A response after reading Nona Dolce examine John MacArthur. I do not know Ms. Doce, but was told about this article through a mutual acquaintance. My response is not to her, but rather giving my interpretation on this subject. I think her response is very, very good and I do not wish to detract from it; but my main point is to point out some dangerous teachings in the church that her article alerted me to. I thank her for her Christian witness on this point.

http://christandpopculture.com/racial-issues-really-disappear-gospel-response-john-macarthur/

It is very nice of her to laud John MacArthur. He is a very eloquent preacher to people who are drawn to that particular style. However, as an orthodox Christian I can say that MacArthur is more like a modern day Origen without the theological or exegetical talents. His errors are numerous, but he appeals to a segment of America that wishes to have its modernist opinions validated at the expense of Biblical Discipleship.
I do believe that pastors have handled the racial issue very ham-fistedly. Many pastors are preaching about issues that are as remote to them and their congregation as wage reform in Africa or government crackdowns in Russia or China. To attack a problem that most people don’t see as a problem is to demand people repent when they don’t feel they have emotional buy-in.
Let me be clear, I am not saying that race isn’t a problem. It is such a big problem that we don’t see it when we are white and middle class. I was such a person who didn’t believe race was as big an issue. But this past year something changed. It all started when I watched a video from Praeger (hardly a liberal bastion) about the causes of the Civil War. I thought it would be typical Right-Wing declarations about the importance of states’ rights. Instead a military historian from West Point laid the blame directly at the feet of slavery and the addiction to it. I was stunned and I wanted to learn more about this evil that only got a passing nod in my history classes. I began to read articles and books. What I discovered was not some embarrassing incident or historical anomaly (like a faux pas during Thanksgiving Dinner or an uncle we would best not know); but a systematic evil that was the living death for millions of Americans.
The fact that the African community has enjoys even a modicum of life is testament to their tenacious adherence to the promises of faith unseen. Indeed, no people that I know of in America reflect God’s Gospel more than the African Americans. In that, I believe MacArthur is half-right. The faith of the African Americans allowed them to persevere in the face of a cruel world. The African American church has routinely embarrassed the church of other Americans by being the place where the Gospel and the Holy Spirit were found to be moving in dynamic and creative ways. This is where MacArthur goes horribly wrong.
You see MacArthur doesn’t really believe in the transformative power of the Holy Spirit and therefore cannot believe in the transformative power of the Gospel. His Holy Spirit theology is heretical and therefore the rest of his beliefs collapse like a house of cards. (Do we dare say that John MacArthur has blasphemed in the Holy Spirit? Do we notice that in the book of Acts the most pious people were also the most against the movement of the early church? Would not the Sanhedrin have appeared to be the truest and best representation of the “faith of the fathers”?) Mind you I do not condemn John MacArthur and his faith, but I merely point out that it condemns himself. All of us can look forward to welcoming him back into the fold of true belief, but we cannot force him to believe rightly. If my sojourn from the mainline to the Evangelical movement has taught me anything it is that heresy knows no political affinity.
But MacArthur is not our issue. Our issue is that of race and MacArthur merely shows where such statements go horribly wrong. MacArthur does not believe that the Gospel transforms people or society in tangible ways. As a Lutheran I do believe in imputed righteousness. Like MacArthur, Lutherans do not believe we can achieve theosis or divinization in this life. That is to say, we too believe that our perfection comes at the eschaton (the end of all things). We do not believe that every day and in every way we are getting better and better. Rather we believe that we live in daily repentance and renewal.
For the Lutheran what matters is relying on God so much that we choose to become Little Christs. Paul mentions kenosis, which is the emptying of Himself into us in Philippians 2. (Receive the Holy Spirit? John 20:22 and Acts 2:4, 38) Billy Graham speaks of the need for “[a]ll Christians are committed to be filled with the Spirit. Anything short of a Spirit-filled life is less than God’s plan for each believer.” Augustine states, “What the soul is in our body, the Holy Spirit is in the body of Christ, which is the church.” Luther puts it best by declaring simply that:

“I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith. Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins - mine and those of all believers. On the Last Day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.”

