Wrong, but wromantic; right, but repulsive.

Wrong, but wromantic; right, but repulsive. With these memorable words, Sellars and Yeatman summed up the Cavaliers and Roundheads in their fondly remembered "1066 And All That" - the source to this day, I must confess, of all my basic knowledge of British history. 

We are at a critical time for the church in the West. Fin de siècle change is all around us and, as ever, the church is the last body to catch on. That "last body" is not especially derogatory: we are the oldest body, with, by our very nature, roots most deeply anchored in the past, so caution and care ought to be intrinsic to who we are. Nevertheless, we have been caught out by the speed of change. 

It seems to me that there are two ways Christians are jumping at the moment. Some are standing firm on doctrine, strong and true, but sometimes doing so in a way that communicates hardness and brittleness. Others are buying into a more fluid understanding of the faith, and are emoting warmth and honesty and winsomeness in the process. 

Now please hear me out; I'm not saying that postmodern people are all warmth and openness. Actually there is more nastiness, arrogance, cruelty, dishonesty and abuse out there than ever. But some of the post-modern Christians whose voice is heard come across with an honesty and gentleness and kindness that is often lacking amongst conservative evangelicals. Evangelical rhetoric is not suited to the current environment; we may complain about that environment, but we still have to work within it. 

At its best, the more postmodern or liberal stream of Christianity can be very good at honesty about failure and weakness. The success of books like The Ragamuffin Gospel, of authors like Richard Rohr and of bloggers like Rachel Held Evans is in large part due to their honest and sympathetic handling of human frailty. We may critique them (I do!) but we must observe how they have a manner of speaking that functions culturally and draws people by its perceived integrity. 

And the fact is that evangelicalism is not the snow-white bed of honesty it wants to show itself to be. We need to remember that religiously conservative movements are ALWAYS the seedbed for pharisaism and hypocrisy. We are far from immune to that. 

Specifically, we have painted ourselves into a corner by hybridising our worthless-worm view of sanctification with a perfectionist expectation of those who lead us. We know we are all sinners, but expect perfect holiness, and create an environment of intense pressure to deliver that "holiness". 

This applies especially to leaders. Despite the repeated crashes as giants are knocked off their pedestals, we continue to insist on building more and higher pedestals. We are desperate for heroes - and then fast to utterly destroy any hero who shows himself to be mortal. 

I know to my cost what it is to allow a gap to develop between my publicly spoken, doctrinally impeccable, words and my personal devotional and moral life. I know what it is to hear temptation knocking at the door and feel that I couldn't open up about it for fear of losing my job - of coming off the pedestal for good. Every time I hear the words "mind the gap" on the tube I am reminded of the gap I did not mind in my own life - the creeping professionalisation that led to mask-wearing and levels of direct dishonesty and evil that make me shudder still. 

I am a passionate conservative evangelical. I believe in "true truth". Insofar as I ever want to 'rejoice in diversity', 'celebrate the liminal" or 'create a safe space for the exploration of ideas and for hearing different voices', I want to do so within the framework of a commitment to Scripture read as a united, God-given book. I am more than happy with the basic shape of classical reformation theology and appalled that so many are so quick to abandon that faith. 

But I am not at ease with what we have become if and when our conservative theology degenerates into an unkind pharisaism. My question is - Is it possible to retain the commitment to evangelicalism - to doctrinal orthodoxy - and at the same time be honest about weakness and failure, about fear and doubt, about temptation and sin? Can we speak the truth in LOVE? 

It jolly well ought to be possible! Our theology - of grace on the one hand and indwelling sin on the other (sorry - Salvationist/Wesleyan hat off today!) ought to make us kind and understanding more than any other tradition. But we aren't. We are very unforgiving - which leaves the struggling sinner very much alone. As a result, the casualties mount up - people bruised and burnt-out by their experiences of churches where grace has mutated into law, and holiness into hypocrisy. As my friend Robert Bannister put it, "the church is for people who have fallen off the roundabout" - but many churches have forgotten that.  

The Salvation Army is a church that is actually very good at helping roundabout-fallers like me. My prayer for our movement is for a fresh discovery of powerful preaching, with authority, and of genuine commitment to evangelical doctrine. May that come about without losing the love, the warmth and the grace to those who are hurting failures. 

And for every "staunch evangelical" church I pray - may you know and feel and practice the love and grace and patience and kindness and forebearance that flow from the very doctrines you love. For these things are fruit of the Spirit. 

As culture heads into meltdown, as Islam and Intolerant Tolerance threaten the church, can we manage to be Right but NOT Repulsive? 

On this day... John Wesley´s death

The day after the terror before...

Today the globe has been a mad village. With #killallmuslims trending on Twitter (both in favour of and against the hashtag, to be fair), everyone seems to be jumping onto the #jesuischarlie bandwagon in support of the murdered cartoonists, and simultaneously following the standard line that the few violent extremists are utterly unrepresentative of Islam as a whole.  

Here are a few thoughts:

Yesterday's killings were an outrage, a wicked, murderous evil which had no justification whatsoever. My thoughts and prayers throughout the day have been with the family and friends of those killed yesterday, with the injured, and with France as a nation. 

I believe in freedom of speech. I don't want to see magazines like Charlie Hebdo closed down by law or by the pressure of public opinion. 

I don't like some of the content of magazines like Charlie Hebdo. Satire is an important means of critique in our society, but offence for offence' sake (which I think is what some of their output actually was) is not desirable and is not the same as satire. I do not like gratuitous offensiveness towards Muslims any more than I like such offensiveness towards Christians; nevertheless, I defend the right to publish. 

