The Gospels vs. THE GOSPEL

                                         Image from https://exitchurchianity.com/

A few months back, Michael Gungor, a musician, got into a little bit of an argument on Twitter with some of his followers after he disparaged Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). It’s the theological conviction that says Jesus was sacrificed on the cross in order to atone for the sins of humanity as an act of God’s justice. A few days after this social media meltdown, a couple of bloggers took it upon themselves to take Gungor to task for his, “heretical theological opinion.” (You can find their posts here and here.) Needless to say, I’m sure that once this was all over, everyone went on their separate ways and thought little about what they said. Most assuredly, no one changed anyone’s mind.

       The reason I’m writing this, however, is because of something Brandon Hines, of Pulpit and Pen, said. While posting screen grabs of Gungor’s tweets, he called PSA, “the Gospel.” His words imply that this theological position is the whole and entire Gospel, or Good News, to be communicated to humanity by God. The other writer, Owen Strachan (who has written some other stuff that gets under my skin, but that’s not for today) talks of “Blood Atonement” as if it is a dogma of good Christian faith; one that has been part of the life of Christianity for two thousand years. While there is a dissertation level amount of discussion to be had on this topic, I want to focus on the implications of what these two writers are saying. For both of them, a theological proposition, constructed in the sixteenth century, is the totality of the Gospel. That should be rather shocking. Of course,…it’s not shocking at all. Instead, it is a product of decades of theological malpractice.

As a brief rundown… Penal Substitutionary Atonement is first found in the writings of John Calvin, specifically his Institutes of the Christian Religion, published in the sixteenth century. In itself, this is a theological repackaging of the Satisfaction Theory of Atonement proposed by Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century. Since then, theologians have continually tinkered with the mechanics of PSA in reaction to the changes in human society. The Enlightenment, which sparked a period of political revolution in Europe and America that resulted in secular democracies brought about the most extensive refinements. The reason this should be noted is that PSA, like any theological writing, is a product of a time and a place. While the theological argument is derived from Scripture, like any good theology, it was still a product of a time and a place. And as time passed, and the place changed, it was refined and updated for new times in new places. PSA is not the only atonement theory that the Church endorsed over the centuries, and all of them were drawn from Scripture. So, to say that it is THE GOSPEL, handed down from the beginning of the Church is disingenuous, to say the least. (For a full discussion on atonement theory, there are a couple of great books to start from. Scot McKnight’s, “A Community Called Atonement,” and Tony Jones’, “Did God Kill Jesus.")

Another thing you might notice when you read their articles, which I would advise since that is the basis of this discussion, you will notice a glut of Biblical quotations, but one glaring hole stuck out to me. There is only one quotation from any of the Gospels. One thing that has been handed down throughout Christian history, at least in all the major ecumenical councils that produced creeds, is the Incarnation of Jesus. The idea that Jesus is the incarnated God that we worship. What I’m getting at is, Christianity has always said that the only way we know what God looks like is by looking at Jesus; that Jesus is God embodied on Earth. Therefore, it makes sense to me that we lean heavily on the books of the Bible where Jesus speaks about what he came to do. I mean, wouldn’t you want to get information straight from God? Well, it’s right there in the Gospels, if you believe what all those righteous Christians have been saying through the centuries.

When we look at the Gospel texts, the picture gets a little muddier. In John 17, Jesus implies that he has done everything he was sent to do. And this happens before the crucifixion. In Luke 4, Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah in saying what he has come to do. In Matthew 25, Jesus describes what true followers look like, and how to know if someone has fully grasped the Good News of Jesus. In Matthew 22 and Luke 14, Jesus uses the parable of a banquet where the invited guests snub the invitation and so the people from the streets are invited as an image of what the Kindom of God will look like. In The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, & 7) Jesus lays out his most in-depth teaching of what it means to be a follower of God. One thing that runs through all of those descriptions is a lack of sacrifice. The rich man throwing the banquet doesn’t have to sacrifice anyone to let those off the streets come to his banquet. The Sermon on the Mount carries no imagery of Old Testament sacrifice for people to be accepted by God. It’s curious that when the Incarnate God, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus the Christ describes what he was sent to do on Earth, there is no indication of a necessary, cosmic sacrifice in order to redeem people from their sins. 

       

        I’m not trying to upset the apple cart. When I tell the story of my faith, it was a revival preacher using the framework of PSA that brought me to faith in Christ. I know many who I would call faithful followers of Jesus that still hold this view of the atonement. The reason I am writing, though, is that we are approaching Easter. This is our holiest day. And because of that, I just want to make sure that we recognize that it is our Scriptures that tell us what the Good News is, and not a theological writing made by a Frenchmen, four hundred years later. That should worry all of us.