Most of the church in America is afraid of the Holy Spirit and we are more afraid of what the Holy Spirit will ask us to do. The Holy Spirit will ask us to give up our creature comforts in service to the Gospel. Karl Barth, who pioneered the dissolving of the modernist/liberal paradigm in the early twentieth century would have equally chastised those who sought to sideline the Holy Spirit. He states:

“When we are at our wits' end for an answer, then the Holy Spirit can give us an answer. But how can He give us an answer when we are still well supplied with all sorts of answers of our own?”

Most of the American church is filled with very talented people who are happy to do there best for Jesus. “Jesus gets us in the door,” said one pastor derisively of American Christianity, “but its up to me to make it to heaven.” In this way we forget what we are called to do and what we are here for. Most American churches forget that the power of the Holy Spirit, the power which is promised in sacred Scripture is for the transformation of this world into the Kingdom of God (Revelation 11:15).* Most of us have forgotten that justice is close to God’s heart and He desires us who are filled with the Spirit to do justice.
The church in America that has not forgotten this is the African American church. The fiery and subversive preaching of slaves and second-class citizens became the bedrock from which all the blessings of being made in the image of God was to be made manifest in our society. The Holy Spirit caused the church to defeat injustice with righteous obedience to the promises of God.
So when people like John MacArthur claim that the church should not be in the business of fixing past injustices is to be more addicted to the comfort of one’s position than the calling of God. To declare that the Gospel simply makes things better is to to profess a fairy tale and not an autobiography. The early saints did not look at the poor, the destitute, and marginalized and say “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” unless they wanted to end up on the wrong end of an Epistle from James. (2:16) Yet this is what MacArthur is saying. He is also declaring that any church that performs justice has less faith in the transformative power of the Gospel. It is as if he is declaring that in order to be truly blessed, you must accept all of the declarations about looking good before your neighbor and be comfortable with that; and to want to believe that righteousness is bigger than your relationship with God is to be a left-wing socialist.
Yet there are many who go the opposite extreme. MacArthur’s theological and biblical problems go deeper than a mere reaction to these hot heads. I have many of my news feed. Some of them are living out there callings to minister to the downtrodden and others are merely enjoying basking in lending there support to the outrage de jour. The worst is when pastors, motivated by high ideals, seek to preach truth without love. They look at their congregation and preach the Law without the hope of the Gospel.
Three things should be noted. We must understand where our congregation is at. Most of our congregations have not been fed good Biblical Theology. Like parishes visited by Luther and his associates, many pastors do not nourish their parishioners intellectual and theological needs. In fact whether because of fearing people will walk away from a church that preaches deep concepts or because of a sense of inadequacy, the theological viewpoints are usually pawned off on whatever political party the pastor happens to favor.
Recently, a friend of mine spoke with some people about a baptism. When he explained our theology, they were dumbstruck. No one had explained it to them before. For people who believe in infant baptism, this is a call for us to take seriously the burden that we have to catechize our younger parishioners and continue to feed our older ones. For those who believe in adult baptism, I suggest that you take seriously the early church’s practice of instructing them in the faith before baptizing them.
MacArthur is right that the Gospel does change everything, but it never just happens. Education can change a lot for a person. Democracy can change a lot for a person. However they must be apprehended and not merely acknowledged. That is the work of faith.
Secondly, we must make sure that we create opportunities for people to experience the lives of other Christians. I have a friend who recently took up teaching English as a second language. He was of a particular political persuasion that used to fear and be wary of them. However, the Gospel has moved in his life and has caused the crisis moment of having to choose the Gospel.
Our churches should be places where we go and perform the Gospel of our Lord not to be seen, but because that is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Making sure your congregation can participate in the community is the best way to lay the foundations for discussing racism.
Finally, we must listen to the places that our congregations are at. I do not know how many parishioners have told me of some pastor dictating what people should believe. The sermon is the place where the justice of God’s Kingdom confronts the injustice of a fallen world. You must listen to the words your congregation says and how they talk about things. Then you must learn to speak in a way that will make the Gospel something that they wish to pursue, not just something they feel compelled to obey. There is a point where obedience chafes a bit, but Paul states that a heart transformed by the Gospel message and the outpouring the Holy Spirit relishes following the Law (Romans 7:22). Furthermore, Christ delights in obedience to God’s command as well (John 4:34).
Yet such obedience realizes that the Kingdom is apprehended differently by different people. A middle-class fisherman (John 1) will understand differently than a scholar of the Law (John 3). Servants at a marriage feast (John 2) will understand differently than a woman who has been less than chaste (John 4). Christ’s Gospel is the same while his message changes depending on the hearer.
This brings us to “black lives matter.” I cannot speak about the group; but as to the ideology, I can speak. We must back the belief that people of every race and creed matter. Yet, we must acknowledge that certain peoples suffer differently than others. If my parishioner is grieving the loss of a parent, I do not comfort them as if they have lost a job. If my friend is suffering the end of a marriage, I do not pull out treat them as one who has just lost a promotion at work. Our Lord understood context better than anyone, after all he knows the hair on the heads of all (Luke 12:7).
Similarly, I cannot go up to my black friend or my police officer friend and start saying that “everyone matters and … oh, I am sorry about the loss of your friend.” I listen to them and see which way I can be a little Christ for them and a messenger of the Kingdom. I also cannot go up to my white friends and tell them that they must believe everything I believe exactly as I believe it. I must see what role they play in the Gospel and then I must walk beside them. When Christ met his friends going to Emmaus, he didn’t reveal the Gospel as he had seen it. (Who could bear that glory?) Rather he unfolded the Gospel to them so that their hearts burned within them. (Luke 24:13-32) Think of that, God met them where they were and brought them the Gospel so that their lives were changed.
This transformation comes when the Holy Spirit takes our wayward heart and fills it with God’s love. Ephesians 3 declares:

