Speculating on Jesus: Why Should I Care?

In yesterday's post, I referenced a recent survey that indicated that while the vast majority of people in America believe that Jesus was a historical figure, we have vastly different opinions on what he was actually like. The good news is that, even in a post-Christian America, very few people are questioning the historicity of Jesus insofar as he was an actual person who walked the earth. This means that the challenge for the Christian has much more to do with who he was, than that he was, since the second piece is taken as a given for the vast majority of people we will come into contact with. This challenge, though, has at least three parts. The first one is why anyone should even care. Jesus being a historical figure is one thing; that he has any relevance to my life or that I should have any concern over who he was, taught, or did, is a different thing altogether.

I mentioned that, as simply a historical figure, most people have as much knowledge about–and interest in–Jesus as we do any other historical character we might name. Our functional knowledge of Jesus is about the same as our knowledge of Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte. We know their ethnicity, a rough sketch of what they did, and that's about it. As far as learning more about them, well, that's for the historians. Why should we feel any differently about Jesus?

The main reason I think we should care is because the chief difference between Jesus and most other historical figure is that Jesus is one of a handful of people in history who made universal claims. What Jesus claimed to be true wasn't just true for people in his day, but was presented as true for everyone, in all times, in all places. This is typical for other religious teachers, as well: Muhammad, Gautama Buddha, etc. Their claims transcend their historic footprint. Even here, though, Jesus is different.

The claims that Jesus makes are more than just universal truth statements; they are universal truth statements about himself. Jesus didn't just claim to have a message from God, he claimed to be God. Jesus didn't just claim to have the secret to transcending the natural order of life and death, he claimed to be the secret to transcending the natural order of life and death. Jesus didn't just claim that there was a message of "getting right with God", he claimed that he was the message of getting right with God. Jesus didn't just preach; he practiced what he preached by prophetically claiming that he was going to die and rise again, and then dying and rising again. This is why Jesus stands out. He didn't just claim that he had a new way of religious living figured out; he claimed that the was the new way of religious living, and called people to put their confidence in him rather than in their own efforts. In other words, Jesus stands out from all other historical figures because he was one of the small group of people making universal truth claims; he stands out even further from that group, because the claims he was making were about himself. His teaching was so radically different from even the teachers in the same historical category, that it should cause us to go deeper than his historical existence.

The second reason, however, has to do with the people around us everyday who have been impacted by this message. Even if all we think about Jesus is that he was a historical religious figure who taught people how to live "right", it would be difficult to deny the power of his teachings. Tens of billions of people in the last two thousand years have made it a point to attempt to live according to his teachings. Countries were built on these principles, or in defiance of these principles. The message–even if it is only a self help message–continues to inspire people to live selfless lives. I would argue that Jesus teaching were significantly more than just a self-help message, but even if they aren't, the very fact that so many people throughout history have said that his claims are the basis for their worldview ought to be enough to get us to inquire what it was that he actually said. That should be enough, I think, to at least take a cursory glance at his life and teachings and see if they have any relevance to our life today.

One final thing that may help with this first challenge, specifically for those who claim to already believe in Jesus. Do you have any desire to inquire further into his life and teachings? There are a lot of people who claim to believe in Jesus who have little to no idea what he actually said, taught, or did. They have accepted Jesus based on the historical claim that he existed, but have not actually considered what it is that they actually believe about him (or what he believed about himself.) If that's the climate of the church–where we, functionally, believe that Jesus existed but have little interest in finding out more about him–we should not be surprised when that is the climate of culture as well. Perhaps if you want the people around you to be interested in who Jesus is or what he said, the place to begin is taking a serious interest yourself!

Speculating on Who Jesus Actually Is

Jesus Christ has made a cameo in hundreds of pop culture places, from The Da Vinci Code to South Park. But, although the character of Jesus has certainly been fictionalized, satirized and mythologized over the centuries, the vast majority of Americans still maintain that he was a historical figure. More than nine out of 10 adults say Jesus Christ was a real person who actually lived (92%).

Barna Research Group, April 1, 2015. https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/714-what-do-americans-believe-about-jesus-5-popular-beliefs#.VSQ4Bc7maow

That Jesus was a historical figure who actually existed is a difficult fact to deny. My guess is that the reason a very small percentage claimed that he didn't exist is either because of apathy or ignorance; either they don't really care one way or the other, or they simply don't know and have just assumed that he was made up. In any case, Barna's recent survey results reveal that Jesus' existence will probably not need to be argued when you talk to your skeptic friends about Jesus.

That said, Barna's survey also revealed that people have very different ideas about what Jesus was like. Differing opinions on topics ranging from Jesus divinity to whether or not he ever "sinned" (insert your own definition of sin here) mean that even though we mostly agree that Jesus existed, we don't all agree on what he was actually like. This is fertile ground for the Christian to do some thinking: how do we know what Jesus is like? How can I be sure that what I think I know about Jesus can actually be trusted? If Jesus really existed, what type of a person was he?

The first challenge the Christian will face is moving people from the point of acknowledging Jesus existence to actually inquiry of what he was about. This is a bigger challenge than it seems. You might wonder to yourself why in the world someone wouldn't care what Jesus was really like, but insert any other historical figure into the discussion and ask yourself...do you care? How many history books have you read recently? How many historical figures have you inquired about? The truth is that most people in America know approximately the same number of facts about Jesus as they do about Napoleon or Alexander the Great. We know their nationality, a little bit about their story and what they did, and that's it. Not only do we have a very limited knowledge of who they actually are, but most of us feel no pressing need to dig any further. Why should we feel any differently about Jesus?

A second challenge the Christian will face is how we actually go about finding out more about Jesus. The easy answer is "the Bible", and more specifically, the four accounts of Jesus life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Simple enough on the surface, but it raises a third challenge: how do we know that those accounts can be trusted? After all, we know going in that the Gospel writers were clearly biased. The writers were either one of Jesus twelve disciples themselves (Matthew, John), a close follower of Jesus and probably very close acquaintance of a disciple of Jesus (Mark with Peter), or a very close acquaintance to the famous Apostle Paul (Luke).

These three challenges become the central challenges for the Christian looking to engage the world with what they actually believe, and I think ought to be of primary importance to anyone who claims that Jesus actually exists. First, why should I care about Jesus? Second, where do I find out more about him? Third, how do I know that those accounts can be trusted?

Unless we have an answer to those questions, I think that whatever we believe about Jesus will be little more than speculation.

Why the Resurrection Matters

Another Easter Sunday has come and gone and with it, the temptation to let the "Resurrection" fade into the background much the same as Christmas fades into the past and we are left paying off our credit cards from over-celebration. We don't celebrate in the same fashion for Easter. Despite the attempts to commercialize it with the Easter Bunny, new outfits, and candy, it still remains primarily a religious holiday that isn't recognized by people other than those who identify with Christianity. Yet the temptation to move on with our lives and compartmentalize the truths of the resurrection is just as much of a temptation as it is to throw out the wrapping paper and mentally move on to the next big event.

Easter is fundamentally different than Christmas, however. While the events of Christmas are incredibly important and contain a great deal of doctrinal truth, they don't stand on the same level as the events of Easter. In fact, the events of Christmas have no value whatsoever apart from Easter, since the death and resurrection of Jesus are the culmination of everything that he came to accomplish. If they never occurred, then his birth, life, and whatever else occurred would still have been interesting, miraculous, potentially life-altering even if we chose to use Christ's life as an example, but not near as important as they are because of the events of Easter weekend. I'm not sure if the importance of the resurrection can be overstated: if it doesn't happen, there is no hope, there is no ultimate salvation, and practically there is no foundation for the church. The first two points are theological in nature and I won't address them here. It is that last point–the practical necessity of the resurrection for the church–that I want to address.

As we examine the broader culture (at least of America) it's easy to notice that there are some very sharp disagreements regarding how we view various cultural issues. Pick any issue you'd like, and chances are you can find not just diverse views on the subject, but polarizing views. Our tendency is to believe that these disagreements are themselves the problem, but they aren't. They are a symptom of the problem. The real problem, as it turns out, is that we are standing on fundamentally different foundations.

Imagine that the two of us were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we began to describe to one another what we see. To a certain extent, our descriptions may seem similar. We might describe a deep gorge, the relative color of the dirt and clay, the vastness of what we are viewing. As we go further in our descriptions, however, they inevitably begin to diverge. One of us argues that the canyon is a thousand feet deep, the other says it is only a couple of hundred feet. Perhaps we argue about the vegetation, or what it is that makes it so beautiful, or how the sun sets–or rises–on the opposite end of the canyon. Soon we would find that our disagreement is so sharp, that it is impossible for us to figure one another out. We end up completely polarized, convinced that the other person is a lunatic.

