Death: The Road That Must Be Traveled
For this boy, coming to terms with death ain’t no easy thing.
by Michael Spencer

Perhaps passing through the gates of death is like passing through the gate in a pasture fence. On the other side, you keep walking, without the need to look back. No shock, no drama, just the lifting of a plank or two in a simple wooden gate in a clearing. Neither pain, nor floods of light, nor great voices, but just the silent crossing of a meadow.

• Mark Helprin, “A Solider In The Great War”

I’ll make it simple: I don’t want to die. I, a Christian, a minister and a person of faith, do not want to die. The thought fills me with fear, and I am ashamed at how little faith I have in the face of what is a universal and uncontrollable human experience.

I’ll die, no matter how I feel about dying, but I’m not at peace with the reality of death right now, and my fear of death is becoming a more frequent visitor to the dark side of my soul. I’ve never been a brave person, but bravery isn’t the issue anymore. It’s acceptance and faith that rests in God, rather than denial, avoidance and the terror of my fears.

Near number one on my list of things I don’t like about Christians is the suggestion I should have a happy and excited attitude about dying. “Uncle Joe got cancer and died in a month. Glory hallelujah. He’s in a better place and if you love the Lord that’s where you want to be right now. When the doctor says your time has come, you ought to shout praises to the Lord.” Or this one. “I’d rather be in heaven. Wouldn’t you? This earth is not my home. I’d rather be with Jesus and Mama and Peter and Abraham than spend one more day in this world of woe.”

Not me. Not by a long shot. I like this world of woe, and I really don’t want to leave it.

My bad attitude hasn’t held me back as a minister. I can do a good funeral. Probably some of my best moments in the pulpit have been talking about heaven and what the Bible says about death. But there always was this one thing: it was the other guy who was dead. Not me. So I automatically had a more positive attitude.

With the arrival of middle age, my fear of death has perched itself on my shoulder like a talking parrot. It waits until every other thought and concern has quieted down, and then it squawks as loudly as possible: “You’re going to die, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It particularly likes to show up when I am going to sleep at night. I’ll say my prayers, begin to doze off, and SQUAWK- “Just a reminder big guy, you’re going to die.” For a few moments, I live in panic, fear and despair.

Call me whatever unspiritual names you like, but I don’t want to die. Everything about me wants to be alive in this world. I don’t want to say good-bye to my wife, children and friends. I don’t want there to be a last sermon, a last day at home, or a last drive in the country. When someone says we were made for heaven, I say “OK, but that’s not the way it seems to me. I appear to be made for living in this body, in this world and enjoying it.” I haven’t heard a prospect for heaven yet that sounds better than eating at my favorite barbecue place, making love, or going to the ball park. (But then I always have a bad attitude at Christian events held in stadiums. The food lines are too long. “Well, in heaven, we won’t eat.” See, here we go again.)

Death is so unwelcome, so final, so alien and so frightening to me that I am afraid to think about it for any extended period of time, and possibly find some remedy for the situation. I’ve never talked to anyone about this fear, more than just mentioning it to my wife. Such a conversation paralyzes me even as I type the possibility. I’ve avoided excellent books by helpful people, because the whole thing just creeps me out and sends me to the pits. I will admit the reason I am writing this essay is so I will have to think about it. I truly want to come to terms with the fact that I am going to die, and I want to find the peace of Christ about dying. But I’m honest–it’s going to be hard. No matter how many other Christians die, and no matter what I say or others say about death when it happens, I am clinging to life on planet earth with both hands and all my strength. I’m a tough case. And I don’t think that I’m alone.

I’ve imagined what a Christian counselor might have to say to me about this problem. He or she might ask when I was first introduced to death. I think my first awareness that people really died was the loss of my grandma’s husband, whom we called Humphrey. We never called him grandpa, because she married him late in life and my mom’s father had died many years before. As long as I knew him, he was a very angry man who had suffered a stroke and couldn’t talk. I was eight when he finally died, and I didn’t want to go to the funeral home. I was taken to the funeral home over many objections and tears, and I vividly remember not wanting to look at the dead body. Finally, my Uncle Bill took me by the hand and walked me up to the casket. It was a frightening moment, and no one said anything to help me understand what had happened.

