Wretched Urgency II: My Not-So-Guilty Pleasures
In which I disagree with John Piper and defend goofing off.
by Michael Spencer

Note: The original “Wretched Urgency” was an essay dealing with how a fundamentalistic concern for evangelism created a spirituality of misery. This essay looks at the inability of some Christians to enjoy life’s ordinary gifts because of their guilt over what they think they should be doing. Hence, part II.

• • •

Confession time. Put on those helmets and buckle your seat belts.

When I am in the bathroom in the morning, I listen to “John Boy and Billy” on the radio. I could listen to D. James Kennedy or Christian music on K-Loathe, uh Love, but I choose to listen to the Southern Rock, raucous humor and distinctly unspiritual lunacy of America’s foremost morning radio program aimed at the culture of Southerners wherever they may be. At night, when I could listen to more sermons and more Christian music, I listen to sports talk or country music.

My evening schedule frequently pauses for my wife and I to enjoy our fix of worthless television shows. While we could be reading Pilgrim’s Progress or memorizing scripture, we take in “Two and a Half Men,” both CSI’s, “Cold Case” and “L.A. Dragnet.” Al Bundy as Joe Friday is just irresistible.

I was brought up going to church on Sunday nights. I’ve given it up for the simple pleasure of a long Sunday afternoon nap. In fact, I consider the fact that Islam has just one service a week–and that in the middle of the day on Friday–to be an excellent reason for considering conversion. Buddhism is even better. Evangelical Christianity, with its battery of weeknight services, revivals, meetings, classes, etc., is clearly masochistic.

I’ve considered asking our church to change our sign to permanently read: “Manchester Presbyterian Church. Same God. Fewer Services.”

I spent a large amount of time this year reading about, listening to and watching baseball. The best ten bucks I spent this year was on getting MLB Audio: the radio feeds of all Major League games sent right into my computer for my enjoyment. When I could have been listening to R.C. Sproul or Christian Muzak, I listened to the Cubs and the Reds. If the Reds were on television, I watched, including the last month, when the team was made up of volunteers out of the stands.

I could spend this time more seriously, more “Christianly” in some people’s way of thinking. Evangelical Christianity has generated enough pages, media, programs, meetings, causes and crusades to cause the angels to fall on their faces–from exhaustion. I could fill my time with Christian activities and never see the end of them. I should– according to some of my peers–better spend any day without television, movies, “secular” music, worldly books and hobbies, radio, news programs or any other diversions from the things of the Lord.

At one time in my life, as an associate minister in a First Baptist Church, I was fully committed to eradicating the free time of everyone in my congregation in the name of “commitment.” If you are really committed you’ll come early on Sunday and stay late after the evening service, taking in everything from breakfast prayer meeting to after church fellowship. If God is really getting first place in your life, you’ll be in choir and prayer meeting on Wednesday, evangelistic visitation on Monday, Bible Study on Tuesday, nursing home ministry on Thursday, youth groups on the weekends and, if you have any free time, you should be waking the neighborhood praying for your neighbors.

For vacations, you should go to denominational camps and conferences. For fun, be in church league basketball (which is sort of like finding your happiness in being mugged and cursed at by large men in gym shorts.) Don’t forget your duty on various committees. And we will schedule a few revivals to keep you high on Jesus while spending every evening at church wondering if that woman sitting with you is really your wife.

I wish I were kidding. Those of you who have been there know this is no parody. I lived it; I was the creature. It’s the mindset of people who believe that the Kingdom of God is identical to the weekly calendar on the back of the church newsletter. The duties of the committed Christian never end, and heaven will be more of the same, just with no funerals and better singing.

I wish I were kidding that evangelicalism is full of people who hate the idea of simple pleasures, but I’m not joking. Verses like, “Do everything to the glory of God” have been translated into, “Do everything, and be deadly serious about it.” There are a lot of fine, dedicated Christians who feel it’s a sin to go to a restaurant for any reason other than evangelizing the waitress.

These fun-killing Christians believe that anything that isn’t “spiritual” is “of the devil.” Need examples? How long have you got?

Ever consider reading something like The Hobbit to your kids? Bad idea, since there is a dragon in the book. We don’t want kids thinking about dragons. That might be fun. Classic children’s literature in general? Who knows what they are laughing at back there in their room? Crime novels? Fantasy? Couldn’t you better spend your time reading Left Behind and using the books to evangelize your friends? How about reading them “Christian” children’s literature written by people who know how to fill those little minds with Godly thoughts that will turn them into good little Christians?

Is there something wrong with just enjoying a story?

Why just enjoy sports? I mean it can be an OUTREACH. It can have a purpose. If you are involved in sports because you enjoy it, there’s probably idolatry involved. (Evangelicals can take any sport from soccer to skeet shooting and turn it into a ministry.)

How about motorcycling? Biking? Civil War reenacting? Video games? Pro-wrestling? These hobbies need not be simple pleasures. They can be ways to fellowship, evangelize, grow as Christians, and most importantly, sell stuff. If you are a serious disciple, you know what I mean.

We recently had a nature photographer visit our school. His work was superb. And, of course, was presented complete with hymns in the soundtrack and various spiritual lessons. NOW LISTEN- there was nothing wrong with this, especially in our setting as a Christian school, but you have to realize that if the photographer had said he did this for fun, and had never talked about God or the various lessons in nature he observed, a lot of the Christian adults present would have felt like something was WRONG. People who just do things because they enjoy them have a problem. They should be doing them for God.

American evangelicals stand at the end of a long line of Christian attempts to make fun into a sin. Simple pleasures and sinful pleasures have always seemed synonymous to a remarkable number of serious Christians. Heirs of a theological mistake that said we are saved by seriousness, American evangelicals feel guilty about more things than a monastery full of Luthers.

Not only should we turn normal activities into “ministries,” we shouldn’t “waste” our time with frivolous activities when we could be involved in “serious” discipleship. Which leads me to a quarrel I must pick with one of my heroes and influences, the seldom wrong Dr. John Piper.

Dr. Piper has just published an excellent book for college students called Don’t Waste Your Life. In the book, there is a captivating illustration of a young (very young) “retired couple” who spend their time playing softball and hunting for sea shells. In a great homiletical moment, Piper says (paraphrased), “Can you imagine them on the day of judgment, standing before Christ, saying, “Look Lord; here are our shells.”?

Now I won’t argue with this excellent illustration. I will unpack some of its assumptions a bit. Piper teaches that the Christian must live what he calls a “wartime” lifestyle in the cause of bringing every nation to Christ. In actual fact, Piper’s Christian Hedonism is living life as war. And we all know about simple pleasures in wartime. They are a luxury, often a waste, and generally suspicious. Soldiers may stop every so often for a baseball game, but their weapons–and their wartime mindsets–are never far away.

So, in the case of Piper’s couple, early retirement to the beach is framed as a waste of years that could be spent on the mission field. And there are abundant examples–including some at my own school–of those who turned retirement into productive years of service. I honor those who followed the call of God to do exactly that with their remaining years. But I know- and so do most reflective people- that Piper’s example is making many assumptions about this couple and their shells.

Now, call me whatever you want, but I’m bothered by something. What’s wrong with collecting shells and playing softball? Not what is wrong compared with these things in excess or when compared to something else, but as they are- simple pleasures in God’s world? The “serious Christian” says it is time wasted; time that could have been spent on real “treasure.” Missions, prayer and evangelism. The “fun” of the real disciple is the wartime life. But is this right?

If shells are all I have to show for the life that God has given me, Piper is right to sound the warning. And if I choose shells over Christ, I’ve wasted my life. If the secondary joy of shells replaced the joy of Christ, I’ve erred terribly. But are we right to contrast life lived for Christ with simple pleasures, in and of themselves?

There is a real warning against making creature comforts and, yes, simple pleasures, into idols, and God-substitutes. But when the argument extends all the way from how specific pleasures take inappropriate root in my life to the place of all simple pleasures in general, the landslide is on and the result is needless guilt and contaminated grace.

[BTW- I’ll admit to using Piper’s illustration and recommending his book. My reflection on this illustration is not a rejection of Piper’s message of Christian Hedonism or even the “wartime lifestyle,” a message that is needed in America. I am concerned that Piper has not been theologically consistent with all the aspects of his distinctive emphasis, and particularly how a theology of creation and grace exists in a theology so driven by the “crisis” of missions and evangelism. I hope someone is writing that book.]

So, to some, “simple pleasures” are a distraction. A waste. A meaningless time filler and squandering of precious moments. They are the devil’s tools, designed to turn soldiers into harmless hobbyists. Simple pleasures are the chaff that will be burned up, the wood, hay and stubble that won’t make it past the day of judgment. All those hours could have been spent serving the Lord, growing in faith and spreading the Gospel.

I’m not buying this, if you haven’t guessed by now. I smell self-righteousness in all this determination to be too pious for a night of television with the wife. There is something about the nice harangues encouraging me to be “committed” that smells considerably like Medieval Catholicism’s admiration for people living in caves and on poles.

For instance, I have to wonder if this kind of thinking honestly believes there is a substantial difference between the essence of our humanity in the garden of Eden and our humanity now. I figure most people would have no problem with Adam and Eve collecting shells, but for Christians today it may be wasting your life. Is the difference made by the fall really such that the glory of God once seen in sea shells no longer matters to God, but only overt acts of evangelism and devotion matter now?

There is another problem here. Without being mean, may I ask how anyone knows that someone retired to the beach with his wife is wasting his life? Maybe he is making up for decades of workaholism and time apart. Maybe he raised a great family, served in a local church and now he wants some years to enjoy his time with his wife. Perhaps there is mental or physical illness or the need to recover from loss. I realize these are my own “what ifs,” but it raises the issue that we might not be able to so quickly stand in judgment over another person. They stand before God, not before me.

Simple pleasures may become sins. I believe it. They may also be gifts of God. Listening to baseball games was a gift from God to me. I needed to rest my mind from hours of being “on” in teaching, preaching, counseling, and ministry. Being able to think of baseball for two hours made me a better preacher and a better Christian. If I had to spend that time in memorizing scripture or listening to sermons or door to door evangelism, I would be a WORSE person, and a worse Christian.

In other words, we might be trying too hard. Paul said the grace of God made him work harder. But do we really understand that idea? Grace frees us from the need to work to be accepted and saved. It frees us to work in the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit. It does not chain us to some gnostic idea that baseball and seashells and Southern rock and watching TV are evil wastes of life.

It’s this sort of thinking that is going to result in mega-churches that never let you out. You’ll arrive, park, go in, and never be heard from again.

C.S. Lewis, speaking as the senior devil in The Screwtape Letters, wrote about God:

He’s a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are “pleasures for evermore”….He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world with pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least- sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any us to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side.

Do we believe this? Or do we believe sleeping, washing eating, drinking, making love, playing, working and a hundred other human activities, are “wasting your life?” Do we really believe that the three years Jesus spent with his disciples was significantly different than the thirty years he spent at home? Does our understanding of human nature mean that the ministry was true humanity, but the years in the shop and being an ordinary person in Nazareth were somehow less of a God-filled-human experience?

The observant person will notice that it is not only Christians, but zealous believers of every kind, who teach that simple pleasures are somehow wrong. It is a common flaw of utopians who think that we must build heaven on earth through our own efforts or prove ourselves worthy of a heaven beyond.

Christians ought to know better, but even my hero Dr. Piper chafes at any mention of a Christian being a fan of sports, and frequently pits ordinary pleasures against the urgency of missions and evangelism. (Sincere followers of Dr. Piper often spend time debating just how much of a “wartime mindset” is necessary to be a “real” Christian. This is unfortunate, but is the inevitable result of developing a theology of urgency without a strong foundation of grace, grace and more grace.) With all due respect, I have to differ. God is glorified in savoring the life he has created, and not just in hastening the arrival of the end of the age.

Of course, the Old Covenant vision of the Kingdom of heaven on earth is full of simple pleasures, and not only the worship services of the book of Revelation. When we read the whole Bible, we discover that “heaven” on earth includes raising animals, tending vineyards, laughter, wine and family. I do not pretend to know how this works out in history. I only know that simple pleasures are holy. The are not the enemy. They are not a waste of life. They are the gifts–even the delight–of a God who filled all of creation with simple pleasures, many of them for Himself alone.

Why are some so certain we must be more religious than God himself?

Our Problem With Grace
Sweat. Hand-wringing. “Yes, but…”
by Michael Spencer

Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?

A. That I belong–body and soul, in life and in death–not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Q. 2. How many things must you know that you may live and die in the blessedness of this comfort?

A. Three. First, the greatness of my sin and wretchedness. Second, how I am freed from all my sins and their wretched consequences. Third, what gratitude I owe to God for such redemption.

• The Heidelberg Catechism

Grace. It’s dangerous stuff.

“Amazing Grace” may be the church’s favorite hymn, but I’m not the first person to notice that the subject of God’s actual grace seems to give many Christians a case of hives. Singing about it is way cool. After that we need a team of lawyers to interpret all the codicils and footnotes we’ve written for the new covenant.

I don’t really care whether we all agree on how to reconcile Paul’s justification by faith and James’s justification by works. I don’t care whether we agree on the application of the threat of Bonhoeffer’s sermons on “cheap grace.” I don’t care all that much about Catholic grace vs. Protestant grace or conservative grace vs. liberal grace, though I have my convictions. Grace as merely a point or a subpoint in theology seems rather bizarre to me. Grace is an all or nothing gig, not some percentage of the take. Get with it, or get out of the kitchen.

For me, the Gospel itself is “the Gospel of the grace of God.” (Acts 20:24) The Bible is incomprehensible apart from grace. It is the tidal wave predicted in the first scenes, and it eventually arrives to soak everything and everyone in Jesus. Titus summarizes the incarnation and work of Jesus as, “the Grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” The New Covenant is grace and truth from Jesus, as contrasted with the law that came through Moses. (Consult Hebrews for the difference.) Every single New Covenant blessing comes through grace. Listing the scriptures that substantiate this would be woefully redundant to most of my readers. The air of heaven is grace. The heart of the Father is grace. The Good in the Good News is grace.

Paul knows that grace is a potent brew, and so in Romans 6 he anticipates the objection that is running around in the minds of thousands of evangelical preachers. “Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound?” In other words, how can we be sure people will live the way they are supposed to if this grace thing is as good a deal as it appears to be? What a great opening for a chapter on all the things we HAVE to do to really, really, really be serious Christians. Get ready to take notes.

Instead, we get a list of the miraculous accomplishments of grace, all done by Christ, for us, outside of us and in the past, accompanied by an expanded admonition to “consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Yes, I know he says to “yield yourselves” to God, which sounds like works, but keep reading. “…As men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:13b-14).

