No doubt you’ve heard stories of people defecting from the Christian faith. Get used to it. You are going to hear many more. Hordes of people who grew up in the American church — many who were quite devout — are going to hang it up never to return. I, like others, think that it will eventually happen by the millions. Most of what you know of as Christianity in America will end, and you can’t stop it either.*

Sure, you can blame the New Atheism, the gays,  the rising tide of secularism, or multi-culturalism if you want. But most of the blame rests squarely with churches, probably much like the one to which you belong (I know, I know, not YOUR church). Churches and church leadership are responsible for it, and they are simply unprepared to handle what is coming. They’ll eventually wake up to it, but whatever they do will be too little, too late. The train has already left the station. The best we can hope for is to mitigate the damage. 

I call it “damage”, but most of the damage won’t happen to true Christianity. It will, however, deal a sharp blow to cultural Christianity and those churches who have relied so long and so heavily on the advantages of an assumed religion in an affluent society. Many people who have claimed Christianity due to social pressures are going to simply walk away once the social pressures are gone.

Some of you want some proof of what I’m saying here. As you sit in a congregation of 10,000+ next Sunday morning, what I’m saying will sound very unlikely. The empire seems to big to fail. But this mentality is precisely the main reason that it will fail — particularly the Evangelical empire. We have been moving merrily along thinking that we could manipulate and gimmick people into building our empire. And these strategies have worked to get people in, but they won’t keep them in. For all of the slickness of presentation and marketing skills that we have honed over the years, the strategies employed by those who are against our attempts at power, prestige, and organization are much more effective. So while it may seem impossible to you that a crowd of thousands will dwindle away, you haven’t considered all of the people who have already left. The percentage of people identifying themselves with Christianity is going down, and there’s no reason at this point to think that it will trend upward. Cultural Christianity will soon be gone.

It may be easy for me to say “Good ridance” to cultural Christianity, but I think we’ll miss it more than we realize. We’ll miss its money, and all the great stuff it bought us (in my case, cultural Christianity funded most of my seminary education). We’ll miss its political power to legislate our morality on unbelievers, and the social freedom it gave us to tell people that we’re Christians with little to no impugnity so long as we didn’t take the whole thing too seriously. We’ll miss the way it let us claim Christ in the cute, fun way! Wasn’t it — to borrow a popular phrase in worship services these days — awesome?!

All of the foregoing (the money, the power, the large gatherings, the entertainment) are things which much of the church has confused with biblical, authentic Christianity. But it is in fact another religion that has run along side of Christianity and at times made it hard to distinguish the two by calling itself “Christianity” and calling its message “the gospel”. But it’s all going away (for the most part anyway). Once it is gone and we look around at what we’re left with, there will be an awareness that we really did have it coming to us and that it was well-deserved. Yet, I’m optimistic that in retrospect the remaining church will see that what died, in fact, needed to die. It wasn’t worth saving because it wasn’t really Christianity anyway. Ultimately, though it will be a difficult world for those who remain, it will be beneficial to the church. I’m not so wide-eyed as to think that it will yield a church free of problems with authentic Christians throughout, but it will be a more intentional church, a more thoughtful church, a serving church, a church far less politically hungry, and a church ready to hear the gospel again.

Lament it if you will — or even deny it — but it’s coming. It’s already started. Our church growth methods won’t stop it. The Emerging Church (are those guys even around anymore?) won’t stop it. Reformed theology won’t stop it. Liturgical worship won’t stop it. And the reason is simple: you can’t sustain what is unsustainable. Churches that want to transform Jesus into a hipster doofus, or make him the ultimate male in a paperback novel for middle-aged divorcees, or champion him as the power to make all your suburbanite dreams come true of being a great co-worker, husband, father, T-ball coach, and backyard grillmaster simply need to die.** They aren’t preaching Christ and their religion isn’t Christianity. It’s a perverted, warped, bizarro Christianity. It’s purely artificial.

But the result is that there are people who in their zeal to walk away from these churches, walk away from Christ. It’s true that some of those put off by these churches look for more authentic expressions of the Christian faith, but I think the bulk of them never do. They either find it comforting that they no longer have to busy their minds with all of the doctrine, the prayers, the rules, the formulas, the ridiculous trinkets, the lingo, and the politicking, or they simply aren’t aware of what other Christian options are out there and so they move on.

Once churches notice that people are leaving, they will eventually get out the apologetics books. They’ll quote lots of C. S. Lewis, they’ll maybe even hold debates with atheists. They’ll talk about how obvious Christianity is and how certain we can be with our mountain of evidence, under which we can bury any unbeliever. They’ll think that this is the way to stave off the death of their brand. But I don’t think apologetics will be of much use. Why? Two reasons. One, it will be too late. Two, and more importantly, apologetics only works well in defense of true Christianity. It can’t just be tacked on to an artificial church with an artificial gospel. For all the defense that these groups will make, the problem remains with what is being defended. There is a defense for true Christianity, but there is simply no defense for an artificial one. To put it in marketing terms, a company with a faulty product can try to defend it by attacking the claims of those who are pointing out the defects. But when the defects are clearly present, the consumer won’t stay confused forever about whose claims they should believe. Eventually the claims of the critics are going to resonate with their own experience. Clever ways of deflecting criticism doesn’t work when you’ve got a terrible product with a high price and the market is full of competition. So the problem isn’t the naysayers. The problem lies with the faulty product they are naysaying and with the people who continue to turn out this product.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the naysayers are the friends of better expressions of Christianity. But if you read the likes of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett, you’ll notice that most of the brands of Christianity in their crosshairs are the same ones I’m talking about here. They’re easy targets, and New Atheism is thriving on them. Artificial Christianity has been their biggest missionary. Dawkins and the like have a much harder time raising ire against more authentic forms of Christianity, and I think they know it. So it’s not that they we should view them as friends of the church, but we must admit that some of their criticism is deserved and on target.

So what do we do?

I think the first thing to do is recognize what’s coming and stop pretending it isn’t already happening.

After that the best we can do is assist in the death of what is the source of the problem. Call a spade a spade on this, and stop defending a caricature of the church and of Christ. I think there’s credibility to be gained among people who are questioning the legitimacy of Christianity and on the verge of walking away from Christ when a group can clearly point to what these people have experienced and draw a stark contrast between the Christian faith and practice taught in Scripture and the shallow, power-drunk knock-off they’ve been a part of. Telling them that what they see isn’t really there only makes it worse. So long as there is confusion of the two in people’s minds artificial Christianity will cause a lot of unnecessary damage to authentic Christianity.

Also, we have to trust that Christ is Lord of his church. One can neither build nor destroy what is truly his church. He has promised to build his church, and he has promised that no other power will prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). These promises free me to acknowledge what is coming without fret. Christ knows far better than I what to do with his church and how she’ll survive so I’ll leave it to him. We can’t look at a false religion in decline and use it as a reason to wonder if the promises of Christ are true. They are. We may even see Christ carrying out an aspect of that promise when a perversion of the church collapses.

Third, the temptation toward arrogance is great. It  is very easy to assume that we’re always on the side of the gospel while others are not. But the reality is that we are all prone to commoditize the gospel, to try to harness it, package it, twist it, tweak it, or give it some flair of our own. So we must be very careful of identifying our group as the one, true church as we herald the demise of those not saying what we’re saying. A friend of mine pointed out to me recently that part of the reality of unbelievers and believers existing together in a community we call the visible church is that believers can be unaware of ways in which their thinking about the gospel has been influenced by unbelievers. None of us should think we have a corner on the gospel. What we can do is continue to return the word of God and the sacraments and ask that he would keep us in the faith, guard us from error, and allow us to hear the gospel again and again. We can do these things and all the while still tell others, “I’m sorry, but you are perverting the gospel. You’re calling it something that it is not.” This is not the arrogant part. The arrogance comes in when you think that you and your little group is immuned to error, and stop worrying that it could happen to you.

