Church--Is it good or bad?

Bonhoeffer has a wonderful book entitled "Life in Community" which importantly proclaims that Christianity is not an individual pursuit but is living life with other Christians. This concept is so important. Without living in community, I don't come to grips with my sinfulness, and I don't learn to truly express grace to others.

But, there is a problem--the Church. A few nuggets from Tullian:

"All too often, the church is appealing to the kinds of people who ran away from Jesus and appalling to the kinds of people who ran to Jesus."

"I meet so many people who have left the church, not because they have given up on Jesus, but because the church has given up on Jesus."

"If churches, and our church in particular, aren't attracting the kinds of people that Jesus attracted, then people aren't hearing us proclaim the same message that Jesus proclaimed."

These snippets come from a sermon that Tullian preached on May 12--"No Strings Attached." It is one of the most courageous sermons because he speaks the truth about the local church.

Going back five years, when I met a person that had quit attending church but still claimed to be a Christian, I wondered whether they were truly a Christian. In fact, I thought they were probably not. Now, when I meet such a person, I most often find that they have more of the hallmarks of a true Christian than those who attend church.

So, what to do:

1)run to a church where the pastor admits specific sins in his life, not merely that he is a sinner;

2)run from a church where the pastor is placed on a pedestal;

3)run to a church where the message is pure unadulterated grace--that God loves you even when you are sinning;

4)run from a church where the message is "Yes grace, but now you need to live a holy life" or "Yes grace, but live to glorify God;"

5)run to a church where the pastor preaches the Gospel every Sunday;

6)run from a church where the pastor gives you five steps to love your wife better.

If you can't find a church that does these things, it's okay not to attend. Instead, have "church" with your friends who know that they are egocentric sinners in need of grace. Go to lunch with these friends. Have dinner with these friends. Share your hopes, dreams, sins, troubles, and travails with them--all the time doing so in light of the miraculous grace of God.

Hell--Serling's "A Nice Place to Visit"

I have been struggling with this idea of Hell as eternal punishment (the wrath of God) for those who don't profess Christ as their Lord and Savior.  For years, I didn't struggle with it.  For years, I just accepted it as true.  Then, as my life with Jesus evolved and matured, Jesus' grace became so heart-arresting and all-consuming that I couldn't imagine Jesus sending anyone to Hell.  But I have experienced Hell in the "here and now."

Hell is trying to make it your own way.  Hell is trying to make it on your own with a few prayers thrown in when the going gets too tough.  Hell is living in isolation.  I lived in isolation even though I was married and had friends, because I didn't share my innermost cares, concerns, or fears with them.  I didn't think anyone could help me make it through this life--not my wife, not my friends--well maybe God could but I didn't see Him doing it.

On the outside, I looked like I had it all together--beautiful wife and kids, successful law career, but on the inside it was a constant struggle to make sure that my family looked like a "good Christian family" and that my law career succeeded.  This wasn't freedom in Christ, but slavery to the law of my and other's expectations.  So, my life may have looked good (a nice place to visit), but it was killing me to live there.

Living in Hell was a present tense reality for me for a number of years.  This view that Hell is in the "here and now" is consistent with the views of Jesus and Paul.  Jesus spoke repeatedly about the "here and now."  Jesus said that the Kingdom of God was breaking through into this world.  This world, without the intervening grace of God, is Hell.

Paul said that God's judgment isn't so much that God is inflicting his wrath upon us through His direct actions, but rather that God is abandoning us to our own desires.  When our desires are to run our own lives--to order our world the way that we see fit--we live lives of desperation.  We are desperate to make our lives good, but the burden is entirely upon us.  This leads to wrecked marriages, broken  families, and suicide.

So, living life without accepting the love of God (the logos--the truth behind the universe) is to live in opposition to life.  Living in opposition to life is to live in Hell.  As Paul Zahl once said:  "Hell begins now.  Hell now is Highway 280 during rush hour, but with Starbucks thrown in.  Hell eternally is Highway 280 without Starbucks."

The Bible speaks a lot about the hell of living without accepting God's love, and the Bible is very graphic in this regard.  When I think back to my years when I thought I was a Christian, but before I truly knew and accepted God's love, the horrific descriptions in the Bible are apt and true.  I'm still not sure about the eternal nature of Hell, but it clearly exists in the "here and now" when we live outside of a loving relationship with God.

For a terrific explanation of Hell, see Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 28--"A Nice Place to Visit."  Serling was a student of the human condition, and his explanations are peerless.