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Yes, the Gospel is big and rich and full, but if we don’t live it out people will see it is just another fairy tale or some wishful thinking. John MacArthur, and people like him, attempt to turn the Gospel into just a good story that happened long ago and far away. This way of thinking downplays the sacrifice of Christ and his martyrs and wishes to affix “Once upon a time …” to the Gospels. The Kingdom of God, what the Gospel really says, plants itself firmly in a hurting world and declares that the unjust world of the fall has come to an end. The King has returned and His emissaries are making known that the great usurpation of sin and death are at an end. The way we are to do this is to teach, interact, and listen to a world in need of a Gospel only we can proclaim.



*This is a big difference between MacArthur’s interpretation of Revelation and that of historical Christianity. For MacArthur we must wait to make Christ’s kingdom manifest, while historical orthodox Christianity declares that the Holy Spirit has made it manifest now through Christ’s church.

It seems like Donald Trump is offering no end to discussions. Recently, he invited several evangelicals to meet with him. What struck me was that he also invited NPR. Now it doesn't seem to me like they would be a very good group to invite if you're just trying to hash things out among supporters. Donald Trump has made it quite far in the primaries by appearing to be just a simpleton. This played right into the liberal media's narrative of him and, to a lesser extent, the conservative media as well. To borrow a line from George W. Bush, we "misunderestimated" him. Donald Trump may not be a very good business person, or perhaps it is just that he lets other things get in the way of being a good business person. He may be a narcissist. He may be a person who will promise you the Sun and the Moon if you will just like him. He may be a person who is bought and celebrity culture more than anyone else in this country. He is not the idiot that the Liberals hope he is.

I want to focus on the fact that invited NPR to a group of Evangelical leaders. This is the same person who refuses press to come to his events if they disagree with him. I want that to linger in your brain. He wanted that information of meeting with Evangelical leaders to get out. Why? The simple answer is the fact that he knew that the lockstep liberals who are more affiliated with a tribe then they are with liberal policies would grapple on to this and use it as an attack against evangelicals. Then the evangelicals would feel a binary choice between Donald Trump and people who were mocking them. It is already been reported, erroneously, that the evangelicals were huge supporters of Donald Trump. In fact, the evangelicals have been the weakest link. If the liberals with in the media wish to weaken Donald Trump, the best idea would be for them to reach out to evangelicals. Trump knows this, and is trying to beat the media to the punch. He knows he faces stiff opposition from Conservative Catholics to the Southern Baptist convention.