Lastly, I think of the Old Testament prophets. Even though they knew that judgment was coming they still called for people to repent and turn back. Regardless of what is coming, this shouldn’t stop us from calling those involved in artificial Christianity to repent and confess a true gospel. Of course, doing so relies on us carrying out the aforementioned task of making the contrast clear between what is artificial and what is authentic when others are busy distorting the line between the two.

Beyond this, I’m not sure what else there is to do, but Christ has it well under control.

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*Much of my thinking in this area has been influenced by Michael Spencer’s writing on internetmonk.com. Of course, any error of mine is solely my responsibility.

*Without interrupting the flow of the sentence, I want to add to the list of churches that need to – and will eventually – die: There are the churches that preach Jesus as the way to get a Rolex on your wrist. There are the churches that preach Jesus as the grand politician who will heal our land if our people will just turn back to him (and of course turning back to him is synonymous with voting down gay marriage, overturning Roe v. Wade, and closing up strip clubs). There are the churches who have a fetish for celebrity demagogue pastors who thrive on throngs of people kissing their ass and watching them scramble to work their way up the chain. Nearly everything that goes on in these churches is carefully orchestrated toward their end (no pun intended).

1. Infants inherit original sin and thus need salvation.

2. Throughout the history of the church several means have been proposed by which the work of salvation can be applied to infants: baptism, salvation for (elect?) infants who die, a gift of adult-like rationality to understand propositional statements about the gospel.

3. The Scriptural, theological, and church traditional support for the baptism of infants is greater than the other proposed means.

4. In order to reject infant baptism as a means by which the work of salvation can be applied to infants, one must choose one of the competing alternatives with less support or propose a new alternative with more overall support.

5. A new alternative would lack church traditional support and would most likely lack Scriptural, theological support.

Conclusion: Therefore, infant baptism enjoys the greatest support as a means for the salvation of infants.

I suspect that those who disagree with the conclusion will most likely challenge the third premise. Or perhaps they could simply deny premise one. Another option would be to argue that I haven’t included all the traditionally proposed means in premise two. For a real stretch, they could deny premise five. But I think that denying any of these is a tough road to hoe. I’m interested to hear objections to the premises or the logic that connects them. Any takers?

This post comes to us from guest blogger Kevin Regal and addresses an issue that seems to be particularly problematic in evangelicalism where the movement seems to surround around megapastors and popular leaders. What results is often nothing less than the worship of these leaders which is manifested in name-dropping, autograph-seeking, mimicking preaching styles, and defending one’s hero under almost any circumstances (to name a few). For those who might wonder whether this blog has become an anti-Piper blog in light of the recent frequency of posts pertaining to Piper let me say two things: 1) Kevin was working on this post before Piper wrote his statement about the tornado that hit the ELCA convention. It was mostly a matter of coincidence that I decided to write a post responding to his statement about the ELCA; 2) whatever part isn’t coincidence is owed to the fact that Piper has of late put out a rash of unusually outrageous and unbiblical statements. Since I find that so many evangelicals take his ideas so seriously, it is worth the time to respond to them.
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One of the things that bothers me most about Evangelicalism is the abundance of praise, adoration, and exultation which many Evangelicals direct toward prominent pastors, radio speakers, authors, etc. Because of that frustration, I was very interested when I heard that John Piper had written an article addressing the topic of hero worship (“Hero Worship and Holy Emulation”). A statement—any statement—discouraging the worship of men is long overdue from most Evangelical leaders, and I very much hoped that was what Piper was up to. I generally appreciate much of what Piper writes and says, and I believe that, should he endeavor to, he could make a powerful case against the evangelical tendency to worship its leaders.

My hopes were, however, sorely disappointed. Piper’s statement was far from the kind of open and honest self-evaluation I had hoped for. I’ll try to explain my disappointment in terms of four main areas in which I disagree with him.

First, Piper is wrong in his definition of hero worship. He writes “Hero worship means admiring someone for unholy reasons, and seeing all he does as admirable (whether it is sin or not).”

So, according to Piper, hero worship is nothing more than misguided admiration. The acts and attitudes which constitute hero worship are actually virtues if the worshipers focus them upon the good qualities of the heroes.

Applying that idea to virtually any other situation yields obviously bizarre results; for example, to be consistent Piper would have to conclude that Daniel’s friends could have bowed to Nebuchadnezzar’s image (or to Nebuchadnezzar—whom the image obviously represented), so long as they only admired its/his good qualities. Bowing down to a calf image would also have to be deemed acceptable, so long as it is admired it for its beauty, etc. All people (even evil people) have some admirable qualities. Machiavelli could be admired for his brilliance, Hitler for his determination, Madonna for her…well I can’t think of anything, but I’m sure there’s something which could be legitimately admired.

Hero worship is not just a bad kind of admiration. It seems so obvious that I wonder how Piper could have missed this, but hero worship is a kind of worship. And worship directed toward anyone or anything but God is idolatry. There is no good or acceptable way to worship anyone or anything but God.

Second, Piper is wrong in his identification of the internet as the problem. Basically, Piper claims that the rapid and ready availability of information causes pastors to become celebrities. Piper doesn’t explicitly connect celebrity status to hero worship, so it is difficult to know quite what he thinks about it. This is especially so because he seems rather ambivalent on the matter—approving of the widely-celebrated notoriety of such pastors but disapproving of that notoriety being called what it is, celebrity. He appears to like the fact that the very presence of pastors like himself draws large crowds to conferences (like Advance 09), but dislike it when reporters observe that “celebrity pastors” have come to their city. You can’t have it both ways, John.

But really that rapid and ready flow of information provided us by the internet is a good thing; Piper seems to agree (at least partially) when he observes that many sermons, articles, and books are available—often free of charge—via the internet. However, he asserts that internet tools like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter “contribute to” the celebrity status of pastors—which he says is “media-driven.”

Like all good things, a tool like the internet can be abused. For example, the internet makes pornography much more available than it was twenty years ago. But the problem is not the tool, it is the sin. And, like the worship of church leaders, pornography is a problem that was around long before the internet. Surely, the internet does provide a great new outlet for the expression of the sin in peoples’ hearts, but it did not put that sin in their hearts.

Third, Piper’s defense of what may be called “good hero worship” is both illogical and unscriptural. Apparently to escape the criticism of hero worship, Piper invents the phrase ‘holy emulation’ (a phrase which is completely meaningless and yet sounds rather spiritual) and transfers the ideological content of the phrase ‘hero worship’ to his new phrase. But it is not a complete transfer — what Piper appears to want is to keep the phrase ‘hero worship’ as a decoy so that all the criticism, negative connotation, etc. can be absorbed by that phrase while he transfers all the attitudes and actions which actually constitute hero worship to the new phrase (‘holy emulation’). In that way, he is able to acknowledge criticisms of hero worship without actually condemning any of the attitudes and behaviors which are generally indicated by the phrase.

