had spoken and before anyone else could get up to leave. That gives one sort of impression.

On the other hand, two years ago I went to Nashville to a small event where N. T. Wright was speaking. Dr. (Bishop? Rev.? not sure what title he prefers) Wright had just flown in from England that day. While clearly the focus of the event, he spent the first hour of the evening sitting in the crowd enjoying the local musicians who were there to sing, then after speaking for an hour spent at least another 90 minutes patiently signing books, taking pictures, and talking to a long line of folks. Popular? Yeah. Celebrity? Not that day.

The discussion also reminds me of this picture which I saw recently in the news:

Here’s the Pope, on a Lenten retreat, just another priest in a pew. Now, granted, Pope Francis is a celebrity by about any definition; but it seems clear to me that he’s trying as hard as he can to not be a celebrity; to be personal, real, accessible, and pastoral even in the most visible religious role in the world.

Even us non-celebrity (and even non-popular) folks could learn a lesson or two from the good Bishops of Durham and Rome..

I can’t imagine anybody saying things much better than Jared Wilson did today over on The Gospel Coalition. Bits and pieces:

There are lots of people who want Mark Driscoll to fail and fall. I am not one of them. I love and respect Pastor Mark… I want to repeat: I do not want Pastor Mark to fail and fall. I just want him to walk in step with the truth of the gospel. … I would “confront” him to his face if I could. Even though this is not a Matthew 18 situation, and Pastor Mark has not sinned against me personally, last week I tried to contact him privately through the two avenues available to me, but I received no response. I did not demand or even expect one. … But I have an obligation to Pastor Mark… I feel as though I owe it to him to speak thusly to him. Or about him, as the case may be, since I do not want to presume he would read this. … And I feel I have an obligation to the young men coming up into ministry, exploring the gospel-centered paradigm, learning and studying and practicing missional ministry wherever God has called them. I don’t want them to think the way to lead is to insulate from critique, ignore challenges, and adapt to some echo chamber of mutual admiration. I don’t want young men looking up to men like Mark or listening to lesser voices like my own to think gospel-centered ministry means passivity and silence in the face of obvious needs or, worse, aggression in the area of reputation, dominance and swagger in leadership.

I really appreciate Jared’s point here. I know several men who have come up admiring and imitating Mark Driscoll, and while their gospel proclamation is great, they need to have other voices telling them that “aggression in the area of reputation, dominance and swagger” is not something desirable to imitate.

This is not merely about lazing writing… It’s about what this one latest incident in the accumulating evidence of Pastor Mark’s empire-building says to us, his brothers and his customers… This latest episode is just the latest example indicating an evident lack of accountability and personal responsibility. All along, I’ve trusted that Pastor Mark had the right people around him, speaking the hard truths to him. I assumed those voices were there and authorized by him to keep him honest. I no longer believe this.

Pastor Mark, if you’re reading this — you are losing us. Forget about the “haters.” We ain’t them. We are the ones who love you, who want to see you succeed and prevail. And we won’t stop, no matter what tribe you’re in or which conference stage you take. But we want you to take responsibility for your actions and your attitude. It does not commend grace. We want you to walk in repentance. We want you to seek the way of Christ in more humility, to drop the image and the posturing, and remind us of what drew us to you in the first place: the fame of Christ’s name, not the protection of your own. What would the truth of the gospel have you do? What would adorn the gospel? What would make Jesus look big? I believe it would a reversal of the trajectory of pride you have been on. I’m asking you to turn around and show us why we were so drawn to you in the beginning. I’m asking you to show us Jesus. He has become lost in your shadow.

Jared provides a great example and challenge to me and others who appreciate the gospel-centered history of Mark Driscoll’s preaching but who are concerned by his recent direction. It’s worth reading the whole thing.

Professor and pastor David Fitch has some powerful words on the Driscoll plagiarism topic today, and more broadly on celebrity leadership in evangelical churches.

And so the question really is NOT did Driscoll plagiarize or not (he did). It is, why doesn’t Mark Driscoll simply repent? Why doesn’t he just go before his congregation, lie prostate [sic] on the ‘stage’ and confess his sins of plagiarism, greed, trying to do too much publishing too fast, and what he will do to rectify and make the situation whole. It’s what us Christians do? Of course this too could be used ideologically. But at least this would be the actual practice of the Christian faith (Matt 18:15-20, James 5:16) one step removed from managing the ideological factors (his public image, his sales etc.).