Ahem. In other words, the entire sixth chapter of Romans says act like God has graciously done everything necessary for your salvation and you can’t do anything to save yourself. Grace, not legalism, not works, is the great motivator of the Christian life. Every appeal in Romans 6 is based on what God has done that we cannot do, and the greatest obedience flows from the grace of God.

The reason for this is clear. Grace magnifies the giver. It’s not that obedience has no capacity to magnify God. It does–IF it comes from hearts ravished by grace, and not the accounting department.

Don’t we hafta…?

Let’s think about a practical problem associated with grace. Aren’t there things we have to do? How about a Christian duty like prayer? Shouldn’t we pray? What assurance of salvation is there for a prayerless person? Ryle and a lot of other good preachers say that a prayerless man is likely an unconverted man.

I wouldn’t disagree with Ryle if he means that a man with no desire to pray may not be converted, or that if we are talking about observable evidence for conversion. But what kind of obedience does real grace produce? Grace produces–guarantees!–the obedience of faith. Look at Romans 1:5 and 16:26, two verses that frame the great Epistle to the Romans like bookends:

Romans 1:5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

Romans 16:26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith-

In other words, the obedience that God desires is obedience that comes from faith, not obedience that produces results. Do we believe that faith in grace produces better obedience than that which is based on anything else? Or are we so enamored with what we can control, predict, produce and observe that we can’t stand the thought of leaving obedience in the hands of a gracious God and his amazing Good News about Jesus?

In other words, how does it make you feel to know that God is more pleased with the pitiful prayers of a person of little faith–a child; a least, little, lost person–than the impressive prayers of the spiritual athlete? Does it make you nervous? Why? Really. Why? What is it about grace that produces that look on every preacher’s face when he starts talking about the need to be “really sold out and dedicated to God?” Why is it that every time I ring the bells of justification by grace alone through faith alone, I’m followed back to my office by people who seem genuinely worried that I’ve just let loose the congregation to go steal, pillage and giggle without permission?

The Gospels are full of examples of people whose observable obedience is unimpressive when compared to other “seriously religious” people, but whose faith in grace is pleasing to God. In fact, the Gospels give considerable evidence that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ absolutely relishes tweaking our noses when obedience, not grace, starts to become the focus. Let’s take two examples from the teaching of Jesus.

Everyone loves the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10. There are two actions that make the story interesting. One is Jesus’ gracious and brash self-invitation into the home of a despised tax collector. The other is the declaration of a stunned Zacchaeus that he will give away half his worth to the poor, and return four times his unethical takings. (What an example for Americans!)

The teacher in me wants to give you the assignment of writing a modern evangelical version of this story. Here’s some hints.

Jesus would have to be invited into Zach’s house by Zach himself, of course. Or knock on the door pleadingly before Zach lets him in. (The handle is on the inside.) Once there, Zach would promise to be a good tax collector from now on and share his testimony whenever he had the opportunity. He would buy lots of WWJD merchandise to remind him of what kind of tax collector Jesus would be. He might join a ministry of Christian tax collectors and form an accountability group. Of course, there would be the book deal.

Look closely. Jesus doesn’t require anything of Zacchaeus, but he gets a lot of obedience from him. Or at least, the declaration of obedience. I don’t really KNOW what Zach did after that dinner. I know what Jesus did, and as impressive as Zach’s promise is….it really doesn’t matter what he did. It doesn’t matter if he does all of what he promised, or does half, or takes a while to get around to it. The point is the grace of Jesus. Grace is the point. Not Zach’s obedience.

Doesn’t that just bug you? Admit it. Don’t you feel like Zacchaeus should have to be on a repayment schedule or something? Or can you buy it: Zach’s obedience is really beside the point?

One more. Matthew 20:1-16. The parable of the laborers in the vineyard. Who is the real audience of this verse? I’m betting it’s people who get nervous when grace gets out of hand, because Jesus is about to launch a major first strike on any shreds of legalism in the Christian’s thinking.

Matthew 20:15 “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'” Anyone here ever thought grace was overly generous? I see that hand. God bless you. If you came in a bus, they’ll wait.

The obedience of the all-day workers is great. The obedience of the last minute workers is not that impressive. The grace of the owner toward both is the same. It’s an outrageous scenario. Today, we’d sue the guy. The resentment of the first group shows that they want the system to be fair; the system should be about the work that they do. The response of the owner shows that the whole matter was about him, and his hilarious enjoyment of his own crazy grace. He got to do what he wanted with his own money in his own vineyards. Something about paying everyone the same delighted him. Maybe irritating some kinds of people delighted him.

If you aren’t irritated by that story, you aren’t reading it. Of course, you can turn this into something twisted like, “We all go to heaven, but once there we get the rewards we’ve earned,” but it won’t help. The owner of the Vineyard is broadcasting on an entirely different channel.

It appears to me that the Bible is telling us a pretty big-time truth when it says in John 1:17 “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” It’s not that there isn’t grace all over the older testament, or that there isn’t law in the new. It’s that the point of the whole exercise is grace. Grace, the final and greatest truth, came through Jesus. The truth of God in the law isn’t the whole Gospel, not in the old or the new. Not in Deuteronomy. Not in James or anywhere else. The Final Word speaks the truth that saves: Salvation by grace through faith totally apart from the works of the law.

The problem for the sweaty-handed worriers is this: Certain passages, or even books, in the New Testament that stress and teach obedience. This leads some Christians to construct something like the “Law-Grace-Law” paradigm pointed out by Rod Rosenblatt, Jerry Bridges and others. I might change that a bit, to something more like “Law-Grace-Legalism,” with legalism being the necessity of some kind of obedience or law-keeping to prove that grace is really there. Grace has to be proven, and it’s evangelical law-keeping that does the job. At least for those who want to keep score.

This can turn nasty, with dress and behavior codes enforced by beady-eyed elders, or it can be pretty vague and amorphous, with no more official manifestations than too many sermons on obedience and morality, and too few on the Gospel of Grace. But the point is this: These New Testament passages on obedience have to stand in line behind the Gospel of Grace. Whatever they mean–and I’m all for a healthy debate on that subject–they can’t dilute or demean the explosive news that God is saving sinners, and renewing all of creation, completely in the person and work of Jesus. Wherever my works eventually fit in, get that straight, and keep it at the top of your list.

Christians at their worst–and I know some, because I am one–are constantly making excuses and explanations for grace, as if stories like the Prodigal Son, the Lost Sheep and the conversion of Saul could cause a lot of trouble if not balanced out with various lists of commandments and duties. When obedience is paraded around like the final point of the Bible–and in many churches of diverse persuasions, that is EXACTLY what happens–we’ve lost our way badly. Living out some evangelical version of what it means to be “good Christians,” we wind up not being floored by sovereign grace, and therefore, not resembling people who are “Jesus people” at all.

What about church discipline?

Doesn’t the New Testament’s clear advocacy of congregational church discipline speak volumes about the necessity of obedience in any right understanding of grace? That’s a good question, and one that can’t be avoided.

There are two New Testament passages that deal directly with the subject of church discipline, though there are many that make reference to it. In Matthew 18:12-35, church discipline is mentioned in a process of personal reconciliation. The church is involved when a brother refuses reconciliation with another Christian.

This passage is found between many passages dealing with Christ going after the lost sheep, and the Christian’s opportunity to live out the grace of God in personal forgiveness. So the passage in view is not about church discipline only. It is also about how the congregation can help a reluctant brother along the road to reconciliation. Being treated as a “gentile and a tax collector” is one step in that process, and I assume it means that when a person refuses to be reconciled we don’t judge him as beyond redemption, but graciously go back to the ABC’s of the gospel, and treat that person as a continuing project of loving outreach.

Grace toward someone who doesn’t yet reflect an understanding of what Jesus means is basic to discipleship. Imagine if this were a racist white brother who refused to come to church with black members. Would our actions toward him be law or grace? What will be his salvation and transformation? Rules about who can be a church member, or acknowledgment that Christ has created all of us as one new man, a new race in him?

The other passage, I Corinthians 5:1-13, deals with a congregation’s failure to respond to a semi-incestuous relationship going on within the congregation. Interestingly, Paul goes out of his way to say that Christians shouldn’t judge those outside of the church, something that may come as news to James Dobson and the rest of the cultural warriors. His words on judging those inside the church, based on behavior, seem unmistakable, and I don’t have a magic reading for this passage. I do have an illustration.

I have a family, and in my family, I have a son. My son is always my son. That relationship is one of pure grace, and doesn’t depend on any actions on my son’s part at all. Within that relationship, there is a kind of communication that might be called rules. Expectations of behavior are pretty clearly stated, and are reinforced as needed.

From my perspective, the essence of my relationship with my son does not depend at all on his behavior, but our mutual enjoyment of that relationship does depend on his behavior. To the extent that he gladly lives out my expectations, our relationship proceeds positively. It has been the case, however, that some of the key moments in our history have been violations of those expectations. His actions had consequences, and he was faced with decisions. How would he respond? What would he do? In our case, his response has always been to pursue the enjoyment of our relationship more than his own desires or preferences, and I believe that is not because of punishments, but because of the superior power of love, grace and affection in our hearts. It is a greater pleasure for you to be right with your family–if they love you–than to sacrifice that for your own way.

But I can imagine a situation where my son needed to be made aware of the value of this family relationship that is his by grace. I can imagine a scenario where his lack of response to truth would lead to me putting him out of the house, and telling him he could not return and enjoy the life of our family until certain changes were made. This is not a question of my love and grace for him. It is not a question of what is in my heart for him. It is a question of how much his life is shaped by that grace, and what steps are most appropriate for bringing us back to a mutual enjoyment of the wonderful gift of being dad and son.

Church discipline in I Corinthians seems to be about a failure of a church to understand grace. Grace loves so unconditionally that it will not abandon a person to his own rebellion and waywardness without a fight. If my son had drugs in his room, and I knew it and said, “That’s OK. It’s normal,” I would be failing to be loving and gracious, something God never fails to do. So Paul is angry that the church has presented God as one who cares so little about whether someone lives in the enjoyment of his grace that he approves of an incestuous relationship. This is a scandal of a higher order than a sexual scandal. It’s the scandal of cheap grace.

This passage isn’t about breaking rules. Sometimes Christians go very, very far down the road of sin’s allurements and dwell there for years. When this happens, we shouldn’t be outraged by such behavior, as if the church is scandalized. The church ought to be a scandal of grace every day, and when it’s not, the Gospel is missing. Go find it. Our treatment of that wayward person, in personal relationships and in the congregation, is all about God’s determination to be glorified in the lives of those for whom Jesus died as a substitute and a sacrifice.

Grace doesn’t approve. Grace just refuses to give up on us. (God really is amazing!)

Who has a problem with grace?

Glad you asked.

Christians who feel responsible for the “growth” of other Christians. When I was a youth minister charged with turning the rug rats into good little Southern Baptists, my “Grace to Works” ratio was about 10/90, i.e. I talked about grace about ten percent of the time, and rattled on about how everyone was supposed to behave decently ninety percent of the time. Yeah, what Jesus did was great, but what did you do last Friday night? Hmmmmm? That’s the real deal. Yuck. (Sorry to all the legalists I produced. Forgive me, for I knew not what I was doing.)

Pastors who want people to _____________ (fill in the blank with dozens of major church projects.) The great appeal of preaching obedience and duty is that it seems to be the best way to get people to do all the stuff that has to be done in a church. Grace is icing and decoration to these people. Obedience is bricks and concrete.

If you’ve ever been around a pastor who has descended to the depths of harping and nagging to get a few bucks in the plate and a Sunday School teacher for the middle school boys, then you know why I am writing this essay. Many pastors don’t think grace preaching will keep their machine running. They may be right. Maybe they ought to look at their machine. On the other hand, I Corinthians 15:10 says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Anyone believe that?

Parents who want their kids to be Christians, and also look and act like it…..whatever that means. Grace as a way of parenting? You gotta be kidding? No. I’m not kidding. Parents need to give up the idea that God is the big stick who is going to bully you if you don’t get rid of that nose piercing. I work at a school with the children of Christian parents. A lot of those parents are worried that their little Joey isn’t going to be a worship team member and might not make it to the mission trip this year. So they’ve brought out the rules, the law, the consequences, the shrinks, the medications, the exorcists, the high pressure tactics and the Christian school with lots of rules.

Guess what? Joey’s not turning out according to plan. He’s hanging out with his goth friends, who say their strong point is that they really accept people without prejudging them on appearance and performance. Sound vaguely ironic? Yep–parents handing out rules, and peers talking their version of grace.

Of course, God is the original grace parent, and the Bible describes the rocky ride He had with his kid, Israel. He never let go, He held him and He loved him through the rough times. Israel saw his angry side, but they met his grace over and over, too. Sometimes they recognized it, sometimes they crucified it. But God eventually got what every parent wants–offspring who love him from a grateful, faithful heart. (Of course, he cheated. He made it happen.) It’s just that along the way, God showed that he had to go beyond the power of the rules–and he had good rules. God used the power of grace to win the battle so many parents are trying to win with little grace and much law.

Christians who equate grace with weakness, permissiveness and excessive leniency. Try this one out at any gathering of evangelical Christians: “Once you are justified by faith, you can do what you want. And if you want to do all the things you did before you knew Jesus, then you just don’t get it.” (Gasp) You’ll immediately notice that some Christians want it very clear that you can’t expect to be saved by grace if you don’t live right. Straighten up and fly right, and you’ll get to heaven. Oh yeah….by grace. Grace has become just a codeword for works in a lot of evangelical minds. The point to see here is that we tend to get anxious about the way God is doing things. If he starts getting all overly generous on us, we want to call him off to the side and see if we can’t add a few rules and expectations in there so WE feel better. God, of course, isn’t changing anything because we’re nervous, but he’s not stopping us from putting out our own versions of the Gospel either. Unfortunately.

Christian young people, who have been brought up in the battle for the moral high ground in our culture wars. Young people are told from birth to be good and do good. They live with rules, grades and expectations. Those who are successful in keeping those rules and meeting those expectations often find grace to be difficult to accept. To them, grace can seem like a covering for evil. They usually think that when the grace talk is over, the behavior is going to be bad, and Christian young people are usually most careful in the area of distinctive and different behavior.

Christian young people who have made different moral choices than the majority may truly not see the wonder of grace. They haven’t sinned enough. Or to be more exact, they don’t see the outrage of their own sins clearly. The foundation of morality their parents and teachers built in their lives may make it difficult to see their own sinfulness honestly. The culture war focus that rages around Christian young people puts unusual emphasis on making choices and “being righteous.” It’s not at the exclusion of the Gospel, but it’s often at the expense of the Gospel.