There’s more. Though ‘holy emulation’ is an empty phrase, the word ‘emulate’ is close in meaning to the word ‘imitate.’ So, when Piper argues that ‘holy emulation’ is exactly what is meant by passages like 1 Cor 11:11 (“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ”) and Phil 3:17 (“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”), it is easy for us to be tricked. If Piper was only speaking of ‘emulation,’ per se, then it would probably be fair to substitute it for ‘imitation.’ But Piper is not speaking about ordinary emulation; he is speaking about ‘holy emulation’—the phrase which he has just loaded with all the content of hero worship.

I think it is obvious that Paul’s commands to imitate him are to be understood as commands to imitate what he was doing that was right. That, of course, requires discernment on the part of the person doing the imitating–imitating Paul’s faithfulness to Christ would be correct; imitating his speaking gestures would be silly; showering him with praise and adoration which belongs only to God would be idolatrous. Autograph- seeking, name-dropping, flat-out praise and adoration—really do fit hero worship and really have nothing to do with the kind of imitation commanded by Paul and the author of Hebrews.

Fourth. I hesitate to write this, but I think it is a point which needs to be made: the attitude of Piper’s entire article on hero worship is wrong. Piper’s article begins with a rather confused run of blame-shifting. It could be summarized: “It’s not my fault, it’s the internet, etc. that’s doing it, and I don’t know what to do about it!” That’s not a new line; Aaron defended himself the same way: “Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” (Exod 32:24)

Piper then accuses those who criticize hero worship of pride and threatens them with dangers worse than bullets, bombs, and death. He brands them as ‘cynics’. Piper pretends to be warning everyone of those dangers, but he is careful to excuse both worshipers and heroes from blame. The heroes can’t be blamed, for it is the internet’s fault. The worshipers can’t be faulted because to do so would be to “assume the worst of people.” Only the critics are left under his condemnation—he seems quite willing to assume the worst of them.

Strangely, after rejecting any blame for heroes and worshipers alike, Piper goes on to argue that hero worship (newly named ‘holy emulation’) isn’t actually wrong, and even goes so far as to claim that it is commanded by scripture. Nowhere in his article does he attempt a serious evaluation of the concerns or of himself and other ‘heroes’ in light of them.

I wish that Piper had imitated Paul; he left us a very good example on this matter.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. (Acts 14:14-15)

And scripture tells us that even the angels refuse to accept worship. John wrote:

And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” (Rev 22:8-9)

The danger Piper mentioned is real, but it wasn’t cynics who were punished after the golden calf incident, and it was Herod himself, not his cynics, who was eaten alive by worms.

I’ll conclude with this citation about idolatry. It is from philosopher Paul K. Moser:

Idolatry is the universal human tendency to value something or someone in a way that hinders the love and trust we owe to God. It is an act of theft from God whereby we use some part of creation in a way that steals from honor due to God. Idolatry conflicts with our putting God alone first in our lives, in what we love and trust (see Exod 20:3-5; Deut 5:7-9; Rom 1:21-23). In idolatry we put something or someone, usually a gift from God, in a place of value that detracts from the first place owed to God alone, the gift Giver. That thing or person is an idol.

KWR

“That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened.” - Martin Luther in “Heidelberg Disputation”, Disputation #19.

This blog was never designed to be a theological and ecclesiastical current events source. It’s unlikely that you’ll ever read late-breaking church news here. As I stated from the beginning in the purpose statement for this blog, the purpose is submit ideas and practices to the authority of Christ and to let Christ’s word rule above all else regardless of who the idea belongs to or how absurd the conclusion may strike us against the background of our conventional views.

From time to time, then, something takes place in contemporary theology and culture that intersects with a broader theological point, and provides a unique opportunity to explore that broader theological point in connection with that contemporary moment.

Several weeks ago, Christians around the world watched as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) held its biennial convention in Minneapolis to vote (among other things) on a proposal on human sexuality that would approve of monogamous homosexual relationships and allow active, monogamous homosexuals to serve as recognized clergy in the ELCA. The consideration of (not the vote on) the proposal was scheduled to take place at the fifth session of the convention at 2 PM on Wednesday, August 19, 2009. But the events wouldn’t take place as scheduled. A tornado hit downtown Minneapolis around the time the consideration of the proposal was scheduled. The tornado hit the convention center where the convention was held as well as Central Lutheran Church across the street from the convention center resulting in damage to both buildings. According to weather reports, the tornado was not expected. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It was an odd serious of events to be sure.

Several conservative Christian leaders who were saddened by the continuing doctrinal shift of the ELCA, rushed to give an interpretation of this weather catastrophe that hit the ELCA convention. Popular Calvinist Baptist preacher John Piper took center stage in this task. According to Piper,

The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.

This comment by Piper left many wondering just what should we say about the role of these kinds of events in our lives. Is God warning us about our sin? Is he punishing us? What does it mean when God allows suffering into our lives?

The question is a good one. Unfortunately, Piper’s answer to it is a bad one.

First, we mustn’t think that God has only one purpose for suffering or the evil threatens us. Piper’s God has a singular purpose for suffering: to call us to repentance for sin. In an attempt to further explain his comments about the tornado that hit the ELCA, Piper makes a metaphor of the tornado for his own suffering. Piper was diagnosed with prostate cancer three years ago and now calls this “the tornado of cancer”. What is the purpose of this suffering? 

This tornado “is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack.” In other words, the cancer-tornado was a merciful rebuke to my worldliness and a timely thrust toward holiness.

Contrary to what Piper says, Scripture assigns purposes for suffering that are neither the result of a person’s sin nor calls to repent of sin. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ disciples asked him who’s sin was the cause of a blind man’s blindness. Jesus simply doesn’t accept the premise of the question. This man’s blindness isn’t about sin. Instead “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn 9:2-3). To claim that all natural evil that we suffer is a call from God to repent of a sin we’ve committed requires the premise that the evil we suffer is causally connected to some particular sin. But this explanation simply doesn’t wash with the teaching of Scripture. Even if you should never sin again and have no sin to repent of, you will still suffer. Maybe you have already repented. That’s good, but a tornado may still strike your house. Jesus Christ had no sin to repent of and yet he still suffered. So we can’t say that the “tornados” in life always fit the purpose Piper describes.

Neither can we retreat to the explanation that suffering is the result of sin in general. It is true that suffering comes about because we live in a fallen world brought about by disobedience to God, but this isn’t the same as saying that all suffering is the result of some particular sin and is issued by God as a call to repent of specific sins. Even a sinless Savior suffers in a fallen world and yet it isn’t a call for him to repent of sin. The reasons for suffering run deeper than your sin. It’s bigger than your sin. Suffering is woven into the fabric of human existence in such a way that prevents us from the trite and foolish task of connecting each item of suffering to a sinful act. God has subjected our human existence in this world to futility (Rom 8:20-21), and as such, suffering will often defy our explanation and our attempts to assign each item a particular meaning. Piper’s God is a God who visits suffering quid pro quo or tit-for-tat. Commit a sin, and God might design some suffering. Experience some suffering and it means you must repent of the sin behind it. But often, the best we will be able to come up with for the meaning of suffering is that “man is born for trouble ” (Job 5:7). The futility of life will sometimes be as deep as we can explain suffering whether its a rock in your shoe or cancer in your body.

Second, we have to acknowledge that some suffering is connected to a particular act of sin. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their wickedness (Gen 19:12-15). God sent suffering to the people of Israel because of their disobedience (Ez 5:7-11). But in each case where we see suffering connected to particular sins we have a word from God that accompanies it to tell us what the reason is. His word interprets the suffering for us. Apart from God’s commentary we are only groping in the dark for an explanation, and a liberal Lutheran’s explanation of a tornado is as good as Piper’s.

