Category: theology
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Not to deal with sin, but to save...
Grace is a difficult pill to swallow. A dangerous doctrine. The fact that the evangelical church has bought into that thought hit me between the eyes at my men’s bible study yesterday morning.
We’re in Hebrews 9 at the moment, the most familiar verse of which was a frequent memory verse in AWANA and whatever other church things I was in growing up. It was always presented for memorization this way:
…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. – Hebrews 9:27
This verse was frequently packaged in a set of verses designed as what we would’ve called a Gospel presentation. Inherent message: you’re gonna die, you don’t know when, and after that you’ll be judged. So, if you haven’t asked Jesus into your heart, do it today! And if you have, repent of that sin and clean your life up so you won’t have to fear judgment for your sins!
Yesterday we read the verse in context with the rest of the chapter, and here’s what we read (emphasis mine):
24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. – Hebrews 9:24 - 28
What a change of message! Now Christ is the one who died once for all, took the judgment, so that we, who accept that gift by grace, can wait eagerly for him to return and save.
Now that’s awesome news.
Then there’s this reminder from Sean Palmer guest-posting over on Scot McKnight’s blog today:
God loves you, just as you are, not as you might be some day. Embrace that.
Amen.
Can you name 5 ways the church differs from America?
There’s a challenging riff from pastor Brian Zahnd over on Missio Alliance today.
How, he asks, does the church differ from America?
The particular challenge for the American Christian is to distinguish the American way of being human from the church (the Jesus way of being human). If there is no essential difference between being Christian and being American (as a way of life), then what is the point of the church? This is a problem. Many American Christians would find it difficult to list five ways in which the Jesus way (the church) differs significantly from the American way. For them the church and the American way are essentially the same way of being human. Which in essence means this: The church does not actually exist. What exists is America. The church (and every other institution) exists only to support the supreme idea of America. Oh, boy.
He goes on to list 12. How many could you list? It’s worth considering.
Worship develops feelings for God, not vice versa
This wonderful little bit of insight came across my Twitter feed this morning and I’ve been chewing on it all day. It strikes me that this is one key reason why the lyrical content of worship songs sung in church is so important to me.
The insipid worship music designed to inspire a feeling nearly always rubs me the wrong way. I’m painfully aware of when my emotions are being manipulated, and I recoil.
On the other hand, when I sing good content, powerful truths, they move me. They sink in and then engage my emotions in worship. But it’s the willingness to come to worship and the truth sinking in to my heart that brings the emotion, and not the reverse.
Thanks, Pastor Eugene.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell Songwriting
Yesterday my worship pastor sent out a lead sheet and MP3 for a new song we’re going to learn and sing this coming weekend at church, and it’s causing me some odd internal conflicts. Not because I hate the song, or because I think the content of the song is bad or anything like that. No, it’s because I opened up the lead sheet and had a strong reaction to the name of one of the songwriters. In this case, the song is called “Only King Forever” by Elevation Worship, and the songwriter in question is the pastor of Elevation Church, Steven Furtick.
This is not about my pastor’s choice of this song or about Furtick specifically. I don’t want to get into those arguments. What it is about is this question that’s nagging me. How much should my opinion of a songwriter affect my reaction to their songs?
Don’t go dissing on my fun music
First off, let’s agree that this is specifically about songs used for worship in church services. Because when it comes to music I listen to for fun, I really don’t care. I’ve honestly got very little idea what Sergei Rachmaninov’s theology, morality, or politics were, but he’s still my favorite classical composer because his music is awesome. Heck, I’ve got a pretty good idea that John, Paul, George, and Ringo had fairly lousy theology and morality, but that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying a good Beatles song.
But when we get to “Christian” music, and more specifically worship music, the dynamic changes somewhat, though the Christian/church music industry’s application of standards seems to be uneven. For example, Jennifer Knapp’s excellent record Kansas fell out of Christian music favor when she came out as a lesbian. On the other hand, Phillips, Craig, and Dean don’t believe in the Trinity and still get played ad nauseum on Christian radio.
Did you just forget to take your cynical pills today, Hubbs?
So then we come to this song, and Steven Furtick. What’s the issue with Furtick? Well, maybe it’s me as much as anything. He’s a megachurch pastor from Charlotte, NC, in the Southern Baptist denomination. Good enough so far. However, there have been some significant concerns raised in the past couple years when his church had “plants” in the congregation to “spontaneously” come up for baptism and when he built an 8500-square-foot mansion on a 19-acre lot in a gated development from an undisclosed church salary and book deal. And if I’m honest, I’ve watched some of his sermon videos, and there’s something about the guy and his approach that just feels wrong, that gives me the creeps. It’s not humble teaching and servant leadership to make disciples; rather, it’s manipulative performance art for the sake of inspiring giving and driving attendance/membership numbers.
(Again, I’m not claiming that I’m completely right here about Furtick - only describing why I have the reaction I have to him when his name comes up.)
I don’t really have any issues with the content of the song itself; it seems theologically sound, certainly more Jesus-proclaiming and less mushy than some other stuff we sing. But I’m still struggling to get past the authorship.
