Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 70

God Remembers Us

[image error]Jesus says that we celebrate this meal in remembrance of Him. But this is not the first time in redemptive history that God gave something to His people for a remembrance. After the flood, God put the rainbow in the sky as a memorial. At the Exodus, God gave the Passover to Israel so that they would remember that they had been slaves in Egypt. God gave the sacrifices to Israel as memorials – so that they would regularly remember that God took away their sins. Even the High Priest wore a breastplate of precious stones and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the stones as memorials.

But one of the important themes that emerges in many of the memorials is the theme of God’s remembrance of us. Not only do the signs remind us that we are God’s people, but they are also said to be reminders for God that we are His people. Genesis says that God will see the rainbow and remember His covenant. In the Passover, God saw the blood on the doors of the faithful Israelites and passed over their homes and spared the first born and brought Israel out of Egypt. Scripture says that when sacrifices were offered God smelled the aroma and remembered His covenant and mercy with Israel. And likewise, it says that when the High Priest ministered before the Lord bearing the names of the tribes of Israel on his breastplate, God would see the names of the tribes and remember them.

Of course, in a strict sense, God never forgets and does not need to be reminded of anything. God does not change in any way. But God has determined to be for us in time and space, and in His providence, our prayers and worship are truly part of how God has determined to act in history. And in this sense, He is pleased to remember us in His favor.

All of this is taken up into this memorial meal. We take and eat and drink and remember and believe. But by His infinite wisdom and mercy, when we take and eat and drink and remember Him – He delights to remember us. He remembers us in our weakness. He remembers us and visits us. He is not far off. He is near to all who call upon Him in truth.

So Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.

 

Photo by Abigail Keenan on Unsplash

Hearty Plants & Palace Stones

[image error]“Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood: that our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace” (Ps. 144:11-12).

The task of bringing up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is a high calling. And in these two verses, we see both the goal and one of the means. The goal is that our sons may grow up as hearty trees and that our daughters would be like polished and beautifully carved palace stones. This plainly implies that we are raising our sons and daughters in somewhat different ways with different glories in mind, but only a fool would say that one is better than the other. They are different, but they are wonderfully different. And so part of the task of parents is to embrace these differences, these different glories that God has given to each of our children, and by faith cultivate them, encourage them.

But the prior verse also gives us one of the means by which we encourage and cultivate maturity in our sons and daughters. David prays that God would deliver him from the hand of foreigners, whose mouth speaks vanity, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. Obviously, this applies to friendships, the movies you’re watching, the music you’re listening to, the video games you’re playing, and what you are writing and reading and sharing online. Are you listening to vanity? Are you watching falsehood? Are you inviting foreigners into your home, into your heart, into your head?

But parents, notice this: David is praying in the first instance that he would be delivered from these people who speak vain things and have right hands of falsehood. Parents have no business expecting their children to grow up into wisdom if they are not chasing after it themselves. If you do not want your children to be susceptible to vain things and falsehood, let your prayer be that God would rid you of those things. It’s relatively easy to see sin, folly, and immaturity in your children, but if you would see your sons and daughters grow up into glory, into hearty plants and palace stones, ask God to deliver you from vanity and falsehood so you can actually help them.

 

Photo by Rachel Davis on Unsplash

Water-Walking Faith

[image error]Christian faithfulness is only in Christ. There is no such thing as Christian faithfulness outside of Christ, independent of Christ. In other words, Christian faithfulness is all grace, all a gift. And it happens as Christians fix their eyes on their Savior.

Christian faithfulness is something Christians work out with fear and trembling. But this is to say that it isn’t an exact science. God’s grace is real and powerful and efficacious, but it takes our small obedience and simple faith and multiplies it, frequently in surprising ways. But because God loves grace and loves simple faith and obedience, it’s the sort of thing that we often only see in the rearview mirror. If you try to see your faithfulness now, at this moment, in order to be assured that you are doing OK, you are sure to slip and stumble and be discouraged. But as we fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, we catch glimpses of what He is doing. And as Pastor Wilson wonderfully pointed out yesterday, the faithful will one day look back and see that they have walked over the heads of many serpents and lions. Faithfulness is often just a matter doing what Jesus says to do in what seem like small and insignificant things and then hearing on the last day: when I was hungry you fed me, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was lonely, you visited me. And the faithful will wonder: when did we feed you, clothe you, or visit you?