Any hope that suffering can be explained won’t be found in studying our sin and grasping for ways to connect it to something we did. The best we will be able to do is to explain it in through the cross of Christ. This is the only hope in the futility of suffering. Otherwise, how do we even begin to say what the suffering means or if it means anything at all? In his Heidelberg Disputation, Martin Luther observed that “That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened” (Disputation #19). Unless God unfolds it, the invisible council of God is not perceptible from the events we see. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether Piper deserves to be called a theologian (I know how Luther would cast his vote). If we can’t arrive at God’s purposes through what we see, how are we to arrive at them? Luther tells us it is through the suffering of the cross: “He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross“ (Disputation #20). Luther makes clear in his explanation of Disputation #20 that God is not found in our wisdom as we seek to make sense of his ways according to our judgments (such as when people say: “God must have been warning the Lutherans. Look at the way all those events happened together. I know what God was up to!”). God’s ways are folly to us. We like to think that we know what he’s doing by reading the tea leaves of this event or that event. But God has told us that we can only recognize him in the humility and shame of the cross. So without him giving us an explanation of what he has done, our attempts to get into the mind of God and declare what we think is the meaning of suffering is foolish and dangerous.

Third, outside of seeing suffering through the lense of the mercy shown us in the suffering of Jesus Christ, whether it’s a tornado, a mosquito bite, or toilet paper sticking to the bottom of your shoe, God’s action is indiscernible from the devil’s. Only when God is disclosed in Jesus Christ do we truly know him. Christ reveals the Father to us (Jn 14:6-11). It is only in Christ that we know that God is for us. Without Christ, God is hidden. He is the one who (in the words of Oswald Bayer) “becomes my enemy. He turns cruel to me” (Bayer 2007, 206). This is more than just the effect of the law which declares me a sinner.

We are confronted by this hiddeness in evens such as the senseless catastrophes of nature, unrectifiable injustice, innocent suffering, starvation, murder, war, incurable illness, and the tragic death of the young. “God” for the most part remains anonymous in all this, almost always concealed in passivity. He is not for life but against it, not a preserver of life but its destroyer, who contradicts his revealed will and the gospel. This is the cause of the most profound testing, trial, and spiritual attack: that one who presents himself “for you!” in the promise of life and of eternal community, vouching for it with his own death, is the same one who, as Luther says with the Old Testament “neither deplores death nor takes it away,” “but works life, death, and all in all.” Who can comprehend this? No one (Bayer 2007, 105)!

So God’s actions are not, as Piper tells us, the kind that can all be explained. Even looking at events through the suffering of the cross doesn’t tell us what they mean. What it means to see suffering through Christ is not to get some God’s-eye view of events. It simply means that because we look to Christ and know that the cross is proof that God is for us we don’t have to wonder if it means that God is against us when we encounter suffering. So long as we are looking at things through the cross we can say as Job did that our suffering cannot mean that God is against me — even when it may seem that way. Christ settles that question for Job and he must for us too: “Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;  on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend” (Job 16:19-21) and “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-26). 

It is when we think we have some overarching explanation for all suffering that we become like Job’s friends. Job doesn’t come through his suffering with some grand explanation. He doesn’t say as Piper does, “That is the message of every calamity.” Suffering brings him to silence not explanation: “…I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer– twice, but I will say no more” (Job 40:4-5).

Fourth, this explanation leaves countless questions unanswered. If there is some overarching purpose for all suffering, why didn’t Paul invoke it from the outset of his encounter with his “thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me” (2 Cor 12:7)? Why did its purpose have to be revealed to him? The answer is simple: there is no grand explanation of all suffering that we can grasp. Piper’s error isn’t that he proposes the wrong explanation for all suffering, but that he proposes one at all. The explanation fails on so many levels: biblically, empirically, and practically. If, as he writes, ”the cancer-tornado was a merciful rebuke to my worldliness and a timely thrust toward holiness” and ”this is the lesson…for every tornado in any city, and any life, anywhere in the world”, then I have to wonder how this can be true in cases in which a tornado kills a person? How is this a merciful rebuke to worldliness or a timely thrust toward holiness? And when did holiness become the result of our work in responding the right way to suffering? Isn’t holiness found only through faith in the work of Christ? (1 Cor 1:30; Rom 6:22). I experienced the suffering of an itch on my back the other day. Was this a merciful rebuke to my worldliness and a timely thrust toward holiness? Or does it only work for tornados and cancer? And if all suffering is rebuke to worldliness, then why do the wicked of the world get just the opposite message so often? “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? They see their children established around them, their offspring before their eyes. Their homes are safe and free from fear; the rod of God is not upon them….They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace” (Job 21:7-9, 13).

Suffering is too great, too common, and too complex to give it a weak, failing and simple answer as Piper’s. Whether you are a liberal Lutheran believer who is flat wrong about what God says about homosexuality or whether you are a popular evangelical pastor/preacher/author anything you say about suffering is your word and not God’s. Our attempts at wisdom in the face of suffering cannot establish meaning. Only a specific word from God attached to it can do this, and we so rarely have this benefit (they rarely had it in the events recorded in Scripture, too). In most cases suffering will defy explanation. But in all cases we do have the God revealed in the cross and resurrection that overshadows all things and declares to us that God is for us. This lens does not become a decoder for each event by which I can now know its meaning. It is a lens that allows me to see that I cannot deny that God loves me and goes to any lengths that I might be free, even when my suffering defies a preacher’s attempts to tell me the meaning behind it all.

Fellow blogger and friend, Uriesou Brito, interviewed me for his radio show Trinity Talk on the phenomenon of nondenominationalism. The podcast can be found here. As it turned out, it isn’t simply a rehashing of my post “The Nondenominationalists that Weren’t”. I include some new thoughts on nondenominationalism. Largely through the benefit of the discussion in the comments on that post.

Btw, check out other Trinity Talk broadcasts. They range over many different topics on culture and theology with excellent discussion by the hosts and guests.

Most of the conversation between Christians regarding alcohol consists in whether it is permissible within Christian ethics to consume alcoholic beverages for recreational use. I’ve lost interest in that debate. It’s an easy win. I imagine that the writers of Scripture would laugh at a twenty-first century Christian who mandated that one cannot drink alcohol. Still, there’s another view that Christians often hold that I want to address.

Many Christians, I think, reject teetotalism because it’s possible for someone to drink alcohol and it have no discernible effect on the person. From this fact, they conclude: surely it’s acceptable to drink alcohol since doing so can be entirely innocuous. But there is something in this thought that is misleading. It suggests that when one drinks alcohol, it should have no visible effect on the person. The idea is that it permissible to drink alcohol not because alcohol is a good thing, but because it isn’t always a bad thing. This view is similar to someone who begrudgingly admits that sex is acceptable in cases of procreation. This person is, of course, permitting that sex is acceptable, but they aren’t really thinking of sex as a gift of grace to be enjoyed for its own sake. What I wish to challenge here is the claim that alcohol should never have a noticeable effect on our behavior.

I hold that it’s more than permissible to drink alcohol; it can be virtuous. Not only is drinking alcohol not a bad thing, alcohol can enhance our lives and make a positive contribution.