I was scared for weeks, but I never told anyone. For most of my childhood years, fears of hauntings kept the covers over my head at night. No one knew, and no one noticed. So no one talked with me about it. I remember watching Don Knotts in “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” and I understood perfectly well why he was so terrified of staying in that old mansion. I was often scared in my own room. Death and dead people were scary.

From that time, death was a rare and unscheduled intruder in my otherwise somewhat normal childhood. I came to understand that it occasionally happened to other people, but if I thought about it happening to me, I don’t remember. Aunts, uncles, a man across the street, old people at church, accident victims, celebrities, all those folks in the newspaper every week: that was who died. But it had nothing to do with me. Death wasn’t part of my world.

Many parents will take the death of a pet as the opportunity to talk about death with a child. I had plenty of pets to die, including a favorite dog who was killed right in front of my house, but my parents never talked with me about death, and I must have never asked about such things. I kept my fears to myself, lest I be seen as a sissy or weak and afraid.

Three events brought death much closer to me, but still failed to penetrate my pretended sense of invulnerability. The first was almost drowning in my half-brother’s swimming pool at age 12. I was not a good swimmer, and I found myself in a pool with a sudden drop off instead of a slope. I stepped onto what I thought was solid footing, and instead dropped under the water without a breath. I managed to get my hand above water, and my brother saw the hand and pulled me out of the water before I drowned. I am sure I thought much about death in the aftermath, and this probably contributed to my own profession of faith at age fifteen. It is an event that has haunted me ever since. My brother was busy, and I had no idea he was in the area of the pool. God was certainly watching out for me.

The second event was my dad’s first heart attack, which occurred when I was thirteen. The days in ICU and weeks of recovery brought a constant reminder that my dad might pass away at any time. Dad certainly never let us forget it. I cannot remember what I thought about death during those days, but I am sure I had to consider that it might be about to touch my own family, and even though my dad had been disabled most of my life, it would still be a frightening thought to lose your father.

The third event was the tragic deaths of two close friends from church. One occurred my senior year in high school in a tractor accident, and the other happened during my first year of college when the young man dropped dead during gym class from an aneurysm. Ironically, these were the two boys who taught me to play guitar. Their deaths shook our church and community. I think of them often, and wonder where they are now. I heard a lot of sermons about those boys, but no one ever talked with me about my own feelings about death. I was a Christian by now, and everything was supposed to be all right.

Of course, since those days, I have buried my father (in 1992) and many relatives, friends, church members and strangers. As a minister, I have been with families in the last moments of life. I’ve watched a seventeen-year-old die of cancer. I’ve been with friends as they buried their nine-year-old son. I’ve had two beautiful, wonderful Christian friends take their own lives, and I did the funeral for one of them. I’ve talked with hundreds of students about deaths in their families. If you asked me to preach a series of sermons or teach a Bible study on the topic, I would do well.

None of this has helped. The thought of my own death still paralyzes me.

In 1991, I was in the hospital for some tests on my heart. I’d had an episode of continual skipping heartbeats in the pulpit, and I had to sit down, and eventually take an ambulance ride to Louisville. During the six days I was being tested, a technician viewing the results of a heart scan said I had evidence of scarring on my heart, and surgery seemed inevitable. (It actually turned out to be nothing, and I have been fine ever since, minus caffeine and the pastorate.) When I heard the news of possible surgery, the fear of death quickly reduced me to a mass of sobbing fear and begging prayers. My inability to face death overwhelmed me. With all I believed about God–even at that moment–my own weakness took over my mind and my feelings. I have never been so frightened.

