In Love With Jesus?
Come follow me, and I will make you all mushy
by Michael Spencer

Jesus, I am so in love with You

-Matt Redman

And I’m madly in love with You (x4)

Let what we do in here, fill the streets out there. Let us dance for you (x2)

All of my life, and nothing less, I offer You, my righteousness

– Charlie Hall, “Madly”

And He walks with me, and he talks with me
And He tells me I am His own,
And the Joy we share as we tarry there
none other has ever known.

-Charles Miles, “In The Garden”

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

-Samuel Francis

• • •

The times, they are a-changin’. We have gone from singing about the overwhelming, faithful, constant, covenant love of Jesus Christ for Christians, to singing about the most changeable, gullible and frothy of human emotions- romantic love. These days, our worship is full of announcing that we are “in love” with Jesus.

If the problem were simply music, I’d leave it alone. Better people than this writer have painfully noted the “God is my girlfriend” bent of modern praise and worship music. In fact, the brilliant people over at Lark News have taken us over the edge into the possibility that Wal-mart might have to ban certain Vineyard worship CDs in the future for their explicit lyrics. The satirical article says “The ground-breaking — some say risqué — album includes edgy worship songs such as “My Lover, My God,” “Touch Me All Over,” “Naked Before You,” “I’ll Do Anything You Want,” “Deeper” and “You Make Me Hot with Desire.” If you think that’s over the top, you aren’t listening to much CCM these days.

Some very sharp culture watchers have traced the influence of romanticism and romantic language on evangelical piety over the last two centuries. A hymn like Samuel Francis’s “In The Garden” could be interpreted in several ways, but the romantic interpretation is the most obvious. Such a hymn could only be accepted and become popular in an evangelicalism that had already been considerably influenced by femininization and romantic imagery.

I own a lot of hymnals, and as I flipped through them in preparation for this essay, it occurred to me just how “In The Garden” stands out as unusual, even odd. Hymnals represent an excellent way to sample the spiritual flavor of the church throughout history. Even with the acceptance of more lyrics talking about “my love” for Jesus, there is still a strong anchor of devotion among lyricists of every age to Christ in his role as Savior, Redeemer, Lord and King . Even Wesley’s “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” abandons romantic imagery after the initial phrase, and quickly celebrates the more traditional work of Christ as a refuge, source of forgiveness and hope of eternal life.

Today, however, things are different. Romantic imagery is common, and announcements that the worshiper is “in love” with Jesus are everywhere. The Lark News satire is based on a reality that can be seen by flipping through any book of contemporary praise songs or selection of Gen X worship CDs. One of CCM’s most successful groups, England’s delirious?, majors on lyrics that speak of being “in love” with Jesus. Romanticism has moved into a prominent place in evangelical spirituality, especially among young people. Worship, rather than being a declaration and adoration of the range of God’s attributes, has increasingly taken on the language of a high school romantic encounter.

Of course, this is not simply an aspect of church music. Romanticism has become a major aspect of all evangelical spirituality. People are now in a “love relationship” with God. The Bible is a “love letter” from God. The question before every Christian is “Have you fallen in love with Jesus?” Passion, intimacy, desire- these ambiguous terms are everywhere in evangelicalism. Sermons, books, retreats and the general tone of much evangelical Christianity have combined to present Jesus as lover as much as, if not more than, Lord. Our generation believes that romance is the secret to a happy life. Is it any wonder that Christianity is now packaged as romance?

So, millions of people are “in love” with Jesus. Is that a bad thing? Aren’t there a lot worse things that could be going on among American Christians? What’s the problem?

I’ll admit that initially there seem to be few reasons to be more than mildly amused at this romanticizing of Christianity. Scores of people have found the love of Jesus, rather than the love of self or sin, to be the greatest love of all. Much in the Christian life is a matter of love and not right thinking or right theology. If we wanted to be pragmatists, we could say that there is no reason to complain when someone falls in love with Jesus and the results are positive. Jesus will certainly never disappoint them. I don’t have any criticism of a life that honors and follows Jesus Christ.

If we were talking about Jesus, I would never be writing this essay. Instead, we are talking about Christians and how they approach the Christian life. The advocates of romanticism are convinced that the experience of “being in love” captures exactly what the Christian life is to be about. In this, I am sure they are very, very wrong. The proliferation of romanticism as the dominant way of thinking about the Christian life undermines many of the most important Biblical teachings about Christian experience, and as a result, I think we should be more than mildly concerned that we have millions “in love” with Jesus.

Let’s approach this issue under the following questions. What does the Bible teach? What does romanticism imply about Christian experience? What does it do to our conception of God? Finally, what difference does it make?

The Bible certainly does provide the advocates of romanticism with some reason to say they are presenting the truth of the scriptures. There are three main ways that the Bible contributes to this. First, in the Old Testament, God frequently compares His relationship with His covenant people to a marriage, although a less than happy one. In the prophets, this is expressed in books like Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, where God’s love for His people is described through the pictures of marriage and adultery.

The problem with romanticism at this point is the nature of marriage in the Biblical world. The Bible’s emphasis is always on the faithful love of a husband, both in selecting a wife, and in staying faithful to an unfaithful spouse. In using this imagery, the Bible is showing us the covenant love of God and is saying that God chose His people and remained faithful to them despite their unfaithfulness. (These same Old Testament passages use the illustration of a parent’s love for a child to illustrate the covenant relationship.) Hosea and Gomer were not Romeo and Juliet.

The second Biblical source is, obviously, the Song of Solomon. Historically, most Christians have followed their Jewish predecessors in believing the Song to be best understood as an allegory of the love of God for His people. The intensely romantic and sexual imagery of the Song was made to apply to the relationship of God and Israel, or Christ and the church. This led to some interesting and obtuse interpretations! John Gill, the great Calvinistic Baptist exegete, wrote massive volumes on the Song using this method. They reveal much about Gill’s theology, and little about what the book really means. I believe it was the wrong road, and is largely to blame for the church’s approval of romanticism today. (That the stodgy, hyper-Calvinistic John Gill would be the patron saint of Vineyard choruses is too ironic to think about without laughing.)

In contemporary interpretation, the Song has usually been allowed to be what it is: poetry. Romantic, sensual, fantasy-filled poetry. Many scholars and teachers have found in the Song an endorsement of romance and sexual pleasure in marriage, and haven’t hesitated to expound the book in those terms. (After the children were sent to their own programs.) Despite the problems this approach creates, it is the approach that best honors the text and what it means.

Much of the church’s indulgence in romantic language and imagery, both in the past (Spurgeon sermons) and in the present (Vineyard choruses) came from the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon. But is this the best approach to the text of the Song? Does the New Testament read the Song this way? There may be some New Testament and early church references to Christ that use the language of the Song, but there are no references to being “in love” with Christ that use the Song as their foundation. The Song of Solomon is best read as an expression of human experience, and not a template for worship or theology.

The last Biblical source for romanticism seems to be in the New Testament teaching that the church is the “Bride of Christ.” This image is clearly meant to use intense, marital love as a model for understanding how Christ relates to us, and how we relate to Him. The church, corporately, is the bride of Christ, and Paul does not hesitate to remind the Corinthians of this repeatedly. The Book of Revelation uses this image as part of the culmination of all of history, as the City of God descends to earth as a bride adorned for her husband.

Yet, even with the clarity of this image, it does not result in romantic language on the part of Christians as they express their faith in prayer and worship in Acts and the Epistles. Without being a wise guy, I cannot imagine the Christians in Acts saying “Jesus, we are so in love with you.” The level of reverence and the appreciation of Jesus as Lord, King, Redeemer and Judge makes such expressions inappropriate. The prayers and expressions of worship in the New Testament are free of romanticism, even while there is great appreciation for the idea of Christ as the bridegroom.

(It is significant, I think, in the Biblical material, that the early Christians return again and again to the idea of God as Father. Could it be that this is why they did not easily speak of being romantically related to God? Did they have a basic appreciation of the difference between loving a Father and loving a lover or spouse that modern Christians are lacking? Do moderns understand that in the Biblical world, none of these relationships were romanticized, but were centered around the character and actions of the Father or Bridegroom?)

Let’s move on to our next question: What about romanticism in Christian experience? The most obvious answer here is that there is a two-fold possibility. The first is that the focus is placed on the person of Christ, and the various dimensions of His person, work and character. This is what older writers meant when they said Jesus was “altogether lovely.” If this is the emphasis in romanticism, then we would have reason to be encouraged. To magnify Christ is to increase in amazement at His love, as Charles Welsey wrote:

“Amazing love! How can it be, That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”

Unfortunately, this is not the direction of the current romantic trend among evangelicals, though there certainly are many who can appreciate Wesley’s emphasis on the love of God seen in all that Christ has done for us, and have written in ways that show that appreciation.

The current romantic emphasis is centered, however, not on Christ, but on the Christian. It is not new.

I love Thee, I love Thee, I love Thee, my Lord;
I love Thee, my Savior, I love Thee, my God;
I love Thee, I love Thee, and that Thou dost know;
But how much I love Thee my actions will show.

The unfortunate movement away from magnifying the love of Christ to repeatedly focusing on the love of the Christian for Christ is an inevitable characteristic of romanticism. It is the nature of the romantic to expend most of his or her effort magnifying his or her own love for the beloved. It is in these repeated demonstrations of devotion, intensity and sincerity that the lover experiences the thrills of romance. In these times when the sovereignty of God in salvation is neglected, the love of the disciple for Christ easily becomes the focus. This is the romanticism that is at work in evangelicalism today.

Expressions of intense feelings of being “in love” with Jesus are the constant and repeated theme of contemporary praise music. A few critics have pointed out that instead of actually worshipping, contemporary Christians repeatedly declare that they will worship. In the same way, instead of celebrating the love of Christ, the contemporary Christian is more likely to be declaring their own love for Christ in ways not dissimilar to a high school student writing a love note.

What does this do to Christian experience? It places it entirely in the wrong light. Any honest measurement of our love for Jesus is going to be humbling. Jesus told the church in Ephesus that they had abandoned the love they had at first, and every Christian understands that the emotions of love are fickle, with romance being the most changeable feeling of all. Feelings change from circumstance to circumstance. Looking at my own love, devotion or obedience is certainly part of the Christian life, but it must be significantly secondary to looking at the love of Christ for me, the obedience of Jesus for me, and the righteousness of Christ offered to me in the Gospel. In worship particularly, focusing on my devotion to Christ is the very last thing that should occupy my mind and heart. What will feed my obedience and service is the constant confidence that Christ is faithful, Christ is sufficient and Christ is all in all. In his covenant love for me is my hope.

No genuine Christian is surprised that the Old Testament is not overflowing with declarations of Israel’s love for Yahweh, but instead is dominated by confession and celebration of Yahweh’s covenant love and faithfulness to the people He has loved with an everlasting love, all while they have been unfaithful to their Lord and God.

For millions of young Christians, the current wave of romanticism will lead them to discouragement, despair and eventually abandonment of Christianity. When the Gospel is about what Christ has done for us, and what is offered to us freely in the Gospel, it is good news. When, however, Christianity becomes a subjective journey to produce feelings and maintain intensity, it is no surprise that so many judge it a burden they cannot carry.

What does romanticism do to our perception of God? Here is real reason for immediate concern. Evangelicals are itching to remake the classical, Biblical, orthodox doctrine of God into their own image. “The God I believe in” is much more interesting to evangelicals than the God of scripture. The impulse to remake God into an image more accessible and understandable to “Boomer” and “X-er” Christians is strongly at work in the advocacy of Openness theology and in the embracing of romanticism in our thinking about God and how we relate to Him.

Evangelicals seem largely undisturbed that the Bible is so unambiguous about how we are to think about and approach God. It is clear that no matter what illustration, metaphor or picture God might use to describe some aspect of Himself, He still is always the God of Creation, Redemption and Judgment. Evangelicals seem unable to get over the idea that, if God describes Himself as a Father, then He IS a father in every way any one of us might choose to think and describe a father. Our extrapolations on the theme quickly take on the authority of scripture, and before long they appear in worship and preaching.

(Evangelicals ought to remember that Jesus described God in many ways that ought not be carried very far, such as an unjust judge and as a King who threw servants into prison for not making enough money in his absence. These images contain truth, but only in context. This is just as true of the Father of the prodigal son and of the good shepherd, but evangelicals can’t seem to draw the line.)

If God describes Himself as a husband, bridegroom or warrior, evangelicals feel that the entire train of Biblical revelation must be halted and everything be changed to accommodate this image, along with our comments and anecdotes. The multiplicity of Biblical descriptions of God allows the creative evangelical to think about God in almost any way he or she chooses, without limitation. The fact that all these descriptions are secondary and descriptive does not stop the current evangelical crowd from writing book after book, mining a Biblical metaphor to the point of absurdity. No matter how many times scripture says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of relating to God, or how many times scripture shows encounter with God as a traumatic shock for sinful human beings, God will always be a cuddly father who wants us to play in His lap, because that is the way we like to think of “Daddy.”

Is God big enough to accommodate all these images? Certainly, but God himself sets the boundaries. The Israelites only wanted the Golden Calf to represent God for them. They saw no harm in a familiar visual focus. “We like to think of Yahweh this way.” God wasn’t impressed. The law is clear that we are not free to think of God in any way we choose, and that applies to our extrapolations on Biblical imagery. To be the bride of Christ does NOT give us permission to make God into the husband/lover we’ve always wanted. A few sentences in scripture do not make the volumes we write necessarily true because they proclaim the same starting point.

John Piper frequently says that the Biblical mandate to “glorify” God is best understood as “magnification.” Not the magnification of a microscope, where we make a small God large, but the magnification of a telescope, where a majestic and awesome God can be seen in the lens of our lives. Evangelicals are now turning the telescope around, and are making a majestic God small. Romanticism is an effective tool for turning The God of Isaiah into the divine boyfriend.

Jonathan Edwards put it this way:

God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might [be] received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.

The God we delight in must be- absolutely must be- the God who has revealed Himself in scripture and in Jesus Christ. Simply delighting in God as we choose to picture Him will not do. It is idolatry. If it is idolatry that makes for great worship music and best-selling books, it is still idolatry. Calvin said that human beings are an idol factory. Evangelicals trust the human mind and imagination more than it should be trusted, and the romanticized God of the current crisis is the result. We should trust our imaginations less, and sanctify the God of the Bible in the words of scripture.