Alcohol makes this positive contribution not by some status that we confer on it, but by the grace of God. Fermentation is not some happy accident that humans either happened upon or invented. It’s not our creation; it is God’s work which he graciously gave to human beings. The statement (often attributed to Benjamin Franklin) that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy is, of course, funny. But it is also true. The point is best brought out, though, by the psalmist in Psalm 104. The point is made better particularly because the psalmist doesn’t just say that alcohol is proof God wants us to be happy. Anyone who is not inclined to agree with this statement easily dismisses it. But the way that the psalmist puts it requires that in order for people to reject the goodness of alcohol, they must also reject the goodness of all of God’s creation. The psalmist places his reference to alcohol in the context of the many gifts God has granted throughout the natural world. Yahweh constructed the heavens and sent the winds (vv 2-4). He gave the earth the deep waters of the sea and the tall mountains (v 6). As far as creatures go, he gave water to the land animals, trees for the birds to nest (v 11). He gave the growing green grass to the cattle (v 14a) and to humans he gave plants for food and wine to gladden their hearts, oil to beautify their faces, and bread to sustain strength (vv 14b-15).

Never be alone. Act foolish and play. Drink a good deal. It would even be a good idea to commit a sin — but not a gross one (Martin Luther, quoted in Martin Luther by Martin Marty [New York: Viking/Penguin, 2004], p. 181).

1. I am not saying that Scripture condones or permits drunkenness (this should be obvious from what I’ve written but I suspect it isn’t obvious to everyone).
2. I am not saying that alcohol only has positive effects.
3. I am not saying that it is wrong not to drink (though I do think that for most Christians it is).
4. I am not saying that we can be flippant in our use of alcohol.
5. I am not saying that alcohol hasn’t been abused by people to the extent that they have destroyed their lives by means of it.
6. I am not saying that we should disregard laws in society about times and places to drink alcohol.

[We've all been there. A thought strikes you at a moment, but it's fleeting fast. Get it down somewhere fast or you'll lose it. I grew so tired of this happening to me that I began making a point to stop whatever I was doing and record it. I usually record it on a BlackBerry Storm. I noticed that I had a little collection of random thoughts piling up and thought I'd post them here on occasion. Sometimes these thought will be half-baked. You'll notice that the development of these thoughts come in varying degrees. Sometimes you might think, "I think that one should've sat in the hopper a little longer..." If so, tell me. No bother, these ideas are in development. What follows is one of those ideas that I put down as it came to me.]

It is often supposed that the scholarship of believing scholars is less credible because they have a vested interest in their own claims and thus are not in a neutral position to assess historical data. As the old adage goes: if the Pope says there is a God he’s just doing his job but if August Comte says this he may be on to something. Granted, believing scholars have a vested interest and that they are not neutral, but it is not true that their claims are less credible. It is no more possible for the unbelieving scholar to assess historical data from a neutral position. The claims of Christianity are the kind of claims about which one cannot possibly be neutral. They are life-governing claims that if true demand one way of perceiving the world and if not true demand other ways of perceiving the world. It is impossible then that even a skeptic should occupy a neutral position on looking at the biblical data and assessing its truth since she makes his assessment on the judgment of a worldview that is either Christian or non-Christian. She may be agnostic with regard to his conclusion about the accuracy of the biblical data, but she is not neutral in the means by which he assesses the truth of it since she is not agnostic or neutral to her methods of evaluation. Agnosticism and neutrality are not methods of evaluation. They are at best attitudes about the outcome of evaluation. Thus it is not possible to evaluate agnostically or neutrally. People can only do any evaluation because they have principles and convictions on which they must stand in order to make an assessment.

[Here is a condensed version of the sermon that I preached this Sunday, April 5, 2009. I don't think that I'm a particularly great preacher but I think that I do fairly well at it. I try to preach what I think I would need someone to preach to me. Hopefully I'm enough like other people so that what I need to hear is similar to what they need to hear. The sermon, you will notice, is largely influenced by Luther (yes, I know I just opened myself up the charge that I should be largely influenced by the text). His explanation of Philippians 2:5-11 in "Two Kinds of Righteousness" is, in my estimation, one of the greatest theological treatises ever written. I don't plan to regularly post sermons here, but I thought some might be interested in reading it and I get a blog post out of it...win, win.]

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text today is the epistle lesson.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).

There’s a theory in ethics called egoism. It’s a pretty simple theory really. It essentially says that all ethical decisions whether good or bad are ultimately for personal gain and benefit. It claims that there’s only one motive for all your moral actions: self-interest. It’s easy to see how self-interest is behind wrong moral actions. A thief steals because he or she is selfish. The person is only thinking of themselves and not how it will hurt the person that has been stolen from. But what about good moral actions, or, acts of kindness? Well, in these cases, the theory of egoism says that you have a self-interest, too. You give someone a gift because you want to feel good or be thought of as a nice person. You give to charity because you pride yourself on being a better person. For any moral action you can think of there is a selfish motive involved, says egoism.

But our epistle lesson says something different. It speaks of actions which are totally empty of self, and says that we are called to act in a way that can’t be explained by self-interest. Our text begins telling us about Christ who has equality with God. He is full of righteousness, wisdom, power, and glory. He had no selfish reason in coming to save us. There was nothing that he needed; so he could have held onto those things. But St. Paul tells us, he didn’t consider these things something to be held onto. He didn’t hold tightly to them, but he made himself nothing by taking on humanity for our sake. He gives himself to us and we now have his righteousness, his forgiveness, and his resurrection life. We have Christ himself. His life is ours and ours is his. This was done for our benefit, not for his. He didn’t need us. We needed him. What he did, he did with no concern for himself. He simply loved sinners for their own sake. As our gospel lesson said last week: he didn’t come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for us. Christ did not sit in his righteousness, holiness, power and glory and ignore the world. He gave up what he had for our benefit, and served us in a completely selfless way.

Our text tells us the have this same mindset as Christ. What does that mean? It means that you have all the righteousness of Christ, too. All the greatness of Christ is yours because his life is your life. You are in the same position he was. But you aren’t given grace to make you selfish by keeping it for yourself. Having Christ’s life means that, just like Christ, you are free from self-concern. To have his life is to not hold onto the benefits of Christ for yourself but to empty yourself and take on the form of a servant.

Scripture teaches us of two kinds of righteousness: the first is the righteousness which Christ has given you as a gift apart from works. It belongs entirely to you. “The second kind of righteousness (a life of good works and love toward one’s neighbor and meekness and fear toward God) is the product of the first type, actually it’s fruit and consequence….Therefore it hates itself and loves its neighbor; it does not seek its own good, but that of another, and in this its whole way of living consists.”

Notice that Paul doesn’t just tell us something simple like “Be like Jesus.” He doesn’t just give us some law. He gives us gospel as well. He tells us where this demand to be like Jesus in our actions has been provided by Jesus himself. In other words, he tells us about the grace that we already have. He says in verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” This mindset is yours in Christ. How so? Having been given all things in Christ your pursuit for your own righteousness. Your effort to do good for yourself is over. That is a life that you don’t need. You are free from the need for self-concern. Seeing then that you are free in Christ, you are free to give your life to others. You have no need to be concerned for yourself because you have a savior who is concerned for you. Its right there in his word, he made himself nothing for you. He proved that he cares for you and that he works all things for your good. So now you can look away from yourself and to look to others just as Christ did for you.