All of this reminds me of that famous scene in Matthew 14 when Jesus comes to the disciples walking on the water, while they are in the boat in the midst of a storm. When Peter recognized Him, he asked the Lord to call him out of the boat to walk on the water in the midst of the storm. And Jesus says to Peter, “Come.” And Peter steps out of the boat and begins walking to Jesus on the sea. Of course, seeing the violence of the wind and waves makes him afraid and he begins to sink, and Jesus reaches out His hand and lifts him up and leads him back into the boat.

It’s easy to think that the point of the story is that if we have enough faith we too may step out of our various boats and walk on water with Jesus. And people sometimes dream of doing great things for Jesus, “stepping out in faith” and so on. But it strikes me that this is exactly wrong. The point of this story is not that we are ordinarily safe in storm proof boats and occasionally Jesus may allow us to do great things of faith — if we will only believe. No, the whole point of the story is that the call of Jesus to follow Him is always a call to walk by faith. In other words, there is only water-walking faith or there is none. There is no such thing as walking with Jesus without faith.

In other words, we are always walking on water. Some are sinking and dying, some are crying out to be saved. And some are slipping and sliding and sometimes stumbling straight toward Jesus where He meets every one of us in the storm with an outstretched arm.

When you trust Jesus and cast all your anxieties on Him and let Him carry them for you, you are walking on water. When you discipline your toddler in love, you are walking on water. When you forgive your spouse gladly, you are walking on water. When you confess sin, you are walking on water. When you honor the Lord with your finances, you are walking on water. When you grieve the loss of a loved one in hope of the resurrection, you are walking on water. When you sacrifice to give your kids a thoroughly Christian education, you are walking on water.

Now, if you start looking down, if you look at your obedience, you will pretty quickly see the wind and the waves and see the impossibility of it all. How is my parenting going to amount to much? How is my life going to work out? How can this marriage float? If you look anywhere but straight at Christ, you will begin to sink. But this is my point: be encouraged. If Christ has begun a good work in you, He will complete it. If Christ has begun to give you small obedience, do not despair, do not despise the day of small beginnings. There is no true obedience to Christ that is not miraculous. Living faith is always a miracle. It is always glorious. It is always the result of a call to “Come,” and you cannot come unless He is the one leading you, holding you up every step of the way.

So be encouraged. Fix your eyes on Jesus. He has held you up all this way. He is holding you up now. Don’t think that Christian faithfulness is something you only read about in missionary biographies. Most Christian faithfulness involves providing food and clothing and friendship. Most Christian faithfulness is just simple faith and obedience. Don’t look back. Don’t look down. Keep looking at your Savior. All your goodness is in Him.

 

Photo by Xavier Teo on Unsplash

Actually, the Gospel is Heterosexual

[image error]One of the objections to pastors and churches putting much emphasis on sexual sin is the concern that we are being too political, straying off topic, away from the centrality of the gospel. Sure, sexuality needs to be addressed from time to time, but the central thing is the gospel. And regularly preaching on sexual identity, sexual sin, or marriage seems to make those issues gospel issues. But the gospel — we have been reminded from time to time — is not heterosexual.

Ok, I’ll bite. Actually, the gospel is heterosexual. The gospel is thoroughly, gloriously, wonderfully heterosexual. Now there are various ways to misunderstand this claim, but those potential misunderstandings are inherent in the nature of the gospel rightly preached. It means you’re preaching the gospel right. Paul preached grace like a fire hose unleashed because God’s grace really is like that to the small-minded wisdom of man and inherent in that right preaching of the gospel, is the need to address antinomians — “shall we sin so that grace may abound?” God forbid. Same thing goes for preaching true regeneration of the heart. One is not a Christian merely outwardly by baptism. A true Christian is one whose heart has been washed clean by the blood of Christ. And when you preach that gospel, the question will come, “well, what good is baptism then? what good is the covenant?” And with Paul, we reply, much in every way! (Rom. 3:2). So too, if we preach the gospel faithfully in this sexually disturbed era, we will provoke various questions, and we will need to patiently, carefully answer them. And perhaps I will work through some of those at some point, but for now let’s establish the main point.

So, how is the gospel at stake in all the debates raging over sexual identity, sexual orientation, sexual sin? While it’s true that there are some trigger-happy heresy hunters out there who think the gospel is at stake when the women’s fellowship decides to serve brownies instead of ice cream, on the whole, we in the evangelical Reformed world are not in danger of being too careful. If the last 70 years should teach us anything is that we have not been nearly careful enough. We have made compromise after compromise, surrendering almost everything along the way, such that we now have so-called “conservatives” debating whether or not it is biblical for a man to adopt a “queer identity” so long as he promises not to actually engage in sodomy.