(At this point it should be said that churches that have thrown out the hymnody of the church for a significant dependence on modern worship music are making a critical error. One could never calculate how much sound theology has been carried through the ages by the words of the great hymns. To choose, for the sake of seeker sensitivity and generational preference, to deny children, young people and new Christians that heritage is an error with vast consequence. Shame on those church leaders who are ordering up the abandonment of the Biblical messages of the hymns for “Jesus, I am so in love with you.”)

When evangelicals are done, they will have presided over “The Incredible Shrinking God.” It is no wonder that Islam is growing worldwide next to this gutting of the God of the Bible, and no wonder Christianity is increasingly trivial and ineffective after bringing the God of Abraham down to the size of the God of “Unchurched Harry and Mary.”

We now head towards the finish line with the question “What does it matter?” I have obviously already suggested several things along this line. Now I want to look at romanticism itself, and whether it contains for us a worthy response to God and the Gospel.

Romantic sentiment is a multi-dimensional, pan-historical phenomenon. It is a topic so large that its advocates might respond to any criticism by saying it misses the point. I think we must admit that there can be little certain correlation between a scholarly discussion of romanticism and a theological discussion of the same. What can be considered is what does romanticism mean today, in the culture in which worship and theology is being effected by romanticism? What do we mean by saying we are “in love”? And is such an experience a good paradigm for Christianity?

I would suggest that romanticism in modern culture is, for many people, a religious experience. It is luminous, traumatic and arresting. It brings focus. It inspires sacrifice, loyalty and change. To be “in love” is to have a reworking of priorities, a rediscovery of the self, and a heightened commitment to the personal over the material. The lover is both miserable and happy, beyond words and full of words. Most of all, the romantic is certain that in the one loved is the meaning of their life. “I’ve found my soul mate,” is a common announcement.

We should also say that romanticism today is highly irrational. A person in love has automatic justification for all of his/her actions and thoughts. Mature individuals often joke that a person should never get married when they are “in love” because their judgment is impaired. That humor is based on objective evidence! Further, there is no doubt that romantic experience is temporary and shallow, as romantics tend to find their soul mate repeatedly. So while romanticism has many positive characteristics that can be celebrated, there is an admission that being “in love” is a flawed state. It lacks the substance and permanence to be true love.

The fundamental flaw, it seems to me, is a kind of selfishness. A heightened, arrogant selfishness that focuses on the experience of being in love much like a drug user focuses on the experience of being high. It is not hard to picture two romantics competing to see who can convince the other that they are more “in love” than the other, all the while being basically selfish, rather than loving, in their orientation. The question emerges: Do romantics love another person in the highest sense of love, or do they love the feeling they receive from getting attention from the object of their affection? Do I love you, or do I love how I feel when I am with you?

In the Turner movie “Samson,” there is a character named Naomi. Naomi has known Samson since childhood, and loves him. But her love is expressed in urging Samson to follow God’s call for his life and to be the person God destined him to be. She sacrifices and suffers, and lives without Samson, but she loves him. She is no romantic, but one who truly loves in the highest sense. Delilah and Samson, on the other hand, engage in a highly sexual and romantic affair where both are intensely selfish, and Samson is stupid to the point of losing his freedom and his sight. It is a good contrast between the heights and frivolities of romantic love, and the realities of real love.

It is because we acknowledge this flaw in romanticism that we warn those we care about to not marry until they have passed through this level of romantic experience to something more mature. While we may admire some aspects of the behavior of those who are “in love,” we all realize that life-long commitments, like marriage and parenting, MUST move beyond this to a kind of love that finds joy in loving the beloved without the emphasis on the emotional, romantic experience. Can those who are “in love,” love as well as those who choose to love with mind and heart and intention of commitment?

This explains, in my opinion, why scripture makes it plain that loving God is not an experience best described by romanticism or being “in love.” What it means to love God is a major theme of scripture, but the romantic element is not in those descriptions. And certainly, romanticism is not present enough in the Bible’s teaching on loving God to be significantly represented in our expressions of prayer, praise and proclamation.

To love God is to delight in God, but is that delight best expressed in the words of romanticism as experienced in our culture? My answer is no. Scripture is a feast of verbal and emotional delight in God. The Psalms are written to direct our prayer and praise. Romanticism is not the chosen language of scriptural praise. Instead, scripture directs us to obedience, faithfulness, worship, service and sacrifice, not to romanticism and emotionalism.

I think it is important to say that the presence of “romantic” expressions in worship need not mean a complete lack of appreciation for what I am saying. Notice the Charlie Hall lyric at the beginning of this essay. While he says that “I am madly in love with you,” he also says that worship should result in service and obedience in the world, and he says that Christ is our righteousness. I have some hope that younger Christians who have chosen the language of romanticism will discover that it is not the language of scripture, and will recover the language of the Bible is expressing worship.

The effects of romanticism? There are the effects on our conception of God and Christian experience, but there is also the effect of making a flawed, and fundamentally shallow, human experience the primary way we think of relating to God. When we think of God as the one desiring our expressions of love, we are thinking of a “needy” God. When we think that our relationship with God is best expressed by intense, emotional and romantic praise sessions, we have seriously misconstrued the life of faith. There is something serious happening when the mental image of Christianity changes from Christ on the cross, to an entranced Christian swaying to worship music.

Romanticism cannot express the essence of the Christian life accurately or Biblically. It’s usefulness as a way of describing the Christian life has been greatly exaggerated, and based mostly on a wrong reading of the Song of Solomon. The theme of the Bride of Christ is important in the New Testament, but it never resulted in expressions of romanticism in the life and worship of the church. Instead, images like the bride resulted in higher esteem for the church as a redeemed community, not a more personalized and emotional individual experience for the believer. Romanticism is not a significant Biblical expression of praise, certainly not worthy of becoming a regular part of our worship, prayer and communication of the Gospel. As understood and experienced today, romanticism is a flawed metaphor for delighting in and loving God. It is vastly inferior to scripture’s own description of love for God as seeking our joy in obedience to the Lord. “Come fall in love with Jesus,” is not an invitation to faith that we should endorse or repeat.

Some of my friends, when seeing young people raise their hands in worship, will say “they are falling in love with Jesus.” I wish I could say, “Yes, and now they will begin to love and obey Jesus.” But this has not been my experience. My experience is that those young Christians want that feeling, repeated again and again. Jesus is really secondary. My experience is we can expect little serious concern with discipleship and no interest in scripture from most of those young people. The romantic experience of crying, singing, and saying “I love you Jesus” under the influence of emotionally powerful music does not usually result in a holy life, a passion for God or a delight in the law of the Lord. I am thankful for the exceptions to my observation, but they are few.

Yet, I have no doubt that some of these young people are experiencing strong emotions and, quite possibly, affection for what they know of Jesus Christ. But what I learn is that such emotions are not necessarily a true evidence of a deep work of grace in the soul by the Holy Spirit. The continuing fruit of the Spirit and the marks of the work of the Spirit are not present in romanticism, even when it is called being “in love with Jesus.”. Instead, there is a fascination with feeling, and a desire for more emotional experiences. It is not a hunger for, a passion for or a delight in the person of God or the Gospel of Jesus. It is a fascination with experience, and as such, it is far from what happens in the heart of a sinner saved by grace, where love moves us towards God and away from sin, emptiness and a life lived apart from God.

Defeat by Embarrassment
Why Are Conservatives Ignoring a Slam Dunk on Immigration Reform?
by Michael Spencer

Imagine a political issue that could unite a conservative coalition well beyond the one that supported Ronald Reagan. An issue that bypasses questions of religion and social morality, and unites voters around a practical matter that anyone can understand. Imagine an issue that holds emotional and logical power, an issue that is both patriotic and pragmatic, an issue that will be forced upon all leaders, and is crying out for attention. Now imagine that the conservatives who have this issue in their hands refuse to use it, and are, in fact, seemingly embarrassed to be associated with it.

Immigration is the earthquake that will soon rock the West. It is an issue that is, literally, flooding our culture without our permission, and forcing itself upon us, despite our determination to ignore it. Every day, the number of Americans politically motivated by the issue of immigration reform increases, and conservatives largely watch this happen without seeing the implications. The news media increasingly pays attention to the issue, baiting the political culture to run left or right, but few seem interested.

Why aren’t conservatives doing what Dick Morris recently recommended: make immigration reform the front line of a patriotic domestic agenda? With a war on and homeland security on the front pages, America is ready for common sense, practical immigration reform. The 9/11 terrorists used our immigration policy against us, and part of the pain of such a senseless loss of life is the relative simplicity of the changes needed. What furthers the pain is the virtual impossibility of the existing system fixing itself so that immigration is no longer a glaring, self-inflicted hole in our national security.

Immigration is no longer an issue just for Buchanonites or right wing wackos. The numbers are available to anyone.

In 1996, a more or less typical year, there were 916,000 legal immigrants plus an estimated 275,000 who came illegally. Favorite immigrant destinations were California, where one third went, and the New York metropolitan area, which drew about one in six. As a group, immigrants are less skilled and younger than the average American. Of the legal immigrants, 65 percent entered under family reunification programs and 13 percent under employment-based preference programs; 14 percent were refugees or asylum seekers. From 1990 through 1998, an average of 460,000 immigrants a year became citizens…The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest projection, which assumes a continuation of recent immigration and emigration levels over the next half a century, puts the U.S. population at 394 million in 2050. Of the 122 million increase between now and then, 80 million would be added because of immigration…The U.S. will become increasingly more diverse. In 1980 the U.S. was 80 percent Anglo–that is, non-Hispanic white. It is now 72 percent Anglo, and by 2050, according to Census Bureau projections, it will be 53 percent. California and New Mexico are now slightly less than half Anglo, and by 2015 Texas will also be a minority Anglo state… 600,000 illegals in America have already been deported, but are still resident in the U.S. (Source: Scientific American)

Immigration is already changing the face- and politics- of Europe. Arabic immigrants have made many of our old allies barely recognizable on matters of policy. Conservatives in Europe have been less bashful about taking up the issue of immigration reform, but they have not been able to overcome the collective guilt of the liberal elites who, as Jonah Goldberg recently wrote, can see no wrong in the actions of anyone they formerly governed in their colonial era. Except us.

Conservative embarrassment over the issue of immigration is obvious. With the profile of immigration problems growing in the minds of the public, President Bush signed a waiver of the current law to allow millions of illegals to stay in the country. In the battle for Hispanic voter support, the President presumed that even modest immigration reform would cost votes he could not afford to lose in ’02 and ’04. With the profiling of Middle Eastern men appearing to be a necessity, Federal airport screeners are randomly picking out children and senior adults to search, while allowing Arab men to board planes unsearched. Federal agents have arrested hundreds of illegals working at airports, but no policy to stop immigrants from acquiring such high risk jobs is discussable.

Even simple measures, like declaring a moratorium on immigration or specific kinds of immigration, seem impossible for most conservatives to articulate because of fear of appearing racist. Even though legal immigrants overwhelmingly support immigration reform, conservatives are terrified of appearing anti-Arab or anti-Hispanic. Conservatives know that Social Security will be bankrupt in the future without strong action now, but that same logic, when applied to our ridiculously porous borders and broken immigration system, does not yield a passion for action. Conservatives are afraid- afraid of an issue that would show courage and compassion in a time of national crisis.

Liberals face a similar predicament. As the prophets of multi-culturalism, they are naturally inclined to oppose immigration reform and spread the virtues of cultural diversity. Democrats have been aggressive, to say the least, at using immigration as a way to pack their own voter rolls, and they have presided over the Clinton presidency’s scandalous use of the immigration laws to create thousands of new Democrats. To continue to promote the immigration follies runs the risks of putting Democrats perilously close to the blame for the current mess. If they attempt to blame the Republicans for incompetence on immigration, they are actually describing themselves. Even now, their vilifying of John Ashcroft as a racist or a Nazi for enforcing and tightening existing immigration laws rings very hollow. Liberals must find a way to sound like they should be taken seriously, and to this point, they are still searching.

Conservative pundits have spoken frequently on the need for immigration reform. Though he may have committed some errors in his book, The Death of the West, Pat Buchanon is electrifying in his predictions and logic on what the world will look like in fifty years as current patterns of immigration continue. When we think of immigrants as coming to America to be Americans, there is a good feeling about immigration, even with its many problems. After all, we are a nation of people who came here as Greeks, Asians, Irish, etc., but chose to become Americans first. But Buchanon reminds us that the melting pot is largely over, and many immigrant cultures resist and refuse assimilation, creating problems that range from language to religion to terrorism.

On many university campuses, an observer can see a very different face of immigration. Alongside those who are in America to study and work with appreciation for our culture, there are others who are contemptuous of America, its government and its place in the world. It is ironic that the very values these people vilify, allow them to remain in our country to study as our guests, even while the practice subversion, fund-raising and terror against us. Hearing these hostile Arabs particularly squall at their deportation or arrests, one is reminded that perversity revels in taking what is good and using it for evil.

Will George W. Bush become an articulate advocate of immigration reform? I expect only moderate support by the President before ’04, but after his near certain re-election, President Bush has the opportunity to make this a major conservative issue. But will he? I do not know. Conservatives on the local level are fearful of being portrayed as racists, and the trauma of 9/11 has not sufficiently motivated them to run the gauntlet of liberal name-calling.

Sad to say, but worse things will have to happen before immigration becomes a front burner issue that inspires political courage and risk-taking. If conservative legislators can’t find the spine, then conservative thinkers should be writing the books and conservative pundits should be keeping up the heat. Young people are thinking about this issue, and like the issue of taxes and bigger government in general, they are on our side. (Take it from me, I know what I am talking about.) American young people feel stronger than ever that those who come to this country should be here legally, take care of their business, obey our laws, learn our culture and support our values. They will respond to a leader who can connect immigration, the war of terror and the security of their future.

