The Joy of the Gospel

Pope Francis published a new “Apostolic Exhortation” today titled “EVANGELII GAUDIUM”, which translated means “The Joy of the Gospel”. It’s a long read - more a book than a web page, about 50,000 words - and I only got about 10% of the way through it at lunch today. However, there is a ton of good stuff even in that first 10%. A few striking quotes (emphasis mine):

How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew.

That’s a great reminder. Then there’s this:

There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter. I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.

“When everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.” I need that reminder. Regularly.

In every activity of evangelization, the primacy always belongs to God, who has called us to cooperate with him and who leads us on by by the power of his Spirit… The life of the Church should always reveal clearly that God takes the initiative, that “he has loved us first” (1 Jn 4:19) and that he alone “gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:7). This conviction enables us to maintain a spirit of joy in the midst of a task so demanding and challenging that it engages our entire life. God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us.

God takes the initiative, God gives the growth, God asks everything of us and at the same time offers everything to us. Wow.

And one last one:

God’s word is unpredictable in its power. The Gospel speaks of a seed which, once sown, grows by itself, even as the farmer sleeps (Mk 4:26-29). The Church has to accept this unruly freedom of the word, which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking.

It’s gonna take me a while to get through the whole thing, but I’d say it’s definitely worth a read.

Jim Belcher, "In Search of Deep Faith"

I first became acquainted with author Jim Belcher back in 2009 when I read Deep Church. It appears I didn’t review it here on the blog, but my Goodreads review gave it four stars: solid but not revolutionary. Now Belcher is back, with In Search of Deep Faith.

I feel like I’ve seen bits and pieces of this book already, having followed Belcher on Twitter for the past few years. In Search of Deep Faith reads like a travel journal crossed with Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, as Belcher recounts his family’s adventures through several months of “pilgrimage” in Europe. Belcher, his wife and four pre-teen children spent several months in Oxford, England, where he was a visiting scholar at the university there. They then spent time exploring European sites that were notable because of the saints who had lived there.

Belcher’s chapters bounce back and forth as he shares his family’s adventures in finding and exploring the locations - from Corrie Ten Boom’s house in Holland, to C. S. Lewis’ home in Oxford, to a fruitless search for the location of Bonhoeffer’s hidden seminary - and then interspersing the stories of these saints, with an emphasis on how their deep faith led them to be devoted even during times of crisis and under threat of death.

Belcher’s concern in this memoir seems not primarily for his own spiritual health, but for that of his young children. He reminds us (several times) of studies telling us that children with shallow faith roots will abandon their faith in adulthood. How, Belcher wonders, can he inspire the faith and spiritual understanding that will allow his children to remain firm in their faith throughout their lives?

In Search of Deep Faith is an entertaining read. Most readers will find at least one of the historical faith stories to be new to them - the full story of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was particularly interesting to me - and Belcher drives the reader to reflection on the health of one’s own faith.

[caption width=“640” align=“aligncenter”] Cranmer burned at the stake[/caption]

My one big gripe with the book is Belcher’s style of driving his argument via what I’m assuming must be invented dialogue. Sure, some of the conversations on his trip probably happened as they are written, but even though page after page of his book is filled with quoted dialog ("‘why do you think he did that?’, my wife asked."), either he provided a script for his family to read their questions from, or he’s putting words in their mouths later as a device to move his arguments along. And while literature has been using the forced question-and-answer format at least since Plato did it in The Republic, after too many chapters of it from Belcher it just feels contrived.

In spite of that gripe I’d still recommend reading this one if you think you’re at all interested. Style aside, it’s an encouraging and educational read.

Disclosure: InterVarsity Press provided me a free ebook copy of In Search of Deep Faith in return for posting a review here and at Amazon.com. The contents of the review are mine alone.

The command to love my neighbour as myself still retains its claim upon me

I don’t always find myself warmed by the writings of Charles Spurgeon, but my friend Michael Terry sent me this bit yesterday, to which I can only give a hearty Amen!