Of course you may have already figured out the problem. We are viewing the same canyon, but from two different vantage points. Where we are standing makes all the difference in recognizing why it is that we disagree on our perspective. Once we understand that we are not even fundamentally seeing the same things, we can come to terms with the fact that we disagree.

This is why the real issues of culture have nothing to do with our perspectives on the issues, and have everything to do with the foundation on which we are standing. Christians in particular have taken for granted that for the vast majority of the history of the United States, most of the population stood on a similar foundation. Call it "Judeo-Christian values" or whatever you wish, but really it was just the foundation that there was a God and that we could find out more about him in the Bible. I don't assume that the entirety of the country was Christian, let alone religious, but at very least the foundation was roughly similar. Thus, if there were disagreements on certain subjects, they weren't extreme. We might be arguing about the color of the clay in the canyon, but at least we are looking at the same clay.

Unfortunately that foundation has shifted and the vast majority of culture is no longer standing on the same foundation. This is the effect of post-modernity that claims that there are no universal truths. One of the impacts of this was the supposed destruction of the meta-narrative, which is by it's nature a comprehensive truth claim. Of course the theory falls on it's head. Even saying that there is no universal truth is a comprehensive truth claim about how the world works, it simply shifts the responsibility for decision making to the individual, rather than the universal. Again, claiming that every decision is up to the individual is a universal claim. Thus the meta-narrative was not done away with, but simply changed, and as a result, we find that when we are describing what appear to be similar issues, they are not the same at all. Those of us who are Christians are standing on an entirely different foundation than those who are not-Christians, and vice versa.

This in itself is not a bad thing, it is just something that simply "is". If anything, it provides an opportunity for Christians to have more clarity about what it is that they actually believe. I also think that it should provide Christians more opportunity to have grace with skeptics, since we ought to understand that the issues is not a disagreement, per se, it is a foundational issue. We are not standing on the same footing. We aren't looking at the canyon from the same angle. I can't expect my skeptic friend to see the world from the same perspective that I do, unless we first understand where it is that we are standing.

All of this brings me back to the church, and my original point about the practical need to remember the resurrection. Over the past decade, at least, and perhaps longer than that, post-modernity has come into the church in a variety of ways. The easiest entry way has been to offer differing perspectives on traditional Christian perspectives. Some of those perspectives have been healthy and offered appropriate correctives in the church. Like all institutions (and individuals, I might add), when you have held onto a particular belief long enough, you typically end up abusing it in it's application. For example, the longer you believe you are a safe driver, the less likely you are to use your seat belt. The better you are at a particular activity–skiing, for example–the more likely you are to push the limits verging into the unsafe, even for an expert. The same goes for churches. What might begin as a helpful doctrine or tradition can end up being abused in the long run, in desperate need of correction and a reminder of where the application should begin and end. Other perspectives, however, have not been corrective in nature, but downright incorrect. As a seminary professor said, "the only corrective to bad theology is better theology." Unfortunately many of the critiques in the last decade have not been better theology, but just more bad theology from a different perspective. The pendulum might swing to embrace it, but it doesn't mean that we are any better off. Change for changes sake is not necessarily a good thing. So how do we combat these perspectives? The answer is the resurrection.

The resurrection provides Christians with the foundation on which unity can be built as a church, for at least two reasons. The first reason encompasses both Jesus death, and resurrection, which puts all Christians on the same plane. If Jesus death and resurrection are real, historical events that happened and on which Christianity is based, so that faith and confidence in those events is essential to being a Christian, then the very nature of them mean that all of us arrive into this new kingdom of God on the same train. No one gets in on their own power. No one is more righteous than another. In fact, we all have the same righteousness from the same savior and get in on the same ticket.

The second reason that the resurrection is necessary is that it proves that Jesus is the king of this new kingdom, and thus, he gets to set the expectations. I believe that one of the chief reasons that some of the sharp disagreements that the church has experienced with the culture have become sharp disagreements within the church itself is that many within the church have unwittingly shifted their foundation. This was more evident than ever in the week leading up to Easter when a variety of articles were published claiming to come from Christian sources, but as I examined them, I noticed that they weren't Christian at all. They claimed to have a similar value structure, but they so minimized the death and resurrection of Jesus that those two events were no longer the foundation on which they based the rest of their so-called "truth". Realizing that meant that I could accept their conclusions at face value–as the author's opinion–but also realize that they weren't Christian perspectives, even though they claimed to be. It has become increasingly easy for people in the 21st century church to disagree with Jesus, or try to change his words to fit our meaning, and the reason that we can do it is because we, essentially, deny the power of the resurrection or take it to mean something it doesn't mean. The resurrection is not hope just for hope's sake; it is hope because it revealed that Jesus really was who he said he was. Jesus really was God incarnate who had the ability to defeat death on our behalf. The power of the resurrection wasn't limited just to him; it's a power that all who put their faith in Christ have access to. Far from being just some nebulous, ill-defined hope, it is a hope that very clearly identifies Jesus as God of very God, and King of every King. In other words, if we believe the resurrection is true, we don't get to disagree with Jesus.

As believers, then, the starting point for our unity must be the resurrection of Jesus. This is what gives him His claim to authority, as well as clarifying for us why we don't get to be authoritative in our own right. The Resurrection is the foundation on which the Christian views the rest of the world. When we stand on the power of the Resurrection, then we may still discuss and dialogue about what, exactly, Christ believed, but we don't get to disagree with Jesus or the rest of the Bible, or interpret it to fit our cultural milieu or cultural understanding at the time. Rather we stand on the authority of Christ himself.

If there are sharp disagreements in the church, I am much less interested in knowing what you think about the disagreement, and much more interested in knowing what you think about Jesus. Is he the risen Lord, or not? If he is, then you and I can both submit our opinions to his. If he isn't, then we're not on the same foundation to begin with, and I don't care much that you disagree with me. We'll never agree on what the canyon looks like so long as we are standing on different lookouts.

This is why we can't put Easter in the past. Easter Sunday, and what it represents, are not just a day in the life of the church calendar, but the foundation on which every day must be built. To the extent that we remember that, we'll have a united church. To the extend that we forget it, we'll be divided. It might really be as simple as that.

The Logical Fallacy of the Progressive Theology of the Cross

Is it possible that Jesus death was nothing more than the perfect example of selfless love?

As Easter approaches, and Christians around the world begin to celebrate and commemorate Christ's death and resurrection, I'm reminded that there will always be people apparently within the fold who will nevertheless question the historical understanding of what was accomplished on that weekend long ago. Traditionally Jesus' sacrifice on the cross has been understood through the lens of "penal substitutionary atonement." In simple terms, the traditional view is that our rebellion from God, and everything that separates us from God's perfection (what we call "sin"), required a punishment. So God, in his great mercy, and Jesus, in his great love, came up with a solution: it would be the solution of the substitute. If Jesus, in his perfection, paid the penalty for our sin, then we could be reconciled to God. For us to be reconciled to God (atoned for), we need someone who would stand in (substitute) to pay our penalty (penal).

It is shocking to me that there remains in the Christian church a group of people who would wish to redefine this and reframe it so that it appears to make more sense to our modern sensibilities. Today the group would bill themselves as "progressive" Christians, but it's just another name for what has historically been referred to as "liberal theology". It's an attempt to whittle down Christianity to "good deeds", as if this was Jesus ultimate goal: just to get us to act right. The reason I'm continually shocked by it is because of the glaringly obvious fallacy that it presents, particularly as it relates to the cross of Jesus.

The assertion of an article circulating this week is that Jesus message was ultimately only about love, and so Jesus death on the cross could not have had anything to do with penal substitutionary atonement. In fact, if that is what the cross was about, this author wanted nothing to do with Jesus.

The argument goes something like this (and again, it's just rehashing an old argument): Jesus whole goal in his life and death was to demonstrate that the heart of the law is simply "love". Therefore, when the Bible says that Jesus fulfilled the law, what it means is that demonstrated what it means to live out the heart of the law, which meant standing up to the power structures, living for the oppressed, and ultimately, on the cross, giving up his life for a friend. Jesus death, then, was the ultimate example of selfless love. This is what he requires of Christians. God's not mad, he's just trying to get us to love one another. Jesus showed us that by his death, and so now we should go and live that out and do what he did.

The logical fallacy that is presented by this argument has to do with the very nature of our reconciliation with God, if such a concept exists at all in this theological construct. Even this progressive author agrees that sin has separated us from God; in fact, this is the extent of the definition of sin: whatever separates us from God. So far, so good. But then the question is raised: if we are separated from God, how is it that we go about becoming reconciled to him? The issue with the argument outlined above is that you are left with only one of two options: either everyone is reconciled to God, or no one is ever reconciled to God.

