Apostasy and Apologetics

Apologetics begins out of a genuine heart for lost people and a deep desire to see them embrace the faith in Jesus Christ which will give them new life in both the present and eternity. And it also begins with the recognition that a great many things Christians believe are confusing, hard to swallow, or otherwise totally alien to average unbeliever in general and to the apologist's non-Christian friends in particular. And underlying all apologetic efforts is a passionate conviction, even if left unarticulated, that if the faith can be sufficiently clarified, explained and rightly presented, then the non-Christian(s) that the apologist loves will intend place his/her/their trust in Christ and be saved from sin, death, and hell. In other words, apologetics begins with noble motives of love for the non-Christian.

However, it can and often does turn quickly toward apostasy. It frequently proves a short jump from "clarifying and explaining the faith correctly" to softening it down to a level felt to be more palatable, removing hard teachings, sharp corners, and rough edges. The apologist's motivation often leads to simply eliminating or explaining away scriptural statements that, on their face, are pretty clear and don't require much explanation. For example, no one reading the New Testament, and in particular Jesus' teaching on the subject, can come away from that concluding that Hell is something other than a place of eternal conscious torment away from God's presence or that consignment to that place is anything less than permanent. Likewise, there is no biblical evidence supporting women as elders/pastors or having teaching authority over men, the holiness of homosexual relationships of whatever label or type, or a view of Scripture as less than the authoritative, divinely inspired, inerrant Word of God.

Yet today, we find evangelical pastors and leaders espousing all of these views. Why? I think in most cases, it is because they find the actual teaching of Scripture in these areas too hard, presenting too high an obstacle for the unbeliever to clear to come into the Kingdom of God. To put it as charitably as possible, their apologetic desire for people to come to Christ stands in the way of faithfully preaching the Word of Christ. And though their love for people and desire for them to enter God's Kingdom is commendable in itself, it is loaded with serious problems.

Number one, it rests on the assumption that God didn't really mean it, or that the Bible isn't "fully" (i.e., in every place) inspired, or that there is some "trajectory" or arc from Scripture to the current day from which we can infer a different teaching about hard passages than the Bible itself presents. That is problematic in itself, since the Scripture's unreliability about "hard" teaching doesn't exactly fill a person with confindence about "easy" teachings like Jesus' death and resurrection as the hope of forgiveness and eternal life. But the bigger problem is that it sets up the apologist himself or herself as the final arbiter of truth, determining what is truly biblical and what isn't. And as a basis for building a new life, that's a pretty shaky foundation.

Number two, it assumes the apologist is "more gracious" or "more loving" than God. If it is true that the Bible is indeed God's Word (and if it isn't, then the whole debate is absurd!), then the apologist's feeling that softening hard truths is better than leaving them hardened presumes that God is less interested in seeing people converted than the apologist. Yet the idea that humans love their fellow humans more than the God who sent His Son for the rebellious is not just wrong, it's blasphemous. Moreover, if God is really loving, then we must conclude that He gets to define what love is, and apparently, it includes telling people the real truth, hard edges and all. After all, which is better, telling a man with stage 4 cancer that he needs aggressive chemo, radiation, etc. or that he should go home and eat a fudgsicle and he will be fine? One is "harder" for sure, but that road is also the one that leads to life and freedom, while the other feels better but leads to death.

Number three, it does not produce what it promises. The dirty little secret of almost every effort to round off the corners of the Christian faith is that they do not produce converts. The people who bought Rob Bell's books, and Brian McLaren's, and countless others, from Schleiermacher's on back through time, were largely the disgruntled children of the orthodox and evangelical. They aren't reaching new people so much as helping people who find their parents' faith distasteful to still call themselves Christians. But such efforts lead not to a revitalization of the church, but to its decline. The last 20 years, which have witnessed the rise of both the megachurch and the "emerging church" as major influences in evangelicalism, and which have both sought, in divergent ways, to make Christianity "easier" have also witnessed a declining percentage of actual Christians.