Instead Driscoll’s silence in this regard reveals that there is ideology at work. His clear avoidance of one of the most basic practices of the Christian life and the continuing charades surrounding him, the publishers and the lawyers to avoid dealing with the lies, illustrate how far the Driscoll’s book and leadership has been removed above the actual practice of on-the-ground Christian life in the form of a celebrity pastor, and has become a product to be sold, an image to be upheld. This is not Christianity, this is ideology, and (for all the reasons mentioned above) I believe cannot lead our churches anywhere.

Ouch.

Then Fitch expands the discussion to the broader evangelical church.

My observation is simple. Once Christianity/church devolves into an ideology it ceases being an authentic embodiment of God’s Triune work in the world. It becomes a product. It works off antagonism (or lack) as opposed to being the overflowing of abundance of God’s work into the world…

Celebrity leadership is the death knell of the evangelical church in America. It’s killing us. And so I believe it’s of utmost importance that everyone under the age of 35 reject celebrity leadership. Realize that once beliefs, products, preaching, leadership is extracted from the local life of the local concretely engaged church, it tends to quickly devolve into ideology. And we then are just a short period away from the death of that church in a swirl of inevitable contradictions, hypocrisy and moral failures that inevitably attend celebrity leadership.

Fitch nails it in that last paragraph. Keep things local and engaged. As I said last week: we are called to be faithful, not famous.

Wenatchee the Hatchet pointed me this morning to a devotional post written by Jeff Bettger, who up until recently was Arts Pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

It begins with a good meditation on Ephesians 5, where Paul says that works of darkness should be brought to light.

Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Ephesians 5:8 - 14 (ESV)

Bettger then goes on to hint at practices going on at Mars Hill that he believes should be brought to light. More of a personal confessional than an accusation and calling to account, it still raises some serious issues. Some bits and pieces:

Having a mega church background for the last 16 years I have witnessed first hand the tyranny of injustice done in the name of God. Layoffs during Christmas, weeks after new children are born and first homes purchased. The use of tithe money to purchase books at retail cost in order to build a mans platform and make the NY times best seller lists. All with the name of God stamped on it, and self justified because the rest of the business world has those kinds of practices.

What I see Paul telling us here in this passage is to expose injustice, worldly thinking, business pragmatism, immorality… These shady mega church practices are all impure and covetous, and are hidden in the darkness by people calling themselves “Christian professionals” or pastors. They say that it would be unhelpful for the body to know such information. They say it would be gossip and if you haven’t experienced it directly but only heard second hand than it is hearsay and gossip to bring into the light. That is a lie from the pits of hell that gives justification to keep the truth hidden and the ones committing the injustice from true repentance.

We get so amped up on fighting sexual immorality we forget all that Paul is actually saying in this section of scripture. Any part of our life that needs to be hidden for whatever reason is not in the light, and should be exposed. Human politics and cunning are not an out-flowing of the Gospel but rather a system built by human hands for human ends.

Ouch.

So why am I posting this here? Partly because I have friends and family who are involved in Acts 29 churches and who I hope could at least become aware of some of the tactics that get used with the excuse that everybody’s doing it and that the ends justify the means.

But also because we all need to be keenly aware in our own hearts, in our own lives, in our own churches, how these attitudes can sneak in. We are called to be peaceable and humble, not defensive and self-justifying. To be faithful, not famous. To make disciples, not empires.

True Gospel success is demonstrated in the tender, repentant heart, not in the size of our Sunday congregation or the success of our latest book.

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us, and His grace abounds to us. If we try to hide them and justify them in the name of building the church and spreading the Gospel, we are only deceiving ourselves and setting ourselves up for a bigger fall, whether that’s in a megachurch in Seattle or a little church in Iowa.

Pastor Jeff showed humility and leadership with yesterday’s post, and we should commend his humility and repentance as an example to be followed.

Earlier this week I posted a link on my Facebook feed: “What Dave Ramsey Gets Wrong about Poverty” - an opinion column by Rachel Held Evans. Little did I know the intensity of response it would receive.