What Happens When the Sun Comes Up?

I, like many, feel as if we are living in a dark night where the wind blows cold and the stars seem dim. I feel the anxiety that many witness to when they say they have heightened anxiety in this new world we seem to find ourselves inhabiting. My feelings have been a mix of righteous indignation and rage at how the discourse concerning our identities as Americans, Christians, and even human beings seems to be descending into a pit of negative projection towards difference. Like millions of others, I have taken to the streets, waving my sign and chanting the chorus of resistance. I’ve written before of my particular feelings toward those who would call themselves Christians while refusing to apply Scripture to their social comments. These are my feelings, and I know that they are not unique to me, nor are they indicative of some obscure social movement.

However, as time has continued to progress, and that thing I will call “night” deepens around us, I have a question. What will we do when the sun comes up?

My faith obligates me to orient myself towards hope. I shine my light in the darkness because I truly believe, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” I have an intuitive sense that the sun will rise and this “night” will end. The world has moved, though at times slowly and hesitantly, towards a more peaceful and just existence. Though strife is ever-present, human beings have overcome our own inhumanity so many times before that I believe we will again. But what happens on that morning?

After we have carried our signs, chanted our hopes for the future, and resisted those things that we feel are threatening us, will we be able to build the world we truly hope for? 

If polarization is the thing that has led us to this place, are we truly doing anything to create a future of reconciliation?

Reconciliation is a powerful word for Christians. We believe that the work of Jesus reconciled the world to God, and Paul’s words would send us out into the world to participate in the ministry of reconciliation. Currently, the voices around me have spoken often of the need to speak out against that which seems to counter to the Gospel we hold so dear. I have done my share of saying, “I’m not that kind of Christian.” But when the sun begins to warm me, what kind of Christian will I be? 

Over the past few months, I, like many, have felt horror and resentment towards what I see as bigotry run amuck in our social discourse. There have been people that I grew up with that have said incendiary things and felt no compunction to reflect on the consequences of their choice of words. I may have responded at times with uncharitable words of my own to those who are so inflexible. I wonder, however, will there be any chance at recovery after this time has passed, or will we just retreat into separate corners to celebrate/mourn the change in situation?

Now, it should be clear that I am hoping to spur a conversation on how we can affect change in our world without alienating those on the other side of the debate. We have our own personal opinions on what we think of those who differ from us, and I’m sure we could say equally hateful things about each other. But when the time comes that things change it will not be different if we don’t start now in altering how we try to affect that change. If all we do is shove one side off the molehill so we can take our place, there is still a hill and still those who are on the bottom. Nothing really changes in such a situation, though we would like to think it will be better. 

The feelings attached to all of this are difficult to navigate. Some have been deeply wounded by the changing social context, and others imagine that they have. Finding grace can seem as if we are dismissing our differences without actually changing anything. Those who spend long hours and unrecoverable amounts of energy in trying to make things better can see reconciliation as negation of their hard work. I don’t know how to address all of this. It’s more than I can respond to on my own, and I need to recognize that if I am ever going to be able to have a real conversation about it. 

As members of the body of Christ, we are supposed to be at the forefront of reconciling the world to God. It will mean that we need to reconcile ourselves to one another, and that is a tall order. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to march, or speak up for what I think is important and true. However, it does mean that as we try to push a march for progress, we can’t burn down every bridge we cross, or no one will be able to follow. 

If the day dawns on us, does it mean the night settles on someone else?

Should it?

The Real Threat to Our Faith

                                                                    photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Just this morning, at the National Prayer Breakfast, the new President vowed to “destroy” the Johnson Amendment. For those unfamiliar with the Johnson Amendment, it was put in place by then-senator, later president, Lyndon Johnson in 1954, prohibiting non-profit institutions (501(c)3 variety) from endorsing or opposing political candidates. At the time, it was seen as an extremely uncontroversial bill and was never questioned in public debate until the 80s. At that time the work of groups such as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition began to move directly into the political sphere and so began to speak of the Johnson Amendment as something that constrained their ability to speak freely.