I was 34 at the time, and hardly in the place to become obsessed with my mortality. Now at 46, I am more afraid of death than ever. I’m not sobbing and begging because I don’t let myself think about it, but it’s getting harder to not notice some things.

My body is slipping away from me. It is becoming increasing clear that no matter what I eat or do, my body is falling apart. This won’t just go to a level of dysfunction and stop. It’s going to continue to decline until major parts stop working, and it becomes obvious that death is going to pick one of those faltering parts and finish me off. (Assuming an accident or crime doesn’t get me.)

An intelligent guess, based on family and personal history, is that I stand a better than average chance of dying quickly with a heart attack, or becoming seriously debilitated as a result of a heart attack or stroke. I’ve seen plenty of both, and I’ll take the debilitation as long as I can still get to the ball park and the remote.

I don’t like the feeling that my genetic code, too many pizzas and general attitude have conspired to place a time bomb in me that will kill me whenever it wants to. God’s attitude towards death is way too hands-off, in my opinion. He should get involved to slow things down. My uncle was once told by a doctor that his body was full of aneurysms that could burst at any moment and kill him. He said he’d probably been walking around like that for years. There are some people who get body scans so they can see every possible spot or beginning tumor, and then they will know where the cancer will start. Uhh…No thanks. It seems that all of us should at least be fixable until we just get tired of hanging around. I’ve probably watched too many “Highlander” episodes.

Sometimes it seems that everything conspires to make me face my mortality. Not long ago, I was bombarded with men telling me about their prostate cancer scares. Other times, news about young men dying of colon cancer or leukemia are all I get in my mailbox. The information age is tough on an expert on denial who doesn’t want to think about death at all. I’m too much of a coward to visit Web MD or even get a blood test. I don’t want to walk through the valley of the shadow of death or anywhere near it. I want someone to show me a road around it.

When I read about other people’s lives, my mind and heart tell me that there will almost certainly be the same chapters in my life that are always there in every life: Illness. Suffering. Decline. Hospitalization. Nursing Homes. Death. As I sense that everyone before me, and some around and even behind me, are disappearing off the horizon of life, I have to accept that I am on the same conveyer, taking everyone to a common destination. As undeniable, as simply obvious as this is, I somehow entertain the childish notion that everyone is moving and I am standing still.

To be perfectly frank, I don’t think I am going to resolve this quickly, but I have some thoughts about how I got here and how I might make some progress out of the pit.

I’m very typically human in my fear of death. Of that I am sure. I may not be as good as most people in covering it up, and I may be well behind the curve in accepting reality, but I don’t think there is much unusual in wanting to live, enjoy this world and not die. I don’t feel the least bit bad that I don’t see myself as a “spiritual” creature made to frolic around heaven. I am a creature of my body and senses, and everything in me is naturally calibrated to this world.

Jesus struggled with these same fears of dying in the Garden of Gethsemane, and I am sure he was in a better position than I am to know what death and the life beyond are all about. So I’m not ashamed to be a struggler on the road to death and life.

It’s interesting to me that many atheists and members of other religions have a better attitude toward death than I do. I can’t totally speak for what they are going through inside their own heads, though I suspect many are like me but taking refuge in their own hiding places. What impresses me is how many can laugh, or go peacefully into that good night, apparently without the struggles I see in myself. What is it about me that wants to hold on so much to what no one, ever, anywhere, has been able to hold on to?

I’m a product of a culture that has effectively eliminated death from the menu of reality most of us are confronted with on a daily basis. Death has been moved to the periphery of society or to special facilities where specialists can take care of it for us. Where previous generations and cultures were constantly confronted with deaths in the family and community, and the sudden deaths of the young and the healthy were common, our culture has pushed death out to where we can maintain an illusion of control or invulnerability. Perhaps if I had been brought up in Ireland in the nineteenth century or in Haiti today, I would have come to terms with my own mortality more easily.