Rachel is a polarizing figure among the evangelical blogging public these days. A progressive woman who isn’t afraid to speak her piece, she’s gained a significant audience in the past year or two. (This is not the first time she’s had a guest piece on CNN.com.) At the risk of over-simplifying her piece (which I recommend reading in its entirety), her main points were these:

1. “Much of what Ramsey teaches is sound, helpful advice, particularly for middle-class Americans struggling with mounting credit card bills.”
2. Ramsey’s “views on poverty are neither informed nor biblical”.
3. A recent piece on Ramsey’s website “confused correlation with causation here by suggesting that [certain] habits make people rich or poor”
4. “Ramsey’s perceived “direct correlation” between faith and wealth should be more troubling than his other confused correlations, for it flirts with what Christians refer to as the prosperity gospel, the teaching that God rewards faithfulness with wealth.”
5. Ramsey “glosses over the reality that economic injustice is not, in fact, limited to the developing world but plagues our own country as well.”
6. “People are poor for a lot of reasons, and choice is certainly a factor, but categorically blaming poverty on lack of faith or lack of initiative is not only uninformed, it’s unbiblical.”

Now maybe it’s just me, but these points seem fairly obvious and valid. So I was more than a little surprised at the vehemence of negative responses to my link and on the subsequent re-sharings of a few of my friends. It would appear that, among American evangelical circles these days, criticizing Dave Ramsey on anything is nearly as dangerous as commending President Obama for anything.

What is more striking, though, is the common thread I saw in the negative responses. The assertions were all along the lines of “I think she misquoted Dave” (though no one provided any specifics), and “Dave’s system worked for me, so people shouldn’t criticize him.”

And here we see a scary bit of illogic that is far too common these days - the immediate defense of the person under critique without seemingly no consideration of the points that were actually made. No one tried to argue that Ramsey’s views of poverty were biblical, or that his correlations of faith and wealth were incorrect, or that systemic economic injustice is not an issue. All they said was “it worked for me!”, which, incidentally, was the first thing Ms. Evans acknowledged in her column.

Now, I’ve been guilty of this tendency myself often enough. A critique of something or someone I generally support feels like an attack on that person, which in turn I take as an attack on me, and my first response isn’t a thoughtful, reasoned response, but instead a knee-jerk reaction.

This has got to stop.

We as American evangelicals have no hope of actually solving some of the systemic problems in our church and our country if we’re unwilling to examine, critique, and correct even our most popular sacred cows.

We must have wise awareness of the motivations of those who are teaching and selling to us, even when that message is clothed in the “safe” garb of evangelical Christian vocabulary.

We must understand that, outside of Jesus, no teacher is always right, and almost no teacher is always wrong. This will free us to wrestle with uncomfortable truths. When we do we will find surprising agreement with those whom we previously considered adversaries. We will also have the (very healthy) realization that even our most revered evangelical heroes are fallible humans just like us.

We must embrace God’s truth through whatever channels it comes to us. (Yes, that means I’m likely to write another post with quotes from the Pope’s latest exhortation.) We similarly need to be willing to discard error wherever we find it, even when we find it in those who we like and have found helpful.

Learn. Think. Act. Grow. Learn more. Think more. Humbly turn. Grow more.

This is our calling as followers of Jesus Christ.

In my last post I touched just briefly on the evangelical “modesty culture”, wherein the church burdens women by telling them that they are responsible, based on how they dress, for causing their Christian brothers to lust. Today I’d like to look at it in a little more detail and the short leap from there to a culture that minimizes and encourages covering-up of abuse, as allegedly existed in Sovereign Grace Ministries churches for many years.

Here’s the tweet and link that kicked off my thought process.

twitter.com/JasonBlai…

The post links in an audio excerpt from a sermon, which the blog author says is a “powerful wake up call for women. If we care about our brothers in Christ”, she says, “we will… think about what we are wearing.”

Here’s a transcript of the key portions of the audio:

Listen carefully, ladies. This is not an aberration. This is not an unusual testimony. This is the norm.

“Each and every day on campus is a battle, a battle against my sin, a battle against temptation, a battle against my depraved mind. Every morning I have to cry out for mercy, strength and a renewed conviction to flee youthful lusts. The Spirit is faithful to bring me the renewal I need to prepare me to do war against my sin. Yet the temptation still exists. I am thankful God has created me to be attracted to women. However, campus is a loaded minefield. There are girls everywhere and it is guaranteed that I will pass some attractive girls as I walk in between classes. I either have to be actively engaging my mind and my spirit to praying, quoting Scripture, listening to worship musicor simply looking at the sidewalk to make it through unscathed. Many days it takes all four to be safe.