As you know, today is Palm Sunday. If you want to know what Palm Sunday is about, here it is. Palm Sunday is about Jesus Christ being concerned with you and not about himself. Christ came into Jerusalem riding lowly on a donkey with no thought of self-importance. Here is the king of the universe entering a city in a way that no other king would enter. Caesar would never enter a city without great attention on himself. When Roman emperors road through a city they were out to impress you with their greatness and power. But Christ’s entrance was as unimpressive as one can be. He was riding on a peasant’s animal, not a king’s animal. He had no military might riding before him to indicate his power to crush his enemies. Jesus’ reputation had gone before him. John’s gospel tells us that the crowd that saw him raise Lazarus from the dead had been spreading the word about him. And now they heard he was coming to Jerusalem. All these people were expecting someone with a great display of greatness. Surely a man who could raise the dead would be impressive. He would surely make some grand entrance. But Jesus puts none of the attention on himself. Instead he is focused only on what has brought him to Jerusalem—giving himself for the benefit of you and me. Here he was receiving praise one moment as he enters Jerusalem but yet he was ready to endure the horrible suffering and death to follow because his concern for others. And so Paul tells us that we can have this mind because Christ had this mind for us. Do you want to worry about something? Don’t worry about yourself, you’ve got a Savior that already took care of what you think you needed to worry about. If you must worry, worry about other people. Be concerned for them.

The first epistle of John chapter 4 tells us something very similar to our text today: “By this is love perfected with us…because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.”

We have received the love of Christ and we are transformed to be toward others as he was toward us. We have no fear of punishment but we love others because we have received Christ’s love. We can be emptied of ourselves and serve freely because Christ emptied himself for us and served us freely. “Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.”

I suspect that most Christians don’t think of acting for other people the way I’m talking about it today. How do most Christians think about good works? I think it probably goes something like this: “God has told us about all these things we are supposed to do and not do and we need to be good people and follow them because they are right to do and he punishes us if we don’t do what he has said.” I don’t know if many people would admit to thinking this but it’s definitely the standard way that most Christians operate. The problem with this is that has the wrong motives. There is fear of punishment from God and Scripture is quite clear that we have nothing to fear before God. Punishment has been dealt with in Christ. As 1 John 4 says…”There is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment.” What motivates a lot of Christians to do “good works” is their desire to please God and their wish to not displease him. A person with this mindset is also motivated being thought of by others as a good person. We want them to think well of us so we do things so that they will notice us.

But our text tells the right way to think about good works. It tells us that the standard Christian motive for doing good works is deeply wrong. It is flawed through and through. In fact what can look like good works are not good works at all, but are an expression of selfishness and focus on one’s own benefit. Think just a moment about how this works. A person thinks to themselves: “I don’t want God to be angry at me, and I don’t want to be punished for doing the wrong thing. Furthermore, I like being thought of by others as a person who does the right thing. So I’m going to help you.” When this is our motive we want to be noticed for having done the right thing. If someone else got the credit, it upsets us.

Now in case you are thinking to yourself that you’ve never done this, ask yourself if you’ve ever done something good that you wouldn’t have done if someone didn’t know it was you doing it. You wanted the credit. You wanted them to know who did it for them. But Christ tells us that a right motive doesn’t seek self-glory. He says in the Sermon on the Mount:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

We’re all guilty of doing good works with the motive of getting glory from others. But this is just more self-focus. We don’t need self-focus when we have a savior so focused on us. Because we are righteous in God’s sight, our motive can now be just on the benefit of others. You can now be motivated simply by the needs of those around you. As Luther writes, “The soul no longer seeks to be righteous in and for itself, but it has Christ as its righteousness and therefore seeks only the welfare of others.” The person that has received mercy doesn’t think of himself or herself any longer and can now give attention to others.

So the final word today is that salvation frees us from self-pursuits. Any righteousness, any wisdom, any power you have belongs to others just as Christ’s righteousness, wisdom and power was not grasped for himself but became ours. As Luther writes, “For you are powerful, not that you may make the weak weaker by oppression but that you may make them powerful by raising them up and defending them. You are wise, not in order to laugh at the foolish and thereby make them more foolish, but that you may undertake to teach them as you yourself would wish to be taught. You are righteous that you may vindicate and pardon the unrighteous, not that you may only condemn, disparage, judge, and punish.”

So I declare today to you here. You are free in Christ. You have been given all of his gifts and if you know this then look away from yourself to see the needs of those around you and serve with a focus only on them. To quote Luther again: “You should be as inclined and disposed toward one another as you see Christ was disposed toward you.”

You have the greatest motive of all to give yourself in concern for others without selfishness. The motive is that Christ has freed you by giving himself to you. Only believers in Christ can have this motive because only believers in Christ are freed by Christ.

Maybe you’ve never thought of salvation this way: that all need for self-concern is over and you can now direct it toward others. This is Christ’s gift to you. May continue to give us grace that we may have the self-giving mindset among ourselves which is ours in Christ Jesus. God grant this unto us all. Amen.

And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Undoubtedly, many who read this title are members of churches where homosexuality is considered morally wrong. These people will think: “No, my church doesn’t encourage homosexuality. We are against it.” Determining which churches promote homosexuality and which do not may seem obvious, but it isn’t.

Three Churches that Encourage Homosexuality

There are several ways that churches can encourage someone toward homosexuality. There is of course the obvious way, such as when a church says: “We do not condemn homosexuality. God made some people to be homosexual just as he has made some to be heterosexual.” There are churches that say this as directly as I just did. They welcome homosexuals believing that homosexuality can honor God just as much as heterosexuality. Let’s call these type of churches Openly Approving Churches. It is easy to see how these churches encourage homosexuality.

Then there are the churches that rail against these kinds of shameless promotions of homosexuality under Christ’s name. Thinking that they actively discourage homosexuality, they pride themselves on the way in which they condemn it, call down judgment on those who practice it, and rid themselves of anyone who struggles with it. These churches often have only have two words for those they discover to be homosexuals in their churches: “Get out!” (Ok, maybe three or four: “Get out, queer!/flaming homo!, etc.”). Let’s call these type of churches Openly Condemning Churches.

Then there are churches that generally don’t have much to say about the issue, but when they do address the subject, they simply state that it is a sin to practice homosexuality. They don’t want homosexuals in their church and wish they would just quietly go away. Let’s call these type of churches Silently Condemning Churches. I suspect that the majority of churches fit into this category.

I want to argue that each of these three responses to homosexuality are in fact responsible (in some measure) for encouraging it and bringing about the very thing they claim to hate. Here’s how it happens… 

Suppose that you belong to a Silently Condemning Church. It is common knowledge that the church doesn’t approve of homosexuality but it is rarely talked about. If someone was to admit to being a homosexual or if someone who struggles with homosexuality were to begin attending the church they would ostracize this person. He/she would not be welcome at the church and some members would prompt the pastor to have a talk with this person and let him/her know that he/she should leave the church. The pastor perhaps tells the person that what he/she is doing is sin and that he/she should stop having feelings toward members of the same sex. Ultimately (and rather quickly) the pastor makes known to this person (explicitly or implicitly) that he/she does not belong in this church.

In this scenario, what has the church communicated to this person about his/her homosexuality? In effect, it has said: The church has nothing to offer you. The church is not for people who struggle with your sin. We leave you to your sin. A homosexual is what you are and must be, but what you are is wrong and we offer no help with it. Furthermore, Jesus Christ can’t help you. He only helps normal people who sin but you are beyond the pale.

The person hears this message loud and clear, and, even worse, believes it. Your church convinces him/her of something he/she either already accepted or had been considering for a while: your real identity is that of a homosexual. It is who you really are. If the person ever thought that homosexuality might be wrong, that notion is quickly abandoned for the belief that it is never wrong to be true to yourself and to be who you are. A God that would judge someone for being who they are and for doing what they cannot change is evil.

