If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”? All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence.

• Colossians 2:20-23, NRSV

• • •

Just in case you’re wondering, I believe in holiness.

I think Daniel Bebbington missed something in his analysis of the commitments and characteristics of evangelicalism, though he hinted at it. The four marks he observed were:

• Conversionism
• Activism
• Biblicism
• Crucicentrism

I would add pietism. “Pietism” is another word for “holiness,” and it is one of evangelical religion’s great preoccupations. The word itself may be used to speak of a specific historical movement or a more general tendency in religion.

In church history, it refers specifically to a movement associated with Phillip Jacob Spener within 17th century German Lutheranism. Spener, reacting to the “dead” religion of the state church which had produced a moral and spiritual barrenness among the people, enacted a series of reforms to revive the community of faith. His classic work, Pia desideria (Pious Desires), set forth his program. Following Spener, leadership then passed to August Hermann Francke at the University of Halle, which became a center for pietism. This movement had a profound influence on other groups such as the Moravians and the Methodists through von Zinzendorf and Wesley. Pietism’s main concern was so-called “dead orthodoxy” — the lack of a vibrant, experienced and lived faith in the institutional church. Through various methods and reforms, it sought to promote a “living faith” along with its fruits in a holy and missional life.

The Methodists, of course, among others, were tireless carriers of this pietistic faith across the frontiers of the U.S. Revivalism in all its many branches and in its contemporary evangelical forms owes a great deal to pietistic movements like the Methodists and the spirit of holiness they promoted. Evangelicalism has inherited the ethos and language of “heart religion” along with emphases on personal holiness and holy activism in large part from those who emphasized pietism in the past.

The exact forms of pietism vary from church to church and group to group within evangelicalism. But there is an overall point to it, at least in how I have witnessed it within various entities: pietism teaches that one can be an “extraordinary” Christian, above and beyond those who are “ordinary” Christians. At its worst, it goes further, crossing a gospel-defined line and saying that one can only be a “true” Christian if one fits a certain profile defined by the group.

Here are some of the pietistic emphases that I went through or observed in my evangelical life and surroundings:

You can be an extraordinary (or true) Christian if you focus on . . .

• becoming an expert on the Bible
• maintaining consistent daily devotions
• memorizing lots of scripture
• learning the “secret” to the deeper (or higher) Christian life
• having charismatic experiences, especially that of speaking in tongues
• going to the right conferences or seminars (in my youth, this was the “Bill Gothard” seminar)
• dressing in certain “approved” ways
• avoiding drinking alcohol or participating in other “worldly” amusements
• being at church whenever the doors are open
• going on mission trips
• even better, becoming a missionary (or a monk/nun, or a pastor/pastor’s wife, or a Christian teacher, etc. — engaging in “full time Christian work”)
• taking a sexual purity pledge
• holding the “right” political/social/cultural opinions
• being absolutely “submissive” to authorities in your life
• “separating” from the world: this might mean not having non-Christian friends, not listening to non-Christian music or partaking of other non-Christian media, not having a television, homeschooling rather than participating in public or even Christian schools, etc.
• participating in small groups or accountability groups
• considering only a limited list of “approved” vocations or careers

There are a thousand good things one can do as a Christian. Not a single one of them, however, brings me closer to God than what he himself has done for me in Jesus Christ. Pietism puts the burden of my relationship with God on my shoulders and refuses to rest in the objective truth of God’s grace and the objective means of grace offered me in the gospel. There must be more than that! I have to feel it, says the pietist. I have to experience something overwhelming. I have to see visible and demonstrable transformation in my life so that I look like ____________.

This is not holiness.

To be sure, “holiness” involves a call to be distinctive, set apart. It was the Law of Moses that defined “holiness” for the Israelites. This included codes of personal conduct, civic duties, and religious obligations. By keeping these statutes, ordinances, and commands, one would be marked out as one of God’s people, distinct from others in the world. The Law drew the boundaries, and those who wanted to stay within those boundaries dressed, and ate, and acted according to the rules.