Anyone in a Christian bookstore. What you can do, not what God has done, is the great theme of most of what is published and recorded in the evangelical world. Grace writers and poets stand out like lighthouses in a sea of mediocre legalism and do-it-yourself religion. Grace is an endangered species, and we all need to celebrate and promote any writer who truly, passionately communicates grace. This isn’t a matter of theological labels. We can quibble about the footnotes some other time. No matter who they are, when they wrote or where you find them, applaud, buy and give away the grace writers and artists. The beauty of what they are saying needs to be heard in a church choking on legalism, moralism and timidity about the Gospel.

One last thought

I’ve thought a lot about grace as I’ve gotten older and lived the Christian life longer. I see and hear young, fired up, Pentecostal preacher boys, full of sermons about what will happen if we will pray more, live holy lives, get extreme, go the distance and all that fizz. It doesn’t get to me anymore. I am slowly living past the point of being affected by all the rah-rah Christianity around me.

I know I am not very obedient. I know my sinful patterns and my perennial laziness. I know where I fall short. I am well acquainted with my lusts, my pettiness and my stupid pride. I may make more progress on these things, but honestly, I doubt it. My efforts at obedience have about run their course. Most of what I am going to be as a human being living as a Christian on this planet, I’ve probably already achieved. I want all the years God has for me, and I want to honor and glorify him, but if I am going to learn about grace, now is the time. I need it now.

There is a passage that I’ve thought about a lot lately.

2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

And, this little statement, from I Corinthians 15:31: “I die daily.”

Here’s where I am. When it comes time for me to die, I’ll only have one work to do. All the options will be gone. We don’t like to think about that, because we like to see our lives as full of all the options of youth, vigor, work, opportunity to change and the results of effort. We’re going to do better, we say. But in the end, the only “work” we can do will be to trust ourselves to God. Simple. Beautiful, in its way.

Faith will be the only work. Exactly as Jesus said in John 6:28. “Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.””

Scripture says that life now is to be a death. We die daily, scripture says. Not just at the end, not just on our deathbeds. But now, today. Tomorrow. In every moment of time and breath that God gives us, we are to die, to do the one work of faith that trusts God in Jesus to be the all in all for us.

Jesus’ death is a grace to us. In his death we are safe, and in his life we have it all, now and then. Everything that God’s love graciously gives us and Christ’s work guarantees us. None from obedience. All from grace. The grasping hand of work never finds it. The empty hand of faith cannot miss it.

So die daily. Die to the works that we think bring God’s blessing. Die to the works that attempt to steal significance from our own obedience–obedience made possible only because of grace upon grace. Die a little at a time, one day at a time, practicing for the big one when grace will come lapping at your door like a rising tide, and you will have nowhere to go to run away from it. A gracious flood come to take you home from this troubled world to the place Jesus has prepared for you.

Get ready for the time when resting in the arms of God and grace will be all you have to do. And it will be more than enough to see you home.

Choose death to anything but grace, so you can one day be alive in nothing except grace.

The Glory of the Nations
How Common Grace Redeems Nationalism
by Michael Spencer

My friend Mark is a soldier. A Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. He just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, where he, in his own words, was “proud to be a Marine at a time my country needed my service.” I am proud of him, too. Not just because of his military service helping to keep my children safe from the terrorists who hate all Americans. I am proud of him because he is a Christian, one who is serious about following Jesus and gives real evidence of Christian commitment and character. I don’t hesitate to wish that my children would grow up and imitate Mark.

Recently, however, I was reminded that not everyone agrees with my assessment of my friend, Mark. There are some Christians who would say that Mark cannot love his country enough to go to Afghanistan and dispatch Bin Laden and company, while at the same time claiming that Jesus is King. This is idolatry, they say. A sinful and impossible compromise, choosing country over Christ and ignoring the Bible’s teaching that Jesus alone is King. These critics point to Jesus’ words of non-resistance and non-violence in the Sermon on the Mount and say that Mark is willfully disobeying Jesus at the instigation of nationalism.

Some of these critics make an articulate case that the evangelical church has adopted a blindly nationalistic, patriotic idolatry in the last two decades, as Christians have become flag-waving supporters of the Gulf War and the War on Terrorism. They point out America’s many sins, such as abortion, its shallow and unbiblical understanding of God, and its headlong pursuit of money and materialism. How can a Christian follow Christ and promote and defend these errors?

The Kingdom of God, these critics charge, is our true country and Christ is our only King. All other nations are under His judgment. Notions such as freedom, liberty and justice are perverted by the nations of the earth, and only Christ can be the source of such blessings. We are to live as aliens and strangers, giving no allegiance to nation or political party that ultimately belongs to God.

It’s the ultimate WWJD question. Would Jesus do what Mark did? Could Jesus have been a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, go to Afghanistan to fight terrorists and still have been our savior and example? Could Jesus give His service to America, and not sin in choosing to do so? Or would Jesus have refused military service? Would “Render unto Caesar…” include or exclude fighting to defend His family if invaders attacked Nazareth, or if the nation of Israel asked for His service in defending itself? Tony Campolo used to ask if anyone could picture Jesus dropping bombs on North Vietnamese civilians.

These are serious questions that must be answered. As a Christian I believe I must answer them from the Bible, and that I must submit to what the Bible teaches and not to my own emotions and preferences. I freely admit that I am a patriot, and that the phrase “For God and country” is not nonsense to me. I have listened to the arguments of those who take the position outlined above, and I agree with substantial parts of their observations. But, in the end, I believe they have ignored and over-simplified the Biblical material to bolster their own choices.

To begin with, I will not outline my considerable agreement with those who accuse evangelicals of idolatry. There is a plague of patriotic idolatry in American Christianity. Our ultimate loyalty is to Christ. We are citizens of His Kingdom, and we must obey the law and example of our King. I am a great admirer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and I fully agree with the Biblical foundations for his critique of America and the movement he inspired. I don’t believe America is always right or that every conflict we have entered was right, and I certainly agree that America is fallen, pagan, materialistic and likely to become increasingly hostile to Christians in her midst.

My disagreement- and it is a substantial one- is that this picture is too simple. It discounts the Bible as a whole in favor of one stream of Biblical material. This is a common problem among people who build Biblical cases without an overall Biblical theology, and I have noted this with everyone I have debated concerning these issues. There is a real annoyance at bringing up anything other than the words of Jesus. Where Jesus endorsed all of scripture as a testimony of truth, these critics quickly reject or ignore scripture that is not on the level with the Sermon on the Mount or the words of Jesus. Of course, one must ignore the words of Jesus Himself that send us into the rest of the Bible to understand Jesus if we are going to maintain that position.

I also find it interesting that the position of the critics does not match up with what we find in scripture where Jesus or the disciples interact with people. I was surprised to discover that some advocates of pacifism teach that the centurion and the Roman officer Cornelius left the military after becoming Christians. The text, of course, says nothing of the sort, and, in fact, the New Testament seems to have a positive or at least neutral view of the career of soldier. Such assertions come perilously close to the kind of statements Roman Catholics make about the career of Mary. I am not denying that we may sometimes make logical inferences beyond scripture, but there is a limit to what sort of confident factual assertions we can make.

What is the missing factor in the argument that my friend Mark cannot serve God and country? Common grace, an element of theology that is more and more frequently abandoned by Christians who do not know the whole Biblical story. It is God’s common grace that redeems nationalism sufficiently that my friend Mark can defend my family against terrorists in the service of our military with a good conscience.

Common grace is an answer to the question, “To what extent did God abandon the world when it fell into sin?” Now the reason so few understand common grace is that their answer would be, “God abandoned the world totally and completely, because He can have nothing to do with sin, sinners, or anything they create.” And of course, there are lots of scripture verses to prop up that claim. The problem is, however, that while God’s holiness does dictate that His eyes are too pure to behold evil and so on, God’s mercy, kindness and continued involvement with sinners has been consistently demonstrated through all of redemptive history.

God should have exterminated Adam and Eve. Instead, He showed them mercy, forgave them, clothed them, allowed them to enjoy the blessing of marriage, family and creation. God was merciful to Cain. He blessed whole generations and nations of sinners. Even in the flood, when it appeared God had run out of grace, He was gracious to a whole family of sinners, and continued to be so after the flood when they demonstrated they were still quite sinful and fallen. The story of God’s surprising common grace is the story of the entire Bible. The Apostle Paul appeals to this often, as he does in Acts 17.

I won’t write a treatise. Common grace is the history of God’s dealings with every person and every nation in the Bible. When He should have utterly abandoned them, He did not. When He should have left them to themselves to rot in their own depravity, He showed a more patient, kinder face. He blessed them with gifts large and small. The goodness of His image remained with them, though marred and broken. He restrained judgment and extended mercy repeatedly. God did this as a witness to His mercy. As Paul said, the kindness of God is meant to bring us to repentance. Common grace is a pointer to saving grace. Many Christians may think it wasted, but God apparently disagrees, because He lavishes the stuff on the just and the unjust alike with every breath.

If you have come this far, please understand the importance of this last point. God has not utterly turned His back on humanity or human institutions, work, creations, and concerns. God is up to more in history than just the redemption of a people for eternal glory. He is invested in every aspect of human experience to do us good, even those of us who despise Him and always will. While the sinfulness, depravity and judgment-worthiness of humanity and its works are beyond dispute, that has not compelled God to abandon us. In the worst of people, the worst of human activities and the worst of human institutions, there is still the remaining purpose of God and His on-going common grace.

Now the premise of this essay is that common grace sufficiently redeems nationalism that my friend Mark may serve his country with a clear conscience and still give ultimate allegiance to Jesus Christ. Two passages of scripture catch my attention in this regard, one in Genesis and one in Revelation.

The first is the origin of human government itself, the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-11) I would like you to observe that what God is doing at Babel is a restraining act of mercy. It is God’s opinion that human nations will be less evil if separated into nations than if they are one nation, one culture. (One world government fans, have at it.) In other words, nations are, to a certain extent, a manifestation of God’s common grace, and this is, I believe, Paul’s entire point in the crucial text of Romans 13:1-13. The state is a minister of God to do you good. That is common grace in the form of a nation.

Now what is the purpose for God’s invention of a world of nations at Babel? If the purpose of the individual government is to bear the sword and punish the evildoer, then I do not think it a leap at all to say the entire Babel project had as one of its purposes the preservation of good and the restraining of evil in the community of nations. All nations are fallen, and all are under God’s judgment, but in the sovereignty of God, some nations will preserve genuine good more so than others. And the stage of Biblical history demonstrates that this is exactly the way God used nations: preserving truth and good, while bringing temporal, restraining judgments on individuals and other nations. (Read Habakkuk, where the prophet learns from God himself how God will use one nation as judgment and preservative.)

It is at this point that I want to say there is a good bit of unbiblical multi-culturalism underlying some of the criticisms I am answering, and I think it is important to point this out bluntly. A nation that treats women like animals is inferior to a nation that gives them equal rights. A nation that says kill innocents is worse than one that says protect innocents. (A true contradiction in America, as we protect some children and abort others.) A nation that protects religious freedom is better than one who denies it. A culture that allows people to choose their own government is better than a dictatorship. A nation that freed its slaves is better than one that enslaves its own people. A nation that gives generously is better than those who take ruthlessly.

I know both are fallen, depraved, wicked and under the judgment of God. But one, in the common grace of God, is better than the other on the scale of true virtues. It is grade school stuff. (At this point I will spare you the bizarre statements made by some critics that America is the moral equal of Nazi Germany or Communist North Vietnam. It is sad to see what multi-culturalism has done to the ability to recognize simple human decency. Some of our Christian colleges are churning out this remarkably barbaric point of view, and it is tragic.)

Now this alone, in my mind, justifies my friend Mark’s choices in life. He is fortunate to live in a country that, under the kindness of God, cares about values that are superior to and more compassionate than most other nations that have ever existed. Our country is flawed and its history is flawed, but no one need be ashamed to protect women, children and their fellow human beings. Mark is doing the Lord’s work, according to Romans 13.

Of course, is it right for Mark to take the life of a terrorist? Don’t the words of Jesus absolutely preclude that option for a Christian? This is another essay, but I’ll say this: Where is the moral law of God eliminated as a result of the words or works of Jesus? If the Ten Commandments say “Do not murder,” and the next two chapters are filled with example after example of capital punishment, where does the New Testament say this moral law is abrogated? In John 8, is Jesus’ act of mercy premised on an elimination of the moral law? I hear Jesus’ words to Christians saying they cannot employ violence in any way towards those who persecute them, but where does the New Testament say I cannot protect my family?

Right here? Matthew 5:43-44: “You have heard that it was said, `Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Are these words intended to stop Christian policeman from enforcing the law? Do they mean the state, if it submits to Christ’s words, will empty death row and all prisons? Does it mean I am obligated to only pray for the terrorist who is murdering my children, rather than stopping him- even with lethal force- if I can? I respect those who say that is the case, but I must respectfully disagree.

Romans 13 makes it quite clear that Paul assumed his readers understood the rightness of the execution of justice. A Christian choosing to not resist persecution is one thing. A Christian choosing to not do the just and right thing is another. God says He is a protector of the innocent. God says He is a warrior for the cause of right. God says we should imitate the good soldier. Jesus said that Pilate’s power to execute was from God. I believe that Cornelius went back to work after becoming a Christian, and if a threat to the safety of his fellow citizens came his way, he would be absolutely acting in accordance with right principles to deter the evildoer in any way, including the use of lethal force.

Should Cornelius obey Rome if it said, “We are going to invade Britain, pillage and rape the population?” In my opinion, no. The principles of justice can obviously be violated to the point that a Christian cannot serve, but my point (and St. Augustine’s) is simple: when a nation is defending what is good and just, a Christian may serve with a clear conscience.

And so my last passage is from Revelation 21:24 ,26: 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it… 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. This is, of course, the picture of the New Jerusalem, and it is explicitly said that the glory and honor of the nations, and their kings, will be brought into it.

The picture is one of triumph, the victory of God attended by the arrival of conquered nations, bringing their treasure to lay before their conqueror, the Lord Jesus Christ. Like all of Revelation, this is picture language, using the known to communicate the unspeakable. But it is striking, in a book that so consistently speaks of the nations of the world negatively, to hear of the “glory” and “honor” of the nations being part of the New Jerusalem.

I find this the perfect compliment to the idea of common grace given to every nation. To every nation and every culture, there is given the gracious gifts of God. These treasures of truth, justice, liberty and compassion are then soiled and broken in the hands of fallen, sinful men. But they are God’s gifts nonetheless. There is a glory and honor to every nation and culture, to every people group, and yes, apparently to every government. A glory and honor that we may be able to see or not. A glory and honor that we sometimes handle with respect or treat with contempt. A glory and honor that leads us to Christ, or which we distort and destroy to dishonor Christ.