We have seen such a one limping about with a long doctrinal leg, but a very short emotional leg. It is a horrible thing for a man to be so doctrinal that he can speak coolly of the doom of the wicked, so that, if he does not actually praise God for it, it costs him no anguish of heart to think of the ruin of millions of our race. This is horrible!

I hate to hear the terrors of the Lord proclaimed by men whose hard visages, harsh tones, and unfeeling spirit betray a sort of doctrinal desiccation: all the milk of human kindness is dried out of them. Having no feeling himself, such a preacher creates none, and the people sit and listen while he keeps to dry, lifeless statements, until they come to value him for being “sound”, and they themselves come to be sound, too; and I need not add, sound asleep also, or what life they have is spent in sniffing out heresy, and making earnest men offenders for a word. Into this spirit may we never be baptized!

Whatever I believe, or do not believe, the command to love my neighbour as myself still retains its claim upon me, and God forbid that any views or opinions should so contract my soul, and harden my heart as to make me forget this law of love! The love of God is first, but this by no means lessens the obligation of love to man; in fact, the first command includes the second. We are to seek our neighbour’s conversion because we love him, and we are to speak to him in loving terms God’s loving gospel, because our heart desires his eternal good.

This comes from Spurgeon’s book The Soul Winner. I love both the spirit and the sense of humor displayed here. Good stuff.

The proper evangelical attitude toward sinful behavior outside the church

Here’s one for ya this morning:

The proper evangelical attitude toward sinful behavior outside the church should be one of wise resignation and acceptance. There’s no gospel call to change the world into the church by law. In fact, it cannot be done.

Roger Olson, from How to be Evangelical Without Being Conservative.

I find this thought compelling. It seems so backwards to the evangelical ear, and definitely runs afoul of Dominion Theology, but I think Olson is right.

A Calvinist at the Pearly Gates

Trevin Wax today reviews Michael Bird’s new book Evangelical Theology. Outside of the book and review, this humorous aside from Bird’s book inspired a chortle, which is why I pass it along. Enjoy!

A Calvinist arrives at St. Peter’s gates and sees that there are two queues going in. One is marked “predestined,” and the other is marked “free will.” Being the card-carrying Calvinist that he is, he strolls on over to the predestined queue. After several moments an angel asks him, “Why are you in this line?” He replies, “Because I chose it.” The angel looks surprised, “Well, if you ‘chose’ it, then you should be in the free will line.” So our Calvinist, now slightly miffed, obediently wanders over to the free will line. Again, after a few minutes, another angel asks him, “Why are you in this line?” He sullenly replies, “Someone made me come here.”

A few thoughts on the "yuck factor" discussion

In case you’re not already caught up: the discussion started with Thabiti Anyabwile’s post on TGC, “The Importance of Your Gag Reflex When Discussing Homosexuality and “Gay Marriage””. One-line summary: “Return the [gay marriage] discussion to sexual behavior in all its yuckiest gag-inducing truth.”

Then yesterday Richard Beck posted a response: On Love and the Yuck Factor. Two-line summary: (1) “I don’t think it’s healthy to use disgust to regulate moral behavior.” (2) “When disgust is involved any purported distinction being made between persons and behavior is… a verbal obfuscation of the underlying psychology.”

There have been a bunch of other thoughtful responses (to both men), including a long comment on Beck’s piece from “dmr5090” (sheesh, people, can’t you use real names at least?). Key points in those rebuttals to Beck have often been along the lines of (1) Shouldn’t sin gross us out?, (2) “Aren’t you just trying to argue that ‘homosexuality isn’t a sin’ without admitting it?” and (3) “The words ‘gag reflex’ and ‘yuck factor’ aren’t Anyabwile’s - he’s just quoting a gay journalist.”

To be fair, I have grossly simplified, hopefully not unfairly, all the posts I’ve linked so far. If you want to dig into this argument, go read them all.