Now, maybe this person wishes that he/she wasn’t a homosexual. Nevertheless, believing this is true, he/she practices homosexuality. This person has found out that the people out there who are against homosexuality are only in the business of condemning it, they don’t have anything else to say about it.

This is how your church pushes people (further) toward homosexuality.

In an Openly Condemning Church, the process takes place even more quickly and is more severe. It is possible that in Silently Condemning Churches people might initially think (as mistaken as they might be) that the church might be willing to help them in their struggle. But people who have sexual feelings toward the same sex or are involved in homosexuality are under no delusion that Openly Condemning Churches will help them.  Not only will these churches will not seek  to help someone who wants help in their struggle with homosexuality, they live for the opportunity to banish them. These kinds of churches very quickly push people further toward homosexuality.

Why Churches Unintentionally Encourage Homosexuality

But why do churches do this to people who are involved in or tempted by homosexuality? They don’t usually do this to people who struggle with anger, food addiction, depression, etc. They are even more longsuffering toward people who commit sins of the heterosexual variety. Furthermore, they are often more than accepting to those who make life difficult for anyone who struggles with the above sins.

I propose that there are at least three reasons the Silently Condemning Churches and the Openly Condemning Churches unintentionally encourage homosexuality.

The first reason that churches treat people this way is that they view homosexual behavior to be something that marks one as an unbeliever. Even in cases where a church’s view isn’t this well-formed, homosexual behavior or homosexual feelings at least indicates a person who is clearly not one of us. It is harder to say that someone who struggels with, say, anger demonstrates themselves to be an unbeliever since it is something with which we all struggle. We view anger as a common sin. It is normalized for us and so we are much more accepting of those who struggle with it. Where condemning a sin doesn’t require us to condemn ourselves, we are much more likely to tolerate it and perhaps even stand by someone else in their fight against it. But where a church feels like it can condemn others without condemning itself the temptation to do so is great. When we don’t understand how someone could be involved in homosexuality or have homosexual feelings we are prone to consider it one of the really awful sins. Sins that a believer (or at least someone who belongs to our group) couldn’t be in involved in.

The second reason that churches treat people this way is that the church has not historically had to deal with homosexuality in its midst. This is new territory. The history of Christian thought on the subject has promoted the idea that it is a sin that is only committed by those outside the church. Think of how little has been written in the history of the church that addresses the subject of how to bear someone’s burden who struggles with homosexual desire or is involved in homosexual activity. The social pressure to approve of homosexuality is something the church has not faced before (or at least not since the first and second centuries). But there is no sign that this pressure is decreasing and so the church must confront a problem that it is not used to confronting: how do we relate to church members who have homosexual feelings or are involved in homosexual activity? When a contemporary church, operating with the historical view that homosexuality is a sin that is only committed by those outside the church, encounters a member who admits to homosexual desire their first inclination is to put them on the other side of the doors where the church has historically taught those who are involved in such things belong.

The third reason that churches treat people this way is that homosexuality is often viewed (by both Christians and non-Christians) as a person’s greatest identity-determining factor in a way that other sins are not. Someone who is angry doesn’t call him/herself “an angry” the way someone who is involved in homosexuality considers him/herself “a homosexual”. An angry person doesn’t associate him/herself in groups of angry people. Even heterosexuality isn’t treated as one’s primary identity marker the way homosexuality is. Both homosexuals and heterosexuals often think of homosexuality as what is most important about someone who practices homosexuality. The church has bought into this view of homosexuality as well, and so it presents a challenge to treating someone as having  an identity in Christ that is greater than his/her struggle with homosexuality.

These reasons work together to explain why churches push someone away who might otherwise seek help in their fight against sin.

So what should we do?

There are those who have given up fighting against the sin of homosexuality. We must love them, be gracious to them, call them to repentance, and pray for them. But we cannot biblically consider them to be part of the church, just as we cannot consider to be part of the church anyone who has given up fighting against sin of any kind.

But those that I’m primarily considering here are those I’ve continually referred to by the phrase “struggling with homosexuality”. It is those who fit this description that the church must bear with, show patience toward, bring under the ministry of word and sacrament, and remind of Christ’s forgiveness. They must be treated as part of the company of the rest of us who are living as simultaneous saints and sinners.

Christ does not give up on those who turn to him.  He stubbornly fought against sin for them. To push away from the church those who call for help as they fight against any sin is to treat sin as greater than grace, to withhold the resources of forgiveness and strength, and to proclaim a savior who is too weak to hold the battle for them.

I don’t have much recommendation beyond this. I don’t think we should have much more to say than this. In thinking about how to relate to those who acknowledge that homosexuality is a sin but are still tempted by it, fall into it, but turn to Christ for hope, we must avoid treating their sin as somehow worse than ours. The effectiveness of the church community in the lives of those who struggle with homosexuality will, in large part, come about precisely because we do not distinguish “them” from “us” and do not treat their sin as a greater offense to Christ than ours.

Homosexuality is a sin just as adultery is a sin, just as pride is a sin, along with embezzlement, or hating the guy at work who annoys you. These sins will, of course, have different consequences in one’s life, and the consequences may come in varying degrees. But with regard to its status as a sin, homosexuality has nothing going for it that your sins in the past half-hour don’t. We have then only two options: push people further toward homosexuality by our hostility, alienation, neglect, and self-righteousness; or, with confidence in the power of Christ, stand by those who are struggling with the sin of homosexuality in the same way that we must stand by others in any sin, and in the same way that we desire others to stand by us.

As I was walking the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, I heard one of two middle-eastern women in conversation say: “Jesus f***ing Christ” which made me wonder why there isn’t more religious sensitivity in American society toward Christians the way there is toward Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. I can think of two reasons.

One reason is that Christians are the majority religion in American society. It is hard to take seriously the oppression of the majority. No one entertains the belief that there is a plight of the majority. If I make a comment in front of two middle-eastern women (say they are Muslim) to the effect of “F*** Muhammad” I can reasonably expect that this is perceived in a way that the parallel statement by the two women is not. Society tires of the majority as the majority in a way that it does not the minority and so we tolerate insensitivity toward the majority in a far greater way.

The second reason I can think that there isn’t more religious sensitivity in American society toward Christians is that Christians have reasons to tolerate it that others do not. Islam is not taught to endure those who hate you and speak evil of you as Christians are taught by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). There is no command (that I can find) in the Q’uran to love your enemies. Consequently, I do not see that people fear violent repercussions from Christians either on an individual level or on organized level. There is within Christian teaching the idea that the world’s attitude toward us has already been established in it’s attitude toward our Lord. We share the same fate. So Christians should not be surprised at this. And the Christian response is to be the same as Christ’s. When he was reviled, he did not revile back but kept entrusting himself to God who judges justly.

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One of the questions that I’m asked from time to time, and one that I also have asked many times concerns why a Christian needs to continually confess our sins if we have already been forgiven. Many of us have the vague notion that we need to confess our present sins, but don’t really know why. Sure, 1 John 1:9 (a letter written to believers) encourages confession of post-conversion sin, and certainly Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses…” but many people do so without any clearer reason than that they are commanded (Of course, doing something because God has commanded it is never an insufficient reason, but it is better if we can also know the reason for the command). 

Therefore, God does not, as many stupidly believe, once for all reckon to us as righteousness that forgiveness of sins concerning which we have spoken in order that, having obtained pardon for our past life, we may afterwards seek righteousness in the law; this would be only to lead us into false hope, to laugh at us, and mock us. For since no perfection can come to us so long as we are clothed in this flesh, and the law moreover announces death and judgment to all who do not maintain perfect righteousness in works, it will always have grounds for accusing and condemning us unless, on the contrary, God’s mercy counters it, and by continual forgiveness of sins repeatedly acquits us (Institutes II.14. 10).