In the kingdom, such glories will be redeemed. The gracious purpose and blessing of God will be recognized, and we will have a further reason to admire God’s kindness, mercy and salvation.

There is a divine glory to America. There is a godly honor given to this nation. Yes, it has been betrayed in the idolatries of human ambition, and soiled in the ignorance and evil of human greed. But those gifts have not been completely forgotten, and they are worth living for, and even dying for. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw this and spoke of it often. I believe my friend Mark sees that honor and is right to be proud of his service to a country that still upholds, imperfectly and inconsistently, values and truths that reflect God.

The critics I have responded to believe that America is rotten to the core because it is not, nor can it ever be, a Christian nation. They criticize those who say America is such a country, and point out the flaws of our founders, our dreams and our ambitions. In many ways they are right. But there is another way to look at America. In this fallen world, this is one nation where the churches of the Lord Jesus have flourished. This is a nation that has sent more missionaries and ministers to serve than any other in history. It is a nation given incredible blessing by God, and though these have been misused and made into idols, it is a nation that regularly thanks God for those blessings. It is a nation where millions of people beg that God for mercy and revival.

America is, among all the nations of the world, in many ways the best and the worst. The best in the grace that God has shown us. The worst in how little we have done to respond to that God. But where a young man named Mark lives for Christ, and serves the best values of this great country that God has established for His honor and glory, then I think we have no reason to be ashamed.

Girls Tradin’ Up
Femininity goes out with the trash
by Michael Spencer

It must have been three years ago that I noticed most of the girls in my classes were anti-feminine. They didn’t just act like boys at their worst; they actually seemed to have contempt for what I associated with being feminine. So I asked them about it.

I started with the boys. “Guys….how many of you want to be masculine?” All the boys raised their hands. Quickly and confidently. No surprise.

“OK, ladies. How many of you want to be feminine?” There was a long pause, born of obvious confusion. Out of ten girls, two tentatively raised their hands. The rest looked unsure, or very sure they disagreed.

Their questions were out before I could say anything. “What do you mean by feminine? Wearing a dress every day? That’s stupid.” “Do you mean girly? I don’t want to be girly.” “I don’t care what ‘feminine’ means anymore. I’m going to say what I want and do what I want. Nobody can tell me how I ought to dress.”

The boys found this humorous. None were distressed that the girls were disavowing femininity. They seemed to believe it was good news, or at least funny. I found it sad and disturbing, but given the generational differences, I am not surprised.

The abandonment of femininity is some of the worst news in the decline our culture, and I am very surprised so little is being said about it. While books on the feminization of men and boys are common, discussions of the demise of femininity among girls seem, at least from the conservative Christian viewpoint, rare. Yet, I wonder if we have calculated what is being lost in throwing femininity out with the trash.

Culture and Feminism

It is important to begin by defining femininity, and discussing it in the context of culture, Christianity and feminism. Let’s start with simply saying that femininity is not the same as feminism, just in case anyone is confused at the outset. I’ll define feminism as a social movement to liberate women from injustices perpetuated simply because of gender. I realize that feminism has diverged into several different cultural and intellectual streams, some openly hostile to femininity as a concept or a value, and others taking little, if any, interest in femininity at all.

I believe there is a question of how much modern feminism is responsible for the current demise of femininity. At one time, that question would have seemed extremely pertinent. But today, I believe my young ladies are hardly feminists by any classic definition. If they are influenced by feminism, the influence is far upstream. They are very apolitical, and they are extremely traditional in many ways, such as being overwhelmingly pro-life. They would horrify most feminists in their disinterest in career or breaking through those deaded “glass ceilings.” While the rejection of femininity may be happening on a foundation begun by bra burning, make-up rejecting, Hillary Clinton clones reading “The Feminine Mystique” thirty years ago, that isn’t the direction of the the anti-feminines of my experience. No, something else entirely is at work.

What is femininity? Etymology is of no use at all. Femininity is elusive, and can easily be seen as entirely a social and cultural construct. For example, let’s look at an example of a culture where there are highly developed roles of masculine and feminine.

Here in our community we have traditional Mennonites. These very good people run a number of businesses that are distinguished by every kind of excellence- especially in the creation of donuts. They have a traditional dress code for men and women. Women wear 19th century style dresses and bonnets. They are plain in appearance, without make-up or jewelry. They are extremely modest and defer to their men when men are present. There are clearly defined roles for men and women. Femininity, within this culture, is tied to a variety of obvious traits and matters of style and appearance.

Yet, as a Christian, I believe there is more to femininity than culturally assigned dress codes and manners. Saying there is “real,” objective femininity is a simple recognition of the two-sexedness at the core of human biological existence, and the interplay of those sexes in human experience. There are male characteristics that are strongly associated with biology, and there are female characteristics of the same. In nature, we see the social development of masculine and feminine characteristics and behavior to facilitate the continuance of the species. But, is biology- even God-directed biology- all there is to femininity?

As a Christian, I believe human beings reflect masculinity and femininity for another reason: we are made in the image of God. Maleness and femaleness are part of the essence of human nature because we are built that way from the creator. I want to be very clear in saying that femininity as a part of God’s image is not a matter or dress code or mores or vocational custom. It is a matter of human nature on the deepest levels of how we encounter one another, how we communicate and how we love. Without both masculine and feminine, we are impoverished as human beings, and deeply affected in our understanding of God.

For this reason, Christians should not overly attach themselves to particular cultural understandings of the roles of the sexes. We should be the first to progressively support the rights of women to contribute to life as they choose, without religious or traditional restrictions. Historically, Christianity has been on the side of women’s rights in most cases, and the few exceptions are to our shame. Jesus elevated and liberated women, even as he affirmed femininity as a real component of human life.

Not long ago, I read several posts on an email list from a father who was distraught that his daughter wanted to become an emergency medical technician, rather than a stay-at-home wife and mother as dad wished. He saw this as spiritual rebellion and embracing worldliness. Above all, it was a betrayal- in his mind- of the Biblical pattern of “femininity,” i.e. stay at home and care for children and not pursue a “worldly” vocation. I could not disagree more. There is a Biblical femininity, but it can’t be equaled to everyone’s cultural idea of what women ought to do and be. American suburban evangelicalism has its own odd view of this, and it isn’t particularly Biblical or realistic. Femininity isn’t a matter of vocation or cultural comfort zones, as anyone with a moderate amount of real world experience knows. That daughter can be a tough EMT, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be feminine as well.

Femininity, Weakness and Aggression

The young ladies in my class saw the word feminine as a suspect term, a term of weakness. They did not associate it with strength and intelligence, beauty or mystique. They associate femininity with being losers in their world. This isn’t because they don’t have examples of femininity around them. They do, but they are unsure of buying into those models, and they are surrounded and influenced by a very different and assertive model of femaleness, a model that plays to win in the contemporary game of the sexes.

Seeing women as weak and inferior is a common human trait, and Christianity is frequently cited as a major cause of such thinking. Today’s young women want to be sure that any claim to be feminine does not assume that they are…..girly in a negative way. If anything, today’s “strong” young woman wants to be the equal of her male counterpart in as many ways as possible. Good and bad. “Girliness” is out. Way out.

Girls are dressing like boys. This isn’t new, but it has become extremely common. In a school of 400 students, we have one high school girl who regularly wears a dress to school, and on any day, you would see no more than 3 or 4 dresses altogether. While girl’s fashions are everywhere, an increasing number of girls wear the same clothes as boys: the same boxers, pants, t-shirts, caps, jerseys and sneakers. The idea of dressing feminine is ambiguously embraced at certain times, but deserted soon thereafter.

Girls use language every bit as bad as boys. They talk about sex and body functions. They belch and pass gas. They are loud and unmannered. They fight one another far more frequently than boys. One hasn’t seen an adolescent fight if he/she hasn’t seen two girls match up with a trash-talking, intimidation ritual. It would make a great video.

Girls act macho. Belligerent. They strut with male pride. They react with the male ego. They ridicule and insult like boys. They spit. They use male terminology. They threaten and intimidate with male verbal and physical actions. Girls have always been mean, and even cruel, but this isn’t feminine behavior. It’s male behavior, imitated and even amplified.

What is particularly interesting is to watch the transformation of feminine behavior into not just a kind of faux maleness, but into a new form of female sexual aggression. Just to show you I’m not about to pick on hip-hop- which would be easy- listen to country music artist Gretchen Wilson (Yes, I listen to a bit of CMT) in “Here for the Party.”:

Well I’m an eight ball shooting double fisted drinking son of a gun
I wear My jeans a little tight
Just to watch the little boys come undone
Im here for the beer and the ball busting band
Gonna get a little crazy just because I can

You know im here for the party
And i aint leavin til they throw me out
Gonna have a little fun gonna get me some
You know im here, im here for the party

I may not be a ten but the boys say i clean up good
And if i gave em half a chance for some rowdy romance you know they would
Ive been waiting all week just to have a good time
So bring on them cowboys and their pick up lines

Dont want no purple hooter shooter just some jack on the rocks
Dont mind me if i start that trashy talk

Femininity is in there somewhere, right next to the announcement that Gretchen is just as big a rowdy as the men she taunts with her sexuality. She’s a double fisted, hard drinking son of a gun. And the men want her. Or so she says. Here’s “Redneck Woman” by the same artist:

Well, I ain’t never been the Barbie doll type
No, I can’t swig that sweet Champagne, I’d rather drink beer all night
In a tavern or in a honky tonk or on a four-wheel drive tailgate
I’ve got posters on my wall of Skynyrd, Kid and Strait
Some people look down on me, but I don’t give a rip
I’ll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip
‘Cause I’m a redneck woman
I ain’t no high class broad
I’m just a product of my raising
I say, ‘hey ya’ll’ and ‘yee-haw’
And I keep my Christmas lights on
On my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Charlie Daniels song
So here’s to all my sisters out there keeping it country
Let me get a big ‘hell yeah’ from the redneck girls like me, hell yeah

Who are the millions of girls relating to this song? They are the heirs of the southern, Christian, rural, traditional idea of femininity! Scarlett O’Hara’s southern sisters! What happened? How did white trash win out over southern charm?

On Friday evenings in the fall, I often find myself at high school football games. I’ve been watching these rituals of American youth culture my entire life, and there are certain things I have always taken for granted: guys pursue girls. But I can now safely report that this is changing. Girls are now the aggressors, and young men are the pursued. What most of us males would have once considered an insane impossibility is now commonplace: Girls, dressed in scanty clothing that exposes their bodies in provocative ways, with a clear agenda to hook-up, are now going after boys, talking to them in language that advertises immediate sexual adventure and volunteering for casual sexual encounters- and more- if the young man will play along. Life just got a lot easier for the adolescent male. Or so he thinks.

Success in sexual aggression is now a mark of femininity. Look at the college and singles “dating” programs on cable. In various dating shows a good-looking dofus has to do practically nothing but stare while woman after woman competes for the opportunity to show him just how trashy and whorish they can be in a dance club or a hot tub. The expectation of sexual intimacy as the end of a first date is almost a given. A woman who doesn’t play this game will be ridiculed as frigid and snooty. The “good time” girl isn’t just a good dancer and a good conversationalist. She is a sexual adventurer and aggressor, showing that she can look the part, dress the part, talk the part and do the deed without remorse.

Many girls won’t go this far, but most girls will feel the pressure to adopt this mode of feminity as their own.

I lost my skills

Of course, this all sounds bizarre and extreme to most of us. Why would women throw out femininity? Wasn’t it in their best interests to be the pursued? Wasn’t it in their best interests to postpone sex until it came with a promise of security? Wasn’t it in women’s best interest to step off as much distance as possible between themselves and stereotypical male fantasy behavior, and then tell the men to make up the distance?

Apparently not. I now have girls in class who argue strongly that their best interests are served in giving men exactly what they want. It is not at all unusual for me to hear “We dress the way we do (or act the way we do, or talk the way we do) because boys like it. That’s what boys want, so that’s what we do. Don’t blame us.” Teachers have come to me saying girls in their classes have openly stated they want to be strippers or porn starlets. Even with the shock-the-teacher factor thrown in, this is an amazing degradation of what it means to be female. It is the triumph of sexual aggression over beauty, intelligence and every other feminine quality.

Holy Bella Abzug, Batman! Is this really what it sounds like? It’s now feminine to give it away, and dispense with the pursuit completely? (Yes, millions of men are sighing, wondering why they were born at the wrong time 🙂 Just joking. Really.)
It’s as if Olivia Newton-John in “Grease” actually signaled the way for an entire cultural shift just by putting on those tight pants and the black leather jacket, though I doubt this is what she had in mind.

I’m not so silly as to think that women haven’t always used sex to manipulate men or achieve power, and that this isn’t yet another chapter of the same game that’s gone on for millenia. But now the question is, what will happen when men no longer have to woo, to pursue, to go on the romantic quest, but are rewarded with sex immediately, in some sort of mad race to see who can display the most sexual aggression?

The results are predictable. Men will become worse. Women will suffer more. Marriage will be delayed and undertaken in seriously flawed circumstances. Unloved and unwanted children will be born to the people least qualified to be parents. Women will be poorer. Boys and girls will not grow up in normal, stable families. Multiple partners will flourish. Male stereotypical behavior will continue, and worsen. Crime will increase, public education will get more difficult and society will pay the bill.

The gift of noble masculinity and femininity will be a vanishing reality. Joy, that rare commodity in this world, will be rarer still, because we have trashed one of the best fountains of that joy: the wonder of the dance that is masculinity and femininity. Don’t lecture me that we don’t want to go back to the world of “Little Women” because girls will miserable, mistreated and practically property. I admit your premises, and I will also admit that when femininity was a treasure to be nurtured, protected and pursued, we were very often at our best in life, love, art, emotion and humanity. But we have taken all the remnants of this world, and thrown them away.

The Battle Lines

I realize that a gloom and doom essay like this begs the question, “What can we do about this?” We’ve raised a daughter who has navigated the waters of growing into a young woman with real maturity. Her mother is the best possible example of femininity, and she has many other examples as well. (She loves “Little Women: 🙂

She also hasn’t had a date in months. While I don’t expect that trend to continue, I know that her Christian faith and personal values are placing her increasingly against the grain of thousands of young women who are choosing to win a short-term game of sexual self-creation. She will have to be patient, because these cultural developments are going to affect how young men see themselves and the entire business of relationships. Will it mean earlier marriage or later marriage? Less dating or more courtship type relationships? I can’t say. The trend in some quarters of the evangelical world to treat adult women like children until they are married is a fearful and wrong answer, even with proof texts from the Old Testament.

