Counterculture

Farewell, Evangelicalism!

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Walking AwayI decided last week that I am no longer an Evangelical. Still a Christian, but just the generic variety.

I’m sure you’ll sleep better knowing this.  😉

Having dropped out of the ranks of the Republican Party several years ago, I guess the transformation is complete. Truthfully, I didn’t so much leave the GOP as it left me. The same holds true for Evangelicalism.

While most people would probably suspect that my beef with Evangelicalism comes because it’s not being conservative enough, it having “compromised with the world” too much and for too long, that’s truly not  the case for me.

The primary reason I’m saying farewell to Evangelicalism is that I can’t determine what it stands for anymore. I know what Evangelicalism is clearly against, but what it stands for is mushy. And in those cases where I do know what Evangelicalism is for, I just don’t see Evangelicals doing those things. The walk doesn’t match the talk.

Take for instance evangelism. Sharing the Evangel, the Good News of Jesus, was so bedrock to Evangelicalism that the word formed the name. So how is it that I get more distinctly non-Evangelical Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons knocking on my door in any given month than Evangelicals?

Perhaps Evangelicals just got smart and realized that it takes more than door-pounding to create converts. Still, I almost never hear Evangelicals talking about evangelism. They talk about their whiz-bang church programs, their 401k plans, how vulgar our culture is, and on and on—but no one seems to be talking about leading people to Jesus and discipling them to maturity. At least not to the extent that the name of the group would imply. I get a better sense of what the modern day Tea Party movement is about from their name than I get from Evangelicalism. Heck, some Evangelicals can’t even agree on what the Good News is.

I also don’t understand the Janus-like ability of Evangelicals to love someone on Sunday and turn on them by Friday. Evangelicals talk more about restoration than any group I know, yet I see almost nothing being restored, especially “fallen” Evangelicals. Instead, the tasers, billyclubs, and brass knuckles come out, and that person Evangelicals once cherished has been reduced to so much bloody pulp tossed roadside in a 55-gallon drum on the outskirts of Nowheresville. And without so much as a Thank You for all those years of service. I’ve lost track of all the people I know who ultimately received “the left hand of fellowship” from fellow Evangelicals. I suspect my turn is coming.

I also suspect the hero worship in Evangelicalism is to blame, in part, for that selective memory of friend and foe. Despite Paul’s recommendation not to slavishly announce allegiances, Evangelicals do so with abandon—until the inevitable feet of clay appear on the hero, and then it’s off to Nowheresville, as noted. “I am of Piper” or “I am of Osteen” or “I am of Warren” or “I am of Wright” seem to be the flags that Evangelical clans bear into battle. The names change in time—feet of clay, remember. Or a good solider gets miffed at the name on the banner for some perceived slight or error, and then it’s off to a new clan. All that hero worship has so factionalized Evangelicals that one cannot even hold a conversation with a fellow Evangelical without announcing early on which flag one serves—and once that allegiance is announced, so much for real conversation. Fellow clan members can’t see beyond their clan, and distinct clans approach each other like Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man before a Wrestlemania title match, chests out and spittle-laced vitriol flying. How that builds the Body of Christ is beyond me.

Of course, the Media makes the most of defections, discord, and failings, yet Evangelicals love the capital-M Media and want to own it. In actuality, they always come off looking bad when the Media shines its light on them. Why this lesson is never learned so that Evangelicals keep their heads down and their faces out of the spotlight is beyond me. I can’t think of the last Evangelical media-mongering that truly advanced the cause of Christ. To quote “that commie” (by Evangelical standards) Pete Seeger, “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”

In America, the need to self-label is a mania that afflicts us all, but I’m tired of labels. I’m also tired of defending ideologies that read great on paper but can’t pull off the practice.

So in stripping off years of lead-based paint, I hope to get down to the good, pure wood and build from that. Not by adding another layer of paint, but by preserving the natural beauty at the core. It’s why Evangelicalism must go—at least for me.

I’m not one of those who goes so far that I can’t call myself a Christian and end up calling myself the slightly hippie Christ Follower instead. Christian still works for me. I just won’t be adding Evangelical to the front.

True Freedom in Christ: When Dead is Good

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FreedomOne of the benefits of being a Christian most sold by Evangelicals is freedom in Christ. I’m constantly hearing that message, largely because Americans love freedom.

But for most Christians in America, freedom in Christ is a myth. It gets talked up everywhere, but almost no one truly experiences it.

It’s not hard to see why the talk doesn’t match reality. American Evangelical Christians seem almost desperate in their desire to be liked. We want people to like us as a person, like our church as a fellowshipping body, like our theology, like our church building, like our church programming, and on and on.

I remember a few years back when Newsweek magazine had a cover story trumpeting how Evangelical Christians were the in thing. We were everywhere, happening, and almost—dare I say it—cool. Evangelicals had elected the seemingly unelectable George W. Bush, and the halls of power were filled with others like us. Evangelicalism was “teh hotness.”

Seems like ancient history, doesn’t it?