[I've been wanting to blog on this subject for a while now and after reading Christopher Gates' comment on another thread, I felt compelled to echo and elaborate on some of the things he said.]

When I was growing up, I heard my mom use the word “crap” one time and only one time. My jaw dropped. “Those” words were simply never used in our house. I could not believe what I heard. After I decided that I heard correctly, I was ashamed of her (even though she only said it in front of another sibbling) and I was seriously worried that God was going to punish her severely for it. I carried this view with me even into adulthood (though I eased up on the idea that God would severely punish you for using them). I always thought them to be a sin. I don’t remember when I changed my view but I remember when it was solidified.

Years ago, I remember watching a documentary on the making of Shawshank Redemption. One of the former prisoners from the defunct prison where the movie was filmed was being interviewed and he was asked to sum up what it was like living in that prison. He paused for a moment. Put his head down, and then looked up at the camera and said, “You were f***ed.” I realized that that one simple phrase captured the entirety of his experience in a way that another phrase could not, simply because that phrase has so many conotations, and he clearly meant every one of them. It wouldn’t have worked if he said, “It was awful. The prisoners would rape you and the guards would beat you.” That one phrase said it all at once and said it better.

I can think of three arguments that I have heard over the years for never using curse words. I think the last one has the most merit, but still misses the mark.

The first argument centers around the idea that there is an agreed upon list of bad words, and that there is something sinful (we’re not usually told what) about using words from that list (and of course, the list isn’t as agreed upon as many would like to think. For example, “crap” made the list in our house, but it didn’t make Chuck Swindoll’s). The argument, rather simply, goes that the Bible says that we shouldn’t use foul language. The verse that’s usually pointed out to me is Eph 4:29: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers” (KJV). This is an unfortunate translation of this verse. The way it is translated implies that there is something inherently corrupt about the words used. But Paul is not speaking of words which are themselves corrupt but the words which do the corrupting of others. Many versions translate it the same as the KJV (NIV, NRSV, RSV, NASB to name a few). Ironically, they don’t translate the second half of the verse the same way. They say “that which is good for edifying”. If they were consistent with the first part of the translation they would translate it “edifying words” or something similar. This would imply that there are words that are inherently edifying, instead of words which have to be USED to edify. No one is edified simply be saying lots of Christian-associated words like “grace” “God” or “Jesus” (I’m sure you’ve seen the green and white bumper stickers which simply say “JESUS”. I always think ‘yeah, what about him?’ The sticker makes him look like he’s running for senate or something). These words are not inherently edifying, they have to be used in this way. We seem to understand this when it comes to encouraging someone, but somehow we don’t think the same about discouraging or “bad” words. Here, we have a list. And the mere mention of a word from that list at any time, according to many Christians, is tantamount to a sin. Why? Well, they’re just bad words and your not supposed to say them. Is there any biblical support for this? Of course, Eph 4:29. The circle continues…

Thankfully, the ESV gets it right. The translation reads: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” This translation discourages the reading that there are words which are inherently corrupt. The words are not spoken of as being corrupt in themselves, rather to qualify they have to corrupt somebody. Paul’s point is not: Don’t use harm words (i.e. words from the naughty list).  Paul’s point is: Don’t use words to harm others. The difference (again) is between using words which are already corrupt vs. using words for the purpose of corrupting. How we decide what words these are depends on the effect they have on the listener not whether or not they are on an arbitrary, predecided list of words.

Understanding Eph 4:29 this way means that curse words like any other words can be used for harm or for edification. Suppose I am caught in a real bought of spiritual depression and am not looking to Christ but dwelling on my failures (a form of self-righteousness in its own right) and a fellow believer sees me in this state and says, “Damn it, John, quit trusting in yourself and look to Christ. What the hell do you have to be so down about when you have new life in Christ?” Is this not edification? Perhaps I have been shaken by the seriousness of his/her plea through the use of strong language in a way that I might not have without these words. Since I was not corrupted by what was said, but was encouraged and fled to Christ then what was said (curse words and all) qualifies as “words which are useful for edifying” and not “corrupting talk”.

Another argument I hear from time to time against using foul language goes like this: “If you wouldn’t want your children saying those words, then you shouldn’t use them either.” This objection is more easily dealt with. I don’t want my kids doing a lot of things I do, and this is not a double standard. I don’t want my ten-month-old daughter behind the wheel of a car; I don’t want her using a razor blade; I don’t want her crossing the street. The reason is not because I think there is something inherently wrong with these things, but because I don’t think she’s mature enough to know how to handle these situations. The same goes for cursing. Children lack judgment on when to use those words, and until they possess the proper judgment, I don’t want them using them at all. This is precisely what I will tell my daughter. While I probably won’t use much foul language around her, it is only because I don’t want her to naturally absorb that vocabulary and then use it without discretion.

One last argument that I have heard doesn’t really raise the issue of morality as much as it does tastefulness. Numerous times people have said that cursing is a substitute for a poor vocabulary and is an indication of an ignorant person. The idea is that if someone was clever enough they wouldn’t need to use those words. I’m sure this is true in some cases. The person who rarely uses another adjective besides “f***ing” could probably benefit from receiving dictionary.com’s Word of the Day. But the opposite can be said as well. These words can enhance your vocabulary. They can be effective means of communication at times when no other words seem to quite capture the idea (such as in the case of the prisoner I referenced above). Sure, the charge may still apply that a really clever person could find a way to convey the same idea using different words, but then this would apply to any word. Does someone really need to use the word “gregarious”? Couldn’t a really clever person find a way to convey the same idea using a different word? Perhaps. But why be handicapped if you don’t have to? It’s better to have more vocabulary choices than fewer. This is part of what makes language so rich and so powerful. Besides, I don’t think a clever person would find a way to say things without using foul language. He/she would find a clever way to use foul language.

The point I want to make is that curse words are simply one part of strong language in general (I have in mind phrases such as “shut up” “you suck” “piss off” “I hate you”, “I love you”, “will you marry me?”, etc.). I think we should exercise care in how we use foul language, just as we should use care in how we use all strong language (and to a lesser degree, words in general). But I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument for total abstinence regarding these words.

I haven’t gotten into the issue of the motives of one’s heart. Motivation is really a separate issue which can make anything you do wrong — from eating a sandwich to preaching a sermon. But with regard to the question of whether cursing is inherently wrong, I cannot find a reason to think so. In fact, it may be in certain contexts entirely virtuous.

Martin Luther was known to use foul language when he spoke of sin and the Devil. This is entirely appropriate. What other words should we use to describe the foulest things than the foulest words we have available. If ever there was a purpose for using foul language this is it (as you probably know, some of our curse words — and also the very word “curse” — originated as religious pronouncements such as “damn”and “hell”). Perhaps you may be treating the Devil a little too politely. He deserves to hear foul language, and because of Christ you deserve to say it to him. Here’s a bit of a primer from Luther to get you started: “But if [the merit of Christ] is not enough for you, you Devil, I have also shit and pissed; wipe your mouth on that and take a hearty bite’ (Luther quoted in Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil [1982], 107).

There’s more that I want to say on this subject, but I’ll save it for the comments. Perhaps you’re aware of other arguments against using foul language and want to discuss those. If so, I’d love to hear them.