The truth is that no matter how loving we wish to be, the reality is that we will still fall short. Every person, every Christian, no matter how loving they try to be or actually are knows that they don't measure up to the example set by Christ. If it were possible that some other figure, a non-divinity, some purely human character, could have eventually met the standard, then we wouldn't have needed the example of Christ. Even if it were only by pure accident, surely over time one person would have gotten close, and someone else gotten closer, and on and on until eventually we figured out that the "law" really only intended us to get to the heart of the law, which is love. This is the nature of human progression, after all. We see something that works, or looks better than what we already know, and we build upon it to progress forward. Surely the same thing would be true of our ability to meet the law and live in harmony with how God requires.

The very fact of Jesus existence reveals that this is clearly not the case. We won't eventually "figure it out". Even this construct admits that an example was needed, and a perfect one at that. A model that we could follow. Someone who made the ultimate sacrifice, and gave his life for a friend. Now, according to this model, the Christian must replicate that with their own lives. Yet anyone who is honest enough to admit it knows that they are a poor example, at best.

Again, Jesus may have showed us the way to reconciliation, but it is nevertheless on us to ensure that we live out that path if we actually want to attain the reconciliation. If Christ's death on the cross did nothing for me other than provide me with an example, my confidence is not found in what he did but in my own ability to replicate what he did in some meaningful way in my own life. "Salvation" is found in my ability to live out the same type of life, to the same degree, as Jesus did. As was already pointed out, we all fall ridiculously short of that mark. To say otherwise is to be a fool.

So then we are left with only two options. Either God, in his mercy, for no reason other than because he realized that we were eternally screwed otherwise, has decided to save us all and we all are okay at the end of the day. No justification required. Just a blank slate, wiped clean, just because. The alternative is that we are all left striving to attain a perfection which none of us can; we are chasing a dream that will never be realized. In other words, it's back to the original conclusion: either everyone is saved, or no one is saved.

Herein lies the fallacy of this theology and where it breaks down. Aside from the fact that none of this is particularly good news, since all it does is shine a light on my own failures, there is another inherent problem. If everyone is saved, then there is no law at all. Even Jesus perfect life (which, again, matters to me not one whit) was totally and utterly meaningless if God was going to just wipe the slate clean anyway regardless. Everyone being saved sounds great. It sounds like a very loving thing of God to do, but in reality it is a chaotic sort of anti-loving God that would allow that to occur. It's a God without order, a God who doesn't give us any meaningful guide by which we should live because ultimately, obey or not obey, we end up in the same position. But then, if no one is saved, we have the same issue: if I am as loving as I can possibly be, but I will still fall short, then what is the point of even trying? I am imperfect as it is, and there is no hope of my reconciliation, then I may as well enjoy myself in the process.

The only possible responses to this are to say, either, that a) it is actually possible for a human to attain some semblance of perfection, or something that is acceptable to God so that ultimately not everyone is saved but he will save each of us on our own merits, or b) Jesus actually did accomplish something meaningful on my behalf that enables me to live the type of life that he calls me to live, without guilt or shame.

There is no in-between answer to these two things, if we claim to be a Christian. If Christ's life and death accomplished nothing on my behalf, then my reconciliation to God must be found in my own merits, or else, nothing about God's law matters at all. This was precisely the belief of the religious leaders of the day when Jesus arrived on the scene. Each person would be judged on their own merits. It's why the religious folks were self-righteous and the tax-collectors and sinners were outsides. This was the message of the power structure of Rome: as soon as you didn't perform according to their standards, they booted you out and killed you. The reason Jesus message was such good news to those desperate ears–and the reason the power structure hated him–was because they had already been told that their justification was up to them, and they found it to be terribly oppressive; Jesus message was just the opposite. "The only way to be reconciled to my Father is to go through me."

The truth is that no serious theologian denies that Jesus fulfilled the law. He did fulfill the law through his perfect life including and up to his death on the cross. The heart of the law is this: that we would love God (perfectly) and love others (perfectly). The law only serves to demonstrate that we, on our own power, cannot accomplish what we want to accomplish. But God, in his great mercy, sends a substitute. This substitute fulfills the law on our behalf by living a perfect life. This substitute pays the penalty for being a law-breaker on our behalf by dying an absolutely gruesome but perfect death on the cross. As a result, this substitute breaks the grip of death–separation from God and from one another–and rises from the dead on the third day. Salvation is found in no one but him.

Now we find that our justification, our righteousness, our goodness, our perfection, are all applied to us because of Jesus substitution on our behalf. He takes what we deserved and gives us what he earned. The irony of it all is that the decision we face is precisely the one that the progressive theologian has said we shouldn't have to answer at all, and it is this: will you put your confidence in the merits of Christ, or in the merits of yourself? The good news is that we can put our confidence in the merits of Christ. This is the what it means to have faith.

The alternative is to go on trusting in your own merits. And if you are, then I wonder what the standards are by which you are assessing your own goodness. If it is your own standard, then what does Jesus matter to you? There is no need to follow Jesus if you get to set your own standards. But if the standard by which you assess your own merit is Gods–that is, if your standard is the law of God–then how can you go on trusting your own ability? The good news is that you don't have to, because Jesus has already met the standard, and reconciled your failure, on your behalf, so you can be free.

This is the meaning of the cross.

Saturday Night

I signed in to the blog to write a new post about something that's been on my mind since this morning, but decided against it for the time being. (It was going to be about an article I read on a proposed legislative change in Maine that would require non-profit organizations to pay property taxes, but I'll save that for another day. It's probably not as disinteresting as you might imagine, and it has potentially much more profound effects than you may realize...) In any event, I decided to write a brief note on what I do on Saturday nights. 

Saturday nights are about brain rested and engaged, all at the same time. If it's been a good week, and I'm well-prepared, then I've just gotten done with my two-day weekend, starting on Friday morning and going through the day on Saturday. Sunday, my week starts up again, and it starts up with a bang. It's my busiest day, and it requires by far the most mental energy, for at least two reasons. I'll preface this by saying that this isn't intended to be a "woe is me" story. It is just how things are.

The first reason that Sunday requires a lot of mental energy (if you care about the people in your church) is that most people are coming in on Sunday and they are burned out from the week. They are tired, they are in need of encouragement, they want to hear what God has to say, they want to be built up, challenged, equipped, and then sent on their way, and the expectation is that it's my job to do that for them, or at least, to do my best. Because I care about the people in my church, I want that for them. I want to take the Bible and explain it to them in a way that matters for the real, everyday life. I honestly believe that if "Christianity" is just something you do on Sundays, then it's worthless. It has to have traction in the rest of your life; it has to have as much meaning when you show up at work on Monday as it did to you on Sunday. In other words, I don't think that Christianity is something that you do to make you feel good. I don't think it's something that "works for some people" but doesn't work for others, as if religion really is just a pick-one-that-makes-you-feel-good affair. I think that Christianity either has to offer a meaningful and rationale explanation for why things are the way that they are, so that it actually offers real answers that matter or it's really nothing. To say it another way, what we believe has to ultimately touch every square inch of our lives in some fashion; hence, there is no square inch of life that cannot be explored, examined, and considered.

The second reason that it requires so much mental energy is that to actually offer that meaningful insight into life in a way that matters means that physically speaking, you are going to engage a significant percentage of your brain. There was a Mythbusters episode that sought to prove (or disprove) the myth that humans only use about 10% of your brainpower. As they tested, they noticed that there were ways that would engage a significantly greater percentage of brainpower, as in when you were doing multiple things at the same time. For example, if you were walking around, reading, speaking, and recalling a story all at the same time. Anyone who has every done any public speaking already knew that experientially, but it's actually backed up by science. If you've ever wondered why you are so exhausted after speaking to a group of people (even if you enjoy it!), this is the reason. It requires far more coordination of various brain functions than most people realize.

This is the reason that a Saturday night is both simultaneously about resting and engaging all at the same time. It's like stretching. Or mental yoga. Yoga, because I try to focus on what it is that I'm going to say on Sunday. Stretching, because I'm trying to warm up my brain just enough so that it's ready to go, but not so much that it's already tired.

At the end of the day, though, the reason I try to engage/rest on Saturday goes back to that idea that tomorrow, I feel a burden for the truth of God and for the people of our church. I want to make the connection between those two things: here is what is true, here is what that means for us when we get out of here. I have enough confidence in God's power, and enough trust in our church, that even if I totally blow it and whiff (or, as I've thought in the past, if I Charlie Brown it) I know that they are going to be okay and they are going to come back next weekend. There's more than enough grace to go around!