So here’s the thing: I know there’s a battle raging among various flavors of Protestants and even evangelicals over homosexuality. But I can believe on one hand that homosexual acts are sinful, and on the other hand still respond with revulsion to Anyabwile’s post. Here’s why:

1. Inconsistent application of the tactic. Why do we not hear preachers like Anyabwile use this “gag reflex” topic when addressing other, more “acceptable” sins? Let’s hear a few sermons on gluttony that try to gross me out with discussions of sweaty mounds of obese flesh before you try to claim that the “gross out” strategy is really one you think should be used across the board.

2. The encouragement to revulsion at the act quickly leads to revulsion of the person. Yes, sin is revolting. All sin should be revolting to us. But to encourage a “gag reflex” response to homosexuality will very quickly lead a person to have that “gag reflex” toward the homosexual person. And that’s the furthest thing from what Christ calls us to. I know that Anyabwile says in his post that we “should not be mean and bigoted”. But I don’t understand how you can encourage a gag reflex when you hear “homosexual” and not end up that way. (Beck made this point in his post far better than I’m saying it here.)

(Observation: while writing this I was about to say that Anyabwile said we should still love the sinners, but he never actually says that in his piece. All he says is that we should not be mean and bigoted, and that we should ‘speak the truth in love’. And the truth, he says, is that homosexual relationships cannot properly be called ’love’. Not sure it’s fair to draw a conclusion from that, but it’s bothersome.)

3. This is the old “culture warrior” position again. Have we not learned yet that sin is not going to be defeated by us making the right arguments to those in privileged positions in the halls of power? Anyabwile seems to think that if he’d just managed to gross out the right people in powerful positions, we wouldn’t have legalized gay marriage. I say that’s baloney. We’ve had the evangelical attempts at political power for at least 30 years. Buchanan, Falwell, Dobson… How’s that worked out for us?

4. The Gospel is not “sin is icky”. The Gospel message is that we are all sinful, all equally in need of Christ’s grace and forgiveness. That God is in the process of making all things new, of drawing people to himself. That’s the message we need to be spending our time on.

Does your church have room for me?

What if I don’t have 100% agreement with your doctrinal statement, but still want to be a part of your church?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I’m perfectly willing to accept that you’re not going to change your church’s views just because I disagree?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I don’t know that I want to be at your church for the rest of my life, but that it’s just the right place for right now?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I want to blog about the things I’m wrestling with theologically, even if I’m using things I hear in the sermons as discussion points?

What if I’m not willing to accept the stock answer to the tough question?

What if I think disagreement doesn’t automatically mean disunity?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I’d like to publicly acknowledge that I don’t always (or even usually) vote Republican?

What if I’d like to publicly support things like single-payer healthcare?

What if I want to say publicly that we shouldn’t be demonizing the cause of illegal immigrants?

Does your church have room for me?

On the other hand,

What if I think that the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin?

What if I believe that God really knows the end from the beginning?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I believe that there is real faith to be found in churches that are very unlike yours? Among trendy Evangelicals, mainline Protestants, wild Pentecostals, and old-school Catholics?

Does your church have room for me?

What if, after all this, I’d like to use my leadership gifts? What if I’m willing to not push for my own position in the 5% where I disagree, but not willing to deny the disagreement?

What if I can teach for years on topics where we are all in blessed agreement, but occasionally will write a personal blog that none of the other leaders will agree with?

Does your church leadership have room for me?

What if all I want is to have a place where I can fellowship, love, and serve, while at the same time being honest about my views and how they are changing over time?

Does your church have room for me?

Is this Calvinism's Default Position?

I’m sitting in a hotel room tonight enjoying a family weekend and catching up on twitter while trying to get the kids to go to sleep, and in doing so I run across this from Pastor Steve McCoy this afternoon:

“I’m not clear on most things about God, but Calvinists anger me.”