Sexual sin is a gospel issue because the Bible teaches that unrepentant sexual sinners will go to Hell. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). And at the end of Revelation: “For without [the gates of the city] are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev. 22:15). To preach the gospel into the darkness of sexual sin is to deliver sexual sinners from Hell. Now, I certainly grant that a preacher must be careful not to ignore the other sins on these lists, but it is simply not true that preaching on sexual sin is not a gospel issue. If the gospel does not address the actual chains that bind us, the gospel is not likely to set anyone free.

But I said that the gospel is heterosexual. How so?

First, the gospel is the means by which God is bringing a new creation into being in this dark world. In the beginning, God spoke and said, Let there be light. In the new creation, God has determined to re-make this world once again through His word, but this time, His Word became flesh and dwelt among us. His Word was born in a stable in Bethlehem. His Word walked in this world healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead. His Word then went willingly to the Cross for the sins of the world. He willingly took upon Himself all the shame, all the guilt, all the darkness of this fallen world and in His death, He crushed its head, fully satisfying God’s justice. And this Word rose from the dead on the third day in order to make all things new. And this new creation has been coming into existence ever since through the proclamation of this gospel word: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). And this is why “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

This is the gospel we preach. We preach Christ crucified for sin in order that all things might become new. And yes, we preach this into the darkest corners of this world. We preach this light into the darkness of queer identity, into the darkness of pedophilia, into the darkness of porn addiction. And if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold all things become new. Leave your grave clothes behind. And this is the point: the new creation is not an obliteration of the old creation. It is a renewal and glorification of the old creation. And so this includes the biological sex God gave you at conception, embedded in your DNA. This new creation means the renewal of your assigned sexual identity and orientation — which for every human being is heterosexual. The basic binary structure of the world — male and female — runs through everything and does so by God’s good and glorious design. We are sexed creatures, and we therefore walk in this world in holiness and godliness by embracing and submitting to this two-different-sexes structure. The gospel proclaims this renewal, this new creation, which is indeed heterosexual.

And finally, the gospel is heterosexual because Jesus is our Savior and the Church is His Bride: “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27).

We are the profane, the filthy, the spotted, the wrinkled, and He is the hero, our Savior, our Lord.

“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2).

 

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Thinking OutLoud: A Revised Church Review for Ministering to Sexual Refugees

[image error]In an attempt to not merely be critical, but to also offer positive suggestions for a way forward, I offer these 10 alternative statements for men in church leadership to use to review their ministries and church culture to see if they are being biblically faithful in proclaiming the gospel to all, especially to sexual refugees. Feel free to leave a comment below with any suggested edits for improvement.

 

1. “Your church family meetings include people who have repented and/or are being called to repentance for every sort of sexual sin, e.g. fornication, adultery, homosexuality, effeminacy, crossdressing, pedophilia, incest, bestiality. Loving judicious church discipline is regularly pursued with those who refuse to turn away from sinful actions, lusts, or identities.”

2. “Unbiblical derogatory language or prideful stereo-typing towards sexual sinners would not be tolerated either up-front or in conversation between church family members; biblical language that highlights the shame of various sexual sins is embraced in a spirit of compassion and love.”

3. “All in your church know that we all experience sexual sin in various ways and all are being encouraged to confess and forsake their own sexual sins, while recognizing that some sexual sins do more harm and require more repentance than others.”

4. “Same-sex sexual relationships are routinely mentioned together with other sinful patterns of behavior as is common in the New Testament, while highlighting the forgiveness and sanctification offered to all through faith in Christ crucified.”

5. “All in your church are hearing the same call to radical self-sacrifice of themselves to obey God’s gracious law in response to God’s gracious giving of himself in Jesus.”

6. “All in your church are encouraged to seek and develop an identity founded first and foremost on their union with Christ, resulting in seeing themselves as entirely new creations in Christ, including a new found gratitude for and submission to the biological sex and its attendant assignments which God gave to each one at conception.”

7. “A godly Christian’s repentance for past sexual sin does not automatically disqualify them from exercising their spiritual gifts or serving in leadership in your church.”

8. “While recognizing and practically supporting the dignity and gift of singleness, marriage is promoted as God’s ordinary calling for most, carefully pastoring those who struggle with sexual sin and temptation toward Christian marriage.”

9. “Church family members instinctively use biblical wisdom to seek out ways to share meals, homes, holidays, festivals, and money with others from different backgrounds and life situations to them in order to lift up the name of Christ and build up the church.”