On the other hand, I know that I've got 30 minutes. And then for most of us it's back to the grind. Back to real life. Back to figuring out what God and Jesus and the Bible actually have to do with my bills, my family, my work, my co-workers, my neighbors, and everything else that sucks the life out of me during the week. Here's to hoping that 30 minutes is time well spent.

Freedom from Condemnation & Drivenness

This is part one of a four part series on freedom from condemnation. The four parts ended up being Freedom from Condemnation, Repentance, Parenting, and Drivenness.

Probably the first topic that came to mind when thinking about how our freedom from condemnation actually interacts with the reality of our lives was the topic of drivenness, but for a variety of reasons, it's the last one I'm going to mention. The reason for the delay is largely because this topic applies to me in a very real sense, and anything I write is either going to be personally convicting or hypocritical if I haven't actually applied the truths to my own life. I know that I need to apply the truth of my freedom from condemnation to my own drivenness; knowing how to do that is another matter altogether.

Drivenness comes in many different forms, but at it's base, I think it comes from a desire to meet a certain set of standards. Those standards can either be external (I want to live up to my parent's dreams for me) or they can be internal (I want to be the best that I can personally be.) They can stem from a positive experience, like having supportive parents, or they can stem from a negative experience, like being bullied in High School. Regardless of where the standards generated, the driven person wants to achieve them and meet them at all cost. The standards become more than just healthy goals; they become the expectation. Anything less is unacceptable.

We typically call driven people "ambitious" but that doesn't tell the full story. Lots of people have ambition, but they can give themselves grace when they fall short. Driven people can't. It's the standard or nothing. They push forward relentlessly. At night, they fall asleep thinking about all that they didn't accomplish. A voice in their head whispers, "you're just a big phony; you can never measure up." The next morning, the driven person wakes up to attack the voice, the standard, to achieve. 

To some of you that description will sound somewhat crazy. I'm not saying that all driven people hear voices in their heads or go to sleep depressed, but I bet it happens more than we know and more than driven people themselves would want to admit, particularly if they claim to be a Christian. They know it's not right, they know that their identity should be found in Christ, they know that they are not defined by their failures. Nevertheless they also can't seem to let go of the drivenness that motivates them to keep going.

Let me say this first, then. I'm pro-drivenness. Driven people get stuff done. The other day I was going into a board meeting after running around between two or three different after-school events and the president of the board commented that the old saying was, "if you want to get something done, ask someone who is busy." It sounds counter-intuitive on it's face, but the point is that if you find someone who is busy, chances are, you have found someone who likes getting stuff done. You've probably found someone who is pretty driven.

The problem with drivenness, and the reason that we are in constant need to be reminded of our freedom from condemnation, is that our drivenness is almost solely based on our ability to meet the law. In other words, it's legalism. We find our self-worth and our joy from being able to accomplish the standard; when we achieve whatever standard it was, we feel justified, and when we don't, we feel condemned. The drive to fulfill the law may therefore be joy, if we can succeed, but it is also, and maybe even moreso, fear of condemnation if we fail. It is not too fine a point to make to say that if you could strip away the layers of the driven person's heart, what you would find is a person who just doesn't want to fail. Fear of failure is fear of condemnation.

This is why it is condemnation that must be done away with. Law, without Christ, always leads to condemnation. There is no other way. The reminder the driven person needs is that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The challenge is remembering this truth when we inevitably fail!

Drivenness, ambition, or whatever you want to call it is not inherently wrong. I think it's a good thing. But as good as it is, it can kill your soul. It kills your soul by making you feel like your justification, your goodness, your self-worth is found only when you meet the law. And when you fail, it's on you.

The good news of Jesus is that we are free to be driven, and yet we are also free from the fear of failure and condemnation. Driven people need grace and can live in the reality of Grace, in success and in failure. We continue to have joy when we succeed; because of Jesus, we also have joy when we fail. Our joy is not dependent on our efforts. Our joy is dependent on Christ's efforts, for our freedom.

Freedom from Condemnation

This is part of a four part series on freedom from condemnation. The four parts ended up being Freedom from Condemnation, Repentance, Parenting, and Drivenness.

I've been reflecting on our freedom from condemnation over the last several days. On Sunday night, as I was closing out the Youth Retreat that I was leading, the message of freedom from condemnation was the message I wanted to send them home with. All of our life is filled with law that leads to sin and death. It's law that kills us. Law that reveals our inadequacy and failure, whether the law is the biblical law, some internal law that we create for ourselves, or some external law that others place on us. They all carry condemnation. They remind us that we cannot ultimately succeed. Paul's claim, and ultimately the claim of the Gospel, is that the Christian person is set free from the expectation that we can ultimately attain our righteousness through the law.

The tension for the Christian–and really, it is no tension at all, but it is one that we create–is trying to figure out exactly what that means. One tendency, and the easy one to debunk, is to believe that Paul must be mistaken and that, while Jesus death covers our past sins, it is now on us to make sure that from here on out we fulfill the law more than we break the law. This is simple to throw away because it is not good news. I can't keep the law, and I'm reminded daily. In fact, this is the very thing that the law is designed to do! So if I have to earn something now that Jesus has covered my sins, I'm in deep trouble.

The other tendency is to believe that the law no longer exists, or no longer has any value. Thus, to be set free means that the law has been erased and therefore has no hold on us. We find this idea challenging to accept, and rightfully so. If it's true that there is no law and therefore no expectation, then what has Christ's death really done? It has certainly freed us, but freed us to do what? Has it freed us to sin all the more? Paul is clear that this is not the case, but then by which measure do we understand sin, if there is no law?

No, the freedom Paul speaks of is freedom from the condemnation of the law. That is, because the Law (of God) has been so ultimately fulfilled by Jesus, we no longer live under it's condemnation. It is still completely valid. It is right. It is good. It's just not condemning for us. We don't worry about our own ability to perfectly fulfill what God has commanded, because Jesus has perfectly fulfilled it on our behalf. We don't consider our accomplishments in relationship to the Law to increase our righteousness either. We are already perfectly righteous because of Jesus.

The reason we create a tension where there doesn't have to be one is that we cannot comprehend of a legal system where the law is still valid but the punishments are not. It doesn't make sense that "murder", for example, continues to be wrong, but if we do murder, we get off free with no condemnation. If it is the case that we are truly free from the condemnation of the law, then we really are ultimately free from the law itself. In other words, we are free to live however we wish to live. "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Thus, the tension: is it possible that we are saved, and so therefore we can sin freely?

At the most basic level, the answer is "yes". If it is true that we are totally, one hundred percent covered by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, so that there can be nothing held against us anymore, that there can be no accusers, that we can no longer be condemned, then we are truly and radically free and no amount of sinning after the fact can change it. That's freedom.

A more nuanced answer, however, will be "yes, but we won't". That is, yes, we can sin. We can live however we wish. But we won't, because we have been utterly transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Since it is the Spirit who sets us free, and makes us new, it is the Spirit who empowers us to actually carry out the very spirit of the law; it is the Spirit that enables us to truly love God and love others, and that is the crux of the whole matter. So while we are totally and radically free to go out and live however we want, the transformation in us is such that we will actually begin to live more fully the way that God intended in our love for God and others, so that even without the law we are fulfilling the law. This is why the same apostle who so radically declares our freedom from condemnation and the law can at the same time express confidently that what will be evident in us is fruit; the Spirit will be working. It is not optional. We are being transformed.

This is the first response to the tension we feel in response to our freedom: the "law" that we are now under is the "law of the Spirit"; the transforming spirit that enables us to carry out the intentions of God from the very beginning, which is to love God and others.

The second response to the tension that there can be a valid law without condemnation is really the heart of the Gospel message. Jesus himself says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. The law continues to carry with it punishments. The great breach of the law was the failure to love God and to love others; the punishment was, and is, death. Jesus repairs the breach and takes the punishment. He perfectly loves God and others, and assumes on himself the punishment that the breach required. We are free from condemnation not because the law no longer carries condemnation–in fact, it does–but we are free from condemnation because Jesus was condemned on our behalf.

The law and the punishments remain in full force, so I have a few options. I can either perfectly fulfill the law, and therefore avoid the punishment, or if I can't perfectly fulfill the law (which I can't), then I can assume the punishment myself. Since I can't perfectly fulfill the law, I can't please God. In fact, my very efforts to do so become hostile to God! So then, since I am a lawbreaker by nature, the still-valid punishment must be satisfied, and it will be satisfied either by myself or by a substitute. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus is the substitute.