Today, I sense an almost desperate, pleading attitude among Evangelicals. Instead of being president of the high school student council, we’ve fallen from the heights back into the awkward, gangly teen with braces and zits who desperately wants to fit in with the cool kids, but just can’t seem to wear the right clothes or drop the right lingo. No one seems to understand us, so the rest of the world moves on. We’re stuck at the punch bowl at the junior high dance, swaying off-beat to the music, alone in our own little world, no one to dance with.

And it hurts.

It hurts because for too long we’ve been caught in a trap of self-talk that says,

If people like you, their approval validates your message and beliefs.

Problem is, that line of thinking is nowhere to be found in the Bible. In fact, just the opposite:

“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
—Luke 6:26

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!”
—Luke 6:22

That second verse is particularly telling, as our culture attempts to spin what is good and make it into evil. Suddenly, in the eyes of the world, the Gospel of Love is seen as a message of intolerance and hate.

And that spin makes for some rather sad shoehorning of all sorts of weird ideas into what the Gospel is as we Evangelicals cling madly to the hope that people will still like us, even as we serve up a message the world views as turned upside down from “truth.”

Here’s the thing, though. All that effort we put into dressing ourselves up to be presentable to a world that could care less about Christianity and our “weird, backward, intolerant message” would be a nonstarter if we didn’t care so much about what other people thought of us or our message.

Just as in our school days, the cool kids with sneers plastered over their carefully cultivated images look at us and say, “Why don’t you go drop dead, loser.”

But sometimes, even the worldly have something to teach us.

Hollywood, with its carefully cultivated images filled with artifice, bombards us with movies that exalt the schoolkid who stopped caring what the in-crowd thinks and just does what was right. Wasn’t that the kid who was truly free, who made the difference in the end?

The Bible has the answer; it’s called dying to self.

When I look over the American societal landscape, nothing strikes me more than the truth that genuine freedom in Christ only comes when Christians die to self and become nothing in the eyes of the world. Yet everything we’ve constructed in American Evangelicalism wars against that necessity.

Here is truth:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
—Romans 6:3-8

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
—2 Corinthians 5:14-17

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
—Colossians 3:2-3

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
—Galatians 2:20

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
—Revelation 12:11

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
—John 12:24-26

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
—Matthew 16:24-25

Paul puts it succinctly:

You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.
—1 Corinthians 7:23

And yet we act as if we were still slaves, doing what the world tells us to do so as to garner its approval.

Wouldn’t this planet be different if we Christians in America truly died to self and to the world’s clarion call?

Think about it. The dead…

Don’t care what people think of them,
Don’t worry about keeping up with the Joneses,
Don’t consume,
Don’t have busy schedules,
Don’t put themselves first,
Don’t have anywhere to be except where they have been planted,
Don’t worry about tomorrow,
Don’t have their own agenda,
Don’t have much need for money,
Don’t fear,
And don’t care if they get killed because they are already dead.

Here’s what God can do with the dead:

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
—Ezekiel 37:1-10

God makes an army out of the dead, an army that goes forth in His name. As they were once dry bones covered in rags, they have no fear of death, no cares of what the world thinks. And unlike in the days of Ezekiel, today God animates the dead with the life of His Son, who lives and reigns forever.

We have too many Christians today who live for themselves and not for God. Too many of us are not dead to all the worthless things this world has to offer. We worry how we’ll replace our iPod now that we dropped it and it stopped working (or worse, what to do when a new model comes out). We worry what people with think of us if we don’t have a smartphone, only a dumb one. We spend countless hours roaming stores buying stuff we don’t need. And we worry. About everything. Especially about what other people think about us. Especially when those other people are Christians.

We drive our kids to take on a million worthless activities so they can get into a worthless Ivy League college to gain a worthless career that makes worthless money so they can be a worthless person surrounded by worthless stuff that receives the worthless approval of other worthless people.

How stupid.

In my head, I can see what a church looks like when it is filled with people who are dead to the world and alive to Christ, people who live only to Him because He alone is their life. Mostly, I hear real world examples of this kind of church from missionaries who come back from impoverished nations and tell me that what we call church here in America is a pale imitation of the real thing. And they can say that because they’ve seen the real thing.

I hear a lot about freedom in Christ in America. But I think we confuse that with the American Dream, that same dream that only keeps us from dying to self.

Freedom in Christ comes only when we step out of our old, worthless selves and into a rough-hewn tomb. If we let Christ then roll away our stone, something amazing will happen.

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
—Galatians 1:10

See also:

Angry Prophets, Reader Rebuke, and Simple Faith

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You may have noticed it’s been quiet here at Cerulean Sanctum of late, with fewer posts spread farther and farther apart.

Fact is, I’m exhausted.

Anyone who has ever been a caregiver will understand. I’ve been in that role for a couple years now. It’s not one that comes naturally to me; nor is it a role I requested. I’m sure it will not last forever, but right now it is hard. I’ve had to pull back from nearly everything I’ve been involved in.

A select few readers know the situation, but it’s not one for public forums.

To add to this, I’ve been receiving a greater than average number of private emails calling into question what shows up on the pages of Cerulean Sanctum. Increasingly, the tone is angry.

I’ve mulled over those emails. I take every email I receive seriously, whether it be positive or negative. I’ve enclosed one such negative email below:

Subject: Are You the Next Phil Johnson?