What we have to do is talk about this frequently. We have to identify the remaining models of real, beautiful and attractive femininity, and affirm them. Our children need to see masculinity and femininity lived out at home in a Christ-redeemed way. Not is strange stereotypes, but in real lives. We are not bound by culture, but God did create us to ENJOY each other, male and female. So many of our Christian children are wounded, or even steered toward homosexuality or other kinds of immorality, because much is wrong between mom and dad, and much is wrong with mom and dad that isn’t ever brought into the light.

Parents, you have my prayers. It is difficult coming to terms with what our sons and daughters are facing. One word of advice: Don’t lose track of your children’s hearts. We must pick our battles, but we must remember that the ultimate seat of femininity is the heart. We can’t smother it in fear or control, but we must speak to it with the honesty and love we find in Jesus, who spoke to the so many women with love that was truthful, respectful and ultimately healing.

Pastors and teachers need to take on this topic. I do not like to preach in such a way that I sound like a finger-wagging, wandering campus evangelist calling godless sorority girls “whores” to draw a crowd. That’s despicable. But we have to be able to teach and preach, with perception and integrity, truthfully talking about how the pressure of culture can come into the church. It is compassionate and loving to preach on such things. It is hopeful to speak of Christ who so often took the wounded masculinity of men and the wounded femininity of women and reclaimed it in his compassionate love, creative dignity, and restoring power.

We must be communities where our neighbors and their children can see real marriages, sense normal sexuality and hear the beauty of God’s plan and design.

Christ is our great gift in this dark world. But we also have the potential to be gifts to one another. Our sexuality, and our personalities, are wondrous common grace gifts from the creator to the world. Let’s not join the rush to throw out what is precious and beautiful. Let’s find a way to live hopefully in the grace of God, and find the beauty of a femininity that shows forth the beauty God always had in mind.

In The Gay Ol’ Summertime
Gay America has left the closet, and they won’t be going back.
by Michael Spencer

It’s the summer of “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy” and “Boy Meets Boy.” It’s the summer of debating gay marriage in the media and opinionating about newly elected gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Church. It’s the summer of no more sodomy laws in Texas and a new gay marriage law in Massachusetts. It’s the summer that cable, Canada and the courts showed up at the gay acceptance party and the rest of us were invited to grab a partner and dance. It’s the summer my son started using the word “gay-dar” and I understood him completely.

It was the Supreme Court’s striking down of a law against sodomy that kicked off the party. Conservatives and traditionalists reacted strongly to the Texas sodomy ruling, but that reaction quickly began to look like the last tantrum before the inevitable incoming tide of gay acceptance. Many conservatives wouldn’t say it, but they agreed with Jonah Goldberg: some kind of compromise on gay issues seems inevitable, because conservatives have not succeeded in reasoning the culture out of accepting gay sex or tolerating gay marriage. At the same time, gays have found ways to be reasonable enough to be partially accepted by mainstream culture, even if their fringe representatives are still pretty offensive to “Bubba” in Texas. Jonah suggested gay marriage was eventually going to be a state-by-state matter, and he was one conservative who could live with it, and actually preferred to live with it rather than fight through an acrimonious and unwinnable culture war. A lot of young conservatives, who spent years watching “Will and Grace” and wondering if they were being uncompassionate for being against gay marriage, nodded in agreement.

Evangelicals, who were used to the amusements of annual pro-homosexual campaigns at the conventions of the mainline denominations, initially had some reasons to think the tide had finally turned their way. Evangelicals in the PCUSA seemed to have won the day on the question of ordaining gay clergy, as changes to the denomination’s constitution were rejected soundly in the presbyteries, and a high-profile gay ordaining pastor was removed from his church. Yet, as I write, the Episcopal church has accepted an openly homosexual as a bishop, and there is a nagging sense that after the inevitable denominational schisms of evangelicals and liberals over the issue of homosexuality, the issue will not be going away. There has been a shift in attitudes on the part of millions of Americans, and while it may not be in the direction of standing and applauding the election of V. Gene Robinson to the miter, it is not in the direction of Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson either.

Americans–including lots of Christians–are making their peace with the issue of homosexuality. Not so much out of conviction as confusion, and just plain weariness. We are tired of this, and from war-weariness, surrender sometimes comes. Or at least, retreat.

Southern Baptists, always unafraid to articulate their views on homosexuality, markedly changed strategy and began talking loudly about ministry to homosexuals. Someone in the main office seems to have realized that the winds of cultural perception have changed, and the SBC was sounding bigoted, even if they were simply being faithful to Biblical truth. The “same old, same old” began to sound more hostile than principled, and new partnerships with ministries to homosexuals like Exodus generated a new tone. Without compromise, the note was now compassion and acceptance, and not just finding a hill to die on in a battle with the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade. For every interview with Al Mohler, there was also an invitation for gays to come to church and not just picket outside.

The Supreme court ruling against sodomy laws in Texas surprised and shocked evangelicals. How could a basically conservative leaning court undercut the basis of any law based on what Christians felt was obvious morality? Pundits and preachers proclaimed the eventual demise of laws against incest and other supposed taboos. When the wailing faded, the news of gay marriage becoming legal in Canada and the impending approval of gay unions in Massachusetts remained. Polls showed a momentary spiking in attitudes against gay sex and gay marriage, but gay advocates were not discouraged, and they shouldn’t be. Advocates like Richard Goldstein from the Village Voice wisely counseled that progress made would always be progress threatened. It wasn’t the snapshot that mattered, but the movie, and the movie was going their way.

Even as gay supporters contemplated a backlash, it was apparent to many that the President’s call for a marriage amendment was not a counter-attack as much as a proposal for some kind of peace. Something–civil unions or whatever they may be called–will emerge in a newly gay tolerant America in recognition of the persistence of one side in the face of the anger of the opposition. Pope John Paul II’s reminder that the Roman Catholic Church will always be against homosexual behavior and gay marriage seemed to be more of an announcement of where the line was drawn than a battle cry in an anticipated victory.

Nowhere is this cultural shift more obvious than in the arrival of gays on television. It was Billy Crystal who portrayed the first openly gay character on TV, but we had been laughing at Liberace, Rip Taylor and Paul Lynde for years, knowing good and well what was going on. When Tom Selleck kissed Kevin Kline in “In and Out,” I thought the stereotypical portrayal of homosexuals was offensive. Now television revels in such portrayals, giving us flaming gay hosts on HGTV and gay interior decorators on redecorating shows. But nothing can compare to the assertion of a new view of gayness into the American mind than “Queer Eye On The Straight Guy,” a cable show that has nothing whatsoever to do with sex.

“Queer Eye” plays the stereotype of the fashionable gay man to the hilt, letting five hip and funny gay men with various fields of worldly expertise remake a hapless straight square’s world. With the “Queer Eye” Fab Five working their magic on clothes, home decoration, food, personal appearance and manners, the straight guy frequently ends up breaking down in tears of gratitude. (Who knew we were such barbarians?) The show is original, hilarious, interesting, informative, fun to watch and devastating to the typical conservative stereotypes of homosexuality. You want these guys as your friends. You want them to remake your world into theirs. You like them; you really like them. Are they normal? Moral? Who cares? They are cool, happy, witty, caring and having loads of fun.

I can’t help but say, “Evangelical Christian Eye on the Unconverted Guy” won’t be making a debut anywhere in the near future. And we all know why, for reasons good, bad and ugly. Being positively perceived by the culture shouldn’t be all that important to us, but the fact that these gay men actually come in as servants, and change attitudes simply by being helpful, cannot help but impress a Christian. Everything that is wrong with the “we’re in your face” approach of promoting gay causes is set aside on “Queer Eye,” where these guys are likable, hardworking, articulate, bright and successful–and willing to help people improve their lives, and then truly empathize and celebrate with them.

It is not hard for me to see how the new acceptance of gay America is progressing. Working with young people, I can tell you that a certain amount of revulsion and prejudice against gays is still out there in youth culture, particularly among young men. But attitudes are changing rapidly, particularly as most gays work at presenting themselves in ways that have nothing to do with sex. No one cares that Jodie Foster is probably a lesbian, because she never talks about it. Michael Stipe is as popular as ever, because he still sings R.E.M. songs. Did it really matter that Rich on “Survivor” was gay? As gay Americans present themselves as simply people, young men and women accept them, and increasingly say, “I don’t agree with their lifestyle, but I don’t believe they should be discriminated against or mistreated.”

To understand how this new approach both elevates gays and portrays traditionalists as bigots, listen to blogger Andrew Sullivan, writing about the death of Father Mychal Judge on 9-11, the war on terrorism and the opposition of the religious right.

Then there is Father Mychal Judge, an openly gay Catholic priest who served the men and women of New York’s Fire Department. Revered by a macho subculture, fearless and strong, a man of faith and fervor, Father Mychal died in the flames of the World Trade Center doing what he has always done – tending to his flock in need. He is not a gay hero. He is an American hero who was also gay. And when this is over, let those in the Church who have done so much to create pain and hurt among good gay men and women who love their faith and serve their world, let them take stock and change their hearts. May they see that there is no contradiction between being gay and Catholic; in fact, may the Church hierarchy finally see that such people are now and always have been an integral pillar of faith and hope in the world. Father Mychal was a giant among them. We shall remember him as well.

For of all wars, this is surely one in which gay America can take a proud and central part. The men who have launched a war on this country see the freedom that gay people have here as one of the central reasons for their hatred. In their twisted perversion of Islam, these monsters believe that gay men and women deserve to be tortured and executed in hideous fashion. They murder and muzzle women; they despise and murder Jews; they demonize gays. We have rightly seen how Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have destroyed themselves by their hatred in this moment – and we can take solace that America has repudiated their poison. But let us also remember that the men who committed this atrocity make Falwell and Robertson look mild in comparison. They are the Religious Ultra-Right, and they have already murdered us. Given the chance, they would wipe gay people from the face of the earth. To respond to that threat by cautioning peace or surrender or equivocation is to appease men who would destroy every last vestige of gay America if they could. Gay Americans should not merely support this war as a matter of patriotism and pride; they should support it because the enemy sees us as one of their first targets for destruction. These maniacs despise our freedom; they loathe our diversity; they have contempt for our culture. There is no gray here. There is simply a choice: to cower and run in fear of these monsters or to stand up with every other segment of this country–of every race and creed and gender and sexual orientation–and defeat these messengers of hate in the hope of a brighter, integrated day.

Of course, I can hear my friends literally falling over with disgust at Sullivan’s mischaracterization of traditional Christian opposition to homosexuality as the moral equivalence of terrorism, but what matters is the effectiveness of Sullivan’s rhetoric in the movement from a 911 hero who just happened to be gay, and the opposition of religious people to gay insistence on rights and freedoms. It is this kind of rhetoric that is making substantial progress in America, and that is putting evangelicals into the fog. Young people may still register poll numbers disapproving of gay sex and gay marriage, but from the death of Matthew Shepherd to the mistreatment of kids they know who are “different,” young people are far more sympathetic than their parents and grandparents to steps like a school for gays in NYC, premised on protecting young gays from mistreatment. While conservatives howl at the hypocrisy and outrageous premises of such a move, young people themselves will be much more supportive of the right of gays to live normal, accepted and unhassled lives. It is interesting that Bravo recently admitted that “Queer Eye’s” advertising was not aimed at gays, but at straight young adult and adult women, the most sympathetic of non-gay audiences

My own response is typical, in many ways, of others of my generation and place in evangelicalism. Growing up, what I heard of homosexuality was predictably anecdotal and ridiculing. The teasing of boys as “gay” always seemed cruel to me, and it was easy for my to identify with kids with were ostracized for no reason other than not being sufficiently “male” in an adolescent jungle. In college, when I actually came to know self-identified gays, I came to have two reactions. One was pity for the troubled young men I knew who were miserable with their desires, and would desperately seek deliverance when Christians glibly promised that a prayer would make one into a new creature. The other was discovering that the two old men who ran the college library and the young men who identified themselves as gay were not dangerous or alien, but much like the rest of us. All the while I was becoming a good conservative evangelical fundamentalist, I was also angered by the particular animosity aimed towards homosexuals themselves.

I had friends who feared homosexuals as predators, but I could never understand such a reaction, because I had never experienced sexual abuse of any kind. As I developed a more mature theology, I could not see the condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible apart from the general condemnations of all kinds of sexual immorality. Isolating texts against homosexual sin from the general teaching of the Bible in Hebrews 13:4 that said all sexual expressions outside of heterosexual marriage or celibacy were sinful seemed wrongheaded and wrong hearted. Paul’s use of homosexuality in Romans 1 as “exhibit A” for human depravity just seemed to be using the most obvious case, not the worst sin in the catalog of human wretchedness. While gay Christian apologists were clueless about rightly interpreting the Bible, I never found their defense of their sin particularly more offensive than any other groups defense of their favorite vice, including building a gym for our kids rather than a church for the poor in India.

In other words, evangelical scapegoating of homosexuals was easy, given the stridency and stupidity of homosexual apologists and advocates, but such scapegoating was just as flawed, and I could find no place in the teaching of Jesus for believing he would view a repentant or unrepentant homosexual any different from any other repentant or unrepentant sexual sinner. Paul seemed to follow the same approach. While many of my evangelical brethren found it easy to say hateful and horrible things about homosexuals, such ugliness always angered me. How can I speak about sin meaningfully when my words were tinged with particular venom for homosexuals, and my own sexual sins were just as rankly offensive to God?

Of course, much that evangelicals have said about homosexuals has been true to scripture and true to reality. Even among those who knew that it was easy to raise money and expand audiences by preaching against homosexuality, there was much said that needed to be said. Ministries such as Exodus and Crossover endured enormous negative press and were classified as abusive cults by many in the secular media and the homosexual community. Strong opponents of homosexuality could also show tremendous love and patience in the face of the worst kinds of hate spewed by militant homosexuals. The evangelical record contained many good points, as well as many failures.

I will also admit that I have some sympathy for the contention that homosexuals–particularly male homosexuals–are “born that way,” or have genetic components to their orientation. My three decades of ministry with teenagers has convinced me that homosexuality may be a simple choice, as in the case of most lesbians, or a very complex matter involving genetic predisposition, psychological damage to a sense of healthy maleness, and strong social forces that promise identity and fulfillment through experiencing the true sexual self. None of these factors have anything to do with the morality of sexual behavior, because all fallen human beings are complex in their makeup and motivations. But my experience of Christian rhetoric against homosexuality features a consistent assumption that homosexuals choose to be the way they are, and while I agree that behavior is chosen, I do not agree that every element in the homosexual orientation is chosen, or that the orientation can be easily changed.