Laying that aside, I want to focus on the things reported in the NPR article. I want to focus on three things in particular. I want to focus on tax status. I want to focus on Hillary Clinton. And, I want to focus on freedom of speech.

I'm a graduate of a conservative and traditional seminary. We discussed tax exempt status. Right now, very few people are actually concerned about the tax exemption for religious institutions. Most people still believe that religious institutions are good and charitable organizations. And, the religious left also would be advocating for tax exemption for their institutions. In fact, they would be arguing even more vociferously because of the loss of membership and the location of their churches. It seems to me that no one on the left really wants to do that and in addition it would cause problems not just within the Christian Community but within Jewish and Muslim communities as well. In addition to this , even if people wanted to remove the tax-exempt status of many religious institutions, that tax-exempt status is located in areas that make it difficult to remove. Tax exemption would effect chaplains in the military and other things as well. Churches are not facing any immediate threat to removal of tax exemption.

Let me be blunt. If I were politically motivated Christian, I believe Trump would be the safer choice. The questions that we are dealing with in a pluralist society will only become more difficult if Clinton is the president. However, I am not politically motivated Christian. I'm a gospel motivated Christian. My goal is not to make my life easier or safer for myself. My goal is to make the gospel available to all. If Trump were elected, I would probably be more comfortable. However, the gospel would not be shared as easily or as readily. My power would be an artificial one handed down from Caesar. People would look at me as someone who was being allowed to push my views on others because I was in the dominant clique. The cost is merely too high for our proclamation. In the years shortly after Christianity entered the scene, Romans were aghast as Christians routinely rushed into plague ravaged cities in order to care for people. Because of such self-sacrifice, Christianity gained respect. Christianity in this culture has lost a great deal of that. The Evangelical representatives gathered around Trump today demonstrate this to a tee. I suspect that in addition to the prosperity gospel preachers (the early 21st century's moral majority Evangelical second-stringers), there were many Evangelical leaders who have deluded themselves into believing that Trump can be won over (or at least tamed). The problem with this way of thinking is not its naïveté per se, but the loss of focus on the true calling of Christians. We are not supposed to guard the halls of the powerful. We are supposed to walk the earth with our savior. To declare against Trump is to say that we are Christ's and not the world's.

Finally, Trump has shown a blatant disregard to freedom of speech at his rallies. More than that though is muzzling the Gospel with a golden bit. When our speech is viewed as being only the speech of the powerful, then we have no freedom of speech. What happens to Christians who disagree with Trump? I am not talking about the mainline denominations, but people like Russell Moore who have been denigrated by people like Trump and even preachers of large churches. What happens to the Evangelical message when it is considered to be the message of Trump? We are already finding out this answer. The Evangelicals have been split to put it charitably, but the world is already lumping them together with Trump. Imagine what will happen if even a small contingent of Evangelicals back Trump. As a pastor who professes the truth which was handed down to me, I want to remind all of you that we must keep to the only freedom of speech we have, that is the Gospel.

Whatever the world will say about us, whether it be from our so-called representatives or the media elites (right or left), we have been entrusted with a sacred message. We are to be little Christs. We must be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves. We must love our opponents and pray for those who deride our message. We must not use the world's methods of intimidation to broadcast this message that was given to us. Above all we must not look to life or angels or rulers or high things or low things to fight evil. We must look to the only one who has promised to save us and whose promises are sure. This is most certainly true.

Having to Speak Up a Bit

A good friend of mine recently re-posted a blog piece written by Paul Raushenbush which declared he was done viewing anyone who disagreed with him about the gay agenda as anything but a bigot. Needless to say, I was a little disheartened because I fall into his bigot category. Such accusations get one thinking obviously. I don't think I am a bigot, but then again, isn't that what a bigot would say? How many bigoted statements start out with "I don't mean to sound ... but ..." or "I'm not a bigot, but ..."? So, I want to unpack what moderates on the issue of homosexuality in America believe. I understand this will not make many people happy. Some will say I am a bigot because because I have gone too far, while others will say I am another mouthpiece for the secular agenda because I have not drawn a line in the sand. Yet, this is what moderates do. We stand fixed in place being blown by neither set of winds. We go down deep in culture and we reach for growth. History is littered with extremists who accomplished nothing except strewing the land with the debris of that which is blown by some wind or another.