So then not only is the law valid, but the punishment is valid as well. For the Christian, however, the punishment has been taken by Jesus, so that we can confidently declare that no matter how much we break the law going forward, there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. The law is still good and right! But we are not condemned when we fail, because of Jesus.

That message of freedom from condemnation not only applies to the biblical law, but to the internal and external law I mentioned. One author (Paul Zahl, I believe) referred to the internal and external law as the bastard children of the law. They are the natural outcome of attempting to define our lives, our righteousness, and our justification by our own efforts, and then taking those expectations and applying them to others, so that we also view their righteousness and justification through that lens. Freedom from condemnation takes those expectations and turns them on their head. They no longer define us. Our life now is defined by Jesus. Our law is defined by Jesus. The things that matter, the expectations of God, are defined by God himself. Even when we fall short of those expectations, we are not condemned; we cannot be separated from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

That is the perspective by which we measure both the internal law and the external law. In both cases, attempting to earn our "rightness" by fulfilling the law will ultimately lead to oppression. This is not to say that there are no good expectations for ourselves; we may expect that we will perform well at our job, for example. There is nothing wrong with that expectation, it is good and right. What the Christian understands is that they are no more righteous if they meet that expectation, just as they are no more condemned if they don't. Their identity is in Jesus. He defines the expectations that matter.

Freedom from condemnation means that we are free from accusation when we don't measure up to expectations of ourselves or others. As a perfectionist, the most freeing thought I can have is that I am still free even when I don't meet the expectations that I place on myself. I am not bound to that perfectionism. Not only do I not have to be perfect, but I don't have to worry about whether or not other people think I'm perfect either. I do not stand condemned anymore. Because Jesus accepts me and has paid my dues, it really doesn't matter much whether others think I am measuring up.

But perhaps even more importantly, however, is the second reality:

Freedom from condemnation means that we are able to disagree on whether or not an expectation is valid to begin with.

There is no doubt that Paul instructs the early Christians to certain standards: they will be hard working, for example. If you are lazy, you are not considered "needy"; you are considered "lazy". There are other expectations that he allows, but doesn't necessarily condone. Celebration of certain religious feasts, for example. It's not harmful, he would say, so long as you don't think you are earning your righteousness from it. If it helps you focus on Jesus and his righteousness, enjoy it! But since you earn no righteousness from it, you can't expect others to join you in your feasting. It's not a necessity; it's a false expectation.

False expectations abound. "All good parents feed their kids organic food." "All cool teenagers play sports." "All men make a lot of money." "Successful people drive brand new cars." "True Christians read their Bible an hour a day." And one my wife is particularly passionate about, not for her sake but for other moms who feel the pressure so powerfully, "All good moms have immaculate houses." Here's the thing about this expectations: some of them are just wrong and unbiblical ("Successful people drive brand new cars.") Others might work for you, but aren't binding on others (Buying only organic food or keeping an immaculate house). Freedom from condemnation means you are free to make the distinction between the expectations that matter, and those that don't. The key is remembering that if you can keep them, you aren't more justified, and if you can't, you're not more condemned.

You are totally justified, and never condemned, because of Jesus. This is the freedom of the Gospel.

Feel Good Faith and Thin Christianity

Most of life happens on a pendulum. I don't mean life as in the living and breathing essence of who we are, but I mean life, generally. Our worldview, our culture, and societies values.

A couple of things came up yesterday that started me thinking about this. The first was that a basketball player at a Division 1 college quit the school and will be transferring next year or as soon as possible. He was a starting player, and he quit mid-way through the season. His rationale? From what I understand (this was second hand delivered to me), the locker room was a disaster. Racism, drugs, alcohol abuse, sexuality, and on and on. Not that this kid was a prude. But at a certain point, it becomes too much.

I commented to the person telling me that this is what we can expect if we decide as a culture that value judgments can be made by the individual. What boundaries are we willing to set? Where are the lines that we draw? And then, on whose authority do we set them or draw them? It might be the institution itself (in this case, a University), it might be the government, or it might be something else, but at the end of the day someone has the authority to set the boundary points and effectively declare that this is as far as they are willing to go. As long as it is the individual, then functionally, we have declared that "no boundary marker" is the real boundary marker.

Setting it based on the authority of a human institution typically doesn't fare much better. This is precisely what causes the pendulum shifts in our culture. Most human institutions can be changed either by popular opinion, by uprising, by votes, or in many modern cases simply by the subjective opinion of appointed judges. If we don't like the boundary marker that a particular institution has set, there is typically some way to change it. And since most of us are not overly prone to moderation, our views tend to go from one extreme to the other. We go from prohibition to license in a few generations; give it a generation or two more, and we might see the pendulum swing back.

The other conversation I had related to Christianity in the first century. A friend is preaching on the book of Revelation; I am preaching on the book of Acts. A commentary on Acts that I was reading pointed out that the way to really understand Acts, or to really understand Revelation, was to read them together and see that they are talking about the same thing from different perspectives. Acts is the historical narrative; Revelation is the spiritual one. One of the descriptions is on this side of the curtain; the other describes what we cannot see, unless it's "revealed".

I shared it with my friend and he mentioned some of what he was reading in terms of the persecution of the early church and the heinous measures that the Romans would be willing to go to either in the name of sport or simply torture. It raised an important question for us to consider: how many people would still be in our churches if they knew that simply being there could get them killed? It was sobering to think about, not just for the people in the pews, but for ourselves. Would we be willing to endure brutal torture for the sake of Christ? We both believed we would, but mostly just hoped we'd never have to truly find out.

It strikes me that the Christian faith is almost always counter-cultural, and when it isn't, it suffers. I don't mean this in the way that it's typically presented, however. For example, it's easy to say that Christianity is counter-cultural when sexual promiscuity, for example, is celebrated. This is the way that we typically mean that Christianity should be counter-cultural. I'm suggesting that it should also be counter-cultural even when the values of culture appear to be in line with the values of Christianity. That is, Christianity is ultimately just as counter-cultural when it is sexual suppression that appears to be valued, as could be argued was the case in the mid-20th century, and two married people having the same bedroom was considered too risqué for TV. For one thing, sex is a gift that Christianity and the Bible celebrate. It's not embarrassing, it's good. That alone ought to have been a counter-cultural message during that time.

The real reason that the church is counter-cultural, though, is not because we agree or disagree with the values of the culture. Again, that's what we typically mean when we say we are counter-cultural, but that should be a secondary focus. Even if the values of culture appear to be in line with the values of Christianity, what remains counter-cultural is the authority by which we set our boundary markers. This is what keeps Christianity from functioning on the same pendulum cycle as the rest of culture. Our authority is unchanging; it doesn't change based on our feelings or what we think about it. Culture can appreciate our values or think that they are old-fashioned and silly, but what makes us counter-cultural is that we define our values based on God's ideals and not based on human institution or our own perceived moral compass.

It strikes me that when culture appears to agree with the church, the church is less interested in being counter-cultural, and more interested in figuring out how we can be "mainstream" with what we believe. We try to squeeze Jesus into our already relatively moral existence. Our churches begin to look like malls, our worship events look like concerts, we give away material goods to get people to enter, we give slick, well-presented "message" that showcase our public speaking ability rather than the Word of God, and we convince people that Jesus can take their mostly-good life and turn it into a really-good life. I don't want to impugn a whole generation of churches, and I am being intentionally cynical for a reason. It appears to me that the fruit that we're seeing in the Christian church in America at large begs the question: what authority does a Christian actually follow? And if that authority is an unchanging, sovereign God, then why does it appear that his opinion changes as frequently as ours?

Again, there is much good that has been done through churches that might consider themselves "seeker-sensitive" or whatever other Christian nomenclature you might want to use. I can't help but wonder, though, whether one significant downside is that as long as our worship services look like something that we produced, or come from our own minds, whether we're not just feeding into the same old story that authority is found in human institutions. And if it's found in human institutions, if the church's authority comes from the mind of the pastor or the Elders who happen to be in charge at the time, then it's no wonder that many churches will change as quick and as soon as culture. It's also no wonder that many Christians can't fathom that being a Christian might mean that you disagree with some of what culture values; they've never been taught that what makes us counter-cultural is not necessary what we do, it's who we follow.

Imagine if the church took seriously who God was, and then took seriously who we are called to be not based on our opinion or culture's opinion of us, but simply based on God's love for us. What would that look like? 

It would be a counter-cultural church that based it's authority on God, and didn't make their decisions based on what man thinks about them, but based on who God is and what he has done. That would be a revolutionary church indeed.