10. “The gospel is proclaimed clearly: announcing the defeat of all reigning sin in every believer together with a patient, pastoral care summoning every believer to faithfully fight all remaining sin.”

 

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LivingOut’s Church Audit Dumpster Fire

[image error]So then, Ed Shaw, Sam Allberry, and Sean Doherty over at LivingOut dot org have launched a “Church Audit” in conjunction with a conference they held with Tim & Kathy Keller this past June. The Church Audit is “a tool to help church leadership teams answer this key question: how biblically inclusive is your church?” The focus is on those “who might identify as LGBTQ+/ same-sex attracted.” They continue: “Jesus included all in a counter-cultural way and we hope this audit will help our churches follow his lead.”

Now, let me begin by saying that I agree that Jesus welcomed everyone with his signature counter-cultural approach to every dinner party, wilderness hike, and funeral procession. But as it turns out, what Ed, Sam, and Sean (and presumably Tim and Kathy) have presented us with is nothing close to counter-culteral and hardly resembles the style of Jesus in the slightest. Jesus stood up at dinner parties and confronted the conniving host. Jesus taught the crowds with authority unlike the scribes from all the seminaries. And Jesus raised the dead at the funerals He attended. But what this Church Audit would have us believe is that Jesus was a meek noodle in the corner of most dinners, that He would have crossed all of his Pharisaical T’s and dotted all the minced and pratting I’s of the modern canons of niceness, and when He showed up to funerals, he patted everybody on the shoulder and reminded them that He would help if He could, but He isn’t allowed to pressurize (sic) anybody into healing that we should not expect.

All of which to say, I find this church audit to be a dumpster fire. Lots of the problems are related to failure to make careful distinctions, which in our day and age is really fatal to what might otherwise be helpful resources.

Working through the audit one point at a time:

1. “Your church family meetings include people who could be labeled LGBTQI+/same-sex attracted.” While the Church should be a place that welcomes all sexual refugees, people fleeing sexual slavery and sin of every sort, those who might be “labeled as LGBTQI+ and same-sex attracted” is way too ambiguous to be helpful. The gospel rightly preached calls all people who could be labeled in those ways to repentance. Church discipline lovingly practiced would include driving some of those people away for refusing to repent. But a church that begins giving any sort of credence to those labels has already compromised with the world. The whole point of those labels is to carve dignity out of sin. But there is no dignity in sin. It is all shameful and foul. I don’t even know what the “+” means, but there’s no logical reason why it should not include “pedophiles” or people sexually attracted to mailboxes or people who self-identify as mailboxes. All of the letters but especially the “+” is effectively a church giving permission to the world to keep digging themselves deeper in the cesspools of their vile imaginations. But the gospel clearly preached must confront the rebellion inherent in those labels. I would consider it faithful and obedient to preach in such a way as to make unapologetically effeminate men like Nate Collins and Wesley Hill feel very uncomfortable in my church. The statement is too vague to be helpful.

2. “Derogatory language or stereo-typing attitudes towards sexual minority groups would not be tolerated either up-front or in conversation between church family members.” The unhelpful ambiguity continues with the use of “sexual minority” language. All “minority” language was invented by people who hate God and despise His providential rule of the world. God disperses peoples, wealth, famines, and disasters as seems good to Him. The cause of social sin is not power struggles between the “haves” and “have nots.” The cause is sin, manifested in hatred of the image of God, envies, lusts, and refusal to worship the Triune God. Therefore the church must not adopt such a language as “sexual minorities.” It’s also unclear what constitutes “derogatory language” or “stereo-typing attitudes.” In Ed Shaw’s video presentation on the website, he suggested that encouraging boys/men to play rugby and girls/women to do crafts was potentially unhelpful. But effeminate men who are tempted to deny their masculinity need to be encouraged to play rugby and stay away from crafts. And is John being derogatory in Revelation when he says that the “dogs” (i.e. sodomites) will be outside the New Jerusalem? Is it derogatory to describe the filthiness of anal sex? The point of describing what it actually involves is to denigrate the act and inspire disgust and shame. That disgust and shame is holy and good.

3. “All in your church know that we all experience sexual brokenness and all are being encouraged to confess their own sexual sins.” Does number 3 imply that all sexual sin is equally offensive? The Bible clearly teaches that some sexual sins are more hideous than others (Lev. 18). the Bible teaches this by calling them “abominations” and “vile affections” and “unnatural lusts,” and in the Old Covenant harsher sanctions fell on certain sexual sins (Lev. 20).