While I know some VERY angry gay activists who hate Christians, my overall impression of homosexuals is forever colored not by those angry activists, but by the unhappiness and misery I have seen in many of those I have counseled. Of course, gay advocates say such misery is a result of society’s intolerance, and I do not doubt that some of that analysis is true. But the misery goes deeper. It is a deep-seated wrongness with the basic template of human nature, family and sexuality. No matter how much or how many human beings find ways to embrace their sinful condition, there is always a certain moral revulsion and discomfort that cannot be subdued. While this reaction can be numbed and abused into submission, I have come to believe that most of those who are truly homosexual in inclination know a kind of wretchedness and self-loathing that is particularly terrible. I have been able to find substantial compassion and mercy in my life for my fellow human beings who either struggle with or embrace this particular manifestation of alienation and rebellion against the Creator. As a Christian, it has not been hard to see homosexuals as among those outsiders and untouchables Jesus would care about. “Who condemns you?….Go and sin no more.” says an enormous amount about how I believe Jesus addresses homosexuals today.

So what are evangelicals to do now? Is it inevitable that we must accept homosexual behavior and marriage? Will the culture continue to successfully portray Bible believers as Nazis and monsters who want to kill gays? Are militant homosexuals so bent on the destruction of straight society that we must treat them as enemies and threats to our homes and children? Will efforts to show the compassionate concern of Christians in the Southern Baptist Convention make a difference? Can evangelicals find a way to talk about homosexuality that doesn’t leave millions of their own feeling uncompassionate and hypocritical?

Here are my suggestions for the next chapter of the story. I doubt if anyone will agree with everything I say, but hopefully you will agree that I am trying to find that path of joyful, truthful faithfulness that caused people to come to Jesus, and not just to be offended and turn away. We must continue to be truthful, but we must substantially change in our Christian response to homosexuals.

The Bible’s message on sexuality must be heard in entirety and in its inclusion of all of us in guilt and grace . It appears to me that evangelicals and pro-gay liberals have both isolated texts for their own purposes, rather than see the Bible’s message on sexuality in the biggest possible picture. Sexuality is humanity. God created us as sexual beings and our sexuality reflects both the best about us and, as a result of sin, the worst about our possibilities. Throughout human history, sex has inspired beauty and cruelty, selflessness and selfishness. Therefore the Bible is remarkably frank about sexual matters, and doesn’t hesitate to put the beauty of the sexual relationship in its most elevated language, and also state the ugliness of what we have done with such a gift in a chapter like Leviticus 18.

So we must hear it all. Who we are. Who made us this way. How sexuality reflects God and defines us. How far we all have fallen. No part of the Bible is less adaptable to culture and more universally descriptive than its teaching on sexuality. In scripture, holiness and happiness are not possible if we do not hear and live out passages such as…

Genesis 1:27-28 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…

Ephesians 5:31-32 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Hebrews 13:4 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

That these passages do not endorse homosexuality or homosexual marriage is beyond dispute. Gay advocates know they must resort to serious reinterpretation of the Bible to sustain any semblance of a Biblical case. What seems to be heard so seldom is how these passages call ALL OF US, no matter who we are, to an understanding of sex that is tied to our worship of God. It is the image of God, the mystery of Christ and the holiness of God that are at stake. Not my desires and preferences.

Gay advocates apparently believe that gay sex can be sanctified to fit within this picture, and to be a God-glorifying, God-honoring act. It is impossible. We must never hesitate to plainly, and sadly say this, even as we confess that we are guilty of the same betrayal of the intention of God.

At the same time, it couldn’t be clearer in scripture that all sexual sin violates this intention. Adultery. Lust. Immorality of any kind. There is no such thing as “heterosexual righteousness.” We are idolaters if we insinuate anything of the kind. There is only the righteousness of Christ. Can any passage be more clear about this than Paul’s words to the Corinthians about what the righteousness of Christ had rescued them from:

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Here, standing in the same place before God’s truth, are homosexual sinners and straight sinners, homosexuals and the greedy, homosexuals and the rebellious, homosexuals and the dishonest. If we ever imply, for any reason, that homosexuals are more sinful than we are, we are lying. If we ever imply that homosexual behavior is not sinful, we are also lying. I appreciate those pro-gay scholars who have pointed out the sins of Sodom in Ezekiel 16:49-50 “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.” Now, if I can see that these people were sinful for greed and pride, like I am, can my homosexual friends honestly admit what “did an abomination” means in this context?

I have absolutely no problem with any person coming to Christ saying, “I am a sinner, and I need a great Savior,” when one of those sins is homosexual behavior. If he credibly professes faith in Christ, and desires to be a part of the church that he might follow Christ as his disciple, I would receive him. If his intention was to live a life of celibacy, I would rejoice and assist him. If he asked for acceptance of himself as a person who struggled imperfectly in this area, I would pray for him and ask him to pray for me as the same. I would not hesitate to call such a person a fellow Christian and he would in no way be disqualified from serving Christ in ministry, if the church chose to call that person to ministry.

But if that person openly refused to acknowledge the truthfulness of God’s word about sin and sexuality, I would not receive him, and though I cannot put myself in the place of God to announce he has no saving faith, I would warn him that the Word of the Lord cannot be cast aside for ANY reason, including prevailing views of compassion or social justice or that idol called “progress.” Just as I must live under the constant grace of God as a sexual sinner, called to marriage or celibacy, so must they, if they are to follow Christ. We are all the same, and there is no righteousness in either homosexuality or heterosexuality when sinners are involved. When pro-homosexual Christians place themselves in a special category of victims who are somehow exonerated from the holiness and obedience God commands from all those who belong to Christ, they make a terrible mistake, for it appears that in the case of many pro-homosexual activists in the church, they are living out the situation Paul addressed in Romans 6:1-2: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” Their insistence on coming to Christ and holding onto their sin simply cannot square with Biblical faith.

Then what about homosexuality in the culture? Here I will contend that American Christians have repeated a strategic error that has plagued their history: the tendency to get involved in moralistic crusades that drown out the clarity and the universality of the Gospel and distort Christians themselves.

Cultural conservatives rightly point out that agenda homosexuals are out to remake society and recruit children. They must be fought. No doubt. I agree, but in much the same spirit I have put forward elsewhere regarding Islam, I would urge my fellow evangelicals to remember that those radicals are a distinct minority. I know these people well, and though they are dedicated zealots, they cannot win. I agree they must be challenged and fought in the public arena when they seek special status or to influence public morals and education. As far as public policy goes, they must be defeated as a social and political force.

At the same time, we need to realize that scripture does not picture the church opposing public immorality primarily through political means. In our system of elected government and constant campaigning, we tend to forget that the early Christians lived in a highly immoral society where they did not have access to the controls of power and public policy other than through conversion. The early Christians did not picket or protest. They witnessed, prayed, worshiped, and lived holy lives. Some of that witness influenced society, but in general, society went its Godless way. If there were to be a large-scale alteration of public morals, it would be through the power of the Holy Spirit, not by an imperial edict or judicial ruling.

The question tends to become something like this: What would Jesus do? Would he, if he could have influenced laws and elections, have devoted significant energies to political means of improving public morals? My answer is simple. I think Jesus would have done what any person could do within his time and place to provide safety, security and morality. But I do not think Jesus would have taken on political causes, because they do not promote what changes hearts and lives eternally or individually.

I have an old friend who is a liberal activist. He once said that if Jesus were here today, he (Jesus) would be organizing to raise the minimum wage. With all due respect, such a view of Christ takes the truth of justice taught in the Bible and uses it to promote whatever the agenda of the moment might be and identifies the Kingdom of God with the talking points of politicians. It is like Hillary Clinton saying the parable of the good Samaritan was an endorsement of her health care plan. I do not believe Jesus was a political organizer, and scripture is well aware that there were many who wanted him to be. That does not mean he approved of the status quo. It simply means that the way of Christ is not identical with the way of the political activist.

I think that Jesus’ view of society would grow out of his view of our individual alienation from God. An ethic of love might demand a diversity of responses to that alienation, but can there be any doubt that Jesus would not mistake ANY aspect of our lost condition–sexual depravity, poverty, war, ignorance–from the root cause and remedy of that alienation?

I think it is very significant that Jesus lived his life surrounded by social problems and ministered to those problems, yet he never held out any hope for the substantial eradication of those problems apart from the Kingdom of God. It was Jesus who said the expensive ointment was best spent on honoring him rather than on the poor, who would be in the world “always.” This is the same Jesus who commanded we treat the poor as if they were Christ, and who called a rich man to sell all he had and give it to the poor. Throughout the New Testament, Christians exemplify radical kinds of love and service, but not as political activists. It is always in witness to Christ and his Kingdom. So there seems to be a difference in the way Jesus views the actions of a believer and the possibilities for a political utopia.

Including conservative utopias where the homosexual agenda is never heard from again.

I think this puts moralizing crusades into a very negative light. It appears to me to commit the church to a course of action that it knows must ultimately fail. While there may be some perceived and real short-term benefits to seeking to pass laws that restrict some behaviors of homosexuals, the ultimate effect may be to impede the hearing of the Gospel by those who need it. This really matters to Christians, or should matter. In other words, we cannot preach Good News to people if they perceive us primarily as their political and personal enemies. Clearly, whether it is rhetoric or reality, many homosexuals believe that Christians want to imprison or harm them. This may be ludicrous, but it is not baseless. Many Christians are crassly political and hostile in their opposition to the gay agenda, and to gays as individuals.

I am even more concerned, however, by the effect of these crusades on Christians themselves. Allowing or excusing virtually unchecked hostility toward homosexuals as a group has created what can only be called genuine evil among some Christians. I am constantly surprised at how many Christians will speak of homosexuals in the most hateful and prejudicial manner, and feel they are being “Christian” in doing so. I’ve experienced Christians being shocked when I asked them to not speak about “shooting fags.” I have heard many defenses of the killing of Matthew Shepherd as “he deserved it.” This is, of course, not a majority of Christians by any means, but it is an indication of a kind of ugly, group-thinking prejudice that is unleashed on those we perceive as opposing us. Jesus’ words on loving our enemies and the power of a witness who is willing to be kind rather than vengeful, seems very far away, indeed.

Therefore, I would suggest that we take no more interest in what homosexuals do in their private lives than in what any other sinner does, and that we not distinguish ourselves by obsessing on the various homosexual agendas.1 As voters, we must do what we think is best by Biblical standards. As parents, we must counter what our kids hear and see on television or at school. As people living in a Godless culture, we must teach the meaning and reality of Romans 1. But homosexuals are no worse sinners than ourselves. Homosexuality has not outpaced heterosexuality in the depravity department. That homosexuals have developed political skills and know how to win the propaganda battle means we must respond, but we can’t afford to become “haters” when our Savior so clearly sends us out to love these very people. The fact that they are on TV is a fact to be dealt with. It is not any more corrupting than a commercial for a credit card. Shouting matches are not our calling. I can’t help but think our response as Christians must include much, much more love, and apparently, a willingness to suffer from the wounds of our own kind, if we are going to genuinely accept and include our gay friends and family.

What about the issues of the day? We must oppose gay marriage, and that is clear because marriage is a picture of Christ. But I do not oppose some form of civil unions or secular recognition of partners, and in fact, I would welcome any measure that says society would be benefited if gays would embrace a more open, responsible and public monogamy. I am one of those conservatives who thinks this works against the agenda of the radicals, and not for it as some have suggested. Our principled opposition to gay marriage ought to be one form of confessing how unworthily we as Christians have treated marriage itself. As it is, our own shabby example of marital fidelity makes us unlikely defenders of something some gays have carried through better than many Christians.

We must also oppose gay ordinations, not because Christ doesn’t receive or ordain sinners, but because marriage and celibacy are beautiful pictures of Christ, and a practicing homosexual cannot present that picture any more than I can, unless he or she is willing to submit to Christ in all things–including the Bible’s clear and repeated words on homosexuality.

Some have suggested that the current “in your face” approach of gay activists will produce a backlash in public opinion and opposition. That is certainly possible, but Christians cannot afford any more emotional responses. We must finally settle down to a Biblical, Spirit-controlled and Christlike response to these difficult issues. We must thoroughly abandon the idea that we are right with God because we oppose any person’s sexuality. We must find a way to be one beggar telling another beggar where there is bread. Our deep disagreements with those who seek to establish an identity by way of sexual expression must bring about a response that shows who we know ourselves to be–truly repulsive to God now and always–but that also shows the wider mercy of a God who loves such people at the greatest cost to himself.

Gas Prices: A Winning Issue for Republicans
by Michael Spencer

You can hear Republicans trembling in their cars, scared to death that gas prices are about to sink the Republican congress and the Bush Presidency. With prices reaching a new high this week, and undoubtedly headed for higher prices this summer, Republicans are terrified of what Democrats will do with an (gasp) oil man in the White House, a multi-millionaire (gasp) oil man as energy point man, and angry consumers looking around for someone to blame. The attack ads are cooking already, and a fickle electorate will turn out the GOP and bring in the Democrats to fight these nasty oil interests. It gives me the chills in warm weather. Only problem is, its baloney.

If Republicans want to be paralyzed by these fears, they will lose in 2002, and deservedly so. The Democrats will attack with all the venom their class envying hearts can muster. They will portray conservatives as the party of oil interests and blame the Republicans for backing oil interests over the working family. In actual fact, the Democrats have never been more vulnerable, and Republicans need to strike hard and fast with their own response to the energy crisis. The Democrats are serving themselves up for a crushing defeat in 2002, something they are not counting on. The opportunity is right in front of us.

Here’s how it works.

The average Joe gets this one. Not much helped needed with this issue. It is taking a major bite out of the income of working people. Guys who bought the jet ski last summer are parking it this summer. That SUV is costing a fortune. The summer vacation is going to take another week of work just to pay for the gas. People feel it. So talk to them. Show the middle class voter that Republicans are not do nothings, but do somethings. Speak with understanding, compassion and patriotism. And show them the most obvious part of the problem: taxes.

Taxes are a huge part of inflated gas prices. Cut them now. You want a tax cutting issue that flies? That will blow up like dynamite on the liberals who raised those taxes and refuse to cut them? Want an issue that will motivate state candidates and local candidates? CUT GAS TAXES. I cannot understand why Republicans are not beating this drum loudly. It is simple. It is immediate and it helps. People understand it and it is conservative. The Democrats wouldn’t dare oppose a gas tax cut. Go for it!

The Democrats did nothing for eight years. Hang it around their neck where it belongs. Eight years to get OPEC to a reasonable place. Eight years to make vehicles more efficient. Eight years to cut taxes. Eight years to increase domestic production. Tell people the truth. The Democrats watched this tidal wave approaching and did nothing. Why? O, this is a beauty. The liberals prefer foreign oil over American oil. The liberals prefer the environmentalists over the working family. The liberals want high gas prices because they are anti-automobile. It rarely gets this easy top portray liberals as uncompassionate and downright unAmerican.