The great argument in New Testament days took place when Gentiles began to respond in faith to Jesus the Messiah and join the communities of Jewish believers. Was faith in Jesus enough? Or must they, in essence, become Jewish too in order to become acceptable members of the Church? Were the practices required in the Law of Moses, such as circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, and kosher food laws also incumbent upon Gentiles? Could one be “holy” without these?

The Apostle Paul’s great contribution to the faith was to answer this question. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6).

There is one thing, one thing alone that marks a person out as a Christian (i.e. makes a person “holy”): he or she trusts Jesus Christ, and that produces love.

There are no other “rules” for such a person. This person is free in Christ, fully accepted by God, a full member of the community of faith. No other boundary marker must be imposed upon them. Whatever good activities or practices are recommended for their growth and spiritual development must never be encouraged in such a way so as to give the idea that they will either make the person a “true” Christian or some kind of “higher” Christian. The baby, the defiant toddler, the rebellious teen, the wandering adult are all as much a part of the family as the compliant, obedient son and daughter. Both the prodigal son and his elder brother were members of the household, both welcomed by the father, both invited to the party.

What matters, what makes a person “holy,” has nothing to do with expectations imposed from the outside designed to make me “fit” the mold of a particular Christian community. That community might boast in its distinctiveness from the world in a host of areas, but there is only one that counts: Do they call people to a love-producing faith in Jesus Christ based on his life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit?

Does their call echo the invitation of Jesus?

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

• Matthew 11:28-30, MSG

For further reading, see our previous series:

Demythologizing “Radical” Christianity

• DRC One
• DRC Two
• DRC Three

Just in case you’re wondering, I believe in conversion.

Conversion has always been one of the main emphases of the evangelicalism that grew out of the revivalism of the past two hundred years. “Conversionism” is yet another of the four distinctives Daniel Bebbington identified as characteristic of the movement. He described it as “the belief that lives need to be transformed through a ‘born-again’ experience and a life long process of following Jesus.”

When evangelicals talk about “getting saved,” the first part of that statement is what they mean. Billy Graham, the most visible evangelical preacher of the twentieth century, called his program “Hour of Decision.” “Making a decision for Jesus,” “accepting Christ,” “asking Jesus into your heart,” “trusting Christ as your personal savior,” being “born again” or “converted” or “saved” all refer to a particular crisis experience by which a person crosses the line from death to life, darkness to light, from lost to found, from being a child of the devil to a child of God. “He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,” wrote Paul in Colossians 1:13.

Many evangelicals see this as an essential, once and for all transaction. “Once saved, always saved.” Others see the possibility that one may truly believe in Christ yet later apostatize, so that one needs to be born again again. Some groups link conversion with baptism, such as the Christian churches in the Campbellite traditions. Others find that anathema and insist that if one must be baptized that is adding a “work” to faith, and we are saved by faith alone. But some of them might have emphasized other kinds of “works.” As long as there have been evangelists and revivals,  preachers have encouraged people to make their “decisions” known publicly in various ways. Charles Finney’s “anxious bench” was available for those concerned about their souls. Responding to altar calls by going forward, raising hands (“with every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around”), signing response cards, praying certain prayers, talking to designated “counselors” who could lead respondents through “the plan of salvation” — all these and many more methods have been used to help people indicate that they were coming to Jesus for salvation. “Just as I am without one plea . . . O Lamb of God, I come.” “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.”

The First Testament (especially the Prophets) is filled with calls for Israel to “turn” or “return” to God. This word is an action verb that indicates the basic movements of repentance/conversion. It means you are going in one direction — the wrong direction, away from God, but then you turn around and go in the other direction — the right direction, back toward God. One of the most tender and poignant texts on the subject is found in Hosea 14:

Oh, how I love your law!
It is my meditation all day long.

• Psalm 119:97, NRSV

• • •

Just in case you were wondering, I love the Bible.

