Strange fire

Last week, the hubbub on Twitter and around the Christian blogosphere was John MacArthur's Strange Fire conference, which was dedicated to discussing the issue of, for lack of a better term, the charismatic movement and what MacArthur believes is an avalanche of false teaching that, to some extent, has begun to reach the mainstream of evangelical Christian teaching.  I am stuck in a position where, while I share many of his concerns about "charismania" and will absolutely call things like the prosperity gospel, the Word of Faith movement and phenomena like the "Toronto Blessing" and the "Brownsville Revival" unbiblical, I am not a cessationist like he is.  The best understanding of my position is probably the phrase "charismatic Calvinist"--I absolutely believe that the gifts of the Spirit continue to this day and I have not seen a convincing case made from Scripture that they have ceased, but I also believe strongly that they exist for precisely the same purposes they did in Scripture: to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and bring others to repentance and salvation.

I grew up in a church that was extremely wary of anything even remotely charismatic (although on reflection, it was equally wary of anything remotely Calvinist), and after the Lord saw fit to pull me back in to Himself in 2007 I found myself in a place that was much more...exuberant than anything I was used to.  When I was a kid, the idea that someone would raise their hands in worship would have drawn stares and probably a talking-to from a deacon after service.  By contrast, at the Village people worshiped in such a way as they felt stirred their hearts for Christ. 

The humanist half-gospel

The new Catholic Pope Francis has been making a lot of waves in the news lately.  Certainly he's an interesting character to watch from the perspective of someone who rejects his authority to speak as he claims he can, with God's own words.  But he's said a lot of things that have people talking about how the church talks about its role in the world and about ministry--well, the Catholic church at least, but it bears discussing.  There's a couple of articles in particular I read that deserve responding to, especially in talking about issues of Christian doctrine, truth, and why Christians ought to both be actively doing good to those around them while unapologetically preaching the truth of the Gospel to a culture that rejects it angrily.

From the Daily Beast article:

Pope Francis used [the story of St. Francis renouncing his wealth] to assert that, like that first Francis, Christians have on too many clothes. We must “lay ourselves bare,” he said, and “divest ourselves from this worldliness: the spirit contrary to the spirit of the beatitudes, the spirit contrary to the spirit of Jesus.” He repeated this command to “strip ourselves” of worldliness several times and concluded with a flourish: “Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills the Church!”

What a phrase: spiritual worldliness. How can something be at the same time worldly, and spiritual?  The answer is, it can’t, and Francis knows this well. He is slyly saying that our spirituality is often a farce, that the church has for years draped itself in clothes that masquerade as holy but are actually just earthly rags.

It’s not a stretch to think that Francis is pointing his finger across the ocean at so much of what has characterized American Christianity over the past 30 years.  The empty layers of denomination and doctrine that have little to do with grace. The gospels of health and wealth that stand in contradiction to the gospel of Christ. The political rhetoric and advocacy that claim the mantel of the eternal for decidedly temporal causes.

I don't know much about Joshua DuBois other than what it says in the "about the author" section at the end of the article, that he was an adviser to President Obama for religious affairs and that he has an African Methodist Episcopal background.  But he's saying a lot of good things here, right?  Both of them, actually, the Pope and DuBois.  So many people, especially in the West, exist in one of two states as regards spirituality: either they reject God entirely and opt for secularism, or they exist in some kind of spiritual state that looks to be about God but really is about getting what they want for themselves.  I've discussed this division in the past as it refers to this passage:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.--1 Corinthians 1:20-25

But there's an issue here: the Pope calls us to give up "spiritual worldiness," though he doesn't really define that.  DuBois takes the step of trying to define it, and he points out some other issues within the church that detract from the Gospel, but he is left talking about the need for the church to...give up...something?  He ends the article with, "But if Christians can muster the courage to strip off false religion and stand clothed in grace alone, we might yet save the American church. Here’s hoping for a bit of Francis’s naked faith."  But the church, in America or elsewhere, was not established on humans building anything and it's not going to be "saved" by anything but God continuing to maintain His elect as He has throughout history.  But that rather major issue aside, they are scratching the surface of something true.  If they won't dig in all the way, though, what good is it?

The other article is by Lincoln Chafee, current governor of Rhode Island.  As expected, it's written in lots of pol-speak, but it touches the same concern on different issues of the day:

The first Jesuit to ascend to the papacy, Pope Francis recently told La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal, that too many people have become obsessed with gays, abortion and contraception. His vision of a more inclusive faith that does not discriminate against anyone is a conviction in which I believe the vast majority of Rhode Islanders and Americans share.