You are rapidly approaching that stage of self-exaltation where you’re so convinced of your own righteousness that you can’t hear anything from anybody. If you want an example of that kind of vanity and arrogance, how about the original Pyro-narcissist, Phil Johnson? Have you written your own bio for Wikipedia yet, Dan? How about printing up tee-shirts or coffee mugs? Wouldn’t it be so great if everyone could have a cup of Cerulean Sanctum while they’re online?

And with your Feedburner badge proudly proclaiming how many readers subscribe, have you considered the effect you might be having on all the younger brethren in that total? You’re slowly poisoning their faith, day after day, week after week, turning them into chronic complainers like yourself, and making them confirmed cynics and pessimists.

Have you considered how you might embolden some of these weaker brothers and sisters to do things their uneasy consciences might otherwise keep them from doing? “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak … When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” (1 Cor. 8:9-13)

Have you thought about the possibility that you could even be the blogosphere’s next Michael Spencer? (i.e., check out early) “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” (James 3:1) You’re definitely opinionated, just as Michael was, but no more qualified to speak on many of the subjects you comment on. And your vanity can be downright embarrassing.

While you’ve been building this Tower of Babel (or babble) known as CS, have you considered that the Lord may “come down” (Gen. 11:5-9) to dismantle what you’ve built and scatter your followers? (i.e., to more qualified teachers more in line with His purposes)

One thing is as sure as the law of gravity. “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled.” (Matt. 23:12) I don ‘t think you even know what spirit controls you, and it’s going to take a hard fall to jar you back to reality (if it’s not too late for that to happen). And if you think the only alternative to your approach is some kind of Boy Scout righteousness, that just confirms how little depth you really have.

You need to take my advice. You need to seek counseling (cf. my previous comment on CS) and think about getting down from your soapbox for awhile, for everyone’s sake, including your own.

Paul Overall (you’re a smart guy, but in case you didn’t get it … a pall over all you write about)

I posted that because I think it’s a fair example of what has happened to rebuke among Christian brothers and sisters.

The anonymity of the Internet and the general breakdown of our culture that has accompanied it has turned us all into angry people. Worse, too many of us consider ourselves crusaders against this or that.

At the risk of further creating cynical, pessimistic young believers, I want to say that we American Christians can’t let our discourse keep plummeting into angry prophet mode, especially when it carries no winsomeness at all. We seem to have become a people known only for what we oppose and those whom we rebuke. We are not so much about being light but being antidarkness.

This blog exists because I routinely encountered fellow believers who had been in the Church for years and wondered if what they were experiencing was the fullness of what it means to be in the Body of Christ. What I kept hearing them say was “something is not right.” Many couldn’t put their finger on the lack because so much of what they had become was not about being the light, but being antidarkness. And sometimes, one can’t reason to the light simply from the position of antidarkness. Yet in far too many cases, that is all that we have given Christians in America.

The question Can we do better? fuels this blog. It’s the entire reason Cerulean Sanctum exists. I believe with all my heart that the Church in North America CAN do better. We CAN be more than we have been. We CAN be a more fulfilling community, one that models light more than it does antidarkness.

The only way to get to that light is to show what the light looks like. That’s not an easy task for those accustomed mostly to being antidarkness. It’s The Matrix all over again, being trapped in a pseudoreality and looking beyond it to what is geniune and real.

When I attended Wheaton College, I was in a New Testament overview class taught by a brilliant professor. I wanted to mine his wisdom, so I asked questions in class. I posed some tough issues and he gave mindblowing responses that I found life altering. After a while, it dawned on me that I was always the only person asking questions; most of the class just sat there.

One day, I was approached by a big guy from the class who threatened to punch me out if I asked anymore questions. True story.

That metaphor strikes me when it comes to where we are in American Christianity as we near 2011. I fear that too many of us not only hate the questions, but we can’t stand the answers, either. We have become a status quo people who do not want to be broken out of whatever reverie we’ve created for ourselves.

In short, too many of us don’t care about improving anything, much less the way the Church functions. As long as we have a paycheck and can buy stuff, put our kids through some elite school, and retire in peace, stop bothering us with questions. And answers bug us too.

I keep wondering what it is going to take to shake us. But then, it’s not as if any of this is new. I was reading through a portion of Jeremiah a couple weeks ago and the folks of that day complained just as mightily about having their reverie questioned.

I make no pretenses to being a prophet. I’m just a bystander in this life, watching the world go by, and wondering why some things are the way they are. Given what I have seen, too many of us never get past being a bystander. We’re cool with that role. Leave the wondering to troublemakers. And get the troublemakers out of our churches too.

Cerulean Sanctum is NOT going away, but I am going to take a break for the month of December.

What I feel God is saying to me personally is to get away from all the complexity of what we Americans have made of the Faith and get back to the simple core. What’s scary is a lot of us American Christians don’t want the simple core, either. The greatest two commandments, to love God and love our fellow man, are answers we don’t want to hear, because in hearing them, everything in our lives must change, everything down to our very own core. And the status quo is SO much easier, even if there is no genuine life in it.

See you in January.