Finally, it assumes that becoming a Christian is actually easier than it is. It is true that our message is so simple that even a child can understand it and believe it. But there is simply no easy way to tell someone that he or she is a sinner deserving of God's wrath, and that Jesus' death and resurrection is the only hope of eternal life. Nevertheless, those who try to cushion the blow for the non-Christian act as if the only thing separating  him/her from fully embracing the Gospel and the new life that flows from it is a good presentation of the right information and a decision to embrace it. But that's not actually true, at least not fully. What actually separates the person from God is the very sin we proclaim as part of our message. And that sin makes the transformation of a non-Christian into a Christian the most miraculous thing that can occur. Indeed, it is an impossible thing, apart from God's own power. We must therefore not forget our role: we are to proclaim the Gospel, hard edges and all, and God who is rich in mercy and love, will save those whom He has called.

Podcasts

It has been my privilege to preach at Chilli Bible for the past 4 1/2 years. If you are wondering what I actually sound like or what a sermon by yours truly is all about, you can quench that desire over at http://www.chillibible.org/. Click on the "Resources" button, followed by "Podcasts." There are sermons going back to January 2009, I believe, from both yours truly as well as Pastor Jim (and other gifted men too!).

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

I also think that deep, basic unbelief is back of human carelessness in religion. The scientist, the physician, the navigator deals with matters he knows are real; and because these things are real the world demands that both teacher and practitioner be skilled in the knowledge of them. The teacher of spiritual things only is required to be unsure of his beliefs, ambiguous in his remarks and tolerant of every religious opinion expressed by anyone, even by the man least qualified to hold an opinion.

Haziness of doctrine has always been the mark of the liberal. When the Holy Scriptures are rejected as the final authority on religious belief something must be found to take their place. Historically that something has been either reason or sentiment: if reason, the prevaling doctrine has been rationalism; if sentiment, it has been humanism. Sometimes there has been an admixture of the two, as may be seen in liberal churches today. These will not quite give up their Bible, neither will they quite believe it; the result is an unclear body of beliefs more like a fog than a mountain, where anything may be true but nothing may be trusted as certainly true.

We have gotten accustomed to the blurred puffs of gray fog that pass for doctrine in modernistic churches and expect nothing better, but it is a cause for real alarm that the fog has begun of late to creep into many evangelical churches. From some previously unimpeachable sources are now coming vague statements consisting of a milky admixture of Scripture, science, and human sentiment that is true to none of its ingredients because each one works to cancel the others out.

Certain of our evangelical brethren appear to be laboring under the impression that they are advanced thinkers because they are rethinking evolution and re-evaluating various Bible doctrines or even divine inspiration itself; but so far are they from being advanced thinkers that they are merely timid followers of modernism--fifty years behind the parade.

Little by little evangelical Christians these days are being brainwashed. One evidence is that increasing number of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe but their beliefs have been so diluted as to be impossible of clear definition.

Moral power has always accompanied definitive beliefs. Great saints have always been dogmatic. We need right now a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God "that liveth and abideth forever."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I have been reading my theological forbears over the past few weeks, preparing for the ordination exam I will have to take later this year to transfer my ordination to the Evangelical Free Church and ran across the preceding at the end of the book This We Believe, by Arnold T. Olson. But I was struck by how contemporary it all sounds. Apart from updating the Bible translation and changing the word "modernism" to "postmodernism," it could have been written today, instead of 50 years ago. It could apply to the Rob Bell brouhaha, sure, but it could also be written about the whole general split happening right now within evangelicalism between those who believe the Bible in the same way as their forbears and those "too cool for school" types now demanding that the rest of us join them in "re-thinking" all of our basic theological convictions. Some temptations (and thus struggles within the Church) are perennial, it seems.

Facebooking the Church

"Now let's all stand and greet your neighbor!"