4. “Same-sex sexual relationships are never mentioned in isolation from other sinful patterns of behavior, or from the forgiveness offered to all through faith in Christ crucified.” Related to the previous one, even if a case can be made that homosexual sin should be ordinarily connected to other sin (following the NT example), the full biblical record still singles out particular sexual sins as abominations and particularly foul and unnatural lusts (e.g. Rom. 1, 1 Cor. 5). Naming the uniqueness of these sins is part of being faithful to the biblical text as well. The attempt to flatten out all sins as equally offensive to God is unfaithful to Scripture but ultimately (even if unintentionally) an attempt to make greater perversions less offensive to people.

5. “All in your church are hearing the same call to radical self-sacrfice of themselves in response to God’s giving of himself in Jesus.” Number 5 might the only one I would consider accepting as written, but in context it once again seems to be pushing for a naturalization of unnatural affections. But this flattens out the way the gospel works through generations and in families and cultures. Some, by the grace of God, have inherited more common graces than others. It’s all grace, and we all do stand equal at the foot of the cross. But a raging pagan coming to the Lord simply has more repenting to do than someone who grows up in a Christian home and comes to the Lord in a rather generic way at the age of 7. There is always a radical call to discipleship, but some sins really do take more digging out, more repenting.

6. “All in your church are encouraged to develop an identity founded first and foremost on their union with Christ.” This too is OK in so far as it goes, but I’ve become increasingly concerned that this is actually code for smuggling in secondary identities in unhelpful ways. Yes, all should be encouraged to find their identities in Christ, but that identity (for example) is not sex-less, but rather in Christ, we are “new creatures” and that includes our God-given sexual assignments as male or female (2 Cor. 5, Mk. 10). The good creation is redeemed in Christ not obliterated. Part of that good creation is our creation as male or female, and the corresponding assignment from God to live as men or women in this world.

7. “A godly Christian’s sexual orientation would never prevent them from exercising their spiritual gifts or serving in leadership in your church.” Can I imagine a repentant homosexual ever being an elder in a church? Of course. Such were some of you… (1 Cor. 6:9). But as it is worded, I have no idea whether this is talking about someone walking in a homosexual lifestyle, a man embracing a queer/effeminate orientation, or what. I get that it says a “godly Christian’s sexual orientation” but this is a contradiction, doublespeak, an oxymoron because there is only one godly sexual orientation: heterosexual. There is no case in which a “homosexual orientation” (or any other “orientation”) goes together with been a “godly Christian.” This contradicts the point of number 6. If our identity is in Christ, then every Christian’s “orientation” is as a man or a woman, regardless of ongoing need for mortification or temptations.

8. “God’s gifts of either singleness or marriage are equally promoted, valued and practically supported in your church family’s life together.” The gifts of singleness and marriage are not equally promoted in Scripture, and therefore they should not be equally promoted in the Church. The ordinary calling of most people is to marriage. This is established in Genesis and reaffirmed throughout the Bible. The gift of singleness is an occasional, relatively rare gift that does have equal dignity with the calling of marriage. But for many sexually tempted people, an equally promoted calling to singleness is a pastoral noose that will only end in their destruction.

9. “Church family members instinctively share meals, homes, holidays, festivals, money, children with others from different backgrounds and life situations to them.” Given all of the confusion and ambiguity of the previous statements, this one is appallingly tone deaf. Any red blooded, godly parents will not let their children near sexually confused people. I certainly grant that there should be open hospitality and community extended to all in the body of Christ and even evangelistic hospitality shared with those outside. But it’s really unhelpful not to make careful distinctions here about what you mean by “others from different backgrounds” given all the ambiguities of what has preceded this one. Paul exhorts the Christians in Corinth to hand one man over to Satan for his sexually immoral relationship with his step-mother and to have nothing to do with him. Elsewhere Paul says we shouldn’t eat with someone who calls themselves a brother and doesn’t follow the apostolic traditions.

10. “No-one would be pressurised (sic) into expecting or seeking any “healing” or change that God has not promised any of us until the renewal of all things.” Again, this one does not have anything like biblical carefulness. What constitutes “pressure” and what constitutes “healing”? It says “change that God has not promised any of us,” but given the high stakes on these issues and the current cultural pressures, the ambiguity is damning. James says that we should call the elders when we are sick, confess our sins, and expect healing. Sure, that doesn’t mean God always answers our prayers or heals in exactly the way we hope or expect or immediately. But Paul says of homosexuals and other sexual sinners, “such were some of you, but you were washed, justified, sanctified…”

The tragedy of this church audit is its failure to actually help churches deal with the mess we are facing. This audit only contributes more confusion. We do need biblical resources for calling sexual sinners to the grace of God in Christ. We do need to proclaim the hope of the gospel in the cross of Jesus Christ, and we do need communities of gospel healing and hospitality. But this audit does not actually help us toward any of those endeavors.