Every week we hear some story of how other countries treat visitors and immigrants who don’t obey their laws. Even a minor act of vandalism can result in a bogus trial, medieval torture or disappearance into a primitive prison to never be heard from again. In contrast, America opens wide its doors and hearts to those who come here to study, work and contribute- and obey our laws. For those who do not, our national values and security are not furthered by allowing illegal or law breaking immigrants to become a festering disease on the health of the nation. A political party that can say so without racism or prejudice, but with love for all Americans, will prosper in the twenty-first century.

Bad Medicine
Firing missionaries for not signing a bad confession was a big mistake.
by Michael Spencer

The Baptist Faith and Message 2000

A little history

Back in the mid 1980’s I was a good Southern Baptist moderate/liberal. I was in no shape, form or fashion the person I am today in my thinking about political or social issues. You could find me at meetings of the now defunct Southern Baptist Alliance, and at the moderate clambakes at the SBC’s annual meetings. I thought these were my kind of people. Theologically, however, I was always fairly conservative, and eventually the process of putting my worldview together on a consistent basis brought me out of the closet as a conservative and a supporter of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention.

All through my moderate/liberal sojourn, I had recurring qualms. Abortion was the issue that constantly pricked at my conscience. I had no sympathy or appreciation for the pro-choice position, and I was uncomfortable siding with those who endorsed it. I knew there was support among moderates for a lot that didn’t click with me, but there was this one thing, this one item that seemed a “checkmate” issue for all of “us” moderates. They called it “religious liberty.” It came down to an endorsement of two things: 1) the right to believe whatever you wanted within the “boundaries” of the Christian faith, and 2) the freedom from anyone ever drawing those boundaries in any way that might contradict number one. In other words, we were against those creeds and confessions.

Statements of faith, creeds, confessions- we moderates had no use for them. Moderates insisted that no one has the right to tell another person what to believe. Of course, the SBC had their own unique confession, the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM). Schools, churches and associations often had their own statements of faith, but these meant little to those who loved “freedom of conscience.”

While in seminary, I got to see this attitude first hand. Dr. Dale Moody, beloved and controversial professor of theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville, used to get majorly steamed up in class every time there was a signing of the school’s “Abstract of Principles” in chapel. (Tenured Professors would dress up in their finery and sign this century old document in an impressive ceremony.) Moody made it clear that he didn’t believe most of what was on that piece of paper, particularly the Calvinistic theology on subjects like election and perseverance. He had signed only after telling the powers that be that he disagreed with it and wouldn’t be bound by it. They had said, sure, whatever, and he signed it. But Professor Moody never missed the opportunity to point out that those who were signing the Abstract didn’t believe it, and shouldn’t have to act like they did.

This made an impression on me. I knew he was right because I knew many of these professors, and there was a kind of winking duplicity about the whole exercise. It was at this point that I was confronted with some choices that determined a direction for me from then till now.

I had to admit that the conservatives were right about the theological crisis in the denomination. As a student at Southern in 1979, from 82-84, and again in ’87, I saw it up close. Feminism, liberation theology, classical liberalism, the snide questioning of Christian essentials, the ridiculing of evangelism and piety, tolerance of homosexuality- it was all there among significant numbers of students, and several staff. The presence of repellant liberalism at Southern was considerable, and had an undeniable affect in the churches who found themselves with Southern graduates on staff.

I also had to admit that the confessional boundaries of the BFM and the Abstract seemed to mean little or nothing. In essence, moderates said the conservatives were masking a political takeover as an alarm over theology. That was simply not true, at least from my perspective, at the time. I came to see, and to agree, that gaining control of the denominational institutions would be the only way back from the impending mainline-like downgrade that was growing in the SBC.

So when one of my mentors, Dr. Timothy George, came out and endorsed the conservative resurgence, I went over as well. It seemed pretty obvious that when the serious theologians said the issues demanded a change of leadership, I should ask myself how I would look at this in twenty years? What side would I want to be on?

I was right, by the way. The SBC is the only mainline denomination to reverse the seemingly unstoppable tide of liberalism. I believe that without the resurgence, the SBC would have been right in line behind most of the UCC and the PCUSA in becoming a lurching shell of irrelevance and apparent apostasy. The theological disease was real, and tough medicine was needed. It wasn’t pretty, but I think the right thing happened. I’m glad I changed teams.

But….

I knew it would be like this.

I also knew something else. Some of the conservatives who ran the SBC revolution were…well-intentioned bullies. I don’t mean every one of them, or in their personal lives. I wasn’t worried about people getting smacked or imprisoned. Fired? Mistreated? Uh…yeah. I just knew that some of the particular fundamentalist point men in the resurgence were going to step on several toes, stir up a lot of enemies and make more than a few wrong moves.

I admire some of these men a great deal. They are dedicated Christians with a tremendous appreciation of Biblical truth. Many of these conservative leaders can articulately put the SBC conflict into the context of the cultural and theological “wars” of the postmodern era. They’ve had a tough job, and a pretty thankless one from anyone not sitting on their side of the field. Changing decades of policies, ending needless programs and policies, precipitating the inevitable personnel changes, making integrity mean something; reformation isn’t a job for sissies. It’s the sort of thing that gets you in the papers, that puts dozens of homosexuals singing “We Shall Overcome” all night outside your office. It gets you bomb threats, and certainly earns you labels like “bigot” and “Nazi.” But it had to be done, and those who carried through the resurgence showed they had the stomach for a tough game. I salute them.

So I wasn’t surprised when, once in power, conservatives didn’t always act like charm school graduates. There were many times I winced, and shook my head, and times I simply said I couldn’t agree at all. I’ll spare you the particulars. If you have watched the conservatives run the denomination they now control, you know what I am talking about.

One thing I could support was a new and deeper appreciation of confessionalism. While I understand the moderate fear of rampant, abusive creedalism, I could not see how Southern Baptist life has been made better by the demise of all confessions into the category of a violation of conscience. I remember a Southern Baptist Fellowship leader saying our only confession should be “Jesus is Lord.” With all due respect, such a sentiment doesn’t separate orthodox Christianity from any number of damning errors. We have to answer “Which Jesus?” in the multi-religious pluralism of our culture. Confessions were the right medicine for that malaise, and Southern Baptists should have known it.

I’ve since become an enthusiastic confessional Christian. In my opinion, a church that doesn’t have a vital and frequently referenced confession likely has problems. I was happy to see Southern Seminary’s Abstract of Principles once again actually function as a meaningful confession. It has made my alma mater a better school. I am happy to see confessional Christianity once again held in high esteem in many churches. Churches that treasure and use their confessions seem to be a healthy churches.

The Tinkerers

Which brings us to the Baptist Faith and Message revision of 2000, and the resulting conflicts with IMB missionaries.

The BFM is an unusual confession. A Southern Baptist Calvinist like myself would have been happy to stay with the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, and perhaps that excellent confession will find more acceptance in the aftermath of the current furor. The BFM was first adopted by the SBC in 1925, when the focus issue was evolution. The BFM has always been controversial, and was never well liked or universally endorsed. For years the BFM held interest and influence for denominational leaders and the ministerial class. Among churches, the BFM was about as marginal as a confession could be, and it presided quietly over the anti-creedal years of moderate/liberal control, with its 1963 revision only making it less interesting. It will never be called a great confession, though certainly, Baptists could do much worse.

The primary problem with the BFM is the tendency of Southern Baptists to change it every time something strikes them as important. This isn’t a recent development, but is the whole history of the BFM from 1925, to 1963, to 2000. While the rule of thumb about any good confession is “Leave it alone,” the BFM has been a work in flux from day one, and as I will demonstrate later, this has been a negative, rendering the BFM hardly fit for the work of reformation and restoring confidence in confessions in Baptist life.

For instance, look at the evolution from the BHM’s predecessor, the New Hampshire Confession, to the BFM itself. By 1963, the BFM no longer contained articles on the fall, justification, the freeness of salvation, regeneration, repentance, sanctification or the relationship of law and Gospel. While some of these matters were briefly addressed in other subject headings, the omission of these major doctrines indicated exactly what you might suspect. Southern Baptists didn’t want to quibble over justification or other previously important theological matters.

By the sixties, the BFM had accumulated a new set of articles that seemed appropriate for the times, but were even less doctrinal. Now there were articles on man, the Kingdom, evangelism and missions, education, stewardship, cooperation, the social order, war/peace and religious liberty. If these look suspiciously like a mix between a denominational agenda and the kinds of issues that moderates cared about, you are correct. If the most recent revision of the BFM looks like a shopping list written by conservatives, you are also correct. This is no way to treat a confession.

The revisions and additions to the 2000 edition of the BFM reflect conservative concerns about the BFM. I want to make it clear that I have no quarrel with most of these revisions, and some are, in fact, very good as corrections of errors or assertions of truth. For example, the BFM contained a horrendous circular error about the relationship of Christ and scripture. The change in the revised BFM is absolutely necessary if the relationship of Christ to the Bible is going to be freed from the sorts of nonsense that liberals have demonstrated the last fifty years. But as examples of the art of tinkering with a confession based on contemporary concerns, they are classic. (The changes to the BFM 2000 from the 1963 version are detailed in this Baptist Standard article. A moderate/liberal comparison and commentary can be found here. (pdf)

Let it be said clearly: outraged moderate defense of the BFM now is almost hilarious. No group held any confession in greater contempt than the moderate/liberals held the BFM when they were in control. Even though the 1963 version of the BFM contained much language that reflected their own views on many theological and social issues, the moderates still opposed any serious use of the BFM by conservatives unhappy with the direction of the denomination. Note the reaction of moderates to the formation of the “Baptist Faith and Message Fellowship” in the early 1970’s. Casting themselves as the “protectors of the integrity of the Baptist Faith and Message” is laughable.

The Problem

So how did we get from a confession no one really liked to this missionary bruhaha and the loss of many good people from the mission field? The problem is that, once the BFM was revised, the conservative leadership of the SBC decided that every missionary on the field would endorse the BFM or be dismissed. This decision was endorsed by the International Mission Board, and was patiently, and fairly, enforced by the leadership of the IMB. As any informed Southern Baptist knows, over 30 SBC missionaries resigned, and thirteen were terminated. In principle, I have no issue at all with this policy. In practice, there are some issues that I believe need to be considered carefully.

One is the ethics of firing people hired before such a requirement was in place. I work for a ministry associated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. At this point, the KBC does not require the employees of an affiliated school, such as ours, to endorse the Baptist Faith and Message. Since a portion of my salary is paid for by the Kentucky Baptist Cooperative program, I can fully understand such a request. If, however, an order came down to “endorse or be fired,” I would be in a quandary of conscience, not because of the content of the BFM, but because of the idea that a confession that was not part of my initial association with the school now had become the “price” of a continued association.

I am totally at a loss to explain what is accomplished by requiring past employees of the IMB missionary family to sign or be fired. Since the IMB can easily require all future missionaries to sign as a condition of appointment, the requirement for current staff to sign seems specially aimed at creating a crisis for some missionaries. The IMB would deny that this requirement was meant to root out moderate sympathizers, but that appears to be exactly what has happened. It is not the first time the conservative leadership has shown moderates willing to stay that the door was open and their bags were packed. I find it a very unclassy act.

Another objection comes from Southern Baptist Polity itself. The BFM is a statement approved at the annual meeting of the SBC. The messengers of the churches endorse it, but it has absolutely no binding power over any church unless that church approves of it in their own constitution. Most SBC churches do not use the BFM in any binding way at all. In the same way, the IMB is funded by the Southern Baptist Convention, which is made up of churches, most of which do not use the BFM as a requirement for membership, ordination or ministry. Predominantly Southern Baptist local associations and state conventions do not use the BFM to enforce conformity. What is the precedent in Baptist life for the IMB’s actions? Why is a document so unimportant in the denomination so important to the IMB’s work?

So how does the IMB see it as appropriate to require missionaries, who are all members of SBC churches, to endorse the BFM, which is not even close to being universally endorsed by SBC churches? Yes, it is not wrong for the IMB to do this, but it seems to be in defiance of the kind of Baptist polity that has united Southern Baptists and allowed them to cooperate in missions and ministry for almost a century. This action by the IMB seeks a level of doctrinal conformity that local churches, associations and state conventions don’t enforce. Is this really wise?

An example would be a denomination like the Presbyterian Church in America. The PCA is a confessional church at every level. The Westminster Standards are endorsed everywhere in PCA polity, from membership to ministry. So would there be any surprise that a PCA mission board would require endorsement of those confessions by missionaries? Of course not. But the SBC is completely different in its attitude and use of the BFM as a confession, and requiring “sign or be fired” conformity by missionaries is frankly, almost bizarre.

Ruining a Good Recipe

As I said earlier, I supported and still support the conservative resurgence in the SBC for, among other reasons, their openness to recovering the confessional heritage of the SBC. I believe confessions and creeds- and the catechisms they generate- are the basic instruments of the church’s educational ministry. They keep theology and doctrine before the church. The Trinity, the two natures of Christ, the doctrine of scripture- all these things are as relevant today as they ever were in church history, and Southern Baptists need to know and study them. Pragmatism, liberalism and modernism have influenced evangelicals in ways that need the classic Christian confessions as antidotes.

But the “good medicine” of confessionalism can become the “bad medicine” of enforcing too much conformity on the wrong issues. And in this, the recent use of the BFM raises the most concern for me. Particularly upon two of the recent revisions: the article that states a pastor must be male, and the article on the submission of wives to husband; both articles that could hardly make reasonable claim to unanimity and/or confessional necessity. Do these statements rise to the level of issues that should prompt the firing of missionaries? Is the SBC really saying that there is such doctrinal uniformity and importance on these issues among their members that it’s “sign or be fired?”

Good, Biblical evangelicals in every denomination disagree on the issue of the Biblical interpretation of passages dealing with the gender of the pastor. It’s not an issue on which leaders ought to be hijacking a confession to eliminate the opposition. Diversity on this issue poses no threat to the SBC. The statement on “submission” is good Biblical teaching, but why does the scriptural command to mutual submission in marriage not also merit a mention, since it is fundamental to understanding how both husband and wife are under the same command to submit to one another? Making this issue a reason to fire a missionary seems preposterous.