I remember being in college. It was a conservative institution. I can remember the run up to the Kerry/Bush election. I remember distinctly the bumper stickers declaring that marriage is between a man and a woman. What was striking about this was people's desire to turn this into a political debate. I remember discussing with a classmate the need to carve out some sort of political area so that people could be able to pass on inheritances to whomever they desired. If a person wanted to think of themselves in a relationship with anyone, was it our business to force them otherwise? We live in a society where people are allowed to believe whatever they want, why should the government control the purse strings of this group of people? Would we Christians disavow Muslim, Jewish, or Atheist weddings because their beliefs were different than our own? I don't see how we could. I still don't. 

This point was driven home years later while at seminary in Columbus. During the day I would have school officials attempt to compel us to tow a certain political line. I can still remember when my former denomination informed us we were going to attend an "open discussion" about the new viewpoints about homosexuality that had just been ratified. I was excited because I was finally going to hear an open discussion by intelligent people from all sides. What I found when I got to the meeting place was a panel of four people ranging from enthusiastic towards the new position to wildly enthusiastic. Suffice it to say it was embarrassing that an institution charged with equipping people charged with care of souls, theological quandaries, community outreach and Biblical interpretation deemed it necessary to spoon feed us our dogma. It was at that moment that I realized I did not have a future with them not because of their beliefs about so called tolerance, but because of their lack thereof and their failure to do their job. 

This may seem a harsh attack, but let me explain. I worked down the street from the seminary at Starbucks. This was world's away from the institution even though it was less than an eight minute walk. People here didn't know or care that the seminary existed. The seminary had its dogma, but it didn't see the need in sharing it with the world. I often said of Starbucks that it was the best seminary class I ever had. It was here that I had to defend or promote my ideas to a needy world. It was also a place where I was forced to listen to others who were outside the church. I had no leverage on them and they had none on me. I worked with people of all sorts of backgrounds and lifestyles. (Cue, I can't be a bigot because I have non-like-me friends.) 

One such person and I usually closed down the store. He was agnostic and a homosexual. I was straight and a Christian. We discussed everything from politics to sexuality to religion. Talking with that practicing homosexual coworker taught me more about what a Christian's response should be to the homosexual community than anything at seminary. Neither of us would change our viewpoints, but we respected one another. This is more than I can say for many on the so-called Christian left who appear just as intolerant as their boogey men on the other side of this issue.

So here is what I have learned. If you are an orthodox Christian, you must love your neighbor. You are commanded to love your gay neighbor, your atheist neighbor, your Muslim neighbor. There is no wiggle room. You must also debate them in love. You must not look to win an argument or chaulk up another soul. You must get to understand why they believe what they believe. While working at Starbucks, I would often listen to the confessions of coworkers. They would have ethical and theological questions. I never demanded that they "come to Jesus," but like Joseph, I made sure they knew that my insights were from God. When you care about your neighbor, they may be open to caring about the One who cares for you.

So, I cycle back to Raushenbush's article. He declares he is done "accommodating." He declares he is through (in vulgar language) with "love the sinner, hate the sin." In essence, we infer that he is done with humanity. He is done with people who disagree with him. He is done with trying to live amongst messy human beings trying to figure out the answers. He is done, in essence, with love. I am not willing to go there. 

As a person who comes down on the other side of this issue, I know I am not popular. I have my beliefs. I have my sins that I wrestle with. ("Love the sinner, hate the sin" applies as much to me as to my neighbor as I root out the sins in my own heart while attempting to feel God's love for me.) I have kept silent because I believe it is best to talk with people one on one. Yet, when society is divided between talking heads who spew hateful vitriol and moderates who feel the need to keep silent about the issue since indoctrination is not the way to change people's hearts and minds. So, let me put it to you this way. I am an orthodox Christian, am I going to be hated for my worldview? Am I going to be dismissed because of the decision I have reached? Or are we all going to afford people the single-minded focus on civil law that we say have.