One of my memories of my father comes from one of the last times I visited him before he died. It illustrates how removing death to the periphery left me empty and afraid when I needed to be caring and involved. Dad was declining as a result of congestive heart failure. He asked me as I was walking to the car, if I really believed in heaven. He’d always been a deeply committed Christian, and I’d never seen in him any doubts about such things, even when he was most depressed. But with an intuition that death wasn’t far away, he wanted to hear his preacher son say something comforting and reassuring. Somehow my answer felt hollow, because it wasn’t a conversation we’d had before. Always, “everything would be okay.” Death would never really show up. Now, when I should have turned around and talked with dad, I gave a quick answer and got into the car. I’ve relived that moment so many times. Why couldn’t I have spent more time with dad? Why didn’t I want to spend that time? I was doing what our culture tells us to do–put dying people out of sight, and not think about what it all means. That felt right at the time, but not any more.

I’m part of an evangelical church that hasn’t been very helpful. I’ve never heard a sermon on how to die well. Oh I’ve heard about martyrs who desired death and those who accepted death with relish, but these people are so different from me that it annoys me to hear about them. A saint like Jim Elliott, waxing eloquent about his own death, never has worked for me. Such an embracing of death is a grace from God. It’s not something you are going to talk me into easily. Aside from idealizing death, I heard very little that was helpful, and a lot that was harmful.

Years ago, I was forced into attending a prayer meeting led by a religious fanatic who repeatedly said that the key to winning the lost was telling the Lord that he could kill you if that was what it took for a person to come to Christ. The speaker used an illustration of a vision of his own grave opening up (and later the grave of his son) and God asking if he were willing to die (or for his son to die) for others to come to Christ? I clearly recall wishing I could do anything to leave the room, because nothing in me was anywhere near the same page as this guy. I have a similar problem with some of my favorite preachers, including Dr. John Piper. Their constant insistence that I love the idea of dying has not found a good place to take root in my mind or emotions.

On the other hand, I also have to say that I’ve never been part of a church where the elders would stand up and say it was OK to die, and OK to pray that someone would die. We were always praying that people would be healed or that a miracle would occur, even when such a healing was unlikely and evidently not on God’s agenda. We still assumed that the will of the Lord was a special healing for everyone, and that death should be avoided at all costs. It sounded good to me, and as a result, I can say I have never, in the preaching or praying of the churches that formed me, heard anything that realistically helped me come to terms with the fact that I will one day die. That’s affected how I deal with dying people. It’s made me pray a lot of unhelpful prayers and say a lot of useless things.

Is this an “idolatry of life?” Is it part of the reason my natural tendency to fight any acceptance of death with everything in me has, at least to this point, won out over my acceptance of the truth of my own death and the promises of eternal life that should comfort me?

Some of my problem comes from the way heaven has been presented to me. I have no gripe with heaven, and I certainly prefer it to any of the other options, but heaven is often presented as one of the cheesiest doctrines in evangelical Christianity. My atheist brother once asked me why anyone would want to live forever. He was, no doubt, not thinking about exploring the majesty of God like an explorer explores an endless sea, but was thinking about the endless church services and church picnics that seem to populate evangelicalism’s version of the great beyond.

I can’t imagine anything about the next world that isn’t an echo of this world. Hear that? I can’t imagine anything about “heaven” that doesn’t somehow depend on a comparison to this wonderful world of ours. The Bible is no help at this point, because almost everything it has to say about heaven is an amplification or a comparison of earth. Otherwise, you get this: 1 Corinthians 2:9 “But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen and no ear has heard nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.” I believe it, and it sounds great. I just don’t know what it means.

I live in an area of America–Appalachia–where people sing and talk about heaven as if it has an Internet site with virtual cams everywhere. We constantly hear about mansions, and there are letters in the local newspaper from people in heaven. That’s right. Dead people write letters from heaven on the anniversary of their passing and they are published in our local paper. So far, we haven’t gotten in letters from the other place, which I guess is a good thing. But maybe the mail just isn’t running from there. All in all, I haven’t read anything that’s helping me.

