Truth

The Lie Remains the Same

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Due to an overwhelming number of tasks on the old to-do list at year’s end, I called a halt to interacting on Facebook, that great time suck. I said goodbye to birthday congrats for people I hadn’t seen in 30 years, bid adieu to keeping up with other people’s holiday plans, and articulated a hearty aloha to commenting on someone’s else post that got my goat. And there were plenty of goat-getting updates to note.

Too many.

Now returned from exile, it seems to me that Facebook is awash with the kind of commentary guaranteed not only to get one’s goat, but raise hackles, rub the wrong way, get dander up,  make to see red, and stand hair on end. Everyone seems angry on the Internet, especially on Facebook.

But it’s the way people respond to the things that make them angry that should alarm a thinking person. Everyone and his brother must add their two cents, and it might as well be counterfeit coinage.

In nearly every conversation regarding culture, societal shifts, current events, politics, or religion, you see the following:

Does the Bible really say…?

People should be free to do what they want, so….

Over and over and over. And in almost every case, those two are used to justify something antithetical to orthodox Christian theology or to godly, righteous living.

I wonder if the people who resort to using that question and that statement recognize their source:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
—Genesis 3:1-5 ESV

That supposedly clever line of reasoning some guy used to justify his immorality or someone else’s is old, old stuff. Back to the beginning kinds of justification and argument—just with contemporary wording to fit the spirit of the age.

Did God actually say…? Well, yes, He actually did. And your argument that He meant it in some other way that no one in 2000 years of Christian history has ever proffered as true should tell you something about the wrongness of your interpretation.

But then…

…And you will be like God…. You will be self-determining. You will be free to decide what is right and wrong. You will do whatever the heck you want to do, and no one will tell you otherwise because you told God to take a hike and enthroned yourself on His plush chair. You.

Red-eyed snakeEngaging the conversation in 2014 means a near-constant return to the Garden. Any time some postmodern Socrates chips away at traditional morality or invokes an alternate interpretation of truth, you can hear hissing between the words.

The part that no one who resorts to the old lies ever thinks through is this:

You will not surely die.

Actually, you will. And you’ll start that dying long before you get to the genuine finale. And then you’ll get a nasty, nasty surprise.

At least it will be a surprise to you. To some who weren’t spouting lies, it’s no surprise at all. They know that people who argue Satan’s way get to meet the originator in person.

Meanwhile, people who know better than to quote evil keep seeing the same old lies everywhere they turn.

If it weren’t so sad, it would be boring.

The Problem with Christian Criticism

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Recently, I wrote “Humility, Unity, and the Overly Opinionated Christian.” In it, I noted that too often we lack the facts to comment and should probably, in humility, refrain from adding our two cents.

Seems some may consider me part of the problem. 😉

At Christianity Today, Rachel Marie Stone, in her “Why Criticism Belongs in the Christian Blogosphere,” argues the merits of Christian opinion. She equates it to iron sharpening iron, and she wonder how it is that Christians are refraining from offering much-needed criticism.

I would like to offer my answer.

1. Many people are tired of angry discourse on the Internet. It doesn’t seem as if anyone has enough couth to criticize without resorting to sinful expressions of anger and resentment. Stone notes her own criticism of others has often resulted in ad hominem counterattacks. Well, yeah. That’s where we Americans are in 2013. Still, some thoughtful people—thankfully—are tiring of this.

2. Our critical vision as Christians is too small. Nearly all criticism by Christians on the Web is directed at individuals rather than at systems. Problem is, it’s mostly the systems mucking up everything. While it is much easier to criticize individuals, doing so rarely changes anything on a larger scale, because the power of that larger scale is not in individuals but in systems.

3. Systems are ridiculously hard to address. Criticizing the guy next door for letting his dog poop on your grass may accomplish getting him to keep his mutt out of your yard. But if your state determines your house is ground zero for a new shopping mall for “the public good,” good luck with your criticism of the state. And many systems are more complex than even a state government. Try criticizing the result of the Industrial Revolution and changing it through criticism. That system is far harder to assault because it is enormous and nebulous at the same time.

4. Criticism of individuals does not lead to change on a larger scale, while criticism of a system often gets absorbed by the immensity of that system. That tendency toward “lose-lose” explains the result Stone laments in her article.

For too long, some Christians have focused too much anger in their criticism, reserving much of it for individuals. So and so is a heretic! You don’t know your Bible! And on and on. This does not get us far. More people now recognize this. They also note that much of that criticism was not wrapped in love but in self-righteousness and pride.