The Slippery Slope of Religious Exemption

Having addressed my chief concern–that Christians must be able to distinguish between identity & conduct, and recognize what it is that has changed in us because of Jesus–I wanted to move on to a second point regarding the exemption letter recently sent to the White House. How much can we expect Christian organizations to be able to partner with the Government, and vice versa?

Most of the issues that Biblical Christians are going to encounter in 21st century America will require a combination of conviction and nuance to navigate. While that may be new to American Christians who have, for the most part, experienced their faith in the midst of a culture whose value system closely resembled their own, it isn't "new" to historical Christianity. Jesus himself navigated the tricky waters of Biblical conviction and political involvement when he was asked about paying taxes. (Matthew 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17) The New Testament letters instruct Christians how they should respond to the political and social forces of the day in a way that was Christ honoring, but would also be submissive to the government (See 1 Peter 2:13-17 for an example). It's important for the 21st century American Christian to realize that there is a way to be distinctively Christian, but still participate in the social order of the day.

This combination of conviction and nuance, the ability to stand firmly on what we believe the Bible teaches, while also being able to interact in a positive way with the culture, requires that Christians have a clear understanding of what the Bible actually teaches, as well as a firm grasp on where the points of resistance will be from culture. Most people have a tendency to opt for one or the other: either we stand on our convictions, culture be damned; or we stand with culture, convictions be damned. This is at least part of the reason that amongst Christians our first reaction to a letter like the one Lindsay signed is a visceral one; it makes us feel a certain way and we respond accordingly. If we are the convicted type, we come out on the supportive end and can't understand anyone who is against it. If we are more for nuance, we find the letter to be off-putting and defaming the name of Christ, or at least what it means to be loving. For the Christian, however, Conviction and Culture aren't opposites or even on a spectrum; they both operate together, all the time. We need to understand what the Bible says, and then apply it in the context in which we find ourselves; we need to apply it to our culture.

The letter that Lindsay signed seeks to deal with this difficult ground of conviction and culture. I think that Lindsay ought to be commended for having the courage to take a stand for something as historically elusive as real, religious freedom–something we’ve taken for granted, at least in my lifetime, in America. What was troublesome to me was that my perception of people’s response, particularly those opposed to the exemption letter, seemed to zero in on the idea that Gordon, in some way, was being discriminatory. That led me to my first response which dealt with the discrimination (or discernment) that a Christian organization will necessarily have if they are to be distinctively Christian.

The main point of that post, more succinctly, was that while we as Christians should not discriminate against a person who is gay, a Christian organization should be allowed to discriminate against a person who is not a Christian. That distinction is incredibly important for the Christian to recognize. You can be a gay Christian. You cannot be an unrepentant Christian. An unrepentant Christian is an oxymoron; if you disagree with what God calls sin, it is an indicator that you really don't believe what you say you believe. (Matthew 18:15-17). The apostle John says that if you say you are a Christian, but do not follow God's commands, you are a liar. (1 John 1:6; 1 John 2:4-6) A Christian organization would be working against itself to hire people who don't agree with their fundamental outlook on the world; they shouldn't be forced to hire people who are not Christians–a fact that is sometimes revealed by a persons conduct. If a Christian organization is forced to hire someone who openly and continually disregards what they believe God's word teaches, it would be a clear violation of their religious liberty.

I couldn't agree more.

Unfortunately, that is not the whole story. The letter that Lindsay has added his name to is responding to an executive order that would currently only apply to federal contractors. That is, President Obama is issuing an order for any company that receives federal dollars or has a federal contract including religious organizations that receive federal funding for some work they are doing in the community. The concern expressed in the exemption letter is that this will ultimately leave religious organizations who currently receive federal funding in a difficult position: either they stand on their convictions, and lose their funding, or they drop their convictions, and keep their funding. It's also important to note that this doesn't effect only Christian organizations; other non-Christian religious organizations who are discriminatory in their hiring practice for religious reasons, as well as any religious-based federal contractor who maintains a standards of conduct that is discriminatory, would be included as well.

The exemption letter attempts to address what it’s authors see as the implications of the ENDA: it is highly likely that, at least in the short term, the executive order would harm far more people than it would help. Most legitimate Christian organizations who are currently serving the poor or marginalized of their communities in general will opt for standing on their convictions, and either be forced to seek other funding sources, to scale back, or to shut down altogether. The argument thus rests on the belief that there is a "greater good". In this case, the "greater good" is the work being done by the many religious organizations that receive federal aid, even if their hiring policies are discriminatory towards the LGBT community.

One of the problems that I think we are seeing is that what someone intends to say is not always what is heard. It seems to me that what was heard was that Dr. Lindsay wanted to add Gordon College to a list of organizations that are legally allowed to discriminate against gay people. Having attended Gordon College, and having utmost confidence in the administration, staff, and faculty, I strongly believe that this was not at all the intention and that Gordon maintains the same standards of conduct that it has always had, as expressed repeatedly in the responses from Dr. Lindsay and the Chair of the Trustees. Again, to be clear: Gordon College does and is legally allowed to discriminate against people who are not Christians, which is sometimes demonstrated through their unwillingness to live according to a biblical standard. But, this has nothing to do with a person’s fundamental nature, people group, sexual preference, or any other thing that may arise from our inherent genetic makeup.

In other words, the problem, as I see it, is that the letter failed to adequately address the intentions of the authors and left open to interpretation what they were saying in the background, which has justifiably caused more controversy than was intended. Or, to use the language I used earlier, perhaps the letter required more nuance, and possibly even more focus on the actual issue at hand.

To begin with, in my view, the ENDA does not restrict religious freedoms for any religious organization. That is to say that any organization based in the United States may continue to operate according to their standards of ethics and conduct, based on their religious conviction, without interference from the Government. This is the essence of religious freedom. The government will not, and cannot, tell you what to believe nor can it restrict your freedom to operate according to those convictions, except where it might cause harm to others.

What the ENDA addresses is cases where you have allowed Government “interference” into your organization because of the agreements that you have entered into with them, whether as a contractor, or as a recipient of funding. This is a different case altogether, and one that I think the Christian must wrestle with. As I mentioned earlier, we have taken for granted that for the most part, our government has supported Judeo-Christian ethics and the church/culture value systems have aligned closely enough where partnership could be easily accomplished. But as the value system of culture changes, it will be the Christian who has to increasingly make the choice to either stand on their convictions, or align themselves with organizations who do not share their view of the world.  Isn’t it often true that the borrower becomes the slave to the lender? Such is the case, I think, when we accept funding from any institution that does not share our value system, especially the government.

This is why I believe so many in the media picked up this letter for critique. The exemption letter seems to come at the ENDA from the angle of religious freedom, but as I’ve identified, religious freedom is not necessarily what is at stake. What is at stake is the receipt of federal funding or contracts. By addressing it in terms of religious freedom, however, the exemption letter places the emphasis on religious institutions necessary desire to be discerning in their hiring policy, rather than the implications of what would happen if the government decided to no longer fund explicitly religious institutions, even if the work they were doing was good for the national interest. And yet, it is this second piece that I believe is the real issue, and, was always the intention of the authors of the exemption letter.

As I looked at the list of organizations who signed the letter, for example, there were several that stuck out to me. One was Bethany Christian Services. I have three adopted children, and know several employees of Bethany, so I highly value the work that they do both nationally and internationally through their adoption and foster services. In our area, Bethany works alongside of DYFS to ensure that children are taken care of, and placed into foster or adoptive care when necessary. Bethany is also an explicitly Christian organization with an explicitly Christian standard of conduct. Were the ENDA to go through, whatever agreements they have with the State of New Jersey (as well as agreements in other states) would be at risk, since they would continue to maintain their standard of conduct and thus, be unable to receive a federal contract. This would have a ripple effect on the state level. Eventually, non-religious organizations may step into the gap, but in the short term, there would be immediate effects of the ENDA that would result in a loss of social services to a large number of people.

Or consider Catholic Charities, which I assume runs some inner city ministries such as food pantries, men’s and women’s shelters, homeless ministry, and the like. It is in the best interest of the government to give a grant to a Catholic Charity, rather than to try to fund a program itself. The fact is that someone working at a non-profit organization makes significantly less than any social worker in a government agency. Thus, it’s cheaper for the government to fund Catholic Charities than it is to try to take care of the work itself.

Or, in Gordon College’s case, what about federal student loans? Would Gordon continue to qualify as a destination for those loans? Or what of any work that Gordon might be doing in the scientific or computer field, where they might receive government funding to do their research?

The point is that if the ENDA goes through, Dr. Lindsay and these other religious leaders see that there will be implications, and they might be more far reaching than anyone is prepared for. They are sincerely asking culture, and the White House, a question: can we agree to disagree on this one issue, so that the work that we are doing together can continue? Perhaps the letter would have had more impact if there were some hard facts within the letter addressing these implications.