I have to admit that this kind of talk about heaven makes me not want to go. I mean, a short visit to golden streets would be nice, but like having to live in Disney World, it would eventually get boring. The light of the city, as I understand it, is the Lamb. They will see His face, and that is the treasure of heaven. Everything else is just window dressing.

I’ve never heard clear and helpful teaching on the resurrection and the resurrected life. With all the emphasis on what’s happening after the Left Behind series is over, it seems odd that the vast majority of Christians know nothing about the resurrection and the resurrected life. Heaven is a cloudy wonderland of people in white singing lots of worship choruses over and over. I have a feeling that if I would have heard more of the very “earthy” visions of the Old Covenant prophets rather than so much of the book of Revelation, I might have a better hope and an easier time facing my death….and resurrection.

The Old Testament is full of incredible pictures of a restored earth and the life of those who live upon it. I would like to hear less about the rapture and more about the resurrection to a new heaven and a new earth. There is no doubt that God made me to dwell upon the earth. The more I hear about a “spiritual” heaven, the less able I am to face death as I should. I want to come to my death knowing that the best is yet to come. A big Promise Keeper’s meeting won’t work. (Even if Jesus is the speaker.)

How am I going to fight the fight to accept my own death? I haven’t finished the plan, but I’ve made a start.

I want to get closer to people who are dying well. My mom is 82, a brave soul and at peace. I want to learn from her. I want to learn from fellow saints and those who recorded their thoughts and conversations as they took the final journey or watched those they love die well. (Book recommendations are welcome.) Ecclesiastes 7:4 “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

I want to read helpful, faith-building books about heaven. I gained more from C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle than every Gospel song about heaven I’ve ever heard. I know that Peter Kreeft has written helpfully on this subject, and I need to begin reading these and other books that will drive out some of my fears and create an anticipation of a world of love beyond death.

I need a hero who has walked this path and shown no fear. My friend Jim is an example. He has buried a wife. He has survived open heart surgery. He is a faithful, joyful and ever learning Christian. I can cut up with him like he was in his twenties rather than in his seventies. He has faced death and retained not only humor, but a treasury of compassion for others. It is Jim and his wife who will be found visiting the hurting and the grieving in our community. Their “retirement” is not travel and shopping, but visiting and praying, ministering in the name of Jesus. All things being normal, Jim will get home before I do, and I plan to watch him closely all the way. What I don’t yet have in my life, he has in abundance, and I home some of that joy in the face of death is contagious.

I need to let death be my teacher. Many years ago, I preached a funeral sermon by that title, and I knew then and now that I was not much of a student. I don’t even want to go to class. I will preach a last sermon. Have a last year with my wife. I will have a last embrace from my children. I will not hang around long enough to get it all right. I’ll not make up for my sins, or likely learn how to succeed, become successful and rich. I have used up a lot of what I’ve been given. God will give me as many days as he has for me, but there are a determined number of them and then it’s over. Once I can accept this, my life will be better. Every sermon, kiss, ball game and pizza will be better, and I will be happier.

Part of the lesson is to treasure the opportunities that I have as gifts God is graciously giving to me . I could be the one dead in an accident or from cancer. But I’m not. I am alive and given today to live, enjoy my life and delight in the God who loves me. I must learn that the day of death will also be a gift…a way into the house of the Lord for even more delights. That this is hard to believe is not really my fault, and I believe God will give me the grace I need for the exit ramp when the exit ramp arrives, and not before.

I need to talk about death with others. I’ve been afraid to plan my funeral or even mention my death to my children. I must change. A few months ago, I met a fellow on the Internet named Chris. He was a pastor who just took a new church and he was excited about his ministry. Six months later he was dead of leukemia. I’ve seen this before. I have seen it enough to know I should be talking about what death means in my life. What do I want my wife and children to remember? What do I want my legacy to be? What am I unwilling to leave uncompleted? Can I say, with confidence, that I haven’t wasted my life? Am I still dreaming enough to know what I want to be doing when the time comes and God says, “Okay. That’s enough for you?” Silence won’t help me achieve these things. Part of my cowardly, begging tears in the hospital was the knowledge that I hadn’t lived well, but poorly in so many ways.