Where Christians should be focusing our criticism is on systems, yet almost no one does. No one talks about workplace justice. No considers whether our lifestyles are based on fallacies locked in place by deviant cultural assumptions. No one asks whether the Reformation and democracy have led Americans to no longer fear of God. For the most part, Christians are not offering criticism of these larger thoughts, ideas, and systems because we’re too intellectually lazy and too satisfied with the status quo. Why rock the boat and bring down the system on our little heads?

I stopped reading most Christian blogs because they went after the minuscule. They strained for gnats. And then when they did, they were too often mean-spirited about it.

I think many people are tiring of the mean spirit. Meanwhile, few are willing to wade into larger battles. Stone talks about how hard it was to receive criticism for her criticism of another writer’s book.  If that’s the size of our vision, then all is lost already. Taking on systems, which is what we Christians SHOULD be addressing, is costly, complex, and tedious. Our criticism needs to be laser-like, educated, and relentless if we are to fix entire systems in the name of Christ.

Christians of long ago were up for that task. I’m not so sure we are today.

Oh, look…

“Hey, you! Get your dog off my lawn!”

Is a God-Centered Gospel Better Than a Man-Centered Gospel?

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Hang around Christians long enough and you’ll encounter the God-centered/Man-centered Gospel battle. One side takes the other to task for ignoring the “real” gospel and leaving out the most important aspects of the Truth as God has delivered it.

The God-centered folks (at least on the Internet) typically side with Calvinism and talk about being “Gospel-driven.” John Piper espouses that group’s ideal when he states that “God is the Gospel.” Tug-o'-WarGod-centered folks often see themselves as the last bastion of the true faith. To them, a person’s depth of faith matters most. They talk about what God as God is doing.

The Man-centered folks typically espouse a Pentecostal flavor, even if they align more with mainline Protestantism. They see equipping and walking in what Christ has purchased on the cross as key to being a Christian. To them, a person’s gifting matters. They talk about what God through Man is doing.

The problem with this dichotomy is that I don’t see either side as being the be all and end all of what Christianity represents. The New Testament doesn’t end at the Gospel of John, and it doesn’t begin at the Book of Acts.

The whole _____-centered concept is flawed in that it forces Christians to concentrate on one aspect of the Gospel over another. But the Gospel is not simply what God has done, nor what He is doing, but a continual flow of work from Genesis 1:1 to the present age, with God as Father (Creator/Source), Son (Savior/Lord), and Holy Spirit (Empowerer/Mover), each Person of the Godhead meeting a need within the entirety of the Gospel story, God shaping His Kingdom through Man in the form of the Church.

When we make the Gospel God-centered alone, it becomes what was, and not what it is. It ceases mostly at the cross and trickles slightly into the resurrection. What God bought for man stops at freedom from sin and plays down the Spirit-filled life of the believer, who is otherwise now ambassador and fully Spirit-empowered saint, in the process of being restored to all that Adam was supposed to be.

While being God-centered sounds theologically correct on paper, the practical outplaying of that belief tends to turns adherents into the spiritual equivalent of the master-degree-holding, jobless, twenty-something living in his parents’ basement. There’s a nihilistic bent there that excuses all responsibility for growing up and taking on the adult world. Over mocha lattes, one can argue the strengths and weaknesses of infralapsarianism like a pro, but at some point one must go out and do the stuff. One can’t expect mom and dad to shoulder it all. Just do the work expected and stop talking about systematic theologies and personal suffering all the time.

The Man-centered side fares little better in practice, as the natural progression is toward the ronin, a samurai who serves no master. People who talk about empowerment and personally fighting principalities and powers can, over time, divorce their cause from the One who enabled it.  A disconnection from the Head occurs, and more than once has the ronin Christian believed too much of his or her own press, only to crash and burn amid error and self-centeredness. A Man-centered Gospel tends to forget who God was and still is, forcing the Gospel to start at Pentecost and forgetting the sacrificial aspect of the cross in favor of what that sacrifice purchased. It takes all the gifts and glosses over what was required to buy them and why. Or worse, forgets Who bought them and how.

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing from only one side.

Christians must start with the elements of a God-centered Gospel and add the elements of a Man-centered Gospel, while maintaining a constant foundation in God-centeredness. Instead, we’ve turned Christianity into a spiritual form of “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC,” and that distinction should never exist. Sinner versus Saint is not the way life is. We are somehow both, and we need to start living that way.

God equips Man to do the work and puts His Holy Spirit in us for a reason. We are an empowered people. God doesn’t expect us to constantly ask Him to do the work Himself when He says we have within us His own Spirit-Life and Power to do what He tasks us with. Nor are we to get all high and mighty about that reality but to remember that life begins at the cross, and that without God we can do nothing. It’s His Kingdom, and He is still King.

C’mon, Church! We have got to get this right or else we will be caught living a half-life when Christ returns.