The BFM has other problems. The paragraph on “Man” is just plain lousy theology, and no one should have to endorse it. The moderate/liberal leftovers in many of the 1963 revisions are not worthy of confessional status, particularly issues like “education” and “cooperation.” If people are going to be fired, do they have to be fired for refusing to endorse these kinds of denominational promos masquerading as doctrine?

Plainly, the leadership who crafted and enforced these recent changes did not have “confessional” purposes in mind, but political purposes. Their unwillingness to improve the theology of much of the BFM, indicates the real agenda isn’t so much reform as control. If that is the case, confessionalism will deserve the bad name it’s going to get from the SBC.

The conservatives in the leadership of the SBC, most of whom haven’t allowed the Apostle’s Creed in their churches in 40 years, are now willing to fire missionaries over the BFM. It’s inexplicable except as a sign of a tendency to go too far and insist on too much for inadequate reasons. This isn’t helpful confessionalism- it’s hurtful confessionalism. It’s not using a confession to create unity, but to eradicate disagreement over issues where legitimate, scriptural discussion should be encouraged. It is almost comic to think what the Westminster Confession would look like if Southern Baptists had it in for 400 years. Right alongside the doctrine of justification would be a plug for the latest evangelism program and an endorsement of tax cut legislation.

The SBC has a system in place to handle timely issues that do not rise to the level of confessional status. “Resolutions” are brought every year to speak to issues of denominational concern. But a resolution could never be used to enforce conformity, and that is why the SBC leadership is not happy to leave many of these issues at the level of resolutions. If changes to the BFM continue to follow the agenda of the current group of SBC leaders, then confessionalism in the SBC will fail to have any lasting appeal to the churches. That will be a shame.

Here’s my suggestion. Lose the BFM. Go back to the New Hampshire Confession, a confession that has the character of a great statement of faith that will unify and encourage churches. Recover the theology of the years when the SBC cared about doctrine, but knew how to leave the “issue of the week” alone. Keep the current issues on the resolutions table, and don’t use the BFM to respond to the latest battle in the culture war. Most of all, determine that until a confession truly unifies the SBC, denominational agencies will not force their employees to endorse such a flawed document, or lose their ministries. On issues where Southern Baptists are still having spirited discussions and investigations of what they believe the Bible teaches, let’s not make missionaries choose sides in order to have a ministry. Their work is surely more important than that.

I knew the current group of SBC leaders would make some mistakes. This episode has been one. Will they learn from it, or are we just seeing the beginning of an era of enforced conformity without true unity? I hope concerned Southern Baptists will seek to influence our denomination to appreciate the greatness of its confessional heritage, and to let that heritage become the foundation for reformation and renewal in our churches, not a reason for more division in an already divided denomination.

The honeymoon is over (thankfully)
by Michael Spencer

The honeymoon of President George W. Bush was, as political honeymoons go, better than average. The removal of the Arkansas mafia from the Presidential premises brought sunshine, light and a blissful soundtrack of patriotism into an office that had become more famous for DNA and cigars more than anything resembling leadership. The Bushes are normal, and for a time, we all basked in the mundaneness of it all.

The President did not waste his honeymoon. Legislation made its way quickly up to congress, carried by the indestructible man of iron, Dick Cheney, and a genuine spirit of do-something bi-partisanship. Ted Kennedy dropped by, and signed on to education reform. The military heaved a sigh of relief that they would no longer be defending sandboxes in Patagonia under U.N. command. The President’s tax bill passed, and the snittering of the liberal media couldn’t stop the news that “help was on the way.”

Missteps? Of course, all over the place at times, but none that took the ship into an iceberg. Polls showed strong support for the President, and few Democrats had anything really negative to say, even sounding surprisingly complimentary. The media found itself doing little more than grunting, left with no Clinton-style felonies to discuss.

Like most honeymoons, this one has ended with an accumulation of minor matters, that put together, begin to take the form of a major shift in the political winds. Note with me please, in no particular order:

1. The loss of the Senate due to Senator Jeffords not getting to bat clean-up at tee-ball. Or something like that.

2. The economy has stopped rocketing through the roof without regard for God or man, and has become too complex for anyone to understand. The constant barrage of financial nonsense of cable is enough to make anyone turn to a religious channel for peace and quiet.

3. California politicians, who decided that the best way to enter the millennium was without electricity, have managed to blame the Federal government for not rescuing them from their idiotic lack of foresight. Governor Gray Davis must be next Democrat Presidential nominee because the man has more cold-eyed lying skills than OJ.

4. The environmental wackos have belted the White House with everything they know how, and finally are finding something that sticks in portraying Bush as pro-oil and anti-environment. Now, no one in America cares about this because gas is $75 per gallon, but the media is having a field day with it, proclaiming every kind of apocalypse because GWB refuses to sign the Kyoto treaty, which sends America back to the forties and lets China and India pollute without a single restriction.

5. The Europeans decided to greet the President as if he were Hitler. No, on second thought, they would have invited him in for tea if he were Hitler. They decided to treat him as if he were a bad guy, and a thousand Europeans mooned the President’s residence. (Or were they saluting Senator Jeffords? Hmmm.) Riots broke out because the president is an “oil cowboy.” While all this made the Europeans look like products of the California public schools, it also made the President look diminished, and Tony Blair had to scold the mobs. Oh my.

6. A lot of ridiculous criticism from the right on the China Spy Plane deal and similar potholes. The far right really needs to run that Thurmond-Helms ticket in 2004 and get this country back where it belongs.

7. More idiotic nabobbing on the left about the President saying Russian President Putin was trustworthy. Now guys, you have to remember, President Bush has been spending a lot of time with Daschle and company. The left criticizing Bush on this is particularly laughable, since half the Democratic party never met a communist they couldn’t love.

8. The Bush White House began to get some ethical heat over access by major corporations like GE and Intel. Karl Rove seemed to be studying at the Hillary Clinton school of finance for a while.

9. The Bush daughters, looking far better than Chelsea on tv and in print, attracted the media for the crime of ordering a marguerite on a fake ID. Thank God for 911.

10. The Democrats are getting mean. Now that’s a surprise.

11. (Is John McCain a Democrat?)

12. The press has gotten mean, too. Did you know the President made C’s in college? And mispronounces some words? Aren’t you glad the press is telling us the REAL story about this president?

What can we say about all this? Good. It’s about time. I like President Bush more than any Republican I have seen in a while, and I think he has a great agenda. But he has to know it’s a fight. Not a fight without rules and character and even bi-partisanship, but a fight to win. And no one fights on their honeymoon. So I am glad its over. Let’s get on with the real show.

Should the President ever compromise? Sure. And when he does, he needs to tell the American people that he won and won big. It is arguably one of the great truths of politics that the guy who looks and acts like he won is usually perceived as the winner. GWB knows how to look like a winner. The Democrats look like losers even when they win because the country doesn’t win when big government wins. Reagan understood this and I believe Bush can as well.

The test of this Presidency will come as the Democrats increasingly fight him over social programs, the patient’s bill of rights, higher spending and missile defense. On all these issues, (except PBR) the President has good support and friends on both sides of the aisle. But his friends need a fighting leader, not someone who acts surprised at the dirty side of Washington. Here’s hoping our President gets in the fight and kicks a few shins- hard- on his way to many victories and a second term.

Is School Out for Baptists?
Southern Baptists consider the benefits of dropping out of public schools
by Michael Spencer

“Contemporary Christianity in America has become a self-absorbed culture of protection against everything that is deemed threatening while embracing every consumer driven gimmick that comes along.”

– Steve McFarland

“If Baptist parents were to comply with the resolution, the public school system probably would collapse,” said Pinckney, who publishes The Baptist Banner. ”I think that would be one of the finest things that can happen for the United States,” he said.

– Tennessean article.

“Why should we be stingy in support of and apologetic about this plainly worthy public school system? After all, our greatest national resource has been and still is our young people. Last year 43.5 million boys and girls were enrolled in our public schools, the largest number in our history. Every generation requires a shared experience….Genuine patriotism calls for strengthening, not weakening, public education. We retrench at the nation’s peril. Only one generation of retreat would destroy this priceless resource that binds us together as a people.”

– Maston Colloquium Statement on Public Education, 2001

• • •

The Southern Baptist Convention is on the verge of a major debate about public education. Resolutions urging Christians to abandon public schools are everywhere, and one will likely be brought to the Southern Baptist Convention floor this year or next. Homeschoolers, advocates of private Christian schools and the many critics of public education seem to sense that the hour has arrived to bring down the “evil empire” of godless, secular public schools. The swords are out and battle lines are being drawn.

I’ve long avoided writing about these issues because I knew that I would, once again, be in a minority, but also because I am a teacher and minister at a large private Christian school. How can I advocate support for public schools? A wholesale evangelical withdrawal from the public schools would be a boon to our school. The rhetoric of the anti-public school movement could easily fit into our school’s advertising, though we have avoided anything more than modest comparisons. Well, that’s not who I am or where I am. I support public schools both as a citizen and as a Christian, though certainly not without thought and consideration.

I am a public school graduate, and proud of it. Twelve years of public education at Lincoln Elementary, Estes Junior High and Owensboro High School. (Go Red Devils!) Those years were some of the best memories of my life. No bullies. No drugs. No abuse. Good times and a good education that served me well. My dad graduated the eighth grade in a one room, eastern Kentucky school. Neither of my parents attended college. There were no books in the house where I grew up. Public school was a world of hope and happiness for me, and I am not about to forget it when times are tough.

While I wouldn’t send my kids to every public school, I would send them to most public schools without reservation. I would send my kids to most public schools long before I would send them to most private schools, because I fear distorted ideas about God more than I do the absence of belief in God in a school. I would never homeschool my kids unless it was an emergency, even though I am college educated (and beyond), teach others, and could master homeschooling in most subjects. Yes, my kids attended and graduated from a private Christian school, but OBI is not typical of private Christian schools, and the similarities to those schools (like young earth creationism and weird rules about dancing) were among the few negatives in their experiences.

OBI does allow me a unique window on educational experiences. In our ministry, I see hundreds of kids who have done poorly in public school. I see the kids public schools can’t help, failed to teach and threw out for behavior. We get every kind of learning and behavior disorder in the book. I read hundreds of pages of discipline notes every year. I see the kids whose parents don’t give a nickel about the value of education and therefore let their kids stay home 70+ days in a year.

We also deal with students from homeschools and private, church-run schools. I see homeschool kids who are brilliant and homeschool kids who are five grades behind. I see homeschool kids who are scared of almost everyone, but who usually come out of their shells and enjoy the opportunities we provide. I see Christian school kids of every kind, from great examples of excellence to obvious products of educational incompetence. I’ve got strong opinions and impressions on all these education options and how they work for students. I have opinions about school boards, teachers and administrators. I can bore you if you want to be bored, or I can make you mad if you haven’t been fired up in a while.

I’m not a trained educator, just a private school teacher, an advocate for kids and a communicator. I’m not big on numbers, because I’m a bit skeptical about how they are used by both sides anyway. I believe there must be a place in the picture for every kind of education: public, private and home. The strength of America (and of a non-fundamentalist Christian faith) is the pursuit of the good and the true through diverse experiences. I am hearing a lot of propaganda that doesn’t match up with my experience or the lessons of thirty years of ministry to students and families. I believe in Christian education, but I don’t think you build great Christian schools on the foundation of fear, but rather on clear alternatives of excellence and love.

I don’t think choosing one route as right for my family makes me the enemy of those who go about education differently than I do. I’m tired of hearing homeschools and Christian schools portrayed as cultic, abusive and incompetent. I’m just as tired of advocates of Christian education using slander and propaganda to mount a distorted attack on public schools. I think there is a better way than these “either/or,” worst case scenarios.

My own cards being on the table, I’d like to speak to the homeschoolers and private schoolers in the audience. Listen carefully please.

I am not against homeschooling. I recognize its value and accomplishments. One would have to be a fool to not see the good things happening in the homeschool movement in America. It’s a choice millions of Americans make, and I fully support them, if not all their reasoning and methodology. Same with private Christian schools. I support them and I hope they grow.

I don’t believe homeschool parents are weird, abusive control freaks who are screwing up their kids. I’ve read the fright pieces written by people who apparently feel homeschoolers are a cult. Such accusations usually look at the extreme fringe or the unavoidable bad examples and generalize into ridiculous conclusions. I believe most homeschool parents love their kids and work to make the homeschool experience a great one. I have no doubt homeschooling done well can produce impressive results. While I have some modest critiques of homeschooling as I have seen its results in my ministries, being cultic, abusive or dangerous aren’t on the list. (If saying some kids are “undersocialized” is too hard for you to hear, then you’d better stop reading.)

I believe that education is the moral and Biblical responsibility of parents, not the responsibility of government or anyone else. Parents have the God-given right to determine what is the best educational course for their children. If those parents choose homeschooling, they shouldn’t be harassed or regulated. I applaud states that have a “hands off” approach to homeschooling. I also applaud states that keep homeschooling, private schools and public schools completely separate. (I’m not sure all my Southern Baptist friends are on the same page.)

I enthusiastically applaud the ministries of the thousands of Christian schools in America. I applaud their excellence and accomplishments. I hope they flourish and multiply, going into every community in America and making private, Christian education an option for every family and child. While some Christian schools are sub-standard or incompetent, that’s not typical. Christian schools do a good job in what they do. I salute the faculty and staff of those schools, who serve at a fraction of what public school employees are compensated. It’s a labor of love, and thousands of students are grateful for what those servants give in the name of Jesus.

I believe that homeschooling and private Christian schools are agents of the Kingdom of God. They are doing Kingdom work. Their God-centered and Bible honoring approaches to education are a ministry of the Kingdom. They bring salt and light into our culture, and they are making positive differences in lives and communities. Even as I offer some disagreement, I am not at all rejecting the work of these Christian education ministries. God is using homeschooling and private Christian schools.