There are two passages of scripture that I am holding on to these days. The first is John 11:24-27. Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

I am thoroughly banking on what Jesus meant when he spoke these words to people who had buried their brother four days previous. The Gospel makes it clear that Jesus’ raising of this man was a miracle of incomprehensible, undeniable and world-shaking implications. But it wasn’t this miracle that was so stunning; it wasn’t only these audacious words of Jesus; it was Jesus himself. These are words that confidently speak of his victory over death and his sovereignty over all its many details. I am going to fight to believe that Jesus is speaking to me as surely as he spoke to Lazarus, and I have nothing to fear from death as long as he is the master of it.

The other scripture is a simple citation from Genesis 5 that will need some explanation. Genesis 5:24 “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”

Every year when I teach Genesis, I stress that the Bible is giving us important messages in these first few chapters, and we should stay aware of the themes that progress through the book. One of those themes is the entrance and universality of death. God creates a world without death, then warns Adam that the day he eats, he will die. They eat, and death enters the picture. Its progress is relentless and unstoppable. Even the long lifelines of the patriarchs cannot outrun the judgment of God. Over and over, we hear the names, and those hundreds and hundreds of years, followed by the same end….”and he died.”

The point is that death is the enemy no one can outlast or outrun. Death is eating away at the fabric of the world God has made, both inside and outside these human beings made in God’s image. There are no exceptions, right? Well, there was Enoch.

We know two important things about Enoch. One is that he “walked with God.” Given what we know in the first few chapters of Genesis (and certainly what we know from the rest of the Bible) this is a way of saying Enoch was a man of faith. I don’t know who else in these early chapters of Genesis had faith that God recognized and honored, but Abel and Enoch certainly are singled out as persons of faith, the quality God is looking for in each one of us.

The other fact is that Enoch is not in the list of those who died. Instead, the scripture cryptically says “and he was not, for God took him.” What does this mean? I do not know. What I believe is that it is the writer’s way of saying Enoch’s faith caused him to experience death, not like other men, but as “God took him.”

Just reading that sentence–among the plainest in all the Bible–is enough for me. It is enough for me to believe that God takes those who have faith. Someone once said that the Christian does not see death as the triumph of death, but as the giving way of death to life. In the final moments, this world must release its deadly hold, and eternal life takes control entirely. For the faithful, death is not an ending, but a birth.

It is as if we were observers in the womb, and as the child vanishes from our sight, we say, “he was not, for someone took him.” In the same way, scripture seems to be saying the Enoch’s passing was different. The details don’t matter at all. What matters is that death didn’t take him. Death only brought him to a point, and from there, God took him.

In my own struggle to accept where my life is going, this is the best promise so far. If I can hold on to the promise that God will take me, then I believe I will want to be nowhere else.

He Found It
The press keeps a straight face for the Howard Dean Tent Revival.
by Michael Spencer

I really can’t blame Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean for talking about religion, even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s been proven that the public will pay attention to what politicians say about religion in far greater numbers than if the same politician talks about immigration, gas taxes, or nuclear proliferation. It may be “the economy, stupid”, but we can’t look away from politicians yammering about God. Even though the religion of politicians is notoriously uh…pragmatic, the media remains convinced that what Howard Dean says about religion is somehow worth barrels of ink. In other words, it gets attention, and there is hardly any such thing as bad publicity.

Dean started by saying that we needed to quit making political decisions based on issues like the flag, guns, and God. Now he’s announced that he is a believer in Jesus and his faith in God influences all of his public policy, especially anything controversial, like gay marriage or bike paths on church property. I think one is entitled to wonder if Dean is aware of how loopy this sudden press-release of a conversion sounds. Even in a country where John Edwards (the psychic), Benny Hinn, and Oprah Winfrey could lead a prayer meeting together in most churches, Dean’s discovery of religion sounds fabricated.