Am I holding a double-standard here? Probably. I mean, sure, we’ve all heard about Horatio Spafford writing “It Is Well With My Soul” after a great personal tragedy, and stories about Fanny Crosby’s saintly approach to her blindness, and I’ve heard good things about that Charles Wesley guy who wrote a bunch of solid hymns. But I know very little about the personal lives or theologies of most of the other songwriters whose songs we sing on Sundays. And in general that’s OK with me. As long as the song is good, let’s sing it.
And yet…
But, Chris, you sing songs written by Pentecostals and Catholics and others of every theological stripe and enjoy them. Why is this different?
It does seem different somehow. I think it’s because in those cases, while I don’t personally agree with those folks’ theology, I can understand how someone could, I find it reasonable, and I wouldn’t shy away from recommending someone attend one of those churches if it otherwise made sense for them. Furtick’s case is different. It’s not necessarily his theology, but his personality and apparent views toward leadership and money and pastoring. I can’t imagine I’d ever recommend that somebody go attend his church.
Isn’t your attitude then just basically ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ with regard to songwriters’ beliefs and personalities?
Yeah, I guess maybe it is. But hey, don’t ask, don’t tell has some Biblical basis, after all. Isn’t that what Paul basically advised Corinthian Christians with regard to eating meat sacrificed to idols?
Hey, couldn’t we just solve this by singing nothing but Psalms in church?
Well I dunno, King David wrote most of those and he wasn’t always an upstanding moral example, either… wait, you’re just trying to confuse me now, aren’t you?
Well, maybe…
Anyway, we’ll be singing the song on Sunday, and if it seems like a good fit, likely many Sundays after that. I suppose I’ll learn to live with the internal conflict. Maybe my friend Jason summed it up best:
Is the goal to win the argument?
These two tweets showed up on my timeline within 10 minutes of each other this morning. And they highlight a fundamental concern I have with the intellectual defense arguments for the Gospel.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not advocating a check-your-brain-at-the-door version of Christianity. But I think Zahnd is right - arguments by themselves don’t win people.
I mean, hey, the next time a Jehovah’s Witness approaches you at a restaurant or bar you can grab the nearest napkin and sketch out a little grid that will logically completely prove that you’re right and they’re wrong. But if you think that once you’ve done that the JW is going to tear up their Watchtower and come to your evangelical church next Sunday, you’ve got another think coming.
When I look over my own spiritual progression of the past two decades, I’ve never had an intellectual Eureka! moment change my beliefs. (I might almost say that reading NTW’s Surprised by Hope was that sort of experience, but that was more putting words and reason to what I knew must be true but hadn’t heard expressed before.) What has changed me is a long, persistent interaction with other believers over time.
Changes haven’t come by having my arm twisted; they’ve come by others gently taking my hand and saying “hey, I’m headed this way, what do you think?”. Sure, occasionally an earthquake radically moves things in a moment; far more often wind and rain slowly shape new paths where before there were none.
There are a lot of things I’m not saying here, so don’t hear them. I’m not saying that we should never present logical arguments for the Gospel, or that we shouldn’t share it with JWs or anyone else that comes along. I’m glad that there are people who have written great intellectual defenses of the Christian faith. I’m not saying that God can’t or won’t use a direct presentation of the Gospel as the tool to bring someone to faith.
But the attitude of “here’s the diagram you need to know to prove the JWs wrong” greatly neglects the realities of how people change, and instead encourages an attitude of intellectual superiority. Please don’t go out there with the attitude that any unbeliever will suddenly see the light if only you can draw the right back-of-the-napkin diagram.
We of all people should recognize that it is only God’s action to open our eyes that brings us to faith, and that should provoke in us not an intellectual arrogance but rather a great humility.
The War of Christmas
@pegobry with a great post about the subversive and challenging nature of Christ’s advent:
Is there a war on Christmas? No, there’s no war on Christmas. There’s a war of Christmas. Because that’s what Christmas is: a declaration of war. Against all the thrones, dominions, principalities and powers who hold creation in bondage. Saying there’s a war on Christmas is like saying the Germans fought a war on D-Day–of course there’s a war on Christmas. How do we fight this war? Not by yelling at Walmart greeters who say “Happy Holidays.” Not with consumerism. Like Jesus fought his. With increased penance and asceticism and prayer and reception of the sacraments. With corporeal works of mercy. With peace, mercy, some truth-telling, and a very large heaping of loving-kindness. This is our D-Day: this is the most stupendous claim of Christianity.
PEG sounds like he’s been reading his NT Wright. Really good stuff.
Paul counting his privilege as rubbish - Alistair Roberts' take on Philippians 3
There’s an interesting piece from Alistair Roberts over on Political Theology today. Roberts thinks through Philippians 3:4-14 and has a slightly different perspective than most I’ve read before.