The American Visible Church is Sick Unto Death

Three acquaintances of mine have been victims of the American church--two of them realize it now, and the third hopefully will as he shipwrecks on the shores of American evangelicalism.  The first rightly quit seminary when he figured out what was going on.  He would have made an amazing preacher, but it is so difficult to get a job if you actually believe in Grace--whether you are in a liberal or conservative denomination.  The second is a young family who came back from the mission field, because they lacked support.  The third is a dear young friend who has asked for thousands of dollars of support for a short-term mission trip.  If the thousands for the short-term mission trip could go to the family that was living in a foreign land as missionaries, they might not have had to come home.  Why are things so screwed up?  

It's our wrong theology which underlies these problems.  In the American church, we are constantly exhorted to do things for God, to pursue holiness, and to be good Christian examples.  This leads to guilt-driven pursuit of God--which ruins lives.  (I have written before about how guilt-induced pursuit of God almost ruined my life, and I won't repeat since you're probably tired of hearing about it.)  So, why do preachers and other church leaders do this?  They are self-righteous and/or fearful--two things which Christ preached against. 

Both self-righteousness and fear cause people to pursue God not only for the wrong reasons, but also cause people to pursue the wrong God!  We cannot make God love us any more or any less by becoming a preacher, by becoming a missionary, or by going on short-term mission trips.  Yet, this is what we are exhorted to do in the visible American church.

A George Barna poll revealed that more than 80% of the people attending seminary are doing so to earn favor with God--more than 80%.  This is why there are so many preachers and missionaries who are not following God, but following their desire or need to please God.  This is why so many preachers and missionaries are in the wrong jobs.

How do we know that they are in the wrong jobs?  Just look at the state of the American church.  Look at what is taught every Sunday.  Every $!#&*** Sunday, preachers have the gall to stand in the pulpit and preach application of the Scripture and exhort us to good works.  THIS IS NOT CHRISTIANITY.  THIS IS ONE REASON WHY JESUS HAD TO COME.

The Bible is not a $%&##@@@ instruction manual designed to help us live better lives.  It is a book which pierces the hearts of men with its profound look at our deep, deep sin problem.  It is a book which says that our good deeds are usually much more of a sin issue than our bad deeds.  It is a book which, after revealing our haughtiness and fearfulness, then proclaims God's unbelievable response--one way love--grace--mercy--unmerited favor.

I will leave you with the thoughts of two preachers who actually comprehend and have the courage to proclaim the Gospel.

First, Tullian preached recently (paraphrasing):  "If American preachers would for one year proclaim the goodness of Jesus with no exhortations or applications, who knows what might happen?  Certainly the church can't be any worse off than it is now."

Second, and I will leave this preacher nameless since he may not want to be associated with this rant:  "I came home from work the other night and I just wanted to watch March Madness.  But my daughters wanted me to read to them.  Reading to them is not as sexy as going on a short-term mission trip, but it is what I was supposed to do."  

The point is that if preachers would preach grace, if seminary preachers would teach grace, if we Christians would proclaim grace, then persons who become preachers and missionaries would do so out of the correct motivation, not from self-righteousness or fear.  Just as importantly, the congregations of such preachers would actually hear Christianity proclaimed every Sunday--the only solution for sinful people living in a fallen world.

Have you gotten it together yet? HOPEFULLY NOT.

I haven't posted in a few days, because I've been struggling with the god of the Old Testament.  For years, I didn't really worry that I didn't understand the god of the OT--I simply had "faith."  Now, like Bono, as I try to understand the god of the OT, Jesus is beautiful, but the god of the OT is frightening and incomprehensible.  That is --until today.  What if the authors of the OT(or at least most of them) misunderstood God?  What if God didn't send Jesus only to set the universe right, but also to reflect His true character?  What if God sent Jesus to set straight any misunderstanding that some of the OT authors had about God?

As a preface to what I'm about to say, there are many compelling views of God in the OT as a god of "grace."  The Book of Genesis contains account, after account, of God's grace towards man.  Yet, the OT also contains accounts that seem incompatible with a God of "grace."  (By the way, God's grace is only truly revealed when we understand that His standard is perfection.  God is perfect, so in order to come into His presence, we must be perfect.  That is where Christ's work on the Cross comes in.)  What about God telling Abraham to kill Isaac?  Or telling the Jews to take the Promised Land by genocide?

If we believe that we have to "get it together" to come to God, then we might believe that God would ask us to sacrifice our son.  Then, when we believe that we have gotten it together, we think that God will kill our enemies just as the Jews believed.  When we have it together, then we are better than others--we are "chosen" in the wrong sense of election.  In the past, I believed both of these things.  I believed that I needed to make sacrifices (to get it together) to come to God.  Because of this belief, I abandoned God for many years.  Then, when I had gotten married and had a good job, I thought I had gotten it together.