Trump and the Evangelicals

Much hay has been made about how Trump has captured the Evangelical vote. Data shows that he leads against Ted Cruz or that he has a large following among those who self-label themselves Evangelicals. It is true that Trump has captured a larger following of people who claim to be Evangelicals, but it is hard to take these claims fully seriously. The problem with this way of thinking stems from the fact that the larger society doesn't truly understand evangelicals. Evangelicals to them are whipping boys (and women). The Evangelicals are the same this paleo conservatives. In fact the media doesn't really understand the different subgroups of conservatism at all. I'm not a Republican per se, but I'm not so naive as to dismiss an entire group is having a monolithic group-think. The Republican Party is far more complex than the stereotypes peddled by the pundits. The same can be said of the Evangelical group. You don’t have to agree with them to believe that they are complex. And, as we have seen this election cycle, to dismiss an entire group without understanding them is not just foolish but dangerous.

There are so many myths that it is hard to figure out which one to combat first. However, since we  must begin somewhere, let us look at the breakdown of Trump’s support. Trump is supported less by evangelicals then by Republicans as a whole. Yet, when we talk about Trump’s supporters we immediately begin talking about the Evangelical vote. Trump’s support on the whole is slightly larger in general than with so-called Evangelicals in particular. This has to mean that the roots of Trump’s support comes from somewhere other than the Evangelical camp. Yet the fascinating thing is that this demographic is never truly examined. When the evidence doesn’t support your claim, you have to examine whether there was a flaw in your evidence or if your claim is truly not correct. While Evangelicals somewhat mirror Trump, they are slightly less willing to back him. So my question is who is actually voting for him if not the Evangelicals?

The issue becomes even more problematic when dealing with the so-called Christians who do back Trump. Trump supporters are less concerned with abortion than other members of the Conservative consortium (according to a Wall Street Journal poll.) However, the real kicker to me was that Trump supporters have the lowest church attendance of any Conservative group. Of the social conservatives, whom the Wall Street Journal says will probably vote for Cruz (another problem entirely) or Carson, 56% are found in church weekly; while 43% of their establishment brethren (Rubio and, formerly, Bush) supporters are to be found in church on a given week. But only 38% of Trump supporters go to church weekly. How is he a conservative Christian movement if the people who support him can’t be bothered to attend the Sanctorum Communio? The answer is they can’t. They can’t claim to be representative of Evangelical Christianity if they are not part of the body of Christ.

Yet the media claims that Evangelical Christians make up the backbone of Trump’s revolt. The simple fact is they don’t. In order to understand who supports Trump, we have to do something that is considered scandalous in America: we have to talk about theology. Trump supporters are usually nominal Christians. These are people we in Christianity call C & E or Christmas & Easter Christians because that is usually the only times we pastors see them. If we were to look at Trump we would see eerie parallels. They do not believe in the sacraments really, put no real stock in confession and absolution of sin and therefore do not really believe in the atonement, and probably only back the parts of the Bible that feel good to them at the time. It is hard to believe that they are actually adherents to a faith. These are the spiritual descendants of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, those men who made a deal with the Republican Party in order to gain power in both the religious and political spheres. They gained a great bully pulpit to dominate not just the party of Lincoln, but also the realm of Billy Graham. These talking heads moved away from proclaiming the Gospel to amassing power for themselves.

Thus we have to look at the other center of Evangelicalism. What are the church leaders saying about Trump? If you claim to be Evangelical and support Trump, it isn’t good news. It is not just the pope (this article from The Federalist sums up the conundrum best) who cannot stomach Donald Trump. People such as Max Lucado and Russell Moore don’t just find him detestable they find backing him to be immoral. Indeed the lion’s share of Evangelical pastors don’t support Trump. (Unfortunately, they are supporting Cruz in large measure.) What we see is not a backing of Trump from the Evangelical Christian in the pew, but rather the average Trump supporter being a kind of Evangelical parasite. They want the benefits of grace without the cost. When these people hang out with the “good people” they believe they will be considered good too.