If you've ever visited a church, you'll find that at least 8 out of 10 times, there will be some moment in the service when you are asked to do this. It's a noble effort to help people connect, and it works pretty well in small churches like mine, especially if you are strategic about using the time to connect with visitors (something I try hard to be good at). But back in my Dallas days, I found it discouraging every time we tried it. It was a huge church, so the people i met this week I would very likely never see again, even if we sat in the exact same seats every week. And so, when we did this, it didn't make fill me with joy, but with loneliness. There was no connection in the connection.

One of the trends I've noticed over the past few years, and which concerns my pastor's heart a great deal is what I've decided to call the "Facebooking of the Church." No, I don't mean that a church shouldn't have a Facebook page. Our church has a (much-neglected) page. And no, I don't mean that individual Christians ought not spend time on Facebook. I have a page also and I try to keep up with friends old and new through it. Instead, what I mean is this: it seems to me that in the midst of the communication revolution, with more tools for connecting with people we know than ever before, we increasingly find ourselves more lonely and disconnected than ever. We have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Facebook "friends," but haven't been out on a really good date with our spouses or played cards with our buddies in so long we can't remember when. We send texts, tweets, posts, and even videos out into the ether, but honestly don't know who we would call if life ever really fell apart.

I see the same trends happening within the wider American church. Pastors have long lamented the consumerist mentality of many church people (aka "The Church should meet MY needs!"), but what I mean is a bit different. People still look to church to meet needs, but one of the biggest, the need for deep friendships, often goes unmet because they aren't willing to invest that much of their life in any one place. It's hard to build friendships when you have several churches with which you're "friends" but no place which is home. It's even harder when the dominant model of church consists of me trying to worship God with 1500+ other people, none of whom I really know at any deep level and then going home, having done my nod to God for the week.

I'm definitely biased, (I'm a small town, small church pastor, after all!) but I think that we need to re-think whether or not this type of church experience is all it's cracked up to be. I think it contributes greatly to the creation of Christians who have an army of acquaintances but no brothers and sisters. I also think it doesn't help make disciples, because I don't believe that even the best content in the world, in the absence of highly personal, visible models, is ever transformative.

That said, I'd be curious to know what y'all think. Am I right on, all wet, or some of both?

Anne Rice on Leaving the Church

Earlier this year, the blogosphere was abuzz with the news that Anne Rice had re-departed the Roman Catholic church. The author, who is best known for her series of vampire novels, had a spiritual experience about 10 years ago which had led her back to the faith of her childhood. But she simply could not live with the contradiction between her most deeply held beliefs and the commitments that being an orthodox Roman Catholic requires. She broke up with her church in that most thoroughly classy, postmodern fashion, via Facebook:

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always, but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Hours later, her "Dear Church" letter continued:

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

I read those words back in July and I have been pondering since then how I, as a Christian, ought to respond. My initial reaction is a bit prickly, especially with respect to her second post. It seems that her most significant reason for her departure from Roman Catholicism has to do with the fact that its teachings do not conform to the deeply held convictions of the Democratic Party platform or align with its talking points. She seems to lack any understanding of the fact that the Christ she claims to follow is the Christ who came to set people free from sin and death, and that some of those sins from which we need freeing are nevertheless currently popular. Being gay is not the worst of sins, but sin it remains. I do not see how opposing abortion and embryonic stem cell research gets you labeled "anti-life." I'm not sure what she means by "anti-science," though science does seem to me to be less a sure foundation for certain knowledge than many of its practitioners seem to believe. "Anti-feminist"? Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "feminist," but the Church is still the world's leading exponent of the idea of the dignity and equality of women, though it does recognize that women and men aren't interchangeable. And while I'm not a Democrat and believe that their policies, if followed, are disastrous for the future of the country, that belief isn't central, or even peripheral, to the Christian faith I profess. Nor is opposition to birth control. As far as secular humanism goes, I guess I'm not sure how to be both a Christian and secular humanist? That's like being a Buddhist Muslim. The two are competing ideas, not complementary ones. Understanding that not nearly all of these things are biblical ideas, or even accurate characterizations of the faith, I guess I wish she had the courage to allow her thinking to be conformed by the Scriptures rather than trying to do it the other way around. I'm sure that was a frustrating experience, but it isn't an unanticipated one for anybody paying attention to what the Scriptures actually call us to do.