I am very aware of the culture war going on in America’s public schools, and the reasonable fears many evangelicals have about sending their children into that battleground. When Noel was in elementary school, I was happy with her public school. I also knew what was waiting for her in our particular junior high and beyond, and I was concerned. In that community, I would have chosen a private school for my children rather than send them to a public school that wasn’t doing a good job. I support any parent who looks at public schools and says they are concerned enough to make another choice. I believe we must, as Christians and citizens, oppose the indoctrination of children into a worldview different from that of their parents, and we can’t support schools that don’t provide a safe learning environment. I join my conservative friends in outrage at what teachers’ unions and educational activists have done to the public schools. While I don’t believe every extreme story, I know enough of them are true that I would support any parents who said they couldn’t send their child into that environment. There is a time to go and work for change, and there is a time to make another choice. I understand that thoroughly.

I am deeply suspicious of the concept of “government schools.” I understand that many Christians now purposely speak of “government schools,” and while I may disagree with some of their intent in that language, I agree that the control of schools by government raises some ominous possibilities. I believe that education is a community interest, but not a government mandate. Schools are unique institutions in communities, and flourish when they are accountable to the families and communities in which they exist, not to some expert in the capital. I believe government must be a partner with citizens in providing schools, but government cannot “own” or “control” schools to the extent that they no longer are “community” schools reflecting parental values and local vision. Public schools cannot be agents for agendas far outside of the local community and the values of the families in their community.

I recognize that in some public schools, an aggressive anti-Christian agenda pervades. Again, without believing all the propaganda, I can agree that David Limbaugh is correct in much of what he writes in “Persecution.” Without close monitoring by the community, the public schools can easily become a reflection of a liberal agenda to render Christianity irrelevant, and education is a primary tool in that quest. While I don’t see this as particularly new, I do understand that many parents would not want their child in the hands of anyone hostile to Christianity during their child’s impressionable school days. As confident as I am that Christian churches and parents can counter this, I support those who say they don’t want to run the risks.

I believe the church should support parents who homeschool or send their children to private, Christian schools. With a diversity of educational options available to Christian parents, churches are obligated to find ways to support families who make differing choices. It is inappropriate for a pastor to take the position that parents cannot send their children to public schools, even if the pastor and church staff make the homeschooling or private school choice. There are a variety of ways to support parents, and churches should be circumspect in making every Christian parent feel the church is their full partner in carrying out the responsibility of educating their children. No parent should be told he or she is disobeying God’s Word and hurting his or her children by sending them to a public school.

The welfare of our children must be among our highest priorities in life, and it must be something for which we are willing to sacrifice and even suffer. At no time would I want it to be said that I think some aspect of the Christian mission is more important than caring for our children. I understand that many families are making the choice to love their children when they take them out of the public school, and that choice is fundamental to a healthy family. As a parent who has been guilty of putting ministry before family at times, I know that God will ask each of us about our children long before we account for anything else in the Christian life or mission.

The welfare, however, of all children is an extension of the command to love our neighbor as ourselves, and therefore the welfare of all children in a community is the concern of a Christian citizen. Is it possible to embrace God’s call to care for our own children while at the same time realizing we have some responsibility for the children of the community in which we live? Not to raise someone else’s children, but, to the extent allowed in our culture, to influence those children for good? To influence community expressions of concern and love for young people? To provide hope and, yes, light? I think we need a discussion of the Christian approach to the public square (including public schools) and not just a discussion of how we love our own children or protect ourselves from a fallen culture. Is it really an “either/or” issue in deciding which kids will get a decent education?

If I’ve made it clear that I am no enemy of those who don’t use public schools, then I want to share why I support the public schools, when so many evangelicals are joining the movement to desert them.

1. Most parents- Christian or not- can neither homeschool nor send their children to a private Christian school. Tens of millions of America’s children live in homes where public schools are their only hope of an education and its benefits. If the SBC resolution signals the beginnings of a movement to start new Christian schools and support more homeschools, that’s great. But no one can seriously look at the numbers–over 40 million students in public schools–and think that Christian schools or homeschools can do anything more than deal with a tiny minority of students. It’s imperative that Christians accept reality and develop an approach to helping public school parents and kids. Many churches are already doing so, and they should be applauded. The voices saying Christian schools can educate America’s children are…well…nuts, statistically speaking. Get real. There are always going to be millions and millions of public school kids in all kinds of public schools.

2. We must support the millions of Christians whose vocations and ministries are in the public schools. Perhaps the single most distressing thing about the current call for Christians to abandon public schools is the stunning rejection of those whom God has called to minister in those schools as Christian administrators, teachers and staff. Every church I’ve ever served had a generous representation of public school employees in the congregation. Christian teachers were some of my earliest mentors as a new Christian. My junior high principal was the interim pastor of our church for years. I would see Christian teachers at school and then at church. How can anyone in good conscience say these people are not where God wants them to be, or suggest that God is calling them to abandon their ministries to lost and hurting kids? It’s bizarre and offensive. Maybe Southern Baptists need to publish a list of vocations God never calls you to. Do we really want to become churches where you can’t stand up and say, “God has called me to teach in the public schools” without being booed?

3. The vast majority of America’s private Christian schools are 1) economically out of reach of poor families and 2) open only to Christian families and/or students. I am thankful that our school is different in both areas, but the truth is many, if not most, Christian schools are neither affordable nor available to lower income, non-Christian students. The drumbeat to abandon the public schools is not an invitation to affordable, open Christian schools, because those schools are–by and large–for middle income, already evangelical Christian families. Outside of those groups, there isn’t a desk for you. Why can’t someone be honest here? A good percentage of private Christian education seems designed to get away from certain kinds of people. If it’s not so, then let’s change some things to open those doors and end that impression.

4. Public schools are a vast open mission field for ministries of many kinds. Despite the horror stories, the fact is most public schools welcome Christians as teachers, involved parents, staff and supporters. Many are desperate for help. They need tutors, coaches, classroom assistants, etc. Churches that work to help public schools find that the majority are open to and grateful for that help. Only a small minority are closing doors. “Faith based” ministries are not locked out in most of America’s public schools, even if they must operate on some limitations. Teachers and parents are still able to wash feet, give cups of cold water and meet needs in public schools. Yes, there may be limitations on open evangelism, but that is no excuse to not go into the mission field of the public schools. It’s news when a school says a youth minister can’t serve as a volunteer counselor because it’s not the usual response. If we go with the right attitude and a missionary heart, the schools are open, and Christ clearly calls us to “go,” not “leave.”

5. Christian public school students may be some of the boldest witnesses in America. We need to support them. I find it absolutely outrageous that the same denomination that has been telling youth ministries for fifty years to develop courageous witnesses in public schools is now saying abandon ship and go to a “Christian school.” Is the lesson of Columbine or Paducah that America’s Christian kids need to go hunker down in their own safely protected schools with no unbelievers allowed? Is the “See You At The Pole” movement now turning into the “See You at the Homeschool Picnic” movement? Young people in public schools are some of the boldest witnesses in our culture, and we need to be encouraging them to do more, not retreat. Who can believe this is happening among Southern Baptists?

6. Wholesale abandonment of the public schools would be an evangelical disaster. Manufacturing a “divine word” to abandon ship is fraudulent and arrogant. Putting God’s authority behind this very bad idea is typical of the cavalier way some evangelicals now throw around the idea that “God is leading” their personal preferences in the culture war. Deserting public schools would be the most foolish and regrettable move ever made by Southern Baptists, and blaming God for the suggestion won’t ease the blow when they are held up as giving up on what all good people know can be a great place of Christian service. If Southern Baptists want to abandon something, abandon the kind of bomb shelter fundamentalism that justifies surrender and ghetto thinking with false statements of authority and a misuse of scripture.

7. Many of the voices calling for the abandonment of the public schools are being less than candid about their entire agenda, particularly as it pertains to government support of private schools and homeschooling. I probably agree with many of those who seek a voucher system or more recognition of homeschoolers in the tax code, etc. But could these advocates be honest about their overall goals? If they want government support of religious schools in any way, say so out front.

8. Thousands of America’s public schools bear little resemblance to the caricatures used to criticize “government schools.” If you live in most of America, you don’t recognize the portrayal of public schools you hear from many pulpits and radio programs. That’s not your school they are describing. You know things are far from perfect, but you also know your school does a good job. Most teachers work hard and care. Most kids take advantage of the education. Coaches give opportunities that shape lives. Fine arts make the community proud. The community school is a deserving source of community pride. There are no condom distributions or readings of gay literature. Christians aren’t ridiculed any more than at your job. For those in schools who are rotten enough to feed the caricature, I say keep the pressure on or take your kids elsewhere. But most schools are reflections of basic American traditions and values, not just culture war casualties and dangerous social breakdown.

9. The current problems in public schools do not warrant the abandonment of the concept of a “community school,” an idea that most American Christians have endorsed and supported for most of two centuries. As an American citizen, I believe an educated population is essential to democracy. As a realist, I know that Christian schools and homeschools aren’t going to do the job that public schools do for millions of students. Community schools have always been supported by the majority of American Christians as a way to love their neighbor’s kids by providing a good school. Education is a uniting experience in America, and public schools make it possible. Yes, they have problems. Yes, we need them. No, we cannot do without them. We need some ideas, but abandoning ship is a terrible one.

10. Unless American Christians go to drastic lengths to withdraw from culture entirely–and equip families to thoroughly disciple their children in the Christian worldview–the effects of withdrawal from public schools will be negligible. (See Amish Christianity for examples, please.) The panacea implied in the calls to withdraw are typical of fundamentalism’s approach to complex problems: Find a scapegoat and drive it over a cliff so we all feel better. Well, if we burn public schools at the stake we won’t have driven the evil from our midst. We will have removed one of the great forces for good in our culture. The destructive culture so many fear is coming at young people from a variety of sources. In that regard, the homeschoolers have it right. You must control the total experience of growing up, and be with your children as much as possible. Involved parents make a big difference for every kid in every situation, because finally, it’s the family, not the school, that has the greatest effect on a young person.

11. Great Christian education doesn’t proceed from fear and ignorance, but from providing an alternative of excellence and love. Christians have great alternatives, but we don’t have easy answers. Not in homeschool. Not in ABEKA books. Not in Latin. Not in Classical curriculum. Not in Charlotte Mason. Not in uniforms and daily chapel. Our alternative should be love, truth and excellence. Great education can happen in a lot of places, but I’ve never seen it grow well in the soil of resentment, fear and apocalyptic fundamentalism. Offer a great alternative and let the world see the results. Don’t fearmonger and distort to motivate people.

There is so much else to say. Public schools provide great programs for special education needs and children with learning problems. They are the only realistic option for many–not all–of the Fine Arts opportunities for high school students in rural areas. Athletics is much criticized in America today, but I think our public schools do a great job in keeping alive a solid amateur athletic tradition that enriches lives and communities, and in most cases, in tying those programs effectively to academic performance. I’m grateful for the opportunities to serve and learn that were part of my public school education. I earned a full first year scholarship to college because my public school helped me to qualify. Some homeschools and private schools can provide opportunities similar to public schools, but public schools are unique in many, many places and many ways, especially in rural areas and inner city areas where evangelicals have fled to the suburbs.

Evangelicals are beginning to be tempted by a different spirit than the activism and optimism that has defined them for more than a century. They are beginning to think of the safety of their own parallel culture as preferable to the dangers of the culture. (Similar to what many Muslims feel about Western culture. Interesting, huh?) Their own schools, entertainment, books, even communities. The response to this temptation will define whether evangelicals are going to be salt and light, or a city on a hill. You see, we must be ALL those things and more. We must go into the world. We must love as Jesus loved. We must do the hands-on, practical ministries. And we must take care of our children and see that they are educated and discipled.

The current calls to abandon the public schools are a wrong road to those goals. We must go into the world, and not withdraw from it. I don’t know if Jesus would tell us to leave public schools or not. I have a feeling he wouldn’t be as interested in where a child went to school as what the adults in that child’s life had in their hearts. In the judgment of some, that child is in danger of losing Jesus in the chaos of public schools, and we must withraw from those schools to insure our kids have Jesus. But others say Jesus is still in public schools and Christians may love, serve and worship him there. As much as I applaud homeschoolers and support private schools, I say let’s remember that Jesus hasn’t turned his back on the students, teachers and families of America’s public schools, and we shouldn’t, either.

Don’t Know Much About History
Postmodernism turns off the History Channel

At least once during any year, those organizations that attempt to monitor the effectiveness of American education send forth an alarm about the appalling state of some aspect of our school system. We’ve discovered that monkeys in Madagascar do better than our middle schoolers in math. We’ve heard that our children know so little science that it’s a wonder Luke Helder knew how to open a mailbox, much less make a pipe bomb to blow one up. And this month we have learned that aborigines in the outback know more American history than our kids.

I knew this from watching Jay Leno. Jay does a routine called “Jaywalking” where he does “person on the street” segments about any topic that strikes him. More than once he has ventured out into the adult population of California to show us that 99 out of a 100 people at a grocery store have no idea who the first four presidents were, but they can name all the Brady Bunch or the Wu Tang Clan. Jay thinks it is hilarious that no one knows who won World War II. I find it depressing and not a little frightening.

But I’m not surprised. One thing our postmodern elitist academic gatekeepers can’t keep their hands off of is any real notion of a teachable American history. The current crop of literati are deconstructing history, inventing history, rewriting history and replacing history. They despise history in the cause of being postmodern historians. The history that is left over from their improvements and alterations looks like the remnants of a buffet after a Weight-Watchers convention.

Of course, that is their point. There really is no single American history to teach, they remind us. There are only the various selfishly created viewpoints of various political, racial and social groups vying for power. The biggest favor we can do for American young people is tell them that George Washington was not a great President, but a bad man who owned slaves. We need to explain the rampant sexism of our nation, and teach the historical significance of forgotten women and silenced women rather than the too often heard voices of dead white males. According to the crowd in charge, real education in history teaches kids to reject any history forced upon them by the establishment and to write their own based upon the claims of whatever victimized group they choose to identify with.

In this method, the standard American histories that most of us learned up through the 1970’s were simply tools to enforce conformity, empower white capitalists and oppress minorities. In this endeavor, schools, by refusing to teach such oppressive and deceptive ideologies disguised as history, are actually doing real education, and not indoctrination. Or so they say.

I’m not here to disagree with all of these somewhat Marxist critiques of history. There is real value in part of this approach. The teaching of alternate streams of history can do a lot to enhance our understanding of our collective history. Women, minorities and forgotten voices do need to be heard, and criticisms of our nation and its leaders are important parts of competently taught history.