Homosexuality & the Destruction of Male Friendship

[image error]“Thus male homosexuality is a corruption not of the relations between men and women, but of the relations between men and men. It is an aberrant eroticization of male friendship… If it is friendship that male homosexuals seek, then we might predict many otherwise inexplicable behaviors. Friendship is not exclusive; one can never have too many friends; friendship is often celebrated best in boisterous groups…”

– Anthony Esolen, Defending Marriage, 113-114

 

Real Edible Poetry

[image error]We believe in the real spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. We do not believe that these elements are transubstantiated into Christ’s physical flesh and blood, but we do believe that as we partake in faith together, the Holy Spirit really and truly feeds us with Christ.

One of the things this meal should teach us then is that good metaphors are true and communicate truth. Often times today, you will hear pastors and theologians talking a lot about poetry and metaphor right before they begin talking about why they don’t believe certain things in the Bible. “The creation narrative is a poem” is often a set up for explaining why someone doesn’t believe that God created the world in six days or Adam and Eve weren’t real, historical people. But what that means is that lots of people don’t believe in metaphors. They don’t believe in poetry. They don’t believe they are really true.

Now it’s certainly true that some metaphors are not true and some poetry really is bad and false. But here at this table we have poetry in action, edible metaphors. We are eating and drinking signs and seals of our salvation in Christ. We baptize with water because the blood of Jesus really does wash us clean.

But the reason these metaphors are true is because God really created the world in six days around six thousand years ago, because He really was born of a virgin, because He walked and talked in this world, because He was betrayed by a friend and crucified on a wooden, Roman cross, where He hung until He died and was laid in a tomb. And very early on the third morning, the stone was rolled away, and He rose from the dead, in this world. There’s a place in this world where you could stand which was the last place Jesus was standing just before He ascended into Heaven. And because all of this really happened in history, and only because it really happened in history, can we believe in Jesus, have our sins washed away, and celebrate this salvation in this meal.

This is poetry, and this is wonderfully true. So Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.

 

Photo by Pooja Chaudhary on Unsplash

Rummaging for Maybe-Sins

[image error]One of the dangers of having a weekly confession of sin in the worship service is the temptation to think that in order to be super spiritual you need to rummage around in your heart and try to find some sin to confess. Now, on the one hand, we are sinners, and so sin really isn’t that hard to find, but on the other hand, we are Christians, and so we are learning the habits of confessing sin and keeping short accounts, which means that you might walk into church on any given Sunday morning and honestly not be able to think of anything that you haven’t put right. If you’ve been busy confessing sin all week long and you’ve come into worship and can’t think of anything just ask God to search you and show you if there’s any sin you are missing and thank Him for His faithful work in you.

But one reason you might not be able to think of anything is because you have a vested interest in not thinking of anything. Because if you actually thought about it, it would get messy real fast. And this is why people sometimes start furiously rummaging and pulling out random, vague confessions, as a distraction tactic. I think I might have worried on Tuesday is not a confession of sin, and worse, confessing those sorts of things when you really did lose your temper or looked at pornography or lied – a flailing confession of I-might-have-worried is actually an act of insolence. Do you not know that God sees it all? Do you know not know that God sees you playing games with Him? Do you not fear Him?

So as we gather week after week, allow this moment to be a reminder that we stand before God only by His grace, but it’s an honest grace. And so we want to be honest before God. But your goal should be to confess your sins as quickly as possible throughout the week, and if you’re doing that then use the confession of sin to give thanks for that and ask for more faithfulness there. But do not use this moment to rummage around in your heart for maybe-sins either because you think you ought to feel guilty or because you know you’re guilty for something else and you’re avoiding that.

 

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Veggie Tales in Skinny Jeans

[image error]In case you missed it, CrossPolitic interviewed Atlantic Monthly writer Jonathan Merritt on this week’s episode, talking to him about his new book Learning to Speak God from Scratch and very related, women’s ordination.