On the other hand, a part of me resonates with her first post. I know what it is to be disappointed with the other people with whom I am in community in the Church. Within the Church I have seen its leaders fall into egregious sin, building for themselves personality cults, ill-gotten fortunes and even personal harems. I have been betrayed and abandoned by people I considered friends. I have seen raging conflicts, nasty divorces, severe addictions, and weird perversions. I have seen every one of the 10 Commandments broken in every way it is possible to break them. Moreover, looking back through history, there are episodes which bring me shame (the burning of Servetus, the witch trials, the 30 Years War, and so on).

But these things have never divided me from the Church. Why? Because within the Church there is also Christ, His Word, and His people. I'd be the last to say that the Church is full of perfect people. Far from it, in fact. To be a pastor as I am is to know that better than most. But in the midst of all the sinning, there also is the reality of the Gospel of the Jesus who came to save exactly such people from sin and death and Hell. The reality of life in the church, in other words, points out the truth of the things we profess: We are all sinners deeply in need of saving. Moreover, there is another side to Church life, which I have also seen more times than I can count, and which Ms. Rice seems to have either forgotten or deeply discounted. And that side is much better: Lives are really transformed, marriages really are healed, addictions are really recovered from, needy people really are served and loved, the Gospel is really preached as really Good News to all people-black, brown, white, rich poor, talented and disabled, Western and non-, to all people of every tribe, tongue, and nation. This is why the Church is worth it; because, despite her flaws, the Church and the Christ who rules as her head really is the only hope of humanity.

One final reaction, this one a question: Is it really possible to be a Churchless Christian? The New Testament seems to think that Leaving the Church = Leaving the Faith and Jesus with it. Are the Scriptures simply wrong at this point?

The Revolution: 5 Years Later

You have to give George Barna credit. He may not be the creator of trends within the wider evangelical church, but he is certainly an early reporter (and frequently cheerleader) of them. Five years ago, in his book Revolution, Barna reported (and cheered for) the phenomenon of self-identified born again people leaving the local church for something else. The book caused quite a stir, mostly because it put a name to a trend that lots of pastors had been seeing all over the country, of people who desired a sort of customized spirituality, devoid of the preaching of God's Word and the possibly uncomfortable parts of living in a community composed of fallen sinners like oneself, light on commitment and sacrifice, but heavy on ideas like being missional, emerging, serving the poor, and "being the church."

Five years on and it seems that revolution is deader than the leisure suit. The Emergent/emerging church is dead. It is now buried under the weight of its own pretentiousness, pseudo-intellectualism, and fundamental unwillingness to actually commit to anything larger than feeling coolly superior to the rest of us benighted members of traditional churches. Even the die-hards among them are starting to realize that two guys having coffee at Starbucks or drinking dark, boutique beer while talking about Jesus and how cool they are doesn't make for much in the way of lasting spirituality.

But what I find distressing is this idea, of a customizable, "feel good about yourself for doing good deeds while not being part of a real local church" version of Christian spirituality retains its appeal for a lot of people. Perhaps it's because we live in the post-iPhone world, such that people now think that all of life should consist of a series of infinitely customizable "apps" and that the local church is an "app" which as as obsolete as Windows 3.1. But whatever the reason, I think that people who take that approach to the Christian life are in serious danger. For the Christianity of the Bible is not one which adapts to suit personal preferences or which it is possible to faithfully live in isolation from the church. Moreover, "being the church" is simply not possible without "going to church," any more than it is possible to consider yourself married to someone with whom you do not live.