What really has happened with the Trump supporter is not a political disconnect, so much as a theological one. The people who support Trump enjoy a folk religion. It is a religion where one’s own nation is the elect instead of the elect from all nations. It is a religion where the proclivities of the “volk” and not the ordinances of the communion of saints is the rule of law. It is most importantly a religion where the earthly happiness is valued more than the eternal one, a place where fallen good is considered better than eternal good. Where Evangelicals have failed is not practicing discipleship or rooting people in the Gospel. Just as they have lost members in church, they are finding they are losing the political game as well. What is at root is a disconnect between the riches of the Christian worldview and the people worshipping (or not worshipping) in our churches.

So what is to be done? Well, the shaming of Evangelicals isn’t a good idea. Yet this seems to be what I see all around me. Even good and strong fellow Christians have taken to dismissing people backing Trump. I find it odd when people who are given the responsibility of pastoral care, turn around and mock people with whom they disagree. The way forward is to embrace humility. It is to try and understand the world through the eyes of people who believe that being strong and bullying is the way to get what they need (and want). I have talked to a few Trump supporters and what I usually do is point them to the Gospel. I show them that perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18) and that when the Spirit abides in us we are free to love one another (Romans 8:15). To those of you who may dismiss this as simplicitic, I remind you that it is the Gospel that saves and not fear-mongering.

We Christians are faced with a tremendous temptation to chastise and dismiss the people who have fallen away from the truth. However, we are all sinners and need to be reconciled not in fear of the world but in love of promise of paradise. This world is not our home and this culture is not our religion. It may not always appear in the poll data or even in our lives, but being a Christian is more than just saying you are one. It is about understanding that the work of the Triune God is bringing about fullness in the face of our fears regardless of who or what is popular right now.

The Fall is not from the Gospel (Part Two: The Problem)

Somebody stepped inside your soul

Somebody stepped inside your soul

Little by little they robbed and stole

Till someone else was in control

- “The Troubles” by U2

Evangelical theology (that is the theology of the more conservative branches of American Christendom including but not limited to Baptists, Methodists, Nazarene, etc.) is far more Catholic than it would like to admit. In fact the theology of many Baptists would sound like a fine (extremely) low church Roman Catholic homily or papal bull.

You see at the root, Catholic and American Evangelical theology, share a common theme: you are responsible for your sanctification, that is your being made holy. The Catholics picked this up from Aristotle mostly and the Evangelicals from the American “can-do” spirit. Regardless of how they got there, they arrived at the same destination: grace and works.

While Catholics fully acknowledge this being the case; the largest American Evangelical mouthpiece, the Southern Baptist Convention, tries to fudge a bit. They can’t fully acknowledge this because of their Calvinist history, but they can’t fully deny it for fear of losing all the “born-again Christians” who “made a decision” after “finding Jesus” to “let Jesus in their heart.” (This is malarky if not heresy, but the two terms are not necessarily mutually exclusive.) It would be easy to paint the situation so simply. However, the Devil is in the details. We find the Devil resting comfortably in the footnotes.

Kevin DeYoung, whose work reflects some of the best American Evangelicals put forward, denies explicitly following a Catholic notion (A Hole in Our Holiness, pp. 28 & 29), it is still there. Lurking. DeYoung and most American Evangelicals, take a logical turn from looking at the starting point of Jesus’ justification in the form of the atonement and move it to sanctification. It is, as Tchividjian points out a “grace, but …” statement. I get grace, but I also need to do stuff. Flowery language is often employed by DeYoung and others to stay true to their alleged Calvinist roots while maintaining a efficacious change.

Here Tchividjian and DeYoung would agree that fruits are produced by a changed life through the justification event. However is that enough? The key is in emphasis for these two people. Tchividjian emphasizes justification and DeYoung emphasizes sanctification. Like good Calvinists both are looking to systematic theology to be the key to opening the door to salvation.

The trouble however goes much deeper and I believe that Tchividjian has a better grasp on it. Evil and darkness go much deeper than the merely a tree not bearing fruit. They show that the problem is in the center. Therefore justification has a larger role to play than sanctification.

