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:

Hidden Messages of American Christianity: Classism

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This is the first in a series of posts covering the hidden messages that sneak into American churches’ proclamation of the Gospel. For more background, please refer to this post.

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
—John 17:20-23 ESV

Just another class symbolI was talking with friends this weekend about a minor split that occurred in their predominantly upper-middle class church. Several families, unhappy with the idea that the church was looking into broadening their outreach to some less advantaged areas, took their ball and went home. Or should I say that in a more appropriate vernacular: They started another church.

It’s not hard to imagine the reasoning that went on behind that small exodus. That less advantaged area consisted mostly of people who were “not like us.” Heaven forbid if they actually responded to an outreach program and began attending the church. Who really knows how to minister to them? They’re just…different.

Is it so hard to believe that this was not the thinking that led to a new church where reaching out to the different would never be forced on anyone. Ivory towers have a way of staying ivory, don’t they?

Last year my wife and I were looking for a new church. We were also looking for full-time employment. In a fit of overthinking, I latched onto a fast-growing, wealthy church with the hope of not only finding a good church home, but also excellent business prospects who might be willing to hire one of us. The church had a stellar reputation, and was even in the same denomination as a well-known Reformed pastor I admired.

Our hopes sank quickly, though. In nearly every conversation with other people at the church, things went well until we mentioned that we were both looking for a full-time corporate job. When I discussed my current work as a freelance writer, you could almost see the eyes glaze over. After a few weeks, we found ourselves a party of two; the world of the church buzzed on around us, CEOs and corporate players chatting away with gusto, excluding those of us who were less fortunate. Maybe they were put off by my decidedly non-handmade dress shoes. Or perhaps it was the fact we drove a Toyota Corolla and not a Range Rover. No matter the economic impediment, the message was clear: we weren’t on the corporate fast-track and probably never would be. Instead, we became so much furniture to be walked around on the way to the sanctuary.

We don’t like to think of our churches as little demographic ghettoes, yet all too often the hidden message communicated to those who don’t fit the demographic is “You’re not invited to our little shindig.” The classism that results from our unspoken message of conformity overrides Jesus’ prayer that we all be one.

I suspect our friends’ church is in the majority, especially among white, well-off, conservative churches. Similar churches once anchored the respectable parts of town, but time changed their neighborhoods from upper crust to urban (or even suburban) blight. Unable to assimilate into their changed neighborhoods, they either adopted a fortress mentality or fled altogether.

Who’s kidding whom, though? The residents in that altered neighborhood clearly understood that we didn’t want their neighborhood spice sprinkled on our filet mignon. A vague condescension may even have existed in our outreach to them because they knew that we didn’t truly want them to come to our place of worship, especially if it meant our tried and true Sunday program would be modified as a result. Rather, we just wanted to feel good about doing outreach, even if none of them ever walked into our sanctuary.

This isn’t just a problem in megachurches. Sure, they may have a “Pastor of Demographics” whose main job is to ensure bland conformity in the church’s cultural milieu, but the problem goes deeper. For all our talk as American Christians of unity and “being one,” we really don’t want to push that message too hard, lest we be forced to live with the consequences. The tattooed goth who cracked open a Gideon Bible in his hotel room where he’s staying during his vampyre convention—aren’t we all secretly a little glad he’s from out of town and will be visiting our church this weekend only? For all we know, he might even be a Democrat, too.

I’ve been a part of churches that did it right and others that failed miserably. Several years ago, I attended a church where you were likely to see a Mary Kay saleslady sitting behind a hooker wearing a spiked dog collar. And that ultra-clean-cut Mary Kay saleslady was ecstatic that the hooker was there hearing the Gospel rather than out roaming the streets or plying her trade in a dingy hotel room. On the other hand, I’ve known churches that turned men away because they weren’t wearing a suitcoat.

Christian classism isn’t reserved for the people in the seats, either. We might not say it, but don’t we automatically give the ministry esteem to an R.C. Sproul or John Piper over the nameless Holiness pastor who couldn’t afford to go to seminary? And isn’t the luster just a tad brighter on the doctorate degree hanging on the wall of the PCA pastor than the one on the Pentecostal pastor’s?

Today, I’m at a church that spans classes and occupations. This isn’t to say we’re perfect, but somehow it works. (Yes, we’re too white, but rural areas typically skew that way.) Even then, we still have this idea that people who cross the threshold of our church for the first time have to conform to us ASAP or else we don’t know what to do with them. Thinking like a first-time visitor who’s never once darkened a church doorway doesn’t come naturally to us, nor would I say that it does for most American churches. However, this doesn’t excuse us from making them welcome, even if they are not like us.

Jesus keenly chose a Samaritan for His parable. The Lord ate with the wrong kind of people, too. And when His Church was first started, a vision of a sheet full of unclean animals got through the noggin of the hardest-headed disciple.

What class distinction message are we inadvertently sending out to the lost, to the first-time visitor, and even to our own brothers and sisters in Christ? Do we see ourselves as a Church that can only be sullied by the hordes of “those people” who are dying to get into the Kingdom despite our reticence? Or are we willing to be happy in a church that reflects all races, tongues, and economic classes of people?

What is it going to take to make us one?