Don’t expect the media to blow the whistle on this one, because America’s press watchdogs have never left much doubt that they understand less about religion than the five-year-olds at the Unitarian Vacation Church School. Being an ignoramus on religion is a prerequisite to writing about it in any major publication. Every few years, reporters from the coasts venture on safari into the heartland and discover that not only are there people really inside those churches, but they actually BELIEVE that God stuff. So don’t expect anyone to say something obvious, like Dean is pimping for votes. It’s over their heads.

The media believes there are two kinds of populist religion in America: regressive, oppressive, evil fundamentalism, and progressive, politically aware, enlightened liberalism. Anyone who opens his mouth and says, “God bless you” will be analyzed through these two grids, and his statements placed into evidence that he is either Torquemada or Ghandi. The category of “ignorant pandering attention seeker who doesn’t know what he’s talking about” doesn’t really exist in America’s press rooms.

Somewhere along the line, Howard Dean was convinced–I tend to doubt that it was his own idea–that there was in the hearts of millions of independent voters a great, untapped reservoir of goodwill toward the progressive, liberal religious tradition of the mainline churches. These voters, ever leaning toward the possiblity of voting for George Bush because of his consistent courage, evident simplicity, and heart-on-his-sleeve integrity and zeal, nonetheless were not really convinced religous and politcal right-wingers. They could be swayed with an appeal to the progressivism of the American tradition, particularly of the Civil Rights Era. So Howard needed to get religion before it was too late.

So, counter-balancing his previous content of anger, fear, and conspiracy theories, Dean offered up a unique approach to religion in American politics. He announced matter-of-factly that when in the south, he would openly speak about how his religious faith was important to him, and especially about how it led him to support anything that brought justice and government intervention to the causes that mattered. When in the north, Dean said he would only hold press conferences announcing that he would talk about religion in the south.

Along the way, Dean seasoned his religious emphasis with some other interesting personal notes. We learned that he had been brought up Catholic, later abandoned an Episcopal church over the issue of a public bike trail, and then became a non-attending member of the Congregational Church. His children elected to become Jewish. We also learned that Dean’s faith was a crucial part of his crusade for gay marriage in Vermont, a crusade that consisted of Dean signing the legislation in total darkness locked in his office with the press sequestered in a warehouse, pondering what the Governor meant when he said “I’m uncomfortable with it.”

We learned that if God thought homosexuality was a sin, he wouldn’t have made homosexuals. I’ve spent some time contemplating this line of reasoning and it’s very interesting. If God thought stealing was a sin, He wouldn’t have made thieves. If God thought adultery was a sin, he wouldn’t have made Bill Clinton. If God thought lying was a sin, he wouldn’t have made Michael Moore. Once we assume that anything that humans do, they do as a result of God making them that way, we are truly ready for a long overdue group hug.

And of course, we learned that when you know the Bible as well as the Governor does, Job will be your favorite New Testament book. Whether this depends on what region of the country one is in was not revealed.

Now, Dean’s sudden lurch toward religiosity was so awkward and intentional that the blogosphere took notice, writing columns wondering if the doctor was taking his own prescriptions. But the usual press sycophants never blinked, even as Evangelicals, not hearing anything recognizable at a Billy Graham crusade or a TBN fund raiser, alternately ignored and ridiculed Dean’s appropriation of Jesus as chairperson of his southern campaign committee. Note to the press: keep your eye on the people who ought to know if the man is genuine. They’re sleeping or laughing.

In all of this, little revealing or shocking has surfaced. We will see if Governor Dean is right that millions of pro-Oprah Americans are looking for a way to avoid voting for President Bush. I am almost certain that Dean is wrong, and that once he has exhausted the NPR Democrats, the College Democrats, the Black Democrats and the angry, tin-foil-hat-wearing Art Bell fans, he will find no significant numbers of independent voters looking to buy his Vermont-as-America November ’04 vacation.