I learned this from my life in evangelicalism. One key characteristic of evangelical Christianity is its commitment to the Bible as God’s Word. The evangelical (and “soft” fundamentalist) churches I was in were “Bible” churches, plain and simple. That’s what we were about. We taught the Scriptures. Sermons were expository analyses of biblical texts, sometimes going verse by verse and book by book. Sunday School classes were usually on books of the Bible. We had small group Bible studies too. We memorized verses and passages. We had daily Bible devotions. People carried their Bibles to church, underlined passages, took notes. We did “sword drills” in VBS and Sunday School and the children had programs in which they received rewards for memorizing scripture. We tried our best to live our lives and run our churches “according to the Bible” (as we “literally” understood it). We often had to work through issues in our churches and the bottom line was always “chapter and verse,” and “it is written.” One person’s conviction about a particular verse could trump a whole lot of arguments.

This is what Daniel Bebbington called evangelicalism’s commitment to Biblicism — “a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority.” From the beginning of my adult Christian life, I bought into this, hook, line, and sinker.

The youth group in which I had a spiritual awakening was led by a youth pastor who was gifted at teaching the Bible, and there was a large group of us that ate it up. We memorized chapters from Proverbs and the first words I committed to memory were:

My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;
Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.

• Proverbs 2:1-5, KJV

This text taught me to study diligently and to take the words of scripture deep into my mind and heart so that their wisdom would transform my life. Above all, it taught me to remain hungry and eager for truth and understanding, to view my life as a continual search for the treasures of knowledge.

And so I made my way to Bible college, a school that offered no majors at that time other than a B.S. in Bible, so that I could learn what the scriptures taught. Then, after a time in the mountains of Vermont trying to teach the Bible to the good folks there, I knew I needed to learn much more. So off I went to seminary, one of the richest times of learning and growing in my life. Unlike Bible college, which taught according to a definite and very specific system of doctrine, in seminary I began to taste the breadth of Christian teaching. I know some from other traditions would consider my seminary to be hopelessly narrow, and in some ways I see now that it was, but at least it exposed me to a few more voices outside the room and took what they said seriously. Plus, where Bible college favored rote learning, seminary encouraged me to strike out on my own, do research, develop my own positions and defend them. I spent as much time in the library as I could, tracking down every article mentioned by a prof that caught my attention.

Nor did I stop studying or hungering after my formal education either. I saw myself as a teacher, and I built my schedule around study and heavily invested in the best commentaries and books while I tried to maintain a high level of instruction in the local church. I see now that I was far too academic for most people, and perhaps I should have gone into teaching. But I felt that if God had given the Bible to all Christians and his gathering of choice was the local congregation, what better place to teach?

However, it was often a struggle, and eventually I became dissatisfied with much that evangelicalism teaches about and from the Bible. You’ve read that here at Internet Monk, and here are a few examples you might review:

• How Pervasive is “Biblicism”?
• Scripture Redeems Itself
• My View of Scripture (at this point)
• How the Bible “Works” Today

I’m not going to summon up all the points made in those posts by myself or the authors I reviewed, but I encourage you to go back and read them and you will see some of the specific differences I have with my former evangelical perspectives on scripture.

What I want to point out in this post is an irony: the irony that my evangelical background set down a root in my life that eventually led me to grow away from evangelicalism.

The wisdom of Proverbs 2, the first text I memorized, encouraged me to keep hungering, to keep seeking, to keep studying and internalizing God’s Word, to never stray from following after knowledge and understanding. But one major problem with the evangelical view of scripture is that it only encourages that kind of seeking within a closed system. The carefully designed system of beliefs and practices, the doctrinal statement, the list of correct interpretations (which varies, depending upon which evangelical group you belong to), has in reality become the authority, and we are only allowed to read and interpret the Bible within that system. Any interpretation that threatens the system is discouraged or verboten. The whole enterprise can become like a giant game of Jenga. Change one block, and the tower comes crashing down.

So there are clearly defined limits beyond which one must not stray. I am not arguing that there are no boundaries at all; I am a creedal Christian, for example. However, the strict boundaries drawn within evangelical and fundamentalist circles can make for awfully tight quarters and narrow passages.

I was once visiting with a friend with whom I’d gone to Bible college, who was now a classmate at seminary. He recalled a trip to homecoming at our college and a conversation he’d had with one of our professors, a dyed-in-the-wool dispensationalist, as literal as they make ’em. The prof was complaining about how people went away to seminary and strayed from the faith he had taught them. Here’s the example he gave, I kid you not. He told my friend of a student who left and began to believe that the chain that bound Satan during the millennium in Revelation 20 was metaphorical and not an actual, physical chain. And he was appalled! The slippery slope started right there. Give up literal interpretation on any detail, and you’ll soon become an amillennialist. Which to him meant “the enemy.”