Pope Francis, by his actions and words, demonstrates that he is determined to eliminate the scourge of prejudice in our society and to renew our civic purpose as a people.

For too long, religious extremism has prevailed at the expense of our common human ties. In certain circles in America and countries around the world, there are those people who try to demean others as lesser based on their social standing, skin color or the person they love.

I question how, exactly, Chafee defines "eliminating religious extremism."   He talks about how the Pope has pushed the Catholic church to refocus on issues of service to the poor and social justice.  Again, nothing bad here, nothing to be against.  But does Chafee truly believe that to preach the Gospel is to stand against these things?  Does he believe that Jesus, in calling everyone to repent of their sinfulness and idolatry and follow Him, is promoting "religious extremism?"  He certainly wasn't very popular for such a message, even though it contained elements of both DuBois' and Chafee's statements.

Jesus did not come to bring a message of social justice; he did not come to simply call for an end to "spiritual worldiness" or to tell us to "stop being so obsessed with sin."  He brought the Gospel, the good news that starts off very badly.  Everyone everywhere that believes they are good enough, that they've done the right things or had the correct thoughts, is fooling themselves.  We begin our life in sin, and on our own even our best laid plans are only paths deeper into sinfulness.  But Jesus came with the message that with repentance from sins and faith in His sacrifice on the cross, His resurrection, and His status now as our eternal high priest who has made the atonement for everything, we have renewed life that continues beyond this earthly one.

Should we be giving up our attachment to worldly things?  Yes, but if we are not then turning to Christ from those things, what is there to gain from it?  Do we need to show love to those who struggle with sin of all kinds, no matter what it is.  Absolutely yes, and it's also true that many Christians do not do a good job of showing mercy to those who struggle with sins different from their own.  But at the same time, we do not commit an act of love in any sense of completeness if it does not involve sharing that same message of repentance and grace in the cross.  Grace is not simply "come on in, the water's fine," it is "come over here, there is room here at the foot of the cross for you as well."

DuBois and Chafee together with the Pope they are discussing cover the parts of the gospel people want to hear--the part that lets them do enough to be good and to look down on those who don't do as they are doing.  But all three of them are leaving out the parts that are truly life-giving and -transforming, because they involve turning aside from worshiping our own desires.  Being able to acknowledge aspects of truth is good...but it's also dangerous, because it means there is no excuse for not acknowledging all of it.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.--Romans 1:18-25

Pain and joy pt. 5: Two roads

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”--Matthew 22:34-40

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.--Galatians 5:16-23

 Last time I ended with an example drawn upon the account of Jesus' crucifixion in Luke 23.  On either side of Jesus hung criminals; guilty of what is not known, but the incredible difference in their reaction to Jesus dying between them hangs as an incredible illustration of the two incredibly different ways that we react to pain and suffering in our lives.  Two men, both about to die, both right there with the one Man in all the universe that might do anything to help them.  One of the criminals yells at Jesus and demands that He do what He can to save his life, to let him down from the cross.  He does not want salvation in the sense that Christ offers it to anyone; he wants to use Jesus to get what he wants right now--in this case, avoidance of death and the end of this particular moment of pain.  He clings to his life, and so, he loses it and with it, hope.

The other criminal does the opposite: he admits his guilt and asks only that Jesus remember him when He comes into what will be His.  He humbles himself and lays his fate, as quickly as it is coming upon him, at the feet of a man who is dying just as painfully right next to him.  And Jesus' reaction is truly a moment of bittersweet triumph: this man, guilty of only God knows what at this point in history, would be with Jesus in heaven because he refused to cling to his life and his desires, but gave them up knowing that they were worthless.

I want to look at the incredible contrast in the second passage above, Galatians 5:16-23.  We see the fruit of the desires of our flesh laid against the fruit of the Spirit.  In other words, the result of pursuing what we naturally want in our state of being separated from God, versus the result of the Spirit's work in us to recreate us in the image of Jesus.  Left to our own devices, we run after things that bring us no life, no lasting joy, nothing resembling real happiness if viewed in the long term and in real life without blinders.  These are what the Bible calls idols, and they can take virtually any form, especially in modern society where literal idol worship is supplanted with the self.