- An Absurd Number of People

(@SteveKMcCoy, June 7, 2013, at 2:36 PM)

Steve (pastor of an SBC church in the Chicago area) and Bill Kinnon went back and forth a bit on Twitter after that tweet, Bill suggesting that it was a bit judgmental to suggest that people who aren’t Calvinists “aren’t clear on most things about God”, and Steve saying that he didn’t mean that everyone who hates Calvinism is unclear, but that “an absurd number” are. Their conversation trailed off before they came to any resolution.

Then there was this stunning quote from the Founders.org website, for which SBC pastor Tom Ascol is a primary leader:

In the first place, Calvinistic Christianity is nothing more and nothing less than biblical Christianity. It follows, then, that the future of Christianity itself is bound up in the fortunes of Calvinism….

…For whoever believes in God’s redemption through Christ and recognizes his own utter dependence on God, whoever recognizes that salvation is of the Lord, whoever seeks to glorify God in his worship and life, that person is already implicitly a Calvinist, no matter what he calls himself. In such circumstances, to make the person an explicit Calvinist, all we are required to do (humanly speaking) is to show the believer the natural implications of these already-held fundamental principles, which underlie all true Christianity, and trust God to do his work, that is, trust God to reveal these implications to the person.

Did you get that? Calvinism is “nothing more and nothing less than biblical Christianity”. And if anyone recognizes salvation from the Lord, and seeks to glorify God, then that person is implicitly a Calvinist! And all the Calvinists need to do is explain it in a way that the unknowing Calvinist might understand.

Now, I’m not suggesting that all proponents of Calvinism would make such presumptuous, arrogant claims, and I won’t claim for an instant that there aren’t some really God-ignorant Calvinism haters like Steve is talking about. I’m sure I don’t speak for the group of progressive bloggers who have been very vocal in recent weeks about their concerns with Calvinism and certain highly visible Calvinist groups. But I can speak for myself.

I’m not particularly progressive. I accept the Bible as God’s authoritative, inspired Word, but I don’t think that means I have to read the first bits of Genesis literally. I believe, based on what I read in the Bible, that homosexual behavior is wrong, but I’m in favor of the state sanctioning same-sex marriages and I believe Christians have done a pretty poor job of loving homosexuals over the last several decades. I voted for Bush twice and then Obama twice. I try to not post about politics on Facebook.

I also don’t think I’d fit into Steve McCoy’s category of being “not clear on most things about God”. I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, did 12 years of AWANA, attended a Christian university that required a bunch of Bible classes, have served as a deacon and an elder in a Conservative Baptist church and helped plant another CBA church that eventually became an Acts 29 church. I read widely in theology; my last couple years of reading includes Baptists, Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Arminians and Calvinists alike.

And here’s the thing: (well, two things:) I’m not a Calvinist. And some of what I’m seeing out of some of these key Calvinists does anger me.

The big fuel on the fire lately has been the recent statements about CJ Mahaney and the sexual abuse lawsuits brewing against several folks from Sovereign Grace Ministries churches. Calvinist leaders like Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, Don Carson, and Justin Taylor have put out statements supporting Mahaney, and erroneously claiming that Mahaney was accused of no crime (he was accused of conspiring to keep the abuse claims quiet).

That men of such intellect and reputation would publish a statement with such obvious mistruths in it angers me. That after posting it on Facebook and getting dozens of disapproving comments, they deleted the statement and the comments frustrates me a lot. That then they, without comment, revised it to remove the claim that Mahaney was never accused, and posted it on their organization’s website while disallowing comments infuriates me.

That Justin Taylor would claim, on twitter, that continuing discussion with divisive folks is a sin (a not-so-subtle explanation, one would assume, for why he was keeping comments closed), only to delete the tweet a couple days later once people called him on it, makes me want to bang my head against the nearest immovable object.

I don’t hate these guys. I have, in the past, respected them a lot. Which is why it’s all the more infuriating and disappointing when I see them taking indefensible positions like these.

I don’t want to assume that this circling of the wagons and declaration of Calvinism as nothing more or less than true Christianity is the default Calvinist position. I want to believe that there are Calvinist brothers and sisters out there who are as horrified by the alleged abuse and cover-up, and by the ridiculous arrogance of the Founders.org statement as I am.