I did not apply for churches early in my ministerial career because I struggled with the issue of the timing of the Rapture, and I knew those churches would never hire anyone who didn’t toe the line on a pre-trib, “left behind” event and a specific “end times” template.

Other churches in which I served would never even have a discussion about women in leadership. The Bible taught otherwise.

One man in our church who was convinced that the Bible only allowed unleavened bread at communion held the entire congregation captive to his conviction.

My seminary turned down the services of one of the finest Old Testament professors in the world because he was not a premillennialist.

I have a million stories, but they all boil down to this: My discipling process in an evangelical setting taught me to seek knowledge and understanding like there was no tomorrow. But then, early and often, they slammed a door in my face and said, “Sorry, that’s a room into which we do not look.” Excuse me if I feel disoriented.

This is why I get so hyped up about issues like Young Earth Creationism. It is not just because I disagree with the interpretation, but because the whole approach of many who insist upon it is so . . . well, unbiblical. Sticking your fingers in your ears while shouting, “Literal! Literal! Literal!” simply does not fit with “incline thine ear unto wisdom.”

I am so grateful for the love that evangelicalism gave me for the Bible. I’m sad that this very gift meant we’d eventually part ways.

Just in case you’re wondering . . . a new series

We begin a new series today. Some of the comments from last week’s post on our new banner and site purpose statement led me to think it important to clarify what it means to me to be “post-evangelical” and to frame that in more positive terms.

Many assume it means that people who so identify themselves have simply cast off the faith that is represented in evangelicalism. Others hear the critiques post-evangelicals offer of their former affiliations and don’t ever hear the positive side of the new things post-evangelicals have embraced.

Speaking only for myself, I want to make it clear that I can never fully “leave behind” my former life in American evangelicalism. It is an essential part of who I am.

I had a spiritual awakening in the days of the “Jesus People” movement, lived through various charismatic controversies and church growth methodologies, went to seminary and pastored a church during the birth and blossoming of the Willow Creek, seeker-sensitive era, saw all the developments from “Jesus music” to “CCM” to “praise and worship music” to K-Love, endured the worship wars, and went with tens of thousands of others to Bill Gothard seminars. I was there when the “megachurch” was manufactured, though I’ve never had much use for one.

I have moved from the Scofield Reference Bible to the NASB to the NLT to the NRSV (though I never did like the NIV, unlike most of my evangelical counterparts). I went from the Southern Baptists to independent Baptists to the Independent Fundamental Churches of America to the Evangelical Free Church to non-denominational churches that grew out of a Wesleyan tradition. My Bible college was what I would call “soft” fundamentalist and it was strongly dispensationalist in theology. My seminary grew out of the neo-evangelical tradition to become one of the strongest voices for contemporary evangelicalism and such doctrines as inerrancy.

I have lived through the rise of the Christian Right, the Moral Majority, the Reagan years, and the culmination of evangelical power politics in the Bush administration. I’ve seen the issues shift from abortion all the way to same-sex marriage. I remember and still appreciate the teaching of Francis Schaeffer before he became “political.”

In my years as an evangelical, I saw parachurch groups such as Campus Crusade and Navigators exert a tremendous influence on the church. I participated when “mission trips” first became a thing. Long before that, I was part of the rise of “small groups” and saw them become an essential part of church programs. VBS and Sunday School have always been around, but they’re not what they used to be. When I was young, big choir programs were regular, anticipated events. Now, a lot of churches don’t even know what a choir is. Or an organ.

Christian bookstores were rare when I was young, then they became pervasive, as did the entire Christian media and publishing industry. Now it’s hard to find one, except in the giant foyer of a megachurch. I lived through the televangelist scandals, but those put nary a dent in the prosperity gospel or the ongoing debacle of “Christian television,” which seems to be going stronger than ever. I have watched “Christian” movies morph from “The Gospel Blimp” to “Left Behind” to “The Passion of the Christ” to “God’s not Dead.” Well, maybe “morph” is too strong a word.

