Dying to Self

That Hideous Strength

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I have news for every author of every book I have read recently on the subject of how to fix the American Church’s problems:

You are wrong. Every last one of you.

To your credit, though, your ability to note everything that is awry in churches across this country is astute and well-cataloged. It’s just that your solutions are no solutions at all.

Over the last year, I’ve been following much of what is being called “The Emerging Church” or “Emergent.” This is a new movement that is calling churches out from their country club mentalities into a vital first century NT church life. It caters to the postmodern crowd, is heavily invested in relationships, story, mystery, and being “organic.” It has a whole host of its own buzzwords, authorities, and conventions. And—to its credit—it loathes consumeristic, megachurch seeker-sensitivity.

But any random reading of authors like Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Len Sweet, Randy Frazee, and a growing legion of others finds the very core of the movement very much rooted in a sort of sentimental humanism. Buried beneath the buzzwords and angry polemics against the crusty institutional church is the real source of this trend’s power: what I like to call (with apologies to C.S. Lewis) “That Hideous Strength.”

That Hideous Strength has been behind much of what churches in America call progress in the last forty or fifty years. In recent years, the Church Growth Movement largely abandoned itself to that strength, and Emergent is taking it one step further—at least if a decent reading of the acolytes of Emergent is any indication.

What is That Hideous Strength? Well, for my purpose here it is not quite what Lewis defined in his novel as the power of the Eldils (fallen angels), but it is another monstrosity virtually on par with it: the power of Man.

Here is where we are going wrong. Here is why the Church in America is failing to live up to Her glorious potential. We have put all our faith in what we can do through our own strength. In almost every Ermegent book I have read, I have come away noting that to make the solutions they espouse a reality, we really don’t need the Holy Spirit at all. If we just love people and love God, reach out with a tender touch in a missional way to our communities and to the downtrodden, then all will be well.

Except we left the Lord out of the equation altogther. My heart breaks thinking about this.

Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit to His disciples in the upper room and then told them to await the Spirit coming in power at a later time. When the Spirit fell on the disciples, they went out and ministered in a power that was not their own.

Check out every occurance of the Spirit falling on believers in Acts. The result was that they went from being average people to being someone touched by the Divine. Everything they did after that point was extraordinary. No longer were they people who were satisfied with being loving neighbors or nice people, but they were energized and bold saints of God!

How is it that in a charismatic generation, we have entirely forgotten the Holy Spirit? Why do we think a model, no matter how wonderful it sounds, will make a difference in our churches if our people are not filled with the Holy Spirit?

Some will argue that the average person in the pew is filled with the Holy Spirit. My question then is, when was the last time that person’s shadow fell on the sick and they were healed? When was the last time he was caught up to the third heaven? When did she last prophesy? When did his testimony drive the lost to cry out, “Brothers, what shall we do?” or cause others to pick up rocks to stone him?

The major distinction between all of us in the Church and those of all other religions is the fact that the Spirit of the Living God dwells in us! All those advocates of Emergent are preaching a Gospel that is no different than what the average Buddhist or Shintoist preaches if there is no Holy Spirit involved. You can be missional all you want, you can have a love for other people around you who don’t know Jesus, but if nothing you do is flooded with power from on high, then it is doomed to failure in the long run.

Are we ever going to learn this lesson? The reason no one cares about our message anymore is largely because we Christians in America are no longer supernatural people. Our faith has become one largely of mental assent and Hallmark card sentimentality, devoid of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. We have shoved the Spirit out the doors of our churches and tried to do it all on our own strength.

And just who out there on the street is impressed with that? Our bankrupt results speak for themselves.

Killed for Just One Reason

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A young couple shot in their heads as they slept on a remote California beach may have been killed because of their evangelical Christian religious beliefs, police said on Saturday.

On the heels of my post We Are Not Ready comes the story of two camp counselors—just weeks away from being married—slain by a servant of Satan on a tranquil beach out west.

While the motive for the slayings is not carved in stone, we who call on the name of Jesus must be prepared to acknowledge that more of this will be coming, and sooner than we care to admit. We must start preparing to meet this challenge, both spiritually and emotionally, because we are ignoring the signs of the age the way we are living now.

Lord Jesus, I pray that you will rouse Your sleeping Bride and make her ready for the days to come. Help her to stand, holy and set apart for Your purpose. Give her the strength to press on under persecution, and unite all who comprise her with one heart, one mind, and one common goal, always for Your glory alone. Amen.

Sanity in the Simple

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If we lose sight of the simple things the Lord has blessed us with, we get sucked into a cyclone of complexity. Yet it is in the enjoyment of simple things in life that joy is found.

It could not have been a more beautiful day today. The weather here was in the high Seventies with a light breeze and very little humidity—hard to believe for Southwestern Ohio in August! Clear blue skies and ample sunshine poured down on the verdant fields and forests surrounding our little homestead. I felt like it was one of those June days when I was barely into my twenties and life was lived in the moment, though it also stretched out dazzlingly before me, a banquet ready to sample. You feel the power of your youth coursing in you and all is well with the world.

Life has a habit of fractalizing, becoming infinitely complex when we examine it with the microscope of time and experience. But this is not God’s way. His voice calls us to come away from the swirl of activity and be one with Him:

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree ripens its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away.
–Song of Solomon 2:10-13 ESV

This is a call the world does not understand. I used to believe it was merely a spiritual call, but I now believe it is something more

A few years ago, my wife and I elected to pack up and move out to the country. We both feel that Christians have lost something in our bid to keep up with the world. But there is something sane in the simple rural life. There is health in the raising of one’s own food, of breaking the soil, working it, and seeing it bring forth life. When I am out on my tractor, a stillness comes over me as I tend the land the Lord has given us out of His goodness. I wonder if we Christians lost something dear when we forsook the land for the factory, skyscraper, and office park.

Just the other day, we attended a meeting designed to help farmers grow wine grapes. At one time the Ohio River Valley was what Napa Valley is today. As we walked through the local vineyards, the bounty of grapes we saw drove it home for me: There is a fruitfulness that can be had in fulfilling the very first command of God to Adam. As the song “All Good Gifts” says, We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, and it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand. It is not easy work, but there is a simple fulfillment in it that is lost for so many people.

Jesus said that his yoke was easy, His burden light. Too many Christians have taken on a hard burden in an effort to keep up with the Joneses. We were never meant to be yoked with the world and its mind-numbing complexity. Any ancient farmer could tell you not to mix your work animals in the yoke or else they will pull in a constant circle, getting nowhere.

Not everyone can drop what they are doing and do what we did, I understand that (and if this post has been rambling for many of you, well sometimes the deepest feelings come out that way.) But no matter what, I know with all my heart that God wants us to dwell in peace and rest in Him. What that takes may be different for every person, but I believe that sometimes the best way to still the soul is to be in a place that is more still by its very nature.

Ask the Lord to help you find that place. It will be both in you and outside you. If you look for it by His Spirit, you will know when you find it because peace is there, as is the sound of the Savior’s voice.

Does your life feel like a spinning wheel careening out of control? Simplicity calls you to come away. A more serene life dwells in us if we listen to that melodious voice that calls out, “Come away….”