Michael Horton in an essay entitled “Does Justification Still Matter?” really dares to call people out on this. He states that “justification is just not on people’s radar.” I think that is DeYoung’s problem. It isn’t that he doesn’t believe it. Its that he is so desirous to move onto the next lesson. There is a need to master your basics before you move onto more advanced discussions. DeYoung seems to put this forward in spades. It isn’t intentional. Its just that so many Christians want to get busy living a “good” life that they leave justification behind as if it were “childish thing.”

And yet evil still clings to us. The question is whether day by day in every way we are getting better and better. If so, than what point does the Gospel have for us if the law is justifying us and if not, what is the point of getting better at all. Put simply, neither route is particularly correct. Sin exists and is bred in our bones. It thus comes out in the flesh, but we are so concerned with the symptoms that we forget the realty. It is here that work’s based Christianity, be it American Evangelicalism or Roman Catholicism or Wesleyanism, fails to be more than symptom management. The problem is just that, one unified problem. It is called sin. It will not be fixed by our being made better, but by our being set apart. We will not be able to do this on our own. As U2 put it, “God knows its not easy, taking on the shape of someone else’s pain.”

For the Calvinist we must look to the Christ event. This point of justification is the origin point. Sanctification does occur, though as we shall examine in the next post, not in the way we Americans have been taught it does. Justification however is the root. We cannot focus on the fruits of sanctification to somehow make up for a close examination of the change. The symptoms will still be the same, although they may smell more pleasant, if we are concerned with their outcomes. Better a sinner who relies on his justification, than good man who has put all his money on being sanctified. It is better to stop and remember our justification than to always be focused on the next step in our sanctification. But these are just theological terms and only vaguely outline the far more powerful and dynamic reality that brings about this change.

The Fall is not from the Gospel (Part One: Introduction)

I have been meaning to write this for awhile now. (Perhaps I already have and have just forgotten about it.) Nevertheless, it bears repeating and reiterating. It is something I learned from a failure and a group of pharisees. 

Not long ago the head pastor of a megachurch was involved in an affair. He resigned and took time off to reexamine and realign his life. His name is Tullian Tchividjian , maybe you have heard of him. Anyhow, I would often gobble up whatever he was talking about and writing. I would listen to his sermons or play his books on my e-reader. I was captivated. 

Tchividjian is a crypto-Lutheran. Hiding out among Evangelical Presbyterians, he would sometimes chime in with quotes from Luther and other prominent theologians of this faith tradition. The most important person he cited though was the twentieth century Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde. (A man whose theology is debated almost as much as how to pronounce his name.) Forde’s claim was that there was no such thing as being against the Law and so you had to rely totally on God’s grace.

And so it was that a Presbyterian mega church pastor led me down the dark road of a much debated Lutheran theologian. But the craziness inside the church didn’t end there. Tchividjian often shared this viewpoint alongside mainstream Evangelical mega-church theology. Needless to say, it didn’t go over very well. After a very public row with Kevin DeYoung, the bridges were officially burned after a somewhat unrelated incident of Evangelicals “protecting one of their own.”

So Tchividjian gathered like-minded people and started his own website. I found his messages there to be exactly what I needed. He spoke of the toughness of grace (something I will discuss in a moment). He fleshed it out in ways that were new and different from what most Evangelicals had been saying. He mentored and was mentored by people grappling with this. Most importantly, I watch how grace could make a proud and self-assured man humble. I watched as someone who did not have intrinsic humility was transformed into a person intoxicated by grace.

Then the bottom dropped out. Tchividjian had always appeared to have a rocky relationship with his wife and the two ended up wounding each other in the deepest way a man and woman can. Much ink has been spilled about the affairs and why they happened. It was wrong and nothing can ever change that. However, I saw Tchividjian’s enemies pounce once again at him and his stance on grace.

I especially remember reading an article written by a fellow Evangelical pointing out that this is the obvious outcome of so-called “hyper-grace.” I do not remember the writer, but I remember how I had to explore on a deeper level all that I had come to understand about this. I wanted to see if the wages of so-called “hyper-grace” was sin. I am saddened to say, that I do not believe so. I am saddened because this means that a good deal of our Evangelical theology is flat-out missing the mark. I want you to join me for a spell as we examine this a little bit. I think it is best to start at the problem. Not just any problem. No. The Problem. Sin.