“The thing that women do not seem to fully grasp is that the temptation towards lust does not stop for us as men. It is continual. It is aggressive. It does all it can to lead men down to death.

“They have a choice to help or deter its goal.”

Heavy stuff. The guy who gave this testimony apparently can’t walk past an attractive woman without lusting after her unless he is “actively” works to ignore or avoid her. And because of that, this pastor tells the women of his congregation that their choice of immodest clothing will help “lead men down to death”. (A booklet with practical modesty tips was reportedly handed out to all the women after the sermon.)

Some of the comments on the post are tragic. One wife reported that “we actually changed churches because my husband didn’t feel like he could open his eyes in the church building without seeing cleavage and lot of legs.”

Really?

Now, I’m a 30-something man who has to deal with all the common temptations. I’m also the father of three young daughters. So I’m about as invested in this particular topic as I possibly could be. And you know what? My first reaction isn’t “yeah, let’s make sure these girls get covered up”. My first reaction is that these men need to grow up and learn some self-control.

You know what, bro? If you can’t walk down the street, through the mall, or across campus without lusting over every cute girl you walk past, you need to get some help. Talk to a godly older man who can disciple you. The apostle Paul didn’t tell Timothy to avoid ministering to all the young women in order to protect himself from lust - instead he says to treat them as sisters, with absolute purity. (1 Tim 5:2) Heck, I’ve got a cute younger sister, and I don’t walk past her on the other side of the street with my head down. If you want to be a mature man and to be a useful servant in the church, you need to learn to deal with women as mothers and sisters. Avoidance is not the answer.

twitter.com/CulturalS…

Now, back to the video. About the time I was getting saddened by the blog comments, I took a look at where this sermon audio came from, and it turns out that it’s from a sermon preached by none other than C. J. Mahaney, one of the founders of Sovereign Grace Ministries and the senior pastor of the lead SGM church. C. J. has been accused of conspiring to cover up multiple claims of sexual abuse occurring within the church.

So here’s what strikes me: it’s not a long leap to go from “women carry great responsibility for causing men to lust” to “let’s not ruin some men’s lives by going to the police with abuse allegations”. Because, after all, if the women are at least somewhat at fault for the lust, then aren’t they somewhat at fault for the men choosing to abuse?

Now, I don’t think for an instant that Mahaney or any of the other leaders in his church would say, if asked, that abuse is the victim’s fault. But the culture that encourages placing responsibility on the women for the men’s lust will also subtly place responsibility on the women for the abuse. And that has to stop.

Brothers: if you need help, get help. The answer is not to avoid every woman other than your wife for the rest of your life. Take responsibility for your heart, mind, and actions. Love and cherish the women in the church as mothers and sisters [update: and as friends and equals (thanks @Knepherbird for the suggestion)], with all purity.

The evangelical blogosphere has been an interesting place lately. There have been voices talking about the abuse lawsuit against Sovereign Grace Ministries, the statements supporting CJM from T4G and TGC. Jamie the VWM and others have been addressing the evangelical church’s “purity culture” and focus on “modesty”, both of which have the effect of objectifying women while claiming to try to do the opposite. Zach Hoag has hosted his “smokin’ hot conversations” series, calling the evangelical church (especially the men) to greater responsibility. Bill Kinnon has written a good string of posts on the celebrity-driven culture of the evangelical church and the opportunities it provides for spiritual leadership abuse. And I think it’s also important to pull in Dan Brennan, whose book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions calls the evangelical church to honor and encourage cross-gender friendships.

There’s a common thread that we can find through all of these topics: fear. In some areas it’s personal fear; in other areas the personal fear has become institutionalized into a culture of fear. But fear it is. And identifying and understanding fear is the key to defeating it.

Now when I start discussing these fears, some of you will object “but the boundaries are there for a reason! There are real sins that we could fall into that we should be afraid of!”. And to be fair, you have a point. But let’s recall the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. They didn’t write all their rules just to be mean - they were afraid of committing specific sins that God defined (e.g. “don’t work on the Sabbath”), and to make sure they stayed away from those sins, they put fences far outside of them. When Jesus came, he didn’t approve those laws; instead he demolished them, saying that God was more concerned with the heart.

We need some similar demolishing today.