I believe that Islam is a false religion, that Mohammed was a false prophet and that Allah is a false god. I worship the God of the Old and New Testaments, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giver of the Holy Spirit. The distinction between our faiths is stark; to say they are both the same is ludicrous and disrespectful to both.  The distinction is too important for me to enjoy satirical, scurrilous or scatological cartoons at the Prophet's expense - I think it is more respectful to simply disagree and then be open to debate and discussion when we have the chance. 

I recognise that the vast majority of Muslims deplore what took place in Paris yesterday, and that there is no warrant whatsoever for a general backlash against people of that faith. Nevertheless, I believe that Islam does demonstrably hold within it an emphasis on revenge and on this-worldly punishments to fall on those who insult Allah or his Prophet. It is in marked distinction from Christianity, for which being mocked and insulted is to be a fundamental part of following our mocked and insulted  Saviour. For more on this, see John Piper's excellent article from 2006 http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/being-mocked-the-essence-of-christs-work-not-muhammads

I believe that the particular cul-de-sac that the West has driven itself into with its pluralism and multi-culturalism is utterly unsustainable and will, tragically, produce many more outrages of this type. We are in a process of painful change, and where that process will end, culturally and politically, is anybody's guess. Certainly the absolute inability of western governments to be able to comprehend revealed religion of any type does not bode well.  Things are going to be tough - for people of any serious faith, and Christians may well find themselves hurting alongside Moslems in the future.  

I believe that the fatal flaw in Islam (as in other world religions, and in much folk Christianity) is the inability to understand let alone preach grace. Religion always says, "Do!" In Jesus Christ God says, "Done!"  The Prophet never died for his people's sins - but that is what we all need. The finished work of Jesus is the basis for assurance (not vague, trembling hope) of heaven, it is the basis for a transformed life of love, it is the basis for being able to handle mockery, persecution, violence and death and still pray for those who are hurting you. I suspect that we may be heading into just such a time of fear and terror; may God give his people grace to live out the grace in difficult times. 

A religious four year old and the problem of maintaining Grace.

A young lady of 4, a relative of mine, has a fairly high opinion of her moral standing. In the light of the frequent tantrums displayed by her sister (Terrible 2) she believes herself to be perfect. Along with this lack of acknowledged guilt goes more. She is religious. 

Their mother was recently reading to the girls: the story of Jesus welcoming the little children. She asked 4 and Terrible 2 if they thought that Jesus checked on who was good or naughty before he welcomed them. Clear and firm came the reply from 4: "Yes."  

She has never been taught that. That concept has come entirely from inside herself. It is as much an early manifestation of a toddler's original sin as disobedience, greed, selfishness or lying. She is religious, in the sense that she innately sees acceptance by God as being based on merit, that we are able in some way to make the grade, and (miniature Pharisee that she is) that she is one of those who would be welcomed. 

The incident got me thinking. Grace is such an amazing thing, but it is also alien to our basic human, proud, sinful mindset. As such, it is always under attack, from one direction or another. In the first place, the simple fact of unconditional acceptance at the point of entry into Christianity is so different to our inborn religiosity that it is always hard to maintain.

If Jesus receives us just as we are, then he leaves no room for our natural tendency to oneupmanship in general and especially for oneupmanship as we come to him. In fact, such a moral pecking order will hold us back from ever really coming - if I think that God would accept me more easily than my little sister, then I haven't really understood what his acceptance means and I have never really run to him. Tragically, the church is full of replicas of the four year old - glad they have made the grade. They make the world want to spew. (Interestingly, such decent religiosity apparently makes Jesus want to spew too.)  

Jesus doesn't ask what we are like before he welcomes us. That is grace. You come as you are, and you don't need to look at yourself and how bad you are (or how "good" you are), still less at anyone else, but only to him. 

But the church also faces another challenge to grace. Having welcomed us in simple acceptance, the idea is around that Jesus never asks us about our lives or lifestyle, and that he certainly never asks us to change anything at all. And that is not the case. 

Grace is the open welcome to those who have done wrong, treating us lavishly with unmerited kindness and mercy. It does not deny or even ignore the fact of our wrongdoing - rather it pays the price for it. It is that costliness of acceptance, that fact that grace is free to the sinner but bloody expensive to the Giver, that challenges me to look at my forgiven wrongdoing and be determined and delighted to change. There is to be no hard examination of myself at point of entry, as if my goodness or badness could alter my possibility of acceptance, but, once arrived, the fact of being accepted, and being accepted through the Cross, shines a light onto and into my life like never before: I see my sin in a dreadful new way, and I find I must change.

Grace accepts me as I am - but it doesn't leave me as I am. It challenges me to the core - my pride, my selfishness, my deceit, my greed, my perversion, my lack of love and honour to my Creator.

Of course that process of gracious acceptance, challenge and change, is not linear. If it were, we would certainly end up with a vicious pecking order firmly entrenched among all who have come to Jesus: "I've made more progress than her...!" But it is a circle. I come to Christ... am accepted... grace challenges my bad stuff... I try to change... see how bad my bad stuff really is... and come to Christ afresh for the unconditional acceptance which is my only hope. Because of that cycle, a Christian is never more than a heartbeat away from coming to Jesus empty handed. Break the circle, start to pride yourself on your "progress", and you will find yourself back in religion with a much loved four year old.

 

*   *   *   *   *   * 

Jesus calls us to come to him. Not because we are good, but because even the feeling of being good enough to come (or to not need to come!) is a symptom of our bankruptcy. So come and receive his forgiveness. 

You will never be the same again.