For example, I do not have a problem with getting out more of truth about Jefferson’s two-faced stand on slavery. We need to know that the man who penned the Declaration didn’t have the spine to free his own slaves, and may have sold some of his own offspring. Lincoln is a great President, but I think we need to know about the massive expansion of powers he inspired. I want my kids to know about the slaughter of blacks in Oklahoma and the mistreatment of Native Americans by the Federal government. As a conservative, I think there are some voices and viewpoints that have been left out along the way, and I’d like to hear more from them. JFK and LBJ weren’t the saviors of mankind. Reagan ended the Cold War and Clinton received oral sex in the Oval Office. I’m for Black history, Women’s history and even Canine History as long as it helps tell the truth of American history. Let’s tell it all.

In fact, if someone wants to teach history from the point of view of minorities, immigrants, the oppressed, the overlooked and the neglected, and say there is no such thing as American history except in the imaginations of WASP Neanderthal history teachers, I would encourage them to start their own schools and teach away. But public schools- America’s public schools, mind you- are a different story entirely. In America’s public schools, one way or another, we must create a coherent American history that prepares a young person to be an informed citizen. If we fail to do that, we are endangering the future of the Republic.

American public education has a unique mission. It is the sole institution in our public life charged and accountable for passing on American values and the American vision to the future citizens of the republic. Private schools, churches, Boy Scouts, VFWs, families and libraries all may join in to some extent, but it is public schools that will do the greatest amount of work in this arena. We cannot afford to let public schools abandon American history, or become carriers of the idea that our country is to be loathed, blamed and destroyed because we have been largely white, enthusiastically capitalist and militarily strong. Public schools must teach a coherent American story, that prepares young people to obey laws as well as change laws; criticize the military and serve in the military; admit our imperfections and preserve our greatness.

It is particularly distressing that minorities grow up in America thinking we are the enemy. How many young African-Americans have been led to believe that America has gone nowhere but backwards on civil and human rights, all the while living in a country that has paid in blood, war and unprecedented national soul searching to produce the most free and opportunity laden society in human history? I still have young blacks sit in my classes, alongside their white friends, and talk about how they are “held back” in America. Where do they get this? What kind of history class isn’t telling the story sufficiently that a black American is daily thanking God his ancestors were brought here rather than being left in Africa? Rather than realizing they won the lottery of history, many young blacks look at America as a police state determined to lock them up and shut them out.

The story that should be taught in public schools shouldn’t be white-washed, inflexible or partial. Students interested in America’s flaws should not only be free to research and report that part of American history, but should hear the facts from the teacher. But at the same time, those students deserve to know a coherent story that gives them a reason to love America and live in America with an appreciation for that honor.

The Postmodernists like us to believe that America is fatally flawed by colonialism, racism, sexism and militarism. They believe these flaws can only be overcome by subverting the entire historical and political establishment that brought about these flaws. The problem is that when we subvert history, we are no longer able to understand these problems in context. The solutions to the problems that have been part of America from its beginnings won’t come from ignoring those voices that bear witness to our failures, but neither will they come from destroying the American story so that our future citizens loath and detest the very nation they live in.

It is possible to have an American history experience that satisfies both sides, if we think about a basic American value: Heroism. Heroism is to be found among those who came to this country, and among those whose country was taken. Heroism is found among the founders and among the slaves that made the economic engine of much of America possible. Heroism is found among those who wrote laws and those who broke them; among white and black, male and female, President and poor farmer. Can’t we tell our national story with all these heroic voices adding a word to the play? I think we can, and in turn, those who hear that story will be inspired to live their part of the American story with heroism, appreciation, and hope.

Why Do They Hate Us?
Evangelical Christians are almost universally disliked. Is there a good reason?
(2002)

I don’t really know why someone thought it was necessary to do a poll to see just who were the most disliked groups in society, but the results are in. While serial killers and IRS agents still come in last, hot on their heels are evangelical Christians. Not Christians in general. Not Roman Catholics. Not all Christians, but evangelical Christians.

If you’re like me, you have three reactions to this news. First, you tend to blame the media. Almost every portrayal of an evangelical Christian on television or in movies makes us look like the worst version of every stereotype we fear. Of course, one cannot expect the mainstream media to take up the cause of rescuing the evangelical public image, and these days virtually every group has a list of complaints with various kinds of media portrayals. There is more to the public perception of Bible believers than a media vendetta.

The second reaction is what we tend to say to one another to reassure ourselves that we are really OK after all. “It’s the Gospel,” we say to one another. Evangelicals are identified with a message that no one wants to hear, and so they are disliked. If you don’t believe it, watch what happens when an evangelical leader appears on a talk show. It’s like raw meat to hungry lions, no matter if the evangelical in question is rude or wonderful. (I have seen some of the nicest evangelicals torn limb from limb in these settings including liberals who gave away the store.)

I would never argue with the basic premise of this observation. I have seen its truth too many times. They crucified Jesus. Enough said. But as true as this is, it is too simplistic to explain the increasing level of general despising of evangelicals in our society. It explains one thing, but it does not explain many other things. It actually may tend to blind us to our own behaviors. Like the residents of Jerusalem who were convinced their city could not fall because the temple was there, evangelicals may explain this dislike as reaction to the Gospel and then be blind to those things- in addition to the Gospel- that create legitimate animosity.

The third reaction is the guilty knowledge that evangelicals really are, very often, easy to dislike for many obvious reasons. Many evangelicals know exactly what the survey is registering, because they feel the same way themselves. We’ve all observed, in others and in ourselves, distinctively evangelical vices, hypocrisies and failures. We hoped that our good points would make up for these problems, but that was another self-deception.

It is easy to say that people’s dislike of Christians is the dislike of the Christian message, but that simply doesn’t hold up in the real world. It may be true of the Christian you don’t know, but the Christians you do know have it in their power to either make it easy or difficult for you to dislike them. For example, the Christian in your car pool may believe what others refuse to believe, but his life provides a powerful antidote to any prejudice against him. Thousands of missionaries have been opposed for simply being Christians. But hundreds of thousands have lived lives that adorned the Gospel with attractive, winsome and loving behavior. A past president of our school was revered by Muslims during and after 6 years of Peace Corps service in Iran, years where he talked about the Gospel to Muslims every day and saw many trust Christ. The fact that the Gospel has penetrated into many hostile environments is evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit, but it is also evidence that one way the Spirit works is by making Christians a display of the fruits of love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control.

We are loathed, caricatured, avoided and disliked because we often deserve it. There, I said it and I’m glad I did.

Here’s my list of why evangelicals are among the most disliked persons in America.

1. Christians endorse a high standard of conduct for others, and then largely excuse themselves from a serious pursuit of such a life. Jesus is the most admired person in history, but evangelicals are far more likely to devise ways for Jesus to be like us than for us to be like Jesus.

If it hasn’t struck you lately that you do the very thing you condemn others for doing, (Romans 2:1) urge others to do what you don’t do or excuse in yourself what you require in others, then you probably don’t get this article at all.

Did it irritate you when your dad said “Do as I say, not as I do.”? Then you get the picture.

2. Evangelical Christian piety in America is mostly public. Whether it’s our entertainment-saturated “worship” services, our celebrity cults or our mad obsession with worldly success, we love for others to see what “God is doing in our lives.” Of course, Jesus had plenty to say about this, and the essence of it is that when your piety is public, then there is almost certainly a lack of serious, life-transforming, private obedience and discipleship.

I have lately been strongly convicted by J.C. Ryle’s little book, “A Call To Prayer.” Ryle makes a devastating case for the obvious absence of the discipline of private prayer among Christians. What would Ryle say today? Does our public manner grow out of a true inward experience of private prayer? You see what I am talking about. If its public, we do it well. If it’s private discipleship, we probably don’t do it at all.

3. Many evangelicals relate to others with an obvious- or thinly disguised- hidden agenda. In other words, those who work with us or go to school with is feel that we are always “up to” something. You mean, they know we want to convert them? Apparently. Ever been yelled at for saying “I’ll pray for you.”? Maybe there was a reason.

You know that feeling you get when a telemarketer interrupts your dinner? I get that feeling sometime when my Pentecostal/Charismatic friends are trying to persuade me into their camp. It’s not that I don’t know they are good, decent, law abiding people who like me. I just want them to quit treating me as a target or a project and start treating me as a person who is free to be myself AND different from them.

This same feeling is prevalent among those who dislike evangelical Christians. They are annoyed and sometimes angered that we are following some divine directive to get them to abandon their life choices and take up ours. They want to be loved as they are, not for what they might become if our plan succeeds.

Evangelicals have done a lot of good work on how to present the Gospel, but much of that work has operated on initial premises that are irritating and offensive. I have taken my share of evangelism courses, and there is a great blind spot on how to be an evangelist without being annoying and pushy. We somehow think that the Holy Spirit takes care of that aspect of evangelism! Thanks God for men like Francis Schaefer and Jerome Barrs who have done much to model evangelism that majors of maintaining the utmost respect towards those we evangelize.

4. We seem consumed with establishing that we are somehow “better” than other people, when the opposite is very often true. Many evangelicals are bizarrely shallow and legalistic about minute matters. We are frequently psychologically unsound, psychiatrically medicated, filled with bitterness and anger, tormented by conflicts and, frankly, unpleasant to have around.

I have an atheistic acquaintance who never misses an opportunity to post a news story about a morally compromised minister. Is he just being mean? No; he is pointing out the obvious mess that is the inner life and outward behavior of many evangelicals, truths we like to avoid or explain as “attacks of the enemy.” Our families are broken, our marriages fail and our children are remarkably worldly and messed up. Yet, we boldly tell the world that we have the answer for all their ills! How many churches proclaim that a sojourn with them will fix that marriage and those kids? Do we really have the abundant life down at the church, ready to be dispensed in a five week class?

We are not as healthy and happy as we portray ourselves. The realities of broken marriages among the Christian celebrity set underlines the inability of evangelicals to face up to their own brokenness. Was there some reason that Sandi Patti and Amy Grant were supposed to be immune from failed marriages? Why did their divorces make them pariahs in evangelicalism? The fact is that most evangelicals are in deep denial about what depravity and sinfulness really means. The world may have similar denial problems, but I don’t think they can approach us for the spiritual veneer. The crowd at the local tavern may have issues, but they frequently beat Christians by miles in the realistic humanity department. Maybe they should pity us, but the fact is that, as the situation becomes more obvious, they don’t like us.

5. We talk about God in ways that are too familiar and make people uncomfortable. Evangelicals constantly talk about a “personal relationship ” with God. Many evangelicals talk as if God is talking to them and leading them by the hand through life in a way only the initiated can understand. Christian testimonies may give a God-honoring window into the realities of Christian experience, or it may sound like a psychological ploy to promote self importance.

Evangelicals have yet to come to grips with their tendency to make God into a commodity. The world is far more savvy about how God is “used” to achieve personal or group ends than most evangelicals admit. Evangelicals may deny that they have made God into a political, financial or cultural commodity, but the world knows better. How does an unbeliever hear the use of Jesus to endorse automobiles, political positions or products?

In my ministry, I have observed how difficult it is to evangelize Buddhists. One of the reasons is that the Buddhist assumes that if you are serious about your religious experience, you will become a monk! When he sees American Christians talking about a relationship with God, yet does not see a corresponding impact upon the whole of life, he assumes that this religion is simply an expression of culture or group values. Now we may critique such a response as not understanding certain basic facts about the Gospel, but we also have to acknowledge the truth observed! Rather than being people who are deeply changed, we are people who tend to use God to change others or our world to suit ourselves.

6. Evangelicals are too slow to separate themselves from what is wrong. Because ours is a moral religion, and we frequently advertise our certainty in moral matters, it seems bizarrely hypocritical when that moral sense is applied so inconsistently.

I note that my evangelical friends are particularly resistant to this matter, but the current Trent Lott affair makes the point plainly. Lott says that he now repudiates any allegiance to segregation or the symbols of segregation. Suddenly, he sees the good sense in a number of things he has opposed. But bizarrely, Lott stands behind his evangelical Christianity as the explanation for his sudden conversion.

Watching this spectacle, there are many reactions, but what interests me is how Lott’s Christianity only seems to apply now that he is being dangled over political hell. Where was all this moral sense in the 1960’s? Where was it ten years ago? Why does it appear that Lott is using his religion at his convenience? It’s not my place to judge what is going on between Lott and his God, but his apparent pragmatism in these matters is familiar to many people observing evangelicals on a daily basis.

Most evangelicals are not the moral cutting edge of contemporary social issues. Despite the evangelical conscience on issues like abortion, it is clear to many that we no longer have the cutting edge moral sense of a Martin Luther King, Jr. or a William Wilberforce. Evangelicals are largely annoyed at people who tell them to do the right thing if it doesn’t enhance their resume, their wallet, their family or their emotions.

What is odd about this is that many of those who dislike evangelicals have the idea that we want to impose our morality upon an entire culture. Fear-mongering liberals often talk about the Bush administration as populated by fundamentalist Christian Taliban poised to bring about a Christian theocracy. I wonder if they have noticed that President Bush- an evangelical right down to his boots- is practicing religious tolerance over the loud objections of evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell?

7. We take ourselves far too seriously, and come off as opposed to normal life. Is it such a bid deal that Christians are offended at so many things others consider funny? I’ll admit, it is a small thing, but it is one of the reasons ordinary people don’t like us.

I read an incident written by a preacher to an internet list I monitor. He told about taking his youth group on an outing, when the students began singing a popular country song about a guy who leaves his wife to pursue his fishing hobby. It’s a hilarious song. But this fellow’s reaction was predictable. He asked them to not a song about a marriage that breaks up, and to instead sing something that honored God. I routinely hear students ridiculing a fellow teacher who labels much of what students find funny as “of the devil.”

These incidents show something that evangelicals need to admit. We are frequently unable to see humor, absurdity, and the honest reasons for humans to laugh at themselves. What very normal, very healthy people find laughable, we find threatening and often label with the ridiculous label of “the devil.”