In short, Merritt’s new book is his attempt to explain why he has become theologically liberal. It’s not being marketed that way, but that’s the cash value. As we will see, Merritt essentially sketches a faux-Christianity reminiscent of Richard Niebuhr’s famous description of theological liberalism: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

I believe Merritt still claims to be a “moderate conservative” and sure, he still holds some token theological/political conservative stances (I believe he’s still Pro-life, for example, and he still technically wants to affirm the Apostles Creed), but in reality, his conservative ship has sailed and it’s foundering off some foreign coast. And incidentally, this is also Merritt laying the framework for publicly justifying and blessing homosexuality. Speaking of which, you may recall that Merritt was interviewed by Ed Stetzer in Christianity Today back in 2012 in which Merritt confessed to a brief homosexual relationship. In that interview, he affirmed what the Bible teaches about the sinfulness of homosexuality and declined to be identified as “gay.” But more on that in a bit.

The central play being made is the left jab of misunderstanding and hurt, followed by the uppercut of feigned theological prowess and sophistication. So the set up is the concerned presentation of mass confusions by moderns about what words from the Bible actually mean, people leaving the church in droves, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, offenses given and taken, or just straight up ignorance. That’s the problem. And if the Apostle Paul had known about this problem he wouldn’t have been so cavalier in his missionary journeys, throwing sacred words about like Jesus owned the place. Apparently he wasn’t familiar with the S.P.E.A.K. method of engagement (now available in Merritt’s last chapter). But be that as it may, sacred words are now vanishing from common parlance, and what Christian wouldn’t be against that? And, as the subtitle suggests, Merritt would like to help us revive them — but definitely without all that Pauline pizzazz. Modern people wouldn’t understand that sort of thing, unlike the people of the first century who consistently invited Paul for tea and biscuits and discussed the infinite mysteries of the universe in low tones with knowing glances and light chuckles in every city. But I digress… Though one does wonder if Merritt has gotten off on the wrong foot by including the word “sacred” in the subtitle. What kinds of confusion might that be sewing in the minds of readers? I mean, in our interview, we thought he might be interested in reviving words like propitiation or actually sharing the gospel with someone like Donald Trump, but he declined.

So Merritt suggests, drawing off of the wisdom of liberal sages like Richard Rohr and Walter Brueggemann that Bible words need to be re-imagined into better and truer understandings. “Better and truer” — who could be against that? But what does that look like exactly? Well, as Merritt explains, it begins by deconstructing what you thought the Bible said. And this is a job for experts. Really smart people. Lots of people have been hurt by what we thought the Bible said. I mean, you do remember slavery, right? And turns out the Bible is way, way more complex, difficult, ambiguous, metaphorical, and poetic than anyone ever imagined for two thousand years. But wait — why doesn’t Merritt appreciate John Calvin’s imagination of what the Scriptures mean especially on 1 Timothy 2? What about Donald J. Trump’s re-imagination of the Scriptures? Was Trump feeling a “God-nudge” when he was tweeting at 3am last week? How do you know? What makes us so special? What gives us the audacity to take such leaps of imaginative daring-do? What makes us think that our re-imagining will be heading in anything like a correct direction? In short, we don’t know. But we suspect it has to do with the fact that Merritt got this book deal and a blurb from uberhipster theologian Carl Lentz.

So for example, Merritt explains that the Fall of Adam and Eve may or may not have occurred. They may or may not have been real historical figures. But that doesn’t really matter. It’s not so important that the Fall happened, but rather that we recognize that Fall happens (123). As Merritt’s pastor encouraged him: what if you just unfurl your fingers and let go of these questions for a moment? What if you began to “replace questions about the historicity of the story and instead welcomed questions about the truth of the story” (122)? But, Jonathan, this is the path to utter absurdity and incoherence and it leads straight out of the Christian faith. No, seriously. What is the foundation of truth except historical reality? In what meaningful way do we know anything to be true that is not grounded in history? You may say that historical realities are always interpreted through our experiences, or that historical truth only touches down in our various histories, our experiences. Ok, but without an actual historical grounding, you are just another flavor of relativist. If truth is true only because it resonates with my personal historical experience, then it is only true for me. But what if you experience truth in different ways from me? What if one man experiences the truth of love by sodomizing another man? What if another man feels very deeply that he is actually truly a woman? If you reason from non-historical truth and try to bring it down into history, it will not stick. But if truth is grounded in history and arises from what has actually happened in real time in this world, then it is applicable throughout history in various ways because it actually reflects reality. But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have truth be disconnected from history and then magically summon it up to be connected to history when you want it to be. And even though reality is complicated and mysterious and poetic on certain levels, you cannot have any kind of meaningful discussion of those things without a firm foundation of historical truth.