All throughout the campaign, candidate Trump said repeatedly that the power of Christians in the public sphere was being destroyed and his pledge to the leaders of evangelical churches and denominations was that he would restore that power. Today, his view is that the way to retire that authority is to allow churches, and other non-profits, to become actively engaged in the political process. This promise is a gift to a group that over the last five years has purposefully thumb its collective noses at the Johnson Amendment by starting a pulpit freedom movement where they would directly and open speak of political candidates who they supported or opposed, and many would dare the IRS to write citations of their churches in those sermons. People such as Rev. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas, TX, Jerry Falwell Jr. of Liberty University, and Pat Robertson of the 700 Club see the removal of the Johnson Amendment as the means by the Church will be restored to its correct place as the moral arbiters of American society. For years they have been saying that the Christian faith is under attack by those who support and defend the separation of Church and state. They claimed God was removed from our government by “secularists” who hate God and want to destroy Christians.

I do agree with them that Christianity is under attack, however I believe it is their fear-based motivations which are destroying it. 

Moves such as this to close the gap between political power and religious faith dilute the power and uniqueness of Gospel we are charged to share. This motivation is what allows someone like Franklin Graham to say that the President’s executive order halting the admittance of all refugees into our country, and barring entry for anyone from seven majority Muslim nations is, “not a Biblical issue.” However, both the Jewish and Christian Testaments have much more to say about the care of immigrants and refugees than they do about marriage equality which was a defining reason for supporting their preferred candidate.

In 2006, Brian McLaren and Tony Campelo authored the book, Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel.” Their main argument was that in the rush to create novel ways for the evangelical Church to reach the culture of the last part of the 20th century, they failed to confront and address the biggest sin, consumerism. By creating a Christian shadow culture, with all the trappings of everyday life just with crosses stamped onto it, the Church failed to create a Christ-centered counterculture reflective of the radical hospitality of the one we say is the image of the invisible God. 

The work of those who would push for the abolition of the Johnson Amendment are just the next evolution of that Christian shadow culture. They speak of the Bible as authoritative when it suits them, but only as long as you adhere to their interpretation of the Scripture. Their main benefit to society is a faith that doesn’t require you to change anything about the way you interact with the world while getting “fire insurance” for an afterlife you rarely think of. Now, if the Johnson Amendment is removed as they so desperately hope it will be, they can add their favorite candidates to the sermons that hope to build comforting walls around the life they already live as they wait for the Apocalypse they yearn for. 

If anything is a threat to the faith of Jesus Christ found in Holy Scripture it is a Gospel so bereft of Grace and Love that it cannot even address the ways we fail to see human beings as beloved creations of God. The true threat to Christianity is not some teacher in a school trying to educate students on safe ways to have sex, or a Planned Parenthood physician. It’s a faith that sits still while the Spirit of Hope is busy moving forward.

Our Reductionism Is Going To Kill Us All

So, I live in the suburbs of Washington, DC. My wife and I moved here about a year and a half ago because she was called to a church in the area. It was exciting and terrifying in equal measure, though I think more for me than for her. I remember driving along the Potomac on the Virginia side, all of the monuments visible through the trees, and I asked her, “Did you think you would ever live in a place like this?” Her response, “I was accepted to Georgetown for college…so yeah. I did.” Granted, she didn’t go there, or we wouldn’t have met. However, she did a good job of bursting my small-town bubble. 

This last weekend, I crowded onto the Metro with thousands of others and trekked into the nation’s capital to take part in the Women’s March on Washington. I was packed into the crowd, shoulder-to-shoulder, with all those who had traveled from across the country to hold signs and chant out in the hopes of having their voices heard. I think I will always remember the signs and voices that were raised. They spoke support for LGBTQAI+ rights, affordable college or childcare, access to healthcare for children and women, safety and inclusion of immigrants and refugees, recognition of ecological responses, and positive reforms to address racial tensions. Those were just a sample of the diverse crowd that jammed into downtown DC that day, to recount them all would take my entire post. 

What has hurt, however, is the response I saw when I got home. I had spent the entire day hearing stories and meeting people from all over who wanted to be here in solidarity and support of those who are not heard, and my social media was flooded with those who thought it was frivolous, at best, and destructive, at worst. In the days since, I have contemplated deleting my social media accounts and never going back because I hurt so much for those who criticize to interpret my actions, and the thousands of others who took to the streets across the country, as nothing more than hurt feelings or whining. 

Equally frustrating, were the marchers and allies who attacked critics with equally reductionistic ascriptions. It’s not new that people would let fly more ad hominem attacks at one another, nor is it unique that the response is more of us wanting to shut down instead of get involved and reach out. It hurts to be reduced to the most esoteric of motivations and then dismissed because those are the things no one understands. As we try to navigate such incredibly tumultuous a time as this, we should try and recognize that there are things that are not helping in these situations. 