The message here isn’t just that we are humorless or Puritanical. The message is that being human or being real is somehow evil. This is one place I can feel exactly what the unbelievers are talking about. When I see Christians trying to rob young people of the right to be normal, ordinary and human, it angers me. I feel threatened. It’s hard to like people who seem to say that God, Jesus and Scripture are the enemies of laughter, sex, growing up and ordinary pleasures. Some Christians sometimes seem to say that everything pleasurable is demonic or to be avoided to show what a good Christian you are. Isn’t it odd that unbelievers are so much more aware of the plain teaching of scripture than we are?

I am sure there is much more to say, but I have ridden this horse far enough. Certainly, unregenerate persons are at enmity with God by nature. And, without a doubt, Christians represent a message that is far from welcome. Christians doing the right thing risk being labeled enemies of society. Much persecution is cruel and evil. But that’s not the point. Christians are disliked for many reasons that have nothing to do with the Gospel, and everything to do with the kind of people we are in the relationships God has given us. The message of salvation won’t earn a standing ovation, but people who believe that message are not given a pass to rejoice when all men hate you…for any reason, including reasons that are totally our own fault.

No doubt someone will write me and say that, to the extent people like us, we have denied the Gospel. Therefore, being despised and hated is proof that you are on the right track. And there is a certain amount of truth to that observation in some situations that Christians may find themselves in. But that is an explanation for how we are treated, not directions on how to make sure we are rejected and hated by most people for reasons having nothing to do with the message of the cross. I hate to say it, but I’ve learned that when a preacher tells me he was fired from his church for “taking a stand for God,” it usually means he was just a jerk.

The scriptures tell us that the early Christians were both persecuted and thought well of for their good lives and good works. What was possible then is still possible now. I’ve seen it and I hope I see more of it…in my life.

I Hate Theology
Give the lawyers the day off — It’s the theologians’ turn to be the scum of the earth

The moment of truth

There is a moment in every torrid romance when things go badly, the magic vanishes, and one looks at the former object of desire in an entirely unsympathetic way. It’s the moment all lovers dread, but if you study the pros, you know its coming. That moment when, despite all efforts to soar above the clouds, you come crashing to earth. That moment when she looks at him and thinks to herself, “I hate him.”

Such moments are not exclusive to the romances of the flesh and the spirit. They regularly arrive in our relationships with other romances as well, such as those of the mind or the heart. The lifelong baseball player looks at the game and says, “I hate it.” The successful executive surveys his office and thinks, “I hate this.” Or, to be more pertinent, the theologian looks at his books or listens to the lecture or prepares to debate and is suddenly overcome with revulsion. “I hate theology,” he says to himself.

Now truthfully, such moments may come and go, or they may persist and increase. If they should persist, one must decide a course of action. Do I live with my hatred? Do I seek help? Should I seek to understand this sudden change? Can my loathing be transformed into something else; something more palatable? Or will my hatred grow to the point that I must remove myself entirely from exposure to the focus of my feelings? What should I do?

Yes, faithful reader, you should have seen it coming by now. I have recently been overcome with hatred toward my formerly beloved lifelong passion of theology. Having given these perplexing emotions more than a month to migrate out of my system, it is safe to say I’m stuck with a generous measure of hatred toward theology. And now I must decide what to do.

My counselors have been many and wise. I am indebted to each one for caring at all about me, and I am blessed with reasonable and thoughtful fellow theologians who, while not agreeing with me, know how to encourage without making matters worse. Their almost unanimous diagnosis: I do not hate theology, but I am afflicted with a strong reaction to the manner in which some theologize.

This is, no doubt, true. I have little temperament for the fanatic, no matter where I find him or her. Theological fanaticism has recently occupied too much of my time. But, truthfully, I would be dishonest to say that my hatred of theology is entirely born of interactions with the obnoxious and the arrogant. The primary culprit in my distaste for theology is myself.

I hate what I see theology doing to me.

No Escape from the Planet of the Theologians

My counselors have pointed out that saying, “I hate theology” involves me in an absurd generalization. Theology, they say, is anything we say about God. There is no way to make the simplest meaningful statement about God without indulging in theology. Eschewing theology is only possible if I apply a similar hatred to all statements of fact or all attempts at meaningful communication.

True enough. I have examined the crime scene closely enough to say that I am not making a leap into the absurd or becoming a cynic about all statements of truth. I will always be a theologian unless I can find someone who will pay me a living wage to go to the ballpark and eat hot dogs as a professional calling. Since offers aren’t pouring in, I’ll stick with being a teacher, preacher and writer. Hence, there will be no escape from the planet of the theologians.

But I am rejoining my counselors at this point: I still hate theology. Even as I theologize. Even as I write and preach, there is something in me that grows in hostility to what I am doing. And this is, surprisingly, a good thing.

The world is entirely full of people who have no capacity for self-criticism; people who cannot see the dark side of what they are doing, selling or creating. I propose we reconsider the virtue of doing anything without understanding the circumstances under which someone–perhaps even ourselves–might say we hate what we are engaged in. I am suggesting that if we have not trembled with the possibilities for doing harm, we are not in a capacity to truly do good.

For example, is it ever virtuous for a doctor to say, “I hate medicine?” It sounds insane, but if that physician is saying, “I hate medicine when it treats human beings as collections of organs, and not as souls, spirits and image-bearers of God,” then there is a virtue in the revulsion. If that physician hasn’t understood the outright evil that is done in the name of medicine, then he is naive’ in his attempts to do good.

In fact, understanding the potential for harm, the fallibility of the whole effort, the nearness of any human enterprise to disaster is a necessary component of humility and clear vision. To carry within ourselves “hatred” for what we do is to see the potential–and actual–offensiveness, harm and blasphemy (yes, I said blasphemy) of human projects done without purpose, compassion and love. We have to know the full scope of possibilities for good and evil, benefit and harm, in anything we pursue.

Another illustration. As a parent, I hate what kinds of harm I see parents are capable of doing to their children. I hate the damage that can be done through selfishness and naiveté. Seeing the tremendous harm that can be done and feeling the emotions that go along with that knowledge are fundamental to my own approach to parenting. If I did not feel those negative emotions, I would have an unwarranted optimism and a kind of blinding ignorance that doesn’t even see the damage as it’s being done. I must know–and feel–all that I am capable of as a parent, if I am going to be a good parent.

So “I hate theology” is, admittedly, a provocative approach to one of the primary passions of my life. I’m expressing my arrival at a place in life where I see the harm and the hurt, and I am no longer reveling in the wondrous things possible if I just read another volume of someone’s systematics. I am no longer in awe of theology. I am not ambitious. I am even beyond ambiguity. I see the power of good, and I am horrified at the potential for evil. I love and hate theology, and I will theologize with both those emotions in my heart.

But I see that I must alter my assertion if I am going to write this essay. So I hereby slightly alter my assertion from “I hate theology,” to “I hate theology when…”

Whenever you are ready, I’d like to tour the dark side of this thing we call theology. I have high hopes that, once we emerge on the other side, we may be better theologians for having confronted some aspects of theology its promoters usually ignore.

I hate theology when it’s without humility. Theology and humility. They ought to go together without much trouble. I mean, this isn’t rocket science. It’s infinitely bigger than rocket science. On his deathbed, Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value.” We know this is the proper attitude toward our theologizing, but it’s not our normal working stance.

The idea of knowing the truth about God has to be about the most seductively dangerous kind of knowledge we can claim. The more we learn, the more humble we should be. Following the usual theories of knowledge, If God is infinite and incomprehensible, then the more we know, the less we know. That is, when ignorance is replaced by knowledge it opens vast new spaces of the magnificently unknown, and we should be humbled.

Take the modern astronomer. He appears to know far more about the universe than his ancient counterpart who thought the stars were pinpoints of light held by gods or angels. But does the modern astronomer’s increased knowledge make him or her truly knowledgeable, or does it make him or her stupefied with wonder and amazement at what we know and all we don’t know?

So how did we miss this in modern theology? Arrogance, not humility, marks theological discussion and debate among evangelicals and protestants. You would think a few years of reading and study had opened up the mind of the Almighty to be picked through like a card catalog at the local library. The posture of a Biblical theologian ought to be constant worship and wonder, not glibly asserting all that he or she knows for certain.

Remember the story about the reporter asking Karl Barth what was the greatest theological truth he’d ever heard? The answer from the wizened old professor was, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Great answer.

I hate theology when it bullies real ministry. Those who are worried that I am going over the edge into some sort of postmodern skepticism need to remember one thing about me, the one thing that allows me to say “I hate theology” with a measure of authenticity.

I’ve been to four plus years of seminary, and lived to tell the tale. Until you’ve walked that mile in my shoes, sit down and listen.

When I was in seminary, I sat in a classroom and watched students heckle the gentle and zealous Dr. Louis Drummond as he talked to us about personal evangelism. I watched students in the campus “Evangelism Club,” ridiculed openly as idiots by graduate students who held evangelism in contempt. I heard professors talk about how to deal with the ignorant and unlearned back at the church, those benighted laity who weren’t fortunate enough to know what was really going on as the anointed ones practice the mysteries of Biblical criticism. A friend heard pro-lifers called “fools” by a professor of Christian ethics. Of course, all these distinguished individuals were theologians who would rather theologize than eat ice cream.

I was on church staff during my seminary days at a church near campus. Like any church, we had a lot of simple things to do if we were going to be a church. Staff the nursery. Cook meals. Have prayer meetings. Evangelize. Pray. Minister. Fill committees. Paint the fellowship hall.

The problem was that we could hardly do these things because our church was populated by seminary students and faculty. Theologians. You couldn’t pray. You had to theologize about prayer. You couldn’t have a church dinner. You had to theologize about the poor and economics and justice. You couldn’t adjust the thermostat without a theological debate. The theologians rendered the church virtually paralyzed. (You don’t even want to know what a simple Sunday School class or youth group turned into in this tyranny of the theologians.)

As one might expect, the theologians seemed to always avoid those little jobs the rest of us did because they just need to be done. Incarnation is a great idea, as long as you debate it instead of practice it.

I hate this, and I am not ashamed to say so. Christ didn’t call theologians, he called disciples. Let’s follow Jesus, not just talk about the two natures. He didn’t establish a seminary or a library, but a church, which is a pretty down and dirty business that does a lot more than just stare at its confessions in wondrous rapture and awe. He didn’t give the great debate assignment, but the great commission. We’re on mission with a God who is doing great things in history. Or are we? Some of us are theologizing about ministry so much that we appear to be undermining ministry itself. It’s a great commission to make disciples of all nations, not a great commotion about who can be more literal about the elements of the Lord’s Supper.

Theology has an important role to play in everything the church says and does. But that role is a servant role, not the role of a bully who intimidates simple, obedient people from obeying and serving. This sort of bullying theology seems to fit right in with the Pharisees who never could get over Jesus’ interest in healing and helping people on the Sabbath. They had theologized themselves to the point of having a God interested more in Sabbath rules than in helping people. They felt perfectly comfortable lecturing Jesus as an ignoramus, all the while walking on the other side of the street whenever they encountered the opportunity to minister.

My advice to theologians everywhere: if you aren’t part of a ministry or a church that is actually ministering to people, praying, giving, going, and sharing compassion, you have no authority to speak to those who are. Memos from the library won’t do. In love, I’m telling you to take a vow of silence. Don’t lecture the man giving a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name if you aren’t giving anything but advice and lectures.

I hate theology when it becomes the enemy of personal devotion. At this point I need to share a story about people who are still alive, but it’s such a clear example of what I’m talking about that I can’t avoid it.

Recently, a young friend posted a message on her web page about a book she was reading. The gist of the post was, “I want to love God and hate sin, and this book is helpful to me in that goal.” Given what I know about the Bible and Jesus’ message of repentance and holiness, there was nothing to complain about in the post. It wasn’t a post about the true nature of justification. It was a heartfelt, human aspiration to be more Christ-saturated and Spirit-transformed. With that sort of simple desire to love God on the table, you know there’s going to be trouble.

The problem was that, theologically speaking, some could fault the theology that was cited from the book. It wasn’t precise and it wasn’t entirely up to reformation confessional standards on the true nature of sanctification. The more sophisticated the theologian, the more criticism of the book might be possible. That 0.0003% of the population that knows theology might be “concerned.” And one theologian spoke up. It was a simple glancing blow, but it burned my toast. It made me hate theology with a new intensity.

Now I have no quarrel with theological analysis. I do it and will continue to do so. I have no objection to sincerely and directly warning someone that there is a better way or a clearer truth. It’s the loving thing to do. I have no problem with theological discussion of personal piety. Any theologian may write and comment to his or her heart’s content on the modern devotional writers popular today. It’s a service to the church.

The problem here, as is so often the case, is that theology too often stands in judgment over personal devotion as either 1) ignorant or 2) legalistic. I’ve been guilty of this, I’ll quickly admit. I’ll also say it’s ugly and I hate it. I hate it a lot.

Let’s be really clear here. God is a lot more jazzed about a person who wants to avoid sin and love Him than he is about anyone’s expertise on historical and systematic theology. When we’ve reached the point of thinking we are doing God a service by discouraging personal piety because it doesn’t measure up to some theologian’s standards, we’re bad off.

See, the true theologians are tempted to live a life generally free from such petty concerns as personal repentance, devotions, prayer, private worship and pious expressions of love for God. Good theology covers a multitude of sins. Who has the time for such wastes of mental energy when you can read another chapter of some theologian’s dogmatic explorations of the decrees? That need to debate is so much more intense than the desire to pray, isn’t it? Another book, or a time of devotion? Why is the choice so easy? (It’s Wretched Urgency III: The Agony of the Theologians.)

Am I bugging you yet? Good, ’cause I’ve been bugged for a long time, and I want other people to suffer with me.

If the theologian has a service to render here, I wonder if he or she could find a way to render it without making the ordinary Christian feel like a moron for not realizing what a waste of time it was to read a book by a non-theologian that encouraged you to love God and hate sin? Is there a way to help us with those theological gifts without belittling the non-theologian? Without seeing ordinary piety as dangerous? Without making it appear that theology is the better way, and ordinary devotion is the way of lesser, fallible mortals?