And we really should be clear here that there is no meaningful reason why Merritt shouldn’t use the same sort of argument in evaluating the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. And while Merritt seems to want to hold on to those few things specifically mentioned in the Creed, he will soon find that the force of arbitrary reasoning is about as strong as a wet noodle. He’s already caving on creation which is also explicitly mentioned in the Creed. It doesn’t matter so much how or when or even whether God created the heavens and the earth, does it? Doesn’t it matter more that creation happens? Unfurl your fingers, bro.

Unsurprisingly, Merritt goes on to explain that “sin” was a word that meant many different things in the Bible and throughout Church history (125-126). Paul would not have even recognized the way Moses used the word sin. Luther might not have recognized the way Jesus used the word. It’s all very complex and mysterious. And sure, we can say that God hates sin, but only after we have assured everyone that God is not really angry or furious — that’s way too one-sided and not poetic enough. If we’re going to talk about sin it needs to be primarily about us. Let’s first stroke our egos with words like “flourishing” and “shalom.” Sin is really all about us not reaching our fullest potential. God is not really offended or constrained by a holy justice to punish sinners. Rather, God is a kindly grandmother who has no higher goal than to serve us continuous plates of spiritual milk and cookies. He just wants us to be happy and flourish. He would never be against us. He’s just against that icky-force that resists us having abundant life (129).

The cash value of all of this is a massive devaluing of our sin problem. “We are all deeply flawed and often engage in destructive behavior” is a preening far cry from the “wages of sin is death.” And so it is no surprise that “grace” is reimagined as a cutesy Hallmark story of Merritt giving up his umbrella multiple times to various (apparently) ungrateful fellow pedestrians caught unprepared in a rainstorm in Brooklyn only to arrive at his lunch date all disheveled and soaked, but also still rather dashing and clever. The real gospel of God’s redeeming grace is Christ crucified on a Roman cross, bearing the sins of the world, taking our guilt and shame in our place, crushing the head of the serpent, washing sinners clean. And Merritt has a precious story about a rainy day in Brooklyn and sharing umbrellas with strangers. This is one of the great curses of liberal theology: not merely the fact that its gospel can’t actually save sinners (which is the worst part), but also the plain fact that it is painfully banal, boring, cliche, in a word, lame. In the name of poetry and mystery, liberal theology kills beauty, destroys the haunting harmonies of truth, and leaves us with trite moralistic muzak. This is like Veggie Tales with skinny jeans.

I hope to have time for another folllow up post soon on our discussion of how to read the Bible’s prohibition against female elders and pastors. But I would like to close this post noting that Merritt includes a chapter walking back his 2012 statement that his homosexual sin was a sign of his “brokenness.” And while he does not come out into the open to identify as gay or endorse such a thing explicitly, his chapter is a coy and cloying middle finger to God’s clear word, building his case from “genital electroshock therapy” and “scientific studies” and sleight of hand exegesis, pointing out for example that “brokenness is rarly mentioned in the Bible.” Right, Mr. Merritt, but sodomy and effeminacy are mentioned in the Bible. He closes by saying, regarding homosexual sin, “I say that if something can’t be fixed, then it probably ain’t broken.”

And I want to close this post by keying off this last line which among other things is full of despair. Jonathan, I know that you don’t know me, but I believe this is your central problem: Despair. In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress Despair is a Giant who captures pilgrims and keeps them in his dungeon. And he abuses his victims by beating them over their heads with their guilt and shame and pointing out all of the pilgrims who have strayed and died along the way. Francis Schaeffer pointed out this tendency toward despair in modern thought in his little book Escape From Reason, which I highly recommend to you. But the point I want to make here relates back to Bunyan’s depiction of Christian and Hopeful trapped in the Giant Despair’s Doubting Castle. The breakthrough in the story comes when Christian finally remembers that when he was saved he was given a key called Promise. And it turns out that this key can unlock any door in Doubting Castle, and so Christian and Hopeful escape Despair. Jonathan, Pilgrim’s Progress is an old evangelical story that surely you are familiar with. It isn’t very cool or sexy, but I would argue that it is wonderfully and refreshingly true. It’s true in this case because the promises of God really are the answer to all our doubts that keep us locked up in despair. You have a chapter all about disappointment, and I hear that sentiment heavy in your voice and in your book. But wherever that disappointment aches that worst, you need to know that the promises of God are sure and they unlock every door in every doubting castle. The promises of God in Jesus Christ will never let you down, will never disappoint. And I pray that one day soon you will find that key.