The constant thread of the last year is that people feel as if they are not being heard. Either we are ignored by the political elites who continually count on us for votes while only responding to the will of their donors. Or the political system itself has ignored us through structural means manipulated by one particular ideology. Some feel as if the economic structures of the global economy are maintained in such a way to alienate those who produce in order to benefit those who invest. Others that the social structures that have created divisions based on such trifling criteria as the color of ones skin or the amount of money in their bank account are now doing everything in their power to ignore the tension that still exists between these socially constructed categories.

These are all serious problems, and problems the Church, since that is what I write about here, should be focusing its energy towards in order to bring the light of the Gospel’s call to justice to bear. That justice will never materialize, however, if we continually reduce people down to the parts of their argument that are the most reprehensible in order that we might dismiss them. In a world that is so filled with color, to say that solutions are only found in black and white is to miss the target in so wide a fashion as to be playing on a different field. Issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, social stratification, political disenfranchisement, employment opportunity, educational access, and healthcare reform, to name a few, are not simple hurdles that can be cleared with simple responses such as, “Well, maybe you should just get out there and make sure the other person gets elected next time.” 

I used to think it was that simple. I had hoped it would be that simple, but it is obviously not. However, we now hold to such a high degree of ideological purity that everything is seen through lenses that remove all the color from the world. We have created for ourselves a world devoid of nuance. Our boundaries are such that everything is “pass/fail” and now we can’t even hear the crowd. We have lost the ability to appreciate diversity, though arguably we never had such an ability in the first place. 

If we continue to reduce our world down to such a pure essence that it has no meaning, and therefore can be easily dismissed, then we will forever be stuck in our present. This kind of reductionism will definitely kill us all.

The Gospel and Politics

                                                                   photo courtesy of Debate.org

Last month, a pastor from Texas wrote a great article in Baptist News Global about the difficulties pastors could be facing in the coming years due to the changing cultural landscape. Without going into too much detail, because I think you should go read the article for yourself, his main point is that many topics confronted within the Gospel narrative have been politicized over the last year. And because of this, there will be those in our congregations who are upset that there is too much politics coming from the pulpit. It seems you can’t through a rock these days without hearing about something to do with our political climate being mentioned in religious settings across the ideological spectrum. Let’s just admit up front that the sermons that will probably anger us are the ones we disagree with and leave it at that.

I remember talking about this during staff meeting at my church this last week. It was during one of those moments where we had not started to address the agenda for the week yet and were just making general comments about the status of our congregation. The senior pastor, one of the calmest ministers I have ever met, said, “That should have always been the case.” His words struck me because I was ready to get on my progressive soapbox and start advocating for our church to be a place that does not flinch in confronting our context with the Gospel, but he was right. It should always have been this way.

I’ve been rereading Jurgen Moltmann’s, “The Crucified God,” thinking specifically about the political images the German theologian highlights as conflicts between Jesus and the religious/political power structures of his time. In reading the Gospels from this perspective of the God who suffers with us, it is impossible to avoid seeing how Jesus’ teachings collide so spectacularly with the norms of his day. In a world where “separation of Church and State” would not exist for another 1700 plus years, these collisions are not even subtle.

In the midst of this thinking and meditating, a thought has resurfaced for me from my early days in seminary. The Gospel is not merely supposed to transcend our political boundaries, but to break through them. In the coming days, when we take to our pulpits, the Lectionary texts may lead us in to some troubling waters where we are discussing things that carry intense political baggage, but I must remember that my Savior is not a politician. I may have voted a certain way, I may be rejoicing or grieving the outcome of the Presidential election, and I may even have some politicians who I like what they are saying. But even a cursory reading of American history shows that political climates change. A party who may have started a movement at one time may find that movement becoming the cornerstone of the opposition’s message a generation later. 

What’s important for the church is to remember that we are preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are preaching a Gospel that we believe comes from God. If politics and culture finds itself butting up against what comes out of my sermon…that’s politics and cultures problem, not mine. 

Have faith in God.

Preach the Good News.

Follow The Most Excellent Way.

Why I feel for Russell Moore: and the power of Congregation

                                                                             Image courtesy of Religion News

Though I am not a part of the same denominational group, I have been interested in the writing of Russell Moore over the last year. Moore is the executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). In effect, the ERLC is the lobbying arm of the Southern Baptists, and so Moore has been a public voice of the convention’s positions on race relations and has spoken out against President-elect Trump throughout the campaign. His voice has been a minority one amongst evangelicals. Now that the election is over the outspoken “pastor’s pastor” is receiving a great deal of criticism.

There were times over the last few years where I wondered how Moore was going to keep his job. He seemed to be saying everything Southern Baptists weren’t thinking when it came to faith in the public discourse. It would be more than a stretch to say that I support Moore, but in this time where faith seems balanced on a razor’s edge with an uncertain future, observing this growing conflict within the SBC should give us all some pause. Russell Moore is running headlong into something I talked about previously on this blog.