I think it was that well known theologian, The Rock, who used to say, “Know your role.” If the heresies that frolic in the minds of non-theologians stir you up to the point of book burning, maybe you need a new career. There is a role for theologians who comport themselves in a way that ordinary Christians trust them and value their words. See J.I. Packer, Don Carson and N.T. Wright for excellent examples.

I’ve got no time for myself or any other theologian who can’t see the beauty of a heart that passionately wants to follow Jesus because we’re too ticked off about some book he’s reading. Sounding gong. Clanging cymbal.

I hate theology when it acts like it’s revelation, rather than fallible human effort. My BHT friend Jim Nicholson gets the credit for this one. For those of us who believe in the Reformed doctrine of total depravity, it appears that more than one practicing theologian has a note from God excusing him from something the rest of us have to live with all the time: the pervasive influence of sin in every area of human life, including the intellectual exercises necessary to theology.

It seems strange to say, but it appears that some Protestants are ready to defend their theologizing as correct on the basis that God must somehow preserve the church from error. Do Protestants really think this way? The heirs of Luther really talk like this about this very human, thoroughly fallen exercise called theology? Unfortunately, yes, and with consequences that range from the mildly annoying to the devastating.

As many have said before, theology is potentially dangerous precisely because once we have arrived at the “truth,” we’re sure that God is on our side. The conclusion seems to guard the process in the minds of some theologians. What may be true in a conclusion–that we are privileged to know the mind of God–should not be generalized into some kind of authority that resides in the whole process or in an individual person.

Perhaps the best example of this is our beloved Reformed T.U.L.I.P. Is God committed to the TULIP? Or is it human theological effort? Is it our shorthand, our thoughts and words? Or did God send it down here to bless us, and it needs to be carried before us into battle like the ark? (Careful, don’t touch it!) Of course, I believe that, to some extent, TULIP presents a shorthand summary of what good people believe scripture says, but the fact is I have to make a conscious decision to treat TULIP as less than scripture. It’s NOT revelation. It’s theology, and it’s the product of sinful minds thinking less than perfect thoughts. As a human thought, it’s no more divine than the menu at MacDonald’s.

In fact, are we ready to admit that scripture nowhere implies that knowing what scripture says changes the fact that what we think is, and always will be, fallen and depraved? Having scripture in our minds doesn’t change the nature of my thoughts or invest me with authority or infallibility. (See Christian history for examples of what happens when you get this wrong.) Salvation by grace through faith doesn’t have small print that says “mental works” done in the name of good theology are exempt from the all-corroding influence of sin.

I’ll go one more level on this game. Could we quit quoting theologians like they are the 67th book of the Bible? Behold the following barely fictionalized sentence: “I believe that (insert theologians of choice) have been used by God to (insert preserve, recover, discover, clearly communicate, etc) the true Gospel.” Anyone heard that before? Stated like it was as certain as “In the beginning, God…”

Enough already. This just won’t work. “Theologian of choice” in the above game is a depraved sinner who was privileged to graciously receive light and put some fallen version of it into print. His words and work may change my life. It may put me in my Bible or lead me to worship, serve and love Jesus. But I can’t say anything about this character that approaches revelation or divine authority. (Funny how Christians turn their heroes into such supermen, while the Bible pulls all its “heroes” right down into the mud with the rest of us.)

Take John Piper’s theology of Christian hedonism. It’s impacted my life in a powerful way. It’s been a lifesaver for me, and I’m more grateful to the guy than I could ever say. But he’s a fellow stinker, and his theology is fallen and flawed, and there is no authority–NONE–in Piper’s version of Christianity that’s greater than someone else’s.

It should be said for the record, the problem here is rarely with the theologian. It’s with his fans, and I’ve been as guilty as anyone. When we can quit toting around Calvin as if the Bible was incomprehensible before him, then we may have properly repented. Hate theology that creates celebrities with authority. It’s a good thing we have theologians, as long as we remember that they are just like us. Don’t burn the books. Burn the posters and autographed t-shirts.

I hate theology that must swat every error on sight. In the summer, we have flies here in southeast Kentucky. I don’t like them, and so I often teach with a rolled up newspaper within reach. When a fly lands near me, I swat him. Now I don’t mind, because I hate the flies, but my students have frequently noted that it goes beyond distracting when I am swatting away between every third word, or stalking the room chasing down the one I’ve missed.

Welcome to an analogy that describes some of the theologically minded. They are right, errors are intolerable, and they are going to swat them on the spot. Like my classroom, pretty soon the main event is swatting flies, and nothing else really matters.

When I first met a full-blooded Calvinist, it was one of these fly swatters. No matter what I preached about, he came by the next day and explained to me how I had violated the tenets of Calvinism. Did I realize I had called for people to make a choice? You can’t do that. And did I know I had strayed into the wilderness of Arminianism on several occasions? Swat! What about that invitation? (This was back in the day.) Swat, swat…SWAT.

I feel sorry for you if you have to teach, pray, preach or otherwise communicate the Gospel around the theological fly swatters. You’ll spend most of your time getting whacked, and you are going home angry–and bruised. Yes, you may go home, read the Bible and change your mind (or not), and the theological fly swatter will be encouraged to continue fighting the good fight, one pesky fly at a time

Which brings me to the question, is the theologian’s conviction that he is right and that theology matters more than niceties a reason to excuse poor behavior? I mean, after all, wrong teaching can send people to hell. It can destroy the church. It dishonors the Gospel. Truth is what matters. How can a real theologian overlook error as if it didn’t matter? As if error were insignificant? Once you are aware of the truth embodied in your theology, the smallest, most commonly accepted error is really the doorway to hell, and you should have no regrets about pulling the cord, bringing the train to a screeching halt and shouting “Fire!” to the souls in imminent danger of damnation.

In the mental health field, they call this Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It’s treatable, but the patient must admit his or her problem and take his or her medication.

I suppose there is nothing that has made me feel sickened at the prospect of talking theology like this behavior. It’s theological wretched urgency. It’s a kind of works theology. It’s ungracious. Despite what some think, I don’t believe Jesus gave a daily Matthew 23 tirade to every Pharisee he met or upon every erring word he heard from a small town rabbi. I believe he laughed a lot, shook his head and told another story. I don’t think Paul–an intense guy, for sure–couldn’t pray with other people because their theology bothered him so much he had to correct them on the spot. I don’t think it’s a manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit to lie awake at night thinking about the burden of being the only one within twenty miles who is right, knows the truth and can correct the erring.

Again, I hate to say it, but there are mental illnesses where the patient has a “messiah complex.” I must save the world. Argue with everyone. Straighten out the mistaken before it’s too late. Any sermon, any statement of personal devotion, any discussion of personal religion becomes a hill to die on for these people. They can’t see it, and they convince themselves that their “ministry” is being God’s red pen grading everyone’s theological papers. If there are repercussions to their fanaticism, guess who’s the victim and who’s the persecutor or the liberal heretic or both? Righto.

We all err. We believe errors. We propagate them. We read them. We tolerate them. All our theologies carry errors. Only Jesus is that Final Word without error, and he doesn’t come in a systematic theology textbook edition yet.

We ought to strive to be as theologically correct as possible. We should encourage one another in that pursuit. It’s permissible to be abrasive if the situation calls for it. Obviously, no one likes to be told he is wrong. But I’ve got one more point to make, and I hope we will all listen carefully, because it’s the key to what I am feeling and what I am trying to communicate.

I hate theology that ignores our humanity. Ultimately, theology doesn’t matter. What matters in this universe, right behind God in and of his Trinitarian self, is the human person.

In the 1928 novel, Mr. Blue, Myles Connolly put this soliloquy into the mouth of his central character. Put the theological fly swatters up for a moment and read something wondrous. (Thanks to Peter Robinson at The Corner.)

[Blue] put his hands into his trouser pockets and leaned backward, his face toward the heavens, now filling with stars.

“I think,” he whispered half to himself, “my heart would break with all this immensity if I did not know that God Himself once stood beneath it, a young man, as small as I.”

Then, he turned to me slowly.

“Did it ever occur to you that it was Christ Who humanized infinitude, so to speak? When God became man He made you and me and the rest of us pretty important people. He not only redeemed us. He saved us from the terrible burden of infinity.”

Blue rather caught me off my guard. I might have admitted in him a light turn for philosophy. I did not expect any such high-sounding speculation as this. But he was passionately serious. He eyes were glowing in the dark. He threw his hands up toward the stars: “My hands, my feet, my poor little brain, my eyes, my ears, all matter more than the whole sweep of these constellations!” he burst out. “God Himself, the God to Whom this whole universe-specked display is as nothing, God Himself had hands like mine and feet like mine, and eyes, and brain, and ears!….” He looked at me intently. “Without Christ we would be little more than bacteria breeding on a pebble in space, or glints of ideas in a whirling void of abstractions. Because of Him, I can stand here out under this cold immensity and know that my infinitesimal pulse-beats and acts and thoughts are of more importance than this whole show of a universe. Only for Him, I would be crushed beneath the weight of all these worlds. Only for Him, I would tumble dazed into the gaping chasms of space and time. Only for Him, I would be confounded before the awful fertility and intricacy of all life. Only for Him, I would be the merest of animalcules crawling on the merest of motes in a frigid Infinity.” He turned away from me, turned toward the spread of night behind the parapet. “But behold,” he said, his voice rising with exultancy, “behold! God wept and laughed and dined and wined and suffered and died even as you and I. Blah!—for the immensity of space! Blah!—for those who would have me a microcosm in the meaningless tangle of an endless evolution! I’m no microcosm. I, too, am a Son of God!”

He finished his outburst with a great gesture to the stars.

My humanity matters. I hate theology when it takes away our humanity and reduces us to carriers of ideas. Students in a class, always in danger of failing. Dummies being terrorized by the smart kids and belittled by the teachers. I hate theology when it makes the smart kids, good readers and high IQs into the real Christians, and the rest of us into fodder for their razor sharp arguments and endless citations. Where is the beauty and the dignity of humanity in all of this?

This is why I find myself needing to read Brennan Manning and Robert Capon, because they are in awe of God, Jesus, and the fallen image bearers. I love to listen to White Horse Inn, because no matter what the topic, they can laugh, joke and enjoy music. I love Steve Brown’s jocularity. In fact, call it an ego stroke, I like my own sense of humor more than my theological mind. I’ve thought some deep thoughts, but they were all gifts of grace popping into a mind that usually thinks more of sex, dirty jokes and slugging percentages than it does of the love of Christ. If that’s not a hoot, I don’t know what is.

Theologians need to meditate on God’s inexplicable habit of wading into the river with us sinners. Clothing Adam and Eve. Giving a break to Cain. Hanging out with Abraham, Moses, Noah, David and Elijah. None of them were great theologians. All could be petty and were frequently wrong. They were notorious sinners. The theologians are down at the temple, oiling up the big religion machine only they understood. God’s favorites are chopping down Philistines, writing poems and romancing women. Now there’s a God I can appreciate.

Theology can become a club to beat down the gentle children of God. If it knows God so well, it ought to act like the God it knows. The good shepherd. The gentle healer. The weeper over Lazarus. The one who makes water into wine. Jesus wasn’t one of the Pharisees in theology or in personality. When he got angry, it was because they didn’t see the need to heal a man on the Sabbath. What would he say about some of our theological tricks that separate believer from believer over “confessional” matters in the footnotes of the footnotes? When everything becomes war between the theologian and the erring world, cruelty and barbarism are excusable. After all, God–and nothing else–is important. Right?

That people matter to God–erring, ignorant, people–seems lost on too many theologians. They can sit behind their books and debate the angels on the head of a pin, while someone with unacceptable theology lives out the Sermon on the Mount and dies loving people in Jesus’ name. The theological mess isn’t excusable. I concede that point quickly. But the lack of humanity is worse. It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous. And I hate it.

Several years ago, I was reading A.W. Pink’s book, The Sovereignty of God. I knew nothing about Pink, except that my friend was convinced if I read Pink, I would become a Calvinist. (I later joined the Reformed camp, but it was in spite of Pink, not because of him.) At the end of Pink’s book was an appendix on John 3:16 and Pink’s view that God doesn’t love everyone. If you have been around Calvinistic circles, you know that the question, “Does God love everyone the same way?” is a live wire, and you also know there are lots of Calvinists who say “No. God does not love all people in the same way.” In fact, there are people quite excited by this doctrine.

Pink’s appendix made me angry. I found myself thinking of a song we used to sing when I was a child: “Jesus loves the little children. All the little children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” I imagined a little children’s choir, made up of all the children in this song. Pink was saying God didn’t love some of those children. He was so devoted to the “L” in the TULIP, that he wrote an appendix telling me I cannot look at a room full of children and truthfully say, “God loves all of you.”

Could Pink come up with the scriptures and the logic to sustain his theology that John 3:16 isn’t true for all the children of the world? Certainly he could. Would Pink vigorously defend his theology as being a true presentation of who God is and what God is like? Is this about the Gospel or about Spencer’s schmaltzy illustration? Does it matter that it’s offensive? Pink would defend his interpretation as God’s way of dealing with human beings. If I don’t like it, that’s my problem. I should quit trying make God into nice and let him be Yahweh.

Well, I’m feeling it again. I hate theology that is this inhumane. Theology that actually says God doesn’t love people and gives me permission to make a distinction between the elect and the reprobate in my personal dealings with human beings. Don’t say that’s not a danger. It is, and Christian history testifies to it again and again. If you can look at Jesus and say God doesn’t love some children, then write a book of children’s sermons so I can break the news.

I know more than one person has read this far and is chortling with delight that I am such a hypocrite that I would write a theological essay on how I hate theology. I know I have not outrun my own contradictions in method, and I never thought I would. I know that a theology of hating theology renders me a fool and a ranter. So be it. I never promised to be consistent, just to be human.

I must find a way to get beyond these feelings of aversion to the joy of good theology and of being a good theologian. It’s not going to be easy, because after 32 years of being a Christian, I’ve had my fill of theology that has little humanity and too much arrogance. But I’m going to be a Jesus theologian, if it kills me–and it will one day. Truth is beautiful in Jesus. It is hard edged and gentle. It divides and it heals. I can’t find this balance in many theologians anymore, but I do find it in Jesus and in a small number of his followers who know what matters most and what matters little.

I’ll be with them.