Yet, in having it together, I thought that God wanted me to bring my wife and family in line with my view on almost everything--just as the Jews wanted their enemies to join up with them or be killed.  [Some Christians even think that God wanted the Jews to eradicate their enemies, so there would be no intermarriage.  If you really believe in original sin (that we are all fallen), this seems unlikely.  However, maybe it was God's divine judgment.  I just don't think this would be consistent with Jesus' teachings.]  Trying to "have it together" and/or thinking that I "had it together" was simply profoundly incorrect thinking.  This thinking stemmed from a profoundly incorrect view of God.  Then, I learned the true character of Jesus.

Jesus was a friend of sinners.  He was a friend to those who did not "have it together."  As I began to understand this, it became okay for me not to have it together.  As I became less conscious of "taking care of business" (as Elvis would say), I was able to focus more on what Jesus had done for me, than what I was doing for Jesus.  Now, I think it is patently absurd to think that God would tell Abraham to kill Isaac or to tell the Jews to kill their enemies.  The Abraham/Isaac story is, however, an amazing reflection of God if read to show that God, unlike the gods of neighboring tribes, did not desire sacrifice, particularly human sacrifice.  God was showing His true character to Abraham.  Insofar as genocide, the Jews thought it was okay to kill others to achieve their goals.  This is why so much of what America is doing in the Middle East is wrong.  To the extent that we are murdering people to preserve our access to oil, we are placing our interests above those of other people.
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At the end of the day, take comfort in the fact that we don't have to "get it together."  PZ tells the story of a pastor friend--Keith Miller--who, after preaching that we are saved solely by grace, was approached by a woman who said the following:  "Pastor, what you say about Jesus is compelling.  However, I am having an affair with a married man.  I meet him each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, and I can't give it up."  Keith then asked himself whether he truly believed what he had preached.  Then, he said: "That's okay.  Let's not deal with that today.  Just come to Jesus.  Everything else will take care of itself."  What a Savior!  Praise God!

Did and does Jesus love the church? Part 2.

If you read Part 1, you will know that the "church people" of Jesus' day rejected Him and had Him killed.  They turned Him over to the Roman authorities.  They chose to free a criminal, rather than Jesus.  They asked Pilate to kill Jesus.  They had Jesus killed, because He pointed out their self-righteousness.  They had Jesus killed, because Jesus pointed out God's grace towards pagans.  They had Jesus killed, because He challenged their idea that God loved "good people."  They had Jesus killed, because He loved the unlovely.

So, if the "church people" during Jesus' day were so bad, are they any different today?  And, let me preface what I'm going to say with: "I was and am a church person."  No, "church people" are no different today.  They still tend towards self-righteousness.  They still want to bring others into their idea of what church is, rather than allowing others to experience God in the way that God desires to reach others.  They still think they have the truth for living "good lives," and "experiencing God's blessing."  They are still offended by others who don't think like them.  Most churches seem to either be inhabited by Republicans or Democrats, but not a mixture of both.  Many who don't believe in God say: "How can I believe in Christ when his so-called followers don't live what they preach?'  So, what is God's view of "church people"?

Jesus said:  "I came for the sick.  The well have no need of a physician."  Jesus wasn't saying that some people are well.  He obviously wasn't saying that the "church people" were well given the number of rebukes that He had for the "church people."  Instead, Jesus was pointing out that only the sick can receive Him.  The "well" have no need of Jesus.  That is why Jesus spoke so harshly to the "church people."   He loved them and wanted them to know that they had need of a physician.  He wanted them to understand their sinful self-righteousness.  He wanted them to understand their need for God.  Because, then and only then, could they experience the amazing love of God. 

For while we were yet sinners--whether our sins be of licentiousness or self-righteousness, Jesus died for us.  Jesus let the "church people" kill Him--both to reveal the depth of their sin (the coldness of their hearts) and to reveal the immeasurable expanse of His love.  As Jesus died, He got in one last shot at we "church people," He told God to forgive the Romans--the persons most despised by the "church people" of Jesus' day.

So, may God continue to reveal my self-righteousness.  May God turn my heart towards sinners.  May God have mercy on me--a "church person."

Did and does Jesus love the church? Part 1.

A friend's wife mentioned that they had attended a marriage conference and that she wanted to love her husband as "Christ loved the church."  This really offended me.  I shared with my wife, and she thought I was crazy--she thought it was a beautiful sentiment.  I'm sure that it was meant to be a beautiful sentiment.  I have ruminated over it, and I finally realized why it struck me so badly.  It implies that Christ loved the church, and not others.  It implies that, if we attend church, Christ will love us.  The problem with this idea is that it marginalizes the love of Christ; it homogenizes Jesus;  it discounts the radicality of Christ's love.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and fully embraced the Southern Baptist world of "righteous living."  When we had Youth Sunday, I was the Pastor for the day.  I sometimes taught in adult Sunday School classes.   I had learned that Jesus loved those who were good.  While the Bible made much of faith, it was good people that had faith.  I was a good person.  I had a relationship with God.  I could teach others about Jesus.  Only an idiot would not respond to Jesus' call to become a follower of His. I believed that God loved the church.