In Philippians 3 Paul recounts his credentials:
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…
I’ve typically read and heard this taught as Paul recounting all of his accomplishments, and then recognizing that his good works were worth nothing compared to knowing Christ. But, Roberts suggests, we should recognize that much of what Paul recounts here isn’t a result of his work, but of his position from birth. Roberts draws a striking analogy:
If the identity that Paul is describing here is not that of the classic legalist, what is it? I believe that an analogous sort of identity could be found in the patriot. Paul wasn’t that unlike the patriot who takes pride in the fact that he is a true American (as opposed to all of those unwelcome immigrants). His family’s presence on American soil dates back to the Mayflower. His forefathers fought for their country. From as early as he can remember, he has been steeped in American culture. He has a large stars and stripes flying outside of his house and a wall devoted to portraits of the presidents within. He is a hard worker who is living his own American dream, attending church twice a week, and putting money back into his community. He only buys American products, he devotes himself to studying American history, and has always been politically involved and invested in the wellbeing of the nation. The ‘performance’ of such a patriot isn’t undertaken to ‘earn’ American status, but to demonstrate and broadcast his claims to it, to mark him out from those who aren’t Americans (or are ‘lesser’ Americans), and more fully to ground and celebrate his sense of identity in it.
It’s an angle worth considering in a day when American exceptionalism and Evangelicalism usually go hand in hand.
Argument is offered to justify the felt judgment...
I’ve finally been catching up with Richard Beck’s Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality and I’m finding it fascinating. Beck is a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University and his work usually sits at the intersection of faith topics and psychological study.
In Unclean he looks at the psychology of purity and disgust and how Christianity interacts with those built-in reactions (such as disgust) and how they shape our attitude toward sin and toward others. I’m only about 20% of the way in so far, but this paragraph caught my eye:
These dynamics [feelings leading to reasons, rather than vice versa] make conversations about God inherently difficult because our experience of the divine is being regulated by emotion rather than logic, affect rather than theology. I think people in churches have always known this, and felt that people in conflict within the church were generally talking past each other. One reason for this is now clear. Very often, arguments and the warrants found within them are secondary to the felt experience. Argument is offered to justify the felt judgment of the sacred or profane. And as self-justifications these arguments often fail as acts of persuasion or forms of consensus-building.
I’m looking forward to reading more.
Do what he puts before you. Strive to do it well. Pass on what you learned. That’s it.
Over on CT, Ed Stetzer is starting a blog series titled “Act Like Men”. (First article: “What It Means To Fight”). This has predictably caused a bit of feedback from the egalitarian evangelical set, with Scot McKnight posting a response piece from Wheaton New Testament professor Lynn Cohick making the case that Paul’s appeal to “act like a man” (1 Cor 16:13) was directed to both men and women and “reveals the limitations of the Greek language” rather than “making a particular point about masculinity”.
I’m highly unqualified to comment on the Greek, but down in the comments on Stetzer’s post is a fantastic bit from Christopher T Casberg. I’ve got no idea who Mr. Casberg is, but his comment stands on its own (emphasis all mine):
I’m a Marine Corps veteran. I’ve got a sword above my bookshelf. I like rare steak, the rumble of an old Mustang, and American Ninja Warrior. I have fond memories of ramming a foam pugil stick into the belly of a much larger opponent and then knocking him senseless with a (confessedly unfair) blow to the head. I also think the ongoing debate on manhood in Christian culture is ninety percent macho nonsense. I’m tired of hearing it. We’ve drawn cartoonish caricature of men that resembles Tim Allen more than it resembles Christ and made that our standard. Our leaders continuously imply that their likes and hobbies (MMA fights, fishing) aren’t personal idiosyncrasies but are what actually constitute Biblical manhood. That is ludicrous. I’ve spoken with young believers who are worried about their manhood because they’re not yet fathers or husbands, don’t own a gun, don’t have a “manly” vocation; in other words, our young men are worried that their lives don’t resemble a sitcom character’s. It does not follow. We do need to ground our conversation in the Gospel, as Ed says. And we do have to allow that there’s Stuff Guys Like and Stuff Guys Do. We endanger our mission with the Gospel, however, when we conflate the two. Being the man God intends is real simple. Do what he puts before you. Strive to do it well. Pass on what you learned. That’s it. You don’t have to convince yourself that everything is a fight (a word used over 20 times in this article, by the way). You don’t have to call prayer ‘battling Satan’ or worship a ‘call to arms.’ It’s just prayer. Just worship. Do it, do it well, and pass it on. True manliness emerges from obedience, not the other way around. (The funny thing about Scripture is a woman would do everything Ed exhorts men to do and come out perfectly feminine. It’s not about replicating a certain portrait of your gender. It’s about doing what God asks you to do.)
Yes and amen.
Kirk: The Missional Diagnostic Question
“Missional” is a word that has been used so much in the evangelical church-planting movement over the past decade that it’s almost losing meaning. (See also: “Gospel-centered”.) But Fuller seminary professor J. R. Daniel Kirk proposes a ‘missional diagnostic question’ today that makes a lot of sense to me.
The question is this: “If this church disappeared, would our community miss it?” That’s it. If we are on mission in such a way that we are loving our neighbors and seeking their good rather than our own, it will be a cause of grief for our community if our church shuts its doors. If we’re living to build the place, pack in as many as we can, then they won’t care.
This rings true to me, and it’s a question I’d love to see our churches and ministries that talk about being “missional” ask of themselves. It might just be a useful evaluation.