To ask the question another way, what will go away if the ENDA goes through? It won’t be religious freedom, and it won’t be religious “discrimination”. But it will be a lot of good, community serving organizations and the work that they are doing. I think that’s where the letter could use more focus.

So let me add one more thought, for any Christian organization who is wrestling with whether or not they will lose their funding: who is it that has called you to your work?

The nuance (if we can continue to use that word) of Jesus' response to the Pharisees who approached him about taxes was that he put the government in their proper place without having to sacrifice his conviction. The instructions of the New Testament authors did the same. The Christian, they would argue, is a citizen of another kingdom with another King. And that King has called them to the work of restoration of the whole world, including caring for the poor and the marginalized. If our earthly government is willing to support that effort without us having to sacrifice our convictions, we should rejoice! But if they order us to sacrifice our convictions, or else they won't give us the funding we used to have, we can still rejoice. Why? 

Because our funding never really came from them anyway. The government didn't call us to the work of restoration and the government isn't on the hook to fund it. God calls, God provides. (Take note that God tells his people through the prophet Haggai that he's going to "shake down" the nations for all of their gold and silver...the King's economy doesn't have a cash flow problem.)

It might be a good idea to warn the White House what is at stake if the ENDA goes through. But let’s keep things in perspective. We’re just sojourners here anyway, living by a different set of rules, and we’re going to keep on doing good whether the government is willing to help us fund it or not.

Identity & Conduct

Over the last week or so, my alma mater Gordon College has been making headlines because of a letter that was sent to the White House requesting an exemption from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that President Obama was expected to sign and enact via Executive Order. The letter was co-authored and signed by a number of evangelical leaders, including the President of Gordon College, D. Michael Lindsay. I may, if time allows, put together another post with all the links that you need to read up on the issue yourself, including the original letter, the resulting petition from moveon.org, as well as responses from the President and the Chair of the Trustees of Gordon. In the meantime, I’ve decided to put some thoughts to paper (or screen) that I hope will help to provide some clarity if you, like me, are wrestling with the myriad of questions that have arisen as a result of the letter.

It has become obvious to me as I’ve watched the back-and-forth in social media, the outrage by some in the Christian community (and general confusion by others), and the carefully crafted responses from Dr. Lindsay and the College is that most Christians have a lack of clarity when it comes to both the issue of religious freedom, as well as the College’s position on homosexuality.

To be clear, Dr. Lindsay and the College have carefully articulated their position as it relates to religious freedom in the United States apart from homosexuality as a particularly defining issue. This is wise. The issue of sexual preference/gender identity is a defining issue of our day and must be dealt with in the context of honest dialogue and loving relationship. The freedom to have a particular defining stance as it relates to that issue, however, is a different thing altogether, and that is what the original letter to the White House was addressing. Dr. Lindsay and others are defending the right of a religious institution to have particular religious thoughts and convictions, regardless of what those thoughts and convictions may be, or whether or not they are in agreement with the social and cultural views of the day.

(The ENDA, for what it’s worth, would only have applied to institutions that received federal funding or federal contracts. The argument in the letter sent to the White House was that the ENDA would force religious institutions to choose between their religious convictions on the one hand, or the government funding on the other. If they stuck with their convictions–something any serious religious institution would do, of course–it would mean that whatever services they provided to the community would undoubtedly suffer because of the loss of funding. There is a question here about the extent to which the government should be involved in religious organizations, and vice versa, but that is a discussion for another day.)

Inasmuch as Dr. Lindsay and the College have avoided the discussion of the college’s position on sexual preference/gender identity, however, the reality is that the petition and response to the letter were primarily motivated because of what people interpreted–rightly or wrongly–as a request to willfully discriminate against the LGBT community. I’d argue that it was a misinterpretation of the letter, but one that was at least understandable, if we don’t know what the Bible teaches about identity and conduct. That’s acceptable for a non-Christian–why should they care what the Bible says? It’s a sad thing, however, when so many Christians seem confused. But then that is the issue: without a proper understanding of identity and conduct, Christians will be woefully unprepared to deal with culture issues such as the one at hand.

After all, this is the foundational claim being made by those that are fighting for what they claim are “civil rights” for those in the LGBT community. It is a civil rights issue precisely because of the fact that it is an identity issue. Just like society eventually realized that we shouldn’t discriminate against someone because of their skin color (an identity issue), we shouldn’t discriminate against someone because of their sexual preference (also an identity issue).

In other words, we shouldn't discriminate against someone based on something that is part of their biological nature. That is to say that a person who has dark skin is no less of a person than someone who has light skin, and therefore, they shouldn't be treated any differently by society. The same goes for someone who was "born" with a particular sexual preference, or even for people whose sexual preference or preferential gender identity doesn't necessarily match up with their biological gender identity, as is the case with transgender people. Their sexual preference, or preferred gender identity, as the case may be, does not make them any less of a person, and therefore, they shouldn't be treated as any less of a person.

There is an assumption being made here, of course, which is that sexual preference or gender identity is something that is inherent to our genetic makeup; it's something we're born with. A gay person is born gay the same way that your skin color is determined by your DNA. And while Christians have in some instances tried to make the case that it is not genetic, I don’t think that argument is helpful nor even particularly intelligent. Firstly, the question of whether or not there is a “gay gene” in a person’s DNA is a scientific question requiring scientific methodology, observation, and inquiry. Secondly, in the end, it doesn’t matter for the Christian perspective.

In any event, culture at large believes that identity will necessarily lead to conduct. Or, belief will lead to behavior. And while we as a society don’t believe in discriminating against people based on their identity, we all agree that we should be able to discriminate against people based on their conduct. That is to say that we typically wouldn’t deny service to someone in our restaurant for looking a certain way, but we would discriminate against someone if they entered into our establishment and began screaming, shouting, and generally acting unruly and obnoxious. In most cases, we would not just refuse service, but we would forcibly remove them, regardless of what they looked like. We discriminate based on behavior all the time, either because we think the behavior is dangerous or because we just don't like it.

(I was almost discriminated against on a golf course because I didn't realize that I couldn't drive the golf cart across the par-3 fairway. Unfortunately, as I sped across the grass, blissfully ignorant, the ranger spotted me and gave me a tongue lashing. He could have kicked me off the course because of my behavior.)

What we recognize as a culture is that conduct is directly related to our identity, or our behavior demonstrates what it is we really believe. And, in many cases, we reserve the right to discriminate against you if your behavior (or conduct) indicates that you weren’t who you said you were (identity), or don’t believe what you said you believe. Just ask the NBA.

The NBA recently made clear to Donald Sterling that people like him weren't allowed in their club; he wasn't allowed to be a part of their establishment. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who thinks that the NBA's discrimination towards Sterling was not warranted; what he said was extremely offensive and shockingly obtuse. What we'll discover in short order, however, is whether or not it was legal. Most people think it was. The reason? Donald Sterlings behavior was contrary to the code of conduct set forth by the NBA and the NBA owners, a constitution that he himself agreed to. He claimed, in principle, to believe what the rest of the NBA and the owners believed. Unfortunately, his actions proved otherwise. And based on those actions, the NBA felt justified in removing him from involvement in their organization.

Identity necessarily leads to conduct. That’s the point. Our conduct reveals who we really are. How can we force someone to behave contrary to who they are? To do so would not only be cruel, it would effectively be impossible. And as Christians, we should whole-heartedly agree. Our conduct will necessarily follow our identity; that is exactly what the Bible teaches.

The central theme of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that we don’t need a change in conduct, we need a change in identity. Only once our identity is changed will our conduct be changed. Our behavior will follow our beliefs, and not the other way around. So fellow Christian, do not miss what the Bible teaches about you: your identity is found in Christ. This is the dramatic overhaul that has happened in you, through the Holy Spirit, because of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross.

This is the reason it really doesn’t matter whether our sexual preferences are genetic or whether or not they are learned. Christianity teaches that all of our desires–genetic or learned–are going to be warped. We have a tendency (and more than just a small tendency) to want to do things our own way, to make ourselves the center of the world, to have all choices and decisions revolve around us, and largely, to ignore anything or anyone that says differently, including, even, a creator God. At least we're all on the same page, rebellious people that we are. It’s our natural-born identity.

What does matter, however, is that we have been renewed by the Holy Spirit so that our identity is no longer found in our nature, it is found in our spirit. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation!” (2 Cor. 5:17) This doesn’t mean that our natural-born self suddenly disappears. Far from it! It does mean, however, that because our very identity has changed, our conduct will no longer be forcibly driven by our nature. Since our identity has been changed, by grace, it will become increasingly obvious in our conduct and how we behave.