Democrats are the party of environmentalists who oppose domestic production and want high prices to reduce automobile use. Its the truth and there are a couple of billion quotes to prove it, starting with Al Gore’s book. Ask the liberals where in America they propose drilling for oil. Where? They will stall and look blankly into the camera. Its a beautiful thing. They really believe the average working guy in our country would prefer to not drill in Alaska and pay $3.00 (or more) a gallon next year. The really believe this folks. And while there may be some sympathy for this position among hard core environmentalists and the ignorant young, anyone trying to run a business or raise a family is going to think it is NUTS to be more dependent on OPEC and leave oil unexplored and undrilled because its in the wilderness. Every time I see a liberal defend this, I can’t believe conservatives don’t flatten them with it. Spike!

American Oil Companies are preferable to OPEC. Get out of their way and let them develop and drill. I can’t understand why we don’t play this straight up line as PATRIOTISM. We either buy it from the Arabs or we buy from our own companies, hiring our own people, putting the money into America. If I have to pay $3.00 a gallon, I’d rather pay a guy in Texas that the Sheik of whatever.

Conservatives have a do something now, long term energy policy. Democrats have a short term, blame somebody and do nothing policy. Which will solve the problem? If Republicans do nothing, then the Democrats attempt at blame will seem like something. If we put out a comprehensive, tax-cutting, oil drilling, America-promoting energy plan, we look like winners to me.

The President and VP need to call the Democrats out on this issue and say support something that helps America, or stand in the way. Choose environmentalists or working families. The media may call Bush the Toxic Texan, but the guy who can’t take the family to Disney because he can’t afford the gas knows how is in his corner. Mr. Bush shouldn’t promise quick fixes, but he should promise and deliver a plan that puts the Democrats in the corner.

With this issue, we can have a message that works all the way to a strong GOP majority in 2002. Don’t let America down!

Gagging on Free Speech
by Michael Spencer

One of the premises of the Internet Monk Web page concerns the relationship of liberalism and tyranny. From time to time, I suffer certain anxieties that the assertion of this relationship- namely that the Democratic party and its partners in crime are the instruments of tyranny- will offend readers who are left of center, but still good people who would never hurt a fly. Then current events remind me of just how far down the road towards tyranny we have traveled, and I am freshly convinced to continue my career as an internet pamphleteer, warning of the growing plague among us.

One of my favorite classically liberal performances was the shock and outrage at Pat Buchanan’s “culture war” speech at the 1996 Republican Convention. Taking their script from Castro’s denial that there were any nuclear weapons in Cuba, the left portrayed Buchanan as a hateful alarmist inventing a culture war where there was none. They were feigning outrage while burning villages. We can only wonder what the liberals would call the actions of a leftist mob on the Brown University campus as they stole an entire press run of the campus newspaper containing an ad by conservative writer David Horowitz. Just picking up litter?

Horowitz is responding to the escalating fad of saying that America owes African-Americans financial reparations for years of suffering and oppression. His “Ten Reasons Reparations are a Bad Idea- and Racist, Too,” may not be flawless, and it is not the obligation of any paper to carry any ad, but the ad is calmly reasoned and articulate, the sort of thing that you might find in a high school debate or read in any opinion column. Horowitz doesn’t engage in anything more than exactly what the title of his piece says: he analyzes the ideas supporting reparations and concludes they are faulty and very likely to inflame, not resolve, America’s racial tensions. In fact, it is the effective use of history, logic and facts that are the real problems here. Horowitz demolishes the carping assertion that reparations are a reasonable solution to our racial problems. The left has nothing resembling this kind of well-reasoned case. So, kill the messenger. In this case, the Brown University Daily Herald.

The mob who stole the entire press run of the Daily Herald containing the ad justified their actions in a letter to the editor, saying that free speech is not a right that operates in a vacuum, trumping the right to protest. They see their actions as “free speech” as well, and compared it to shouting down a group of Klansmen holding a rally on campus. Other letters demand that the editorial staff of the campus paper be replaced, because they are “careerists” and “opportunists” and did not represent the university community. Defenders of the action, appearing on the networks, have painted themselves as automatically morally superior to anyone who disagrees with them, therefore justifying whatever they might do as right.

These are familiar liberal justifications for tyranny. If the opposition has out-reasoned you, then call them names, shout them down, demonize their motives and take to the streets. Increasingly, liberals must resort to verbal and physical intimidation when they have lost the intellectual debate. The aura of victimization seems to confer the right to be a brat, and the university campus is one of the few places you can act like this with impunity, since the liberal administrators generally look the other way if the bad behavior in any way relates to diversity and multi-culturalism. (We need not imagine what would happen to a mob of conservatives doing the same thing in objection to a pro-homosexual ad.)

But I see a larger issue at work, not just on the university campus, but across America. Liberals are gagging on free speech. The resurgence of conservative ideas into print, publication and broadcast media, has clearly caught liberals off guard. When they could count on being the only intelligent speaker on the program, they could sound like Kennedy. When conservatives showed up with powerful and appealing ideas and responses, the left started sounding more like Stalin.

The most distressing example is the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Putting aside McCain’s commendable desire to cleanse politics of anything resembling human nature and allowing us all to be angels, what we really have is a way to erase free speech, particularly by issue oriented groups. Does anyone have any doubt why the media has made McCain’s crusade so sacrosanct? In an America where ordinary people can’t ban together and use their money to run pro-life, pro-conservative, pro-traditional values messages, Americans will be left with the major media to inform them what is good and bad, right and wrong, true and false. Dan Rather must be praying around the clock for this bad idea to triumph.

Liberals gagged on free speech when the presidential election didn’t go their way. They’ve gagged on free speech on the issue of religion in the public square. They’ve gagged on free speech every time that free speech meant conservatives would be heard and their ideas given equality in the arena of policy and debate. Liberals believe themselves to be anointed with wisdom, justice and compassion- and they are increasingly willing to use force to make sure everyone knows it.

Are conservatives exempt from this problem? Unfortunately, we sometimes show the same tendencies, motivated by revenge and a desire to even the score. It is important for conservatives to remember that our ideas do best when seen in contrast with liberalism, not in isolation. When our agenda is winning over young hearts and minds, we can’t afford to make the mistake of turning liberals into victims. When you are right (and we are) you simply need to let your light shine rather than stomp out the other guy’s light. Remember they are always surprised when we’re not mean. (Watch how the Democrats are working full time to make Dubya look mean and heartless- a tough job.)

What should conservatives do when liberals reveal their true intentio to silence the opposition? We must learn the lessons of history. Work hard. State your case, suffer publicly and with dignity. Go back and keep doing what you were doing, and do it with more commitment and enthusiasm. Let your actions, words and manner reveal the other guy to be a bully. And believe that Americans, at the end of the day, don’t like bullies.

Dancing at the Fundamentalist Ball
A Special Essay by Michael Spencer

I am almost through with fundamentalism. Almost.

There are still some places where I want to hang on to my fundamentalism, but not many. After spending most of my life listening to my fundamentalist relation sing their song in the current cultural climate, I long ago quit singing with them. Eventually, I put down my hymnal and left the choir loft. Now I think it’s time to leave the building altogether.

Of course, I realize some liberals will always think I am a fundamentalist because I believe in classically orthodox Christianity, the truthfulness of the Bible (rightly interpreted,) the resurrection of Jesus, miracles, prayer, the church and creation. The somewhat theologically astute will realize that stadiums full of non-fundamentalists believe all that stuff, but among that segment of American culture that finds any serious place given to faith fundamentalist, then I will always be mistaken for one. It’s fine with me, even fun, especially around really angry liberals (who are rather fundamentalistic themselves.)

Among, fundamentalists, however, my departure has been noticed for some time, both theologically and culturally. I hold no place for young earth creationism. I do not read the King James Version, and I do not want others to do so. My description of scripture does not choose to use the word, “inerrant.” I do not believe in the rapture. I abhor revivalism and its shallow, manipulative techniques. The four Spiritual laws are not the Gospel. Aisle walking is just plain wrong. I strongly suspect that most of what is on the shelves of Christian bookstores is somewhere between shallow and heretical. Women in ministry is good Bible as far as I am concerned. I avoid TBN like a fundamentalist avoids MTV. I like a whole bunch of Roman Catholics. Sometimes, I don’t pray over my food. (Actually, I pray one prayer on January 1st for the whole year, but that’s another column.)

On the cultural front, I consider the temperate use of alcohol to be harmless, if not mildly virtuous. (Alert Baptists: Psalms 4:7, 104:15. Read it first before you do anything rash.) I wish I danced and intend for my children to do so. I read a variety of books that fundamentalists consider occultic, worldly and dangerous. I listen to music ranging from Led Zeppelin to the Beatles to Dave Mathews. I find Contemporary Christian music to be, in the main, embarrassing. (With a few significant exceptions.) I love movies and the language doesn’t bother me, though I certainly don’t want to talk that way. I have raised my children in the Christian faith, but I have not sheltered them from bad culture, bad language or flawed people. I have not taught my children that it impresses God if you dress nicely for church, wear a WWJD bracelet or listen to the Christian radio station. I’ve actually told them God is great and loving enough to speak through any medium he desires. I bought my son three Harry Potter books. I love Halloween. I think Landover Baptist Church is stone cold funny.

This could go on, but I would belabor, bore and give my critics ammunition. I left the Fundamentalist ranch a long time ago. Every so often, I look back from my new view up in the hills and think of the good times, the good friends and the good truth, but I am not raising my kids there, and I am not going back.

And here is the main reason I have decided to move on. (There are many, for you e-mailers.) I don’t think Jesus was a mean, negative person who viewed life as a conspiracy. I think Jesus was a positive, gracious person who thought God was into everything, which was a matter of great rejoicing. I have decided Jesus was not a fundamentalist, and so I am not going to be either.

First, the mean part. I know being mean doesn’t have a thing to do with anything, but fundamentalists are mean a lot of the time, and they seem to think this is somehow OK. Now when it’s a Muslim fundamentalist being mean we see this rather easily. I know that Christian fundamentalists don’t blow things up or cheer those who do, but we are talking only about a matter of degree.

The best example of this is the reaction of fundamentalists to Hollywood. A few years ago, Tinseltown put out a perfectly horrible little movie called “The Last Temptation of Christ.” The particular problems with this piece of cinema aren’t really germane here, but let’s just say that a nation that fills the theaters for “American Pie II” and “Scary Movie” was not going to be excited about this entertainment. It was a stinker, of the highest order. Yet, fundamentalists mounted a campaign of protest, spleen-venting, tantrum-throwing and name calling that has yet to be matched. Just plain, grit-your-teeth, grind-your-jaw, get-in-your-face-and-spit mean and mad. The over-reaction of fundamentalists dignified this movie a thousand times more than it deserved by making it a victim of censorship.

The meanness that really bothers me is that reserved for those opponents of fundamentalism who simply disagree with them over one of their favorite topics. People who like Harry Potter. Or who endorse women in ministry or reject young earth creationism. Or happen to want alcohol served in restaurants. Hey- these are issues on which real Christians disagree, but fundamentalists chew on these issues with all the civility of a night at WWF Raw. I’ve not just seen this meanness, I’ve experienced it and, unfortunately, I’ve dished it out.

Don’t get me wrong- in the public arena, it’s sometimes give as good as you get, and some of those who want to take over our culture and reshape it into their own image are angry, mean and even vicious. But tough-mindedness and meanness are two different things. I’m happy to play hardball, and I want to win the culture war, but I would like to leave the meanness to someone else.

Then there’s negativity. By this I mean an overall approach to life as a series of prohibitions and restrictions. Now I recognize that there are plenty of negatives in the Bible, and lots of rules against various things of varying significance. Take the Ten Commandments. Quite a few “Thou shalt not’s” in there. But the first and greatest commandment, the commandment that dominates and sets the tone, is to love God with all we are and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The relationship between these commandments is important here: it is the positive that controls the negative. You shall not commit adultery is controlled by loving God, neighbor and self rightly. The reverse- to love God by what we do NOT do- is only true in a limited sense, but don’t try and tell that to your fundamentalist friends.

Fundamentalists love God by not doing what the larger culture does, by not sinning, by not being worldly, by not indulging temptation. If you haven’t noticed, the negative way is simpler, easier to define and far more likely to be controlled by an authority figure who eliminates all the questions and gray areas. Trusting people to love God and do as they please scares fundamentalists to death.

This negative approach is generously applied to young people, who thrive on being told what NOT to do, and who adults like to believe can be controlled. Eventually, however, the negative approach begins to force a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, and a choice must be made on how to maintain the superiority of the negative commands over the positive. There is no one more perplexed than a thoughtful fundamentalist, who realizes that there really is no virtue in not dancing, but whose believing community insists that not dancing is an article of faith.

This, by the way, is why fundamentalists never produce any real art, and why their ventures into film and music are so predictably awful. Their conception of art is so dominated by the negative approach, that characters can’t be real human beings and lyrics can’t be real poetry. The whole realm of the imagination and the appreciation of beauty have to be controlled by what they can not represent and how things are not to be expressed. It’s no wonder that the ranks of real artists trying to exist in fundamentalism resembles a community of abused and neglected refugees.

I believe scripture teaches that negativity is no more able to create true virtue than a fence is able to grow a crop. In fact, it was Jesus who said that a house swept clean of seven demons was once again ripe for the same, or even worse, occupants. I have discovered that loving God, neighbor and self is far more than the accumulated negative commands of my fundamentalist upbringing. It is a LOT more challenging than keeping the rules. It is so difficult, that transformation by God himself is my only hope.

Finally, the conspiratorial mindset. Fundamentalism is awash with conspiracy theories. The devil, the Illuminati, the CFR, the World Council of Churches, the NEA, Satanists, New Agers, The Networks, Procter and Gamble, Madelyn Murray O’Hare, the relatives of Bill Clinton…well, that one has some interesting possibilities. Anyway, as someone said, it’s not just a conspiracy, it’s a LIFESTYLE.

Prominent in this kind of thinking is the belief that participating in any aspect of the larger culture exposes one to forces posed to drag the victim into witchcraft and demon possession. Eric Rigney’s endorsement of the Harry Potter books has yielded message after message warning that the books are a gateway into bondage to occultic powers. Where is a single shred of evidence that Harry Potter is any more harmful than Snow White or the tales of King Arthur? The predictability of fundamentalist conspiracy theories have become downright annoying.