Then, I came to realize that I didn't understood who God was at all.  I realized that I had made God in my image--loving good church people.  I learned that God's love was much more radical, that God's love for man was incomprehensible.  I found out that I wasn't a good person--I was a self-righteous church person, and Jesus spoke harshly to the church people of his day.

So, does Jesus love the church?  Jesus addressed the "church people" as a "brood of vipers."  He told them that they didn't care for the widows and orphans.  He told them that God had come to the pagans, and not the Israelites.  In response, they tried to throw him off a cliff and kill him.  So, did Jesus love the church?

Who did Jesus express love towards?  Prostitutes, tax collectors, pagans, Roman soldiers, his own murderers.  From the Cross, Jesus asked His father to "forgive them for they know not what they do."  Jesus asked His father to forgive the people that were killing His son!!!  Jesus told us to love our enemies and to forgive 70 times 7.  Jesus' love was radical and incomprehensible to us.  So, did Jesus love the church?

If Jesus asked his Father to forgive those who killed Him, would God not do so?  If God forgave those who murdered His son, who else would He forgive?  Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, serial killers?  Maybe even the church people that Jesus rebuked.  Maybe even the church people that told Pilate to hang Jesus on the Cross.  Maybe even you and me.

Courage to speak frankly--Tullian, PZ, and Steve Brown

We are all so concerned about what others think of us that we rarely speak frankly.  Some may guard their mouths because they don't want to hurt others.  For me, my frank talk used to come out under pressure.  I would forbear and forbear and then forbear some more, then my frank talk would come exploding out.  When it occurred this way, it was not only injurious to others, but people thought I was crazy.  Well, I am a little crazy, maybe a lot, but over time I've come to speak frankly more often on the "front end," rather than letting it come out only when I'm frustrated.

There are three preachers who speak frankly every time that I hear them speak.  They speak frankly even though their words cause many to criticize and even ostracize them.  They speak courageously on the most important subject facing mankind--our relationship to God.  Each of these three has faced criticism from the institutional church.  But each speaks life-giving truth--truth that liberates and frees us to love.

Why does their preaching require courage?  Because they proclaim two things without fail.  First, each proclaims the perfection of the Law.  Jesus didn't say, "be a good person;" "live a righteous life;" "strive for piety;" or even "treat others as you want to be treated."  These axioms all belittle the law.  Each of these sayings makes it appear that we can keep the law.  (By the law, I mean any standard for being good.)  Each of these sayings leads us to trust in ourselves.  This is devastating.  For persons tending to self-righteousness like me, I begin to think that I am keeping the law better than others.  For persons tending to despair, like my wife, they begin to think that that are not keeping the law as well as others.   Neither of these ideas leads to joy and peace, but rather to bondage.

Jesus' instruction about the law was that it was incapable of being kept.  Jesus told us not to merely love our friends, but to "love our enemies."  Jesus told us to "be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect."  Jesus set a standard that no one can keep.  This prevents people like me from being self-righteous.  This prevents people like my wife from experiencing despair.  It levels the playing field, which is liberating.

The second thing that each of these men proclaim is "one way love," as Zahl says, or grace.  Grace is the most radical relational concept.  Grace says that "we get what we don't deserve."  Since we all fail under the standard of legal perfection, grace is the only answer.  Grace says that God loves sinners.  Jesus lived this out.  He loved the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the lepers--those ostracized by the "church people" of his day.  This is an infuriating concept to those, like me, who think they are "good people."  It is maddening to think that going to church, teaching Sunday School, being kind to others, and "living a good life" have no merit before God.  But it is also liberating--it is our only hope.  For it is only when we know that the standard has already been satisfied, that we are freed from expectations.  Expectations crush relationships.

What does the preaching of this law/grace dichotomy produce?  Perhaps a simple  question is the best illustration.  How do you want to be loved?  Do you want your parent's, or your spouse's, love for you to be conditioned upon your good conduct--upon what you can do for them?  Of course not.  We all long for "unconditional love."  We want to be loved when we screw up, not just when we get things right.  Think about those few relationships in life where you experience unconditional love.  Does your heart not swoon before this type of love?  This is the love of our Father/Creator--that while we were yet sinners, He died for us.  This is the story told time, and time, again in the Holy Scriptures.  This is the story of the Old Testament and the New Testament.  This is the story of mankind's only hope.