The standards of conduct set forth by an institution like Gordon College seek to articulate what that obedient life looks like, an obedient life that is only made possible because of our new identity in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. For example, the Bible articulates God’s ideal for sex and marriage as being between one man and one woman in an unbreakable covenant relationship. Thus, anything outside of that would be considered outside of God’s ideals, and thus, "disobedient", including viewing pornography (also prohibited in the standards of conduct, if I remember correctly) and extra-marital sex. The Christian person who finds their identity in Christ may be tempted towards those things because of our nature, but won’t continue to find them compulsory. Their identity in Christ means that they can choose God’s ideals, and in fact, will desire God’s ideals, based on that identity, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Lindsay, and the Chair of the Trustees, carefully articulated in their letters what all Christians should believe: we do not discriminate based on people’s fundamental nature, because Jesus does not discriminate based on our fundamental nature. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...” (Romans 3:23) Yet they also made clear that there is a discriminatory marker, and that is our conduct. If a staff member or a student consistently conducts himself in a manner that is contrary to the schools standards, based on the college’s view of what the Bible teaches as an obedient lifestyle, they may face discipline or removal. It is a code of conduct which every faculty member and student agrees to at the time of hiring or admission.

What they didn’t articulate was that the reason for this is because of the deeper issue related to identity. The very reason that Gordon can discriminate based on conduct is because conduct reveals who a person really is. Is your identity really found in Christ? It will show through in your conduct and your desires and your ability to be obedient. Imperfect obedience, of course. The Christian life is a life of repentance, not perfection. But our new identity will compel us closer to obedience, and not further away from it. So, as one reformer said, “the greatest perfection of the Christian is the desire to make progress...”

The bottom line is that without Jesus, and the new identity that we receive through faith, we are completely powerless to choose against our biological impulses and our biological nature. But we have a new identity, and we are not powerless, and as a result, we can live a life of obedience to God and his word even when it goes against everything that culture tells us or that culture believes. It’s not cruel to ask the Christian person to choose against their old nature; in fact, it’s cruel to ask them to choose against their new nature! That is who they really are now, because of Jesus Christ.

I don’t expect the world, at large, to understand that. But I hope and pray that we Christians do.

Colossians 3.

A Special Place in Hell

Every time I hear someone use the expression, "a special place in hell", I cringe a little inside.

We use it in reference to someone who we believe is particularly deplorable; someone who has done something that we can't possible imagine. Surely, this person is worse than we are. Surely, out of all the bad people, this one deserves more punishment than the rest. Surely, if God is going to subject anyone to an eternity of torture, this one here deserves it more than the rest. So much, in fact, that they must be given a special place. Like a back room. Where extra torture happens.

Unfortunately, I think the statement says more about us than it does about the person that we're referencing. At very least, it reveals a lot about what we believe. For one, it reveals that we believe, in some sense, that there are universal standards of right and wrong. We don't exact this type of judgment on just anyone; we reserve it for those people who have done something that we fairly assume will universally be condemned. Of course, there is also the self-righteousness of the whole thing. Clearly we believe that we have a higher moral or ethical standing than the person we have condemned to the back room. Finally, it reveals our complete misunderstanding of who God is, what he's up to these days, and what hell actually is.

Out of the three, it is only the first one that is at least mildly constructive. We live in a day and age when we are increasingly embracing the idea that there are no universal absolutes; indeed, all morality or ethics are relative to the culture that we live in. In other words, something we consider deplorable might be perfectly acceptable in another culture; and thus, a person practicing those acts cannot be considered "evil" or "wrong" so long as they are operating according to the morality or ethics subscribed to by their culture. Most people don't live with this philosophy for very long before they realize the major pitfalls and ethical dilemmas that it raises. (For example: bombing innocent people. Maybe we are the only ones who think they are innocent. Maybe someone else thinks they are guilty. It's all relative, isn't it?) The failures of cultural relativism become clear in light of particularly deplorable acts, and we acknowledge it with statements like "a special place in hell". To that end, it is constructive. But it is only the beginning of the unraveling.

The second problem immediately arises when we consider that somehow we are morally or ethically superior to someone else. By what standard? If it cannot be a cultural standard, and there are absolutes that we inherently acknowledge, then what is the basis for those absolutes? Who gets to create those absolutes? Who enforces the absolutes? And how do we know what they are?

This is the great question that will come home to bear on our culture. As Christians, I believe we must be prepared with an answer. So often we have resorted to simplistic responses–"just believe in Jesus", "Just invite Jesus into your heart"–and have failed to address the very real and deep questions faced by humanity. But Christianity is nothing if it cannot address the deep, spiritual questions that each of us, as spiritual creatures, carry within us like a constant reminder of a life once lived.

When my philosophies have proved to be a failure; when my resources have not provided me what I am looking for; when my success has not made me feel any more important; when my pursuits have not provided me love; when, in the end, I am still unhappy, where do I turn? We can mute the questions for a time, but we cannot ultimately ignore them. At some point, even if for a moment, they return to the surface and beg to be answered.

Christianity provides an answer. There is an absolute, and it was created and established by the God of the Universe. But this God is not a dictator who creates the absolute for his own enjoyment; he is a Father who creates the world a certain way for his children's enjoyment. And the absolute are not rules, per se. Not as we think about rules. They are simply the way things are. God is perfect and good and holy and beautiful, and anything that is not perfectly in harmony with goodness or holiness or beauty simply cannot exist. It cannot be one with the Father. So long as we are in perfect harmony with all that God is by his very nature, we exist in perfect joy. This is the description of how things were upposed to be.

It is that very union that was broken. Broken, as the Bible says, by representatives of the human race. Instead of living in the perfect unity that we had with the Father, we instead opted out; we chose our own way. Something else looked to be more beautiful and more good; but when we experienced it, we realized that we had been deceived. The promise of a greater beauty or a greater good was a lie; it could never exist; it could never deliver what it promised.

The result of this broken unity is disunity. It's disordered living. It's a disruption in the way that things were intended to be. Rather than harmony, we have chaos. Rather than goodness and beauty, we see evil and ugliness. Everything that was, the way things were really intended to be, was broken. And worse, imperfection can never achieve perfection again. Even if it could to some extent, it would carry around the memory of it's brokenness. Perfection will require outside intervention.

All of this explains how things are. Yes, there is disruption in the universe. Yes, there are absolutes. Yes, there is evil. Yes, there is brokenness. We see it, experience it, and all to often, know it in an intimate way either as the perpetrator or the victim. Most of the time, we are a combination of both. Our feet are firmly planted in how things are; firmly rooted in rebellion against how things were supposed to be.

So there is no morally superior ground. Imperfect is imperfect. One flaw or many. In broad categories, the label reads the same: damaged goods. And we have been experiencing the penalty ever since: separation from our Father. In short, we have been experiencing the precursor to hell.

Whatever else Hell is, it begins with this: complete and utter separation from God. The natural outcome of the divorce from his perfection, goodness, and holiness. Complete brokenness. There are no "special places" in hell. Everyone suffers the same fate. There is no worse thing imaginable than complete separation from our source of life. It couldn't get worse even if we wanted it to.

But the good news is that there is a way home; there is another representative who did for us what we were always supposed to do, but couldn't. Another representative who bore the penalty of our rebellion, and suffered Hell on our behalf. Another representative who chose not to opt-out of God's goodness, but rather, chose to endure extreme pain and ultimately separation so that you and I could opt back in. That representative, of course, is Jesus. And because of his sacrifice, as your representative, God judges you based on him. So when God sees you, he sees perfection. You are united with him again. The way things were supposed to be has come again, and you can have it.

Imagine that the memory of the life once lived was a memory of pure joy; you know you had it once, and you have been struggling to find it again ever since. Jesus is the pathway home.

So back to the original impetus for this thought: a special place in hell. 

There is no special place in hell. None of us are superior to anyone else and in fact, what we deserve is, across the board, exactly the same: we deserve total and complete separation from God because this is what we chose, it's what we choose, and it's what we will continue to choose for as long as we have breath. We will choose our own way. The path where we get to decide what's best. There's only a back room in hell reserved for the worst of us if it's big enough to hold all of us.

But there is a special place in heaven reserved for Jesus. And the good news is that it actually is big enough to hold all of us. But we only get in with Him. When we go to Jesus house with him, his Father adopts us as his kids and gives us a room.

Jesus is not interested in condemning people to hell; he is supremely interested in inviting them to heaven. The great and beautiful message of the Gospel is that he has already secured the pathway and ensured a safe passage for all who put their confidence in Him.