But where are they? Why are they quiet?

Where is the Calvinist brother who is willing to publicly suggest that it would be wiser to not have CJ Mahaney still regularly preaching and on the conference circuit while allegations about the cover-up remain unresolved?

Where is the Southern Seminary graduate who is willing to say that while he personally believes Calvinism to be the truest expression of Christianity, he would never dream of asserting that every Christian would claim Calvinism if only they understood it better?

Without those voices many of us are left with few options but to believe that these are the default Calvinist positions. I beg you, my brothers, speak out and give us more options. God’s church deserves better.

Facing the truth about ourselves

Andrew Peterson has a beautiful piece up at The Rabbit Room today. He reflects on his discomfort at answering personal questions on a doctor’s questionnaire, and the dichotomy between what he wants to think he is and what he actually is.

But you see, the story we tell ourselves is skewed. There comes a time when we need to sit and take account of how we’re spending our lives, like at the doctor’s office or with the budget, and be reminded that we are not who we think we are. We need Jesus more than we allow ourselves to admit. We are not really so much better than the people around us whose lives are so obviously messy. In fact, we’re not better at all. They may in fact be closer to the heart of Jesus because they are humble enough to admit to themselves that they need help, humble enough to answer the hard questions about their weakness boldly.

You should really read the whole thing.

Telling the Tales of the Scarring War with Sin

Songwriter and singer Jennifer Knapp answered questions over on Rachel Held Evans’ blog this week, and in the midst of it all she offered up a devastatingly spot-on critique of Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) and how it reflects the attitude of the evangelical church:

In this sense CCM reflects our Christian culture very well. It is our Christian culture to invite those to tell only the story of victory and spare the gruesome details of the scarring war. We can reside if we are made clean and presentable, those who are still writing their story must wait for absolute victory before they can share it with others.

I don’t know about you, but from my experience, she’s right on.

When we hear testimonies in church, or smaller gatherings like men’s groups or (I would assume) women’s groups, etc, the stories we are told are only, as Jennifer calls them, “stories of victory”. How someone battled their demons, their besetting sin, and hallelujah, with Jesus’ help they came out victorious.

And sure, it’s encouraging. Stories of victory provide hope that there is victory to be had.

But when was the last time you heard a testimony that said “I don’t want to do this sin, but I did it again this week. So I’m repenting again and I’m going to God for grace.”?

Let’s go even further. If, by some odd happenstance, someone does confess struggles with sin in a church meeting, what gets confessed is a “respectable” sin. Pride. A bad attitude. Shortness with a spouse. Failure to have a regular quiet time.

Have you ever heard a testimony where someone confessed an ongoing, painful struggle with alcohol, or pornography, or anger, or financial honesty? Not a story of victory, but a story of the pain of the “scarring war”? I never have.

Here’s what I think this means:

We don’t really believe in the gospel of grace and forgiveness.

Sure, we give it lip service. But what good is the message of grace and forgiveness when the only time we acknowledge it is for stories of victory, for people who have experienced absolute victory?

Yes, Jesus said “Go and sin no more”. We put fancy words on it and call it “progressive sanctification”. But sanctification will progress at different rates sometimes. One brother may experience a sudden change and never go back to drunkenness; another may fight the bottle his whole life. To only affirm and share the stories of the former is tacit acknowledgment that what we really value is not the grace but the works.

I can hear some objector ready to quote me Romans 6:1. “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be!”

Here’s the thing: we will all continue in sin for the rest of our lives. For some of us it’ll be the same sin. Others will retire old sins only to find and wrestle with new ones. We don’t want to, but we will. See Romans 7.

But when we silence the stories of the ongoing, painful, scarring battle, we are hampering the bountiful endowment of grace.

In God there is an abundance of grace. Powerful. Rich. Saving. Free. Not designed only for those who have already cleaned up their act.

Let’s not do anything to withhold it.