I ministered in several small and mid-sized churches, all of them deeply rooted in some form of revivalistic/Bible teaching/missions-oriented/pietistic tradition.

More recently, I have observed as several “streams” have diverged from evangelicalism and flowed out in different directions because of dissatisfaction with various elements of the movement. I’ve watched the neo-Calvinist/reformed/puritan folks seek a more intellectually satisfying and internally demanding faith that calls for submission to a sovereign God. I’ve watched people take the “ancient-future” path and become Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglican as they’ve searched for a more worshipful, sacramental, traditional faith. Various emergent groups have arisen before my eyes, seeking a more creative faith, in some cases questioning what they consider harsh traditional teachings in favor of a more “generous orthodoxy.” Others have left what they deem “right-wing” evangelicalism for a more socially progressive, inclusive faith that emphasizes serving the poor and inviting people who live what we used to call “alternative lifestyles” to the table.

The end of the world was never far from me in my evangelical life. It may have been closest in my youth, when Hal Lindsey was touting the “late, great planet earth.” But then, by the time I got to seminary, more than one professor remarked that students just didn’t seem as interested in understanding the “last days” and anticipating Jesus’ return anymore and that the teaching was being lost in our churches. Today, the occasional Harold Camping or John Hagee will make headlines for a moment with some new theory about impending doom, but even most evangelicals have shifted away from preoccupation with that. The most recent “Left Behind” film showed that evangelical Christians are not very good at predicting disasters, but they remain masters at creating them.

Until ten years ago, this was my life, my world. At that time, an unexpected and jarring personal experience led me out of pastoral ministry, into chaplaincy, and into a kind of wilderness it took me some time to name.

This is not to say I always felt comfortable in my evangelical skin back then. I have written here at Internet Monk repeatedly about how I never felt like I actually “fit” anywhere, how my mind and spirit continually kicked against the goads of evangelical doctrine and practice in various ways, how I failed repeatedly to find a denomination or group where I felt like I could be fully myself and still toe the company line. Nevertheless, it was my world and I could function within it. It became an integral part of my life and my family’s identity, and one does not simply cast that aside. Changing worlds is a fearsome and difficult matter, especially around age fifty.

It wasn’t too long after that change was imposed upon me that I discovered Michael Spencer and his “dispatches from the post-evangelical wilderness.” It has been a true lifesaver for me over this past decade, and I still find sustenance in the daily community here.

Having said that, there are some significant differences between Michael and me. One of the most important is that, even though he described himself as a post-evangelical personally, he remained much more involved in the evangelical world than I have. His teaching vocation in a Baptist school kept him interacting daily within an intentional community of evangelical Christians. On the other hand, I have not had that. My change in vocation took me outside the evangelical world, though not out of the ministry. The evangelical “bubble” seems far away now, a place I visit occasionally. When I do, I never stay long.

However, you can take the boy out of evangelicalism, but it’s nigh impossible to take the evangelical out of the boy.

After many trials and errors I found my way into a deep appreciation for many aspects of Lutheran theology and even thought about becoming a Lutheran pastor. But I have to confess, I’m not really a “Lutheran,” though the tradition shapes some of my practice. It has never become my world.

The world that now shapes me most, spiritually and religiously, is my vocation as a chaplain — a thoroughly ecumenical, missional, community-based ministry. That’s where I feel most comfortable: with my neighbors. That’s my world now, and as I said in an earlier post, I guess I’m not much of a “churchman” anymore. I view myself as a composite of all my experiences and journeys, and the chaplaincy allows me to bring them all to bear as I seek to serve others. I don’t have to fit an ecclesiastical mold to do my job. It’s better, in fact, if I don’t.

So, I’m experiencing a level of freedom now that I’ve never known before. As a chaplain, I can draw upon all the influences that have formed and shaped me, including my evangelical past. In this series, I want to talk about that and let you know what I think, as a post-evangelical, about things that are important to evangelicals — such things as the Bible, the Church, the gospel, and conversion, etc. — so that you can see both my appreciation for evangelicalism and my quarrels with it.

Just in case you were wondering.