As Baptists, we place a great deal of our worship focus on the proclamation of the spoken words from the pulpit, as goes without saying. For many, if not all, of us who prepare and proclaim what we hope are words of God each week, we hope to be as courageous in speaking frank truth that counters damaging social movements. Moore has been doing that as the director of the ERLC, and now he seems to be paying to consequences for his courage. The real power of Baptist life is coming to bear, and it could mean either the end of Moore’s job or the ERLC itself. 

As pastors and convention leaders speak of defunding the organization, it sets up another situation where we see that the power is not in those who lead organizations, but in the places where the money comes from. Pastors at the local level who have to deal with the yearly stress of making budgets know this realization all too well. Baptist life and polity present this uniquely precarious situation where the power rests not in the hands of those who are being called into ministry, but with those who are sitting in the pews. While it allows for a diversity of opinions that creates a mosaic from which we build the personalities of our congregations, it also creates the atmosphere where many leaders have to walk carefully between speaking real truth, and acquiescing to the will of those who pay their salaries.

I pray for Russell Moore because these kinds of conflicts can get ugly quickly. While he has not backed away from his statements against Trump or other issues that have raised the hackles of some of his fellow Southern Baptists, I could understand why someone would want to. While it can be absolutely maddening that issues go unaddressed in our congregations, we should look at the predicament that Moore finds himself in as an example of the forces at work all around us. Even in our local congregations, the fear of an uncertain future means that many of us are constantly reminded that we are in a conversation with everyone. Whether they agree with us all the time, or not.

The Problem Christians SHOULD Have with "America First"

                                          Photo courtesy of http://politicalpartiesush.weebly.com/america-first-party.html

Over the course of the last year, the idea that nativist/nationalist tendencies were the motivation for a large group of people was an argument that I was aware of. However, that awareness was academic in nature. Just as I am similarly aware of both General and Special Relativity, my understanding does not include any specific awareness of how relativity intersects my life; though, I am sure someone reading this could explain that to me. 

That all changed today when someone in my circle of influence began to speak of that exact sentiment. The most shocking thing was that there was no nuance or attempt to soften the language. They just specifically said, "America First! We should take care of our family before we help anyone else." Seeing as how I know this person quiet well, I was too shocked to respond. Instead I sat there, mouth agape, as their thoughts were broadcast. I felt sadness and betrayal because I thought I knew them better than that. In truth, they probably know me better than I know them.

It got me to thinking about the idea of nationalism as it has been preached by Christians throughout my lifetime. When I was much younger, I didn't give much thought to those who talked about America being a Christian nation. It was because I agreed with them, mostly because my sphere of experience was small and knowledge was small. Now, when I see it written or hear it preached from a pulpit I cringe. Not because I am angry that they are misrepresenting the faith I share with them, though they are. Instead, it is because in such statements there is very little that says they are trying to hear a voice that might be different from their own.

What do Christians from other parts of the world think when you say that America is special because of our faith?

What do those who are not Christians, but still Americans, think when you say that this nation does not see them as equal to Christians?

What do people who are neither Christian nor American feel when you say that our God has made a special, geographical place for us that they may never be able to participate in?

I know that when I hear it, I feel cheated that my faith has been boiled down to a tribalistic religion reserved for people who look a certain way, speak with a certain accent, and live in a particular place. It took years for me to reach a point where I could imagine a world beyond what I could see, and just as long to conceive that my faith could possibly be bigger than my imagination. As a stereotypical representative of white, middle-class, male, straight, cisgendered America, I know that change is not easy, nor is it quick. However, I don't believe for an instant that where we are is where we are supposed to be.

In the first chapter of the first book of the Hebrew Bible, the text says:

"Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness'"

And I feel it is incredibly important that we remember this for no other reason than that the text says "humankind." It doesn't say "Americans," or "white people," or "those living in the western hemisphere's northern continent." When I hear Christians talk about "America first" right after they speak of how God has blessed our country, I feel as if I am listening to music where the orchestra is playing horribly out of tune. The dissonance of placing God with country with first are a triad of things that do not go together. 

In three days from this writing, we will be marking another celebration of the birth of our Savior. A Savior that was born in the Middle East, to Middle Eastern parents, speaking a different language, on a different continent. In just over a week from this writing, we will be kicking off a New Year where we again remember the ministry of that Savior that go from "Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Just take some time to meditate on that when you hear the preacher or political commentator talk about "America First."