CJ Mahaney, Sovereign Grace Ministries, T4G, and TGC

I’ve written previously about the multitude of abuse allegations currently surrounding SGM, including allegations that Mahaney and other leaders conspired to cover things up. I’ve written about the leaders of Together for the Gospel (T4G) and The Gospel Coalition (TGC) circling the wagons with posts of tenuous veracity and exasperating one-sidedness.

What are they afraid of?

They’re afraid of losing control. They believe, at some level, that God is better served if they enforce their flavor of doctrine and maintain a specific code of conduct (via church discipline and a strong emphasis on confession of sin) than if they relax and allow for Spirit-led variation. More damningly, they apparently believe at some level that God is better served by their church power structures staying intact than by working with civil authorities to bring justice to abusers.

How do we demolish this spirit of fear?

Go read what Bill Kinnon has written about the celebrity-driven church culture. Resist the appeal of this sort of fame. Look for and listen to pastors who are faithfully, humbly, and accountably shepherding small flocks. Trust that the Jesus will be found by those who wholeheartedly seek Him.

The Evangelical Purity Culture and the call for Modesty

There has been plenty of good stuff to read on the blogs lately addressing the evangelical focus on “purity” - the proliferation of ‘True Love Waits’ pledges, purity rings, the assertion that any premarital sex inavoidably makes one “damaged goods”. Here I’d recommend reading Alistair Roberts’ post The New Purity Ethic (an essay that will make this post seem short!) and, in a totally different flavor, Jamie Wright’s Why Wait?.

What are we afraid of?

This purity culture is based around a fear of shame, of uncleanness, of being perceived as being “damaged” in some way. It reflects a belief that the highest priority is an external sexual purity. Hence, a sort of virginity test, especially with regard to women. Men prey on that fear by driving the focus on modesty, which improperly tries to place responsibility for men’s sexual behavior (especially in their thought life) on women and how they dress. (This ironically ends up objectifying women’s bodies in just the way it claims to want to avoid!)

How do we demolish this spirit of fear?

If you’re a man: take responsibility for your own thoughts and actions. If you’re a woman: stop accepting the shame that irresponsible men will try to put on you. Glorify God with your body, which is His. For anyone dealing with hurt and shame: go watch Matt Chandler’s Jesus Wants the Rose.

Fear of Cross-Gender Friendships

How many times have you heard it? Men and women can’t be friends without sex becoming an issue, right? And with the church’s purity culture (see previous point), men are taught that it’s “safer” (and hence better) to avoid women altogether, if necessary, in order to avoid any sort of attraction. If you’re married, any sort of friendship with a person of the opposite gender is popularly labeled “emotional infidelity” in a disastrous attempt to draw a parallel with Jesus’ equating a lustful heart with adultery in Matthew 5.

What are we afraid of?

We’re afraid of violating the evangelical cultural attitude that cross-gender friendships are just step one in an inevitable path to fornication or adultery, and the seemingly inevitable gossip and shame that such a relationship would attract.

How do we demolish this spirit of fear?

Here I have to recommend you start with Dan J. Brennan’s Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions. Dan has both written and set a personal example for what beautiful, God-honoring cross-gender friendships can look like. I’ll be honest here - I’m uneasy at times with Dan’s position. But piercing my discomfort is a ray of truth that I can’t deny, so I will keep wrestling with it and looking for opportunities for real friendships with people of both genders.

Conclusions

As I try to reach an end to this post, in addition to fear, I see the word shame has showed up over and over again. Shame is a powerful motivator, one that will restrain behavior in ways alternately appropriate and horrifying. If somehow you find yourself reading my blog and are not yet familiar with Dr. Richard Beck’s blog Experimental Theology, go start reading Beck and thank me later. His post Elizabeth Smart and the Psychology of the Christian Purity Culture is an excellent place to start.

God has not given us a spirit of fear…

So says Paul in 2 Timothy 1:7. What has He given us instead? A spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. So, friends: demolish the fear. The Spirit provides power to change, love to show God in all situations, and a sound mind to wrestle with these things.

With every one of these topics there is a legitimate “yes, but” conversation to be had. But in each of these cases the “yes, but” has been institutionalized to the point that it has instead become a “no”. It’s my hope that we start demolishing the “no” so we can have room for the “yes, but” conversations.

Finally

The antidote for these fearful attitudes and activities can also be found in the words of the prophet Micah. What does God require of us? Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. And those words spoken over and over by God and His messengers to His people:

Do not be afraid.