The conspiratorial prophets- Warnke, Hunt, Van Impe, Lindsey, Maddux, et al- exert a remarkable amount of unquestioned control in the fundamentalist community. How can so many intelligent people see conspiracies in everything, yet never question themselves or their sources at all? It is the same impulse that turned hysterical teenagers into witches in Salem, and wound up hanging the innocent.

It is here that fundamentalism shows such a remarkable difference from the Bible. While taking the reality of evil totally seriously, Holy Scripture never falls to the level of seeing conspiracies as the explanations for events that are hard to understand or impossible to control. A sovereign God, fallen angels and sinful men are the full extent of the Bible’s conspiracy theory. The early Christians did not waste their time teaching about Roman or pagan conspiracies, but simply lived and worshipped faithfully. It was not a mistake that the apostle Paul counseled believers to avoid myths, fables, and gossip.

Yet fundamentalists don’t avoid this way of thinking, they absolutely revel in seeing evil conspiracies at work in everything. So prevalent are conspiracies as the explanation for events, that a kind of concrete pessimism permeates fundamentalism, leaving Christians to believe that nothing is as it seems and only a conspiracy that really explain life, culture and history. One has to salute those in the fundamentalist community who have defied this dark way of looking at the world and have gone out into the world to do good.

As I said earlier, I do not see any of these trends in Jesus. Instead, I see grace, love and faith, lived out in bringing the Kingdom of God into the world through compassion, servanthood and sacrifice. I am sure that Jesus might be called a theological fundamentalist by some, but does anyone really see the spirit of modern fundamentalism in Jesus?

My departure from fundamentalism will be impossible to explain to fundamentalists. To them, to depart from the community in any way is to call into question one’s basic Christian commitment. They are convinced that if one is in touch with God, he or she will agree with them and stand with them in things large and small. It is sadly common among fundamentalists to respond to any deviation from their worldview with an invitation to pray and listen to God more closely, as if God spoke each of their beliefs directly into their ears. But I am at peace with this, and I am glad that my children will not grow up, as I did, believing all Catholics were going to hell, anyone who drank was lost, dancing was evil, movies and secular music were of the devil, and, of course, we and only we, were right.

I missed my prom, because my church told me it was evil to go. Other than a weak moment in the 8th grade, I’ve never been to a dance. I’d love to say that once I’ve renounced my fundamentalism, I’ll be the first one out on the dance floor, but its not that easy. It will take a lifetime to get over the narrow mindset of fundamentalism. But if you stop by the nursing home around, say 2033, that will be me turning circles in the wheelchair, looking for a partner.

To Fly Alone, Or Not At All
by Michael Spencer

Note: The following article is based purely on my own experiences with young people, and is in no way a claim to know anything about the motives or personal experience of Charles Bishop. I grieve with his family in the loss of a beloved young man, and no lessons drawn from his strange and tragic flight can compensate for that loss. I write from humility and respect.

• • •

Charles Bishop flew alone, at last. A solo pilot of fifteen, free from the many little prisons of his world. Free to go, to be, to see, to find. Captain and commander of his own fate. For these moments, he was whatever he would choose to be. He knew that he would not return to earth and resume his life, but for these moments, it did not matter. He was flying solo, the achievement of a lifetime. Would anyone ever be proud of him for such an accomplishment?

The stereotyped descriptions of young Charles Bishop as a “troubled and depressed loner” only show the eagerness of our jaded media to get the story out as fast as possible. So what if it sounds like every other teenage tragedy? Aren’t they all alike anyway? Perhaps, but as anyone who works with teenagers knows, each one is different as well. Each story is its own tragic script, traveling down roads that may be familiar, but which always take unique turns and arrive at unthought of destinations. Who would have predicted young Charles Bishop, the quiet boy walking his beloved dog, the front-row-sitting honor student, the secret pilot, the dreamer, would end his short life in a sad remake of the 9-11 suicide attacks? Who would have thought such a quiet and unassuming child would leave a note expressing sympathy for Muslim fanatic murderers half a world away, and support for the murder of thousands of his fellow Americans?

There is the familiar story of an absent father. Has anyone the courage to calculate what the failure of men to be fathers to their children is doing to those children, and through them, to all of us? It is a tsunami of anger and discontent, a seemingly endless well of bitterness that is reaching down to the waters we all drink, and poisoning us all. Dads-please do this small thing for your children and for all of us: be part of the lives of those you have created. Your rejection cannot be papered over with Playstations and nice clothes. These children need to know that in your eyes- in your sorry, unworthy eyes-they have a reason for being. They need to know they are loved and wanted. Only you can do this. No mentor or teacher or big brother can do it. Only you.

Some saw a young man alone, behind sunglasses, afraid to speak. Others, his teachers, saw a bright and beautiful mind, a young man who took pride in the work necessary to be on the honor roll. A student who spoke to no one, yet spoke to one adult about what good friends pets could be.

This is the picture of so many of our young people. Two-sided. Many-sided. Showing darkness to some and light to others. They show promise and fear, confidence and anger. They are both painted in the sullen colors of adolescence and in the brighter colors of young adulthood. This is not abnormal or scary. This is what it means to be young. It is to be troubled and to feel awkward, ugly, out of place and unwanted. Despite the times they will warm to the affection and efforts of teachers and coaches, most young people continue to feel the nagging doubt of their own worthiness. And it is no wonder. We have allowed the corporate masters of our culture to create a world for teenagers that is both unreal and cruel, a world where no one can be thin enough, popular enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, experienced enough, accepted enough to be happy. By creating a youth culture of chronic unhappiness, they are enriched, and our children learn to pretend, conform, consume, or to give up.

Yet it is the flying that most catches my attention. Flying is not a group activity. It is not a “normal” activity for fifteen-year-olds. I have worked with hundreds of them and I cannot recall a single young man that age taking flying lessons. But Charles Bishop had taken these lessons for almost a year. He had worked around the airfield and earned the trust of the instructors. There is no mistaking the dream that is behind all this. It predates 9-11. It is the dream of flying alone, and perhaps the dream of being a pilot.

Flying is the supreme achievement of personal competence for many people. It is the defiance of all that is true on this earth and the exploration of a new world of wonder. To fly is to control, to be in charge, to know deep within yourself, that you are different from others. Better. Braver. Charles Bishop knew this about himself. He might be a geekish looking silent fifteen-year-old in the world, but in the clouds he was a man, a different and daring soul who did not need the approval of anyone. Not of father or peers or teachers. To fly alone was to be above them all.

So what ruined such aspirations? We will never know. How did the feelings of rejection and unworthiness take over the quest for wings? It will be a mystery, but somewhere in Charles Bishop’s mind and heart, the hurts that he carried, the rejection that he felt, the unacceptability he sensed, became welded to the mad acts of terror and the mad motives of the terrorists. Somehow these monsters become heroic as they hurt the world we live in and take for granted. There is some talk that Bishop’s father was Arabic. Perhaps there is a connection of that sort, but it doesn’t matter. The real and deeper connection, the energy that took Charles into that bank in downtown Tampa and gave him the anger to take his own life, was the energy of identification with rejection and bitter anger at the normal world.

I cannot help but think there lurks, well behind the headlines, the familiar scenes of cruelty that I have seen acted out hundreds of times between young people. The odd one, the unusual one, the quiet one, the strange one is singled out and humiliated. Laughed at, made the butt of humor that becomes as familiar as the other sounds of a school day. Perhaps no such bullies existed. But it is hard to believe such terrible despair can invade one with such promise and courage from nowhere. In my experience, there usually is a personification of our wretched cruelty, and schools are full of them.

But Charles did not need to look far to find permission to hate us. In American youth culture, our young people are drowning in a sea of images, lyrics, words and messengers that all say our life in America is rotten. Groups like Staind ring out the message of bitter and victimized youth. Rappers ridicule everything our country and culture holds as good. Hollywood produces virtually nothing but cynical shlock and violent filth. A week of MTV is the dream of any revolutionary wanting to overturn our culture. There are no heroes other than those who despise everything good and decent. But I am more distressed by what all this takes away from our children. Their innocence was taken long ago. Now they are being enlisted in a liberal vision of injustice, victimization, hypocrisy and moral emptiness. The elites of this culture are systematically taking away from our children any reason to dream, and only giving them a reason to steal, riot or party. Or kill themselves and others.

What kind of culture can create a fifteen-year-old pilot who hates himself and us so much he kills himself, and hopes to kill others, as a cry of bitter revenge? What kind of youth culture can, amidst all the patriotism and good-heartedness since 9-11, still feed the self-destructive, revengeful fantasies of Charles Bishop? Before we shake our heads and call this young man sick, we need to look around us with open eyes and open hearts.

It is heartbreaking to think of the thrill that must have accompanied his take-off- his first solo take off. Those moments of freedom before the coast guard helicopter began following him and trying to force him down. Did he forget, for a moment, his note and his plan? Did he remember the dream of flying, and all that it meant about who he was, and could be if he chose? Chances are, he had never learned to land, and he never planned to land anyway. There would be no going back to before all this, only going forward to the end of it.

His name will be remembered only for those words on the note, words associating him with the most evil man of our generation. Perhaps some of us might remember him as he must have thought of himself for a few moments- the Charles Bishop who could fly, and chose to do so.

Uncomfortable in Madison
by Michael Spencer

I am not a conspicuous flag waver. I do not have a flag on my car. My wife finally put a tiny flag on the front porch, but I would probably have waited till July to put a flag up on my own. I don’t dress in red, white and blue every day. I don’t have a flag sewn on to my shirts. I don’t frequent daily demonstrations of patriotism. While I recently purchased a patriotic cap and somewhat patriotic t-shirt, I will wear them only occasionally, not every day.

I will even go a bit further. I hope we don’t become such a nation of fanatical flag-wavers where people who don’t have a flag on the car are turned over to the police as possible terrorists. The school where I work has a considerable number of International students on campus, and I have tried to be sensitive about the amount of flag waving we do. I’ve supported and initiated some patriotic events, but not every day, all the time. When a speaker recently said all other countries were bad and ours is good, I apologized the next day. Our country is great, certainly the best at this point, but many other countries are good, too.

My response to the sudden outburst of flag-enthusiasm in America is two-fold. First, I am glad to see that patriotism is out in the open, particularly at a time when our troops are across the world doing their job. I’m glad we all said the pledge last Friday, and I am glad children are getting to see our nation show its pride in what freedom means and costs.

At the same time, I realize that patriotism is devotion to principle, not symbol. I come from Appalachian mountain people who are not well known for lots of emotional demonstration (except for high school sports) and I prefer to see a person walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Or wear the bumper sticker. As a Christian, my ultimate loyalties are not with America, but I am glad to live here, and the values of our country are honorable and good, worthy of my devotion, appreciation and sacrifice.

Further, my libertarian instincts tell me that mass conformity isn’t what America is all about. I dislike dress codes and national standards. I believe in individuality and freedom from coercion and freedom of conscience. If someone doesn’t want to wear the flag all the time, that doesn’t disqualify them as a patriot or as a good person. I think this country can accommodate people who think we’ve done some terrible things and make lots of mistakes. I wouldn’t execute a flag–burner.

So have I earned my right to call the Madison, Wisconsin Board of Education’s decision to ban the pledge of allegiance to the flag a decision so bad that the the board should, at the very least, resign? Can I say that these pathetically mistaken egghead liberals deserve every reviling, nut case e-mail they will receive? Can I suggest that anyone in charge of a public school system who is this insensitive to the fundamentals of civic life and duty ought to consider a new career, perhaps something on one of the outer planets?

The recent attacks on America produced a momentary euphoria of unity that seems to transfigure all political division. It could not, and should not, last. While the gang at MTV may have a flag in the corner of the screen, they will be back playing Rage Against the Machine in no time. And the liberals who truly dislike American values and prefer some sort of world community multicultural nonsense can’t resist a target as juicy as the pledge to the flag.

We can all write this little drama in advance. Some parent must complain that their child is “uncomfortable” with a forced pledge of allegiance to the flag. A threat from the ACLU is in the mail. (If we have any ordinance left over after Afghanistan, the ACLU really is asking for it.) The board hears from the parents, the child, the lawyers and gives twenty minutes to the rest of the human race. Each one gives a speech about this difficult decision. Someone says that this is what makes America great. And they vote, overwhelmingly, to ban the pledge.

(Just to keep score, they will eventually reverse the decision when it becomes clear that they will no longer be able to show their faces in public without the very real possibility of physical harm from their fellow citizens.)

The tenet of liberalism that says civic life must rise no higher than the comfort level of its least patriotic citizen is pure idiocy. America is about the right to dissent, but it is dissent, not a takeover of the mainstream. We allow the dissenter to dissent in peace, and the rest of us pledge to the flag. Banning the pledge is the sort of cultural self-decapitation liberals love to perform for their imagined audiences. When they sober up, they will realize they’ve wrecked the car and ruined the carpet, damage that patriotic, God-fearing, conservative Americans will clean up. Again.

Teaching civic life and duty is fundamental to education. One of the absolutely worst tendencies tolerated by the public who send their kids to public school is the heinous indoctrination of children in the maniacal stupidities of multi-culturalism. That our children would know more about Kwanzaa than the Constitution is a crime worthy of incarceration. That any child would go through our system and not be taught the fundamental insights of the continuing American revolution is dereliction of duty, incompetence and abuse. Please define “traitor” for me, my egghead school board friend, and tell me you aren’t very close.

The pledge to the flag is a visible participation in the freedom of our nation. It is a recognition of the sacrifices that made America possible. It is a statement of American ideals. In the confession that we are one nation under God, indivisible, we eschew any idea that being hyphenated Americans supercedes our common citizenship. Our pledge to continue an experiment that provides liberty and justice for all is the basis for everything from free enterprise to civil rights and criminal justice. Just exactly what in the pledge makes these people uncomfortable? Is anyone uncomfortable with community leaders who would deny our children the right to commit themselves to the highest virtues and values?

I was born in Wisconsin, but my parents quickly moved to Kentucky, where I have spent all but three of my forty-five years. In the national mind, Wisconsin is a progressive state, with an enviable public education system. In the same public mind, Kentucky is a barefoot backwater that stands proudly above Mississippi and Arkansas in sophistication. Might I suggest that in matters of civic life, the progressives in Madison have made me proud my parents migrated to the Bluegrass. I assure you, that if a Board of Education in our fair Commonwealth banned the pledge of Allegiance, they would be wise to bring the dog in the house.

I would like to issue an invitation to any of the children in the Madison school district to visit our fair state, where we actually have people trying to get the Ten Commandments in the classroom. (Don’t worry, I don’t support it.) As far as I know, we are proudly pledging to the flag, and if it makes anyone uncomfortable, there’s plenty of immigration opportunities in Afghanistan.