What we will discover is that liberal Democrats are, as usual, completely hypocritical on the subject of religion. If President Bush calls a press conference and announces that God is his inspiration for his political policies, and that in particular, he believes he knows what Jesus wants him to do on issues of national importance, the Democratic, liberal establishment will become a Tasmanian Devil of over-reaction. Bush will be Bin Laden. Republicans who support him are the Taliban. The sympathetic Christians will play the role of theocratic zealots. Liberal message boards will light up with dire predictions of The Handmaiden’s Tale come to pass.

But when President Clinton preached in Black churches, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. When he carried a Bible to church every Sunday and waved it for the cameras, no one could question Clinton’s evangelical sincerity. When he spoke of his indiscretions before the National Prayer breakfast, it was better than the Prodigal Son. When he brought in three ministers to help him keep his marriage, integrity, and pants up, it was considered a hallmark of his deep spiritual commitment.

We won’t even talk about the constant congratulatory fawn-fest that is Jimmy Carter, who qualifies as the only Southern Baptist most liberals would ever be photgraphed with.

The reason, of course, is that liberal Christian politicians are dedicated to the intrusive, big government, liberal policies that liberals love. They stand for progressive policies like lots of abortion, lots of taxes, and lots of discrimination based on skin color, at least in universities. Whichever and whatever religious veneer supports the true religion of liberal progressivism is always assumed to be the good Word pouring from the mouth of the Almighty, no matter how far south of scripture it actually flies.

But liberal Democrats believe that Republican Christians are racist capitalists planning to pollute the air and water, then retire to an all white country club in Vale while mammoth corporations turn the world into something like the machine city in the Matrix. Muhahahaha!! Whatever religion they profess–even if it is Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse feeding hungry Muslims or President Bush sobering up after a conversation with Billy Graham–is really just a front for oppressing the poor and paving paradise to put up a parking lot.

The media doesn’t understand religion but it understands politics, so Dean’s ham-handed religious pronouncements will be played and printed with dignity and seriousness. Meanwhile, when President Bush says, “God Bless America,” The DNC sends out a 12-page talking-point memo on the separation of church and state.

Hypocrisy? John Derbyshire said it well: Can you imagine what the press would have said if Dan Quayle had said Job was his favorite New Testament book? AFTER saying he knew the Bible well?

The fact is the left-leaning press is under the gun. They have to find a way to take Howard Dean seriously. All the evidence that Dean makes George Bush look more and more like George Washington every day isn’t easy to handle. That the Democrats are going to nominate Dean–a man no American off of drugs really wants to be near the nuclear codes–rather than Joe Lieberman or Richard Gephardt is distressing. I almost have sympathy for Kerry, Gephardt, and company as they watch the little tea pot blowing steam every week, to the increasing applause of the chattering class. I know the girls all look prettier at closing time, but is it really that late?

Perhaps Democrats have simply decided that ’04 is already in the tank for their side, and Dean is the ideal man to take the fall. Has there ever been a candidate more suited to lose a major election? Has anyone ever had “scapegoat” tattooed more prominently on his backside? I think not. Howard Dean and his Deaniacs are going to lose the election, take the total blame, and clear the way for the triumphant ascension of Hillary Rodham Clinton to challenge some poor Republican for the White House in ’08.

I’m not worried about Dean, however. I know his faith will get him through, no matter what happens. As long as he settles south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Sex in Dangerous Places
A letter of advice about sex and the single Christian guy.
by Michael Spencer

Dear Thomas,

Thanks for your letter. Has it really been years? Perhaps I should just admit that I am a very poor correspondent, and not act like I didn’t know I have neglected our friendship. I hope your letter to me was forgiveness in advance. It really is good to hear from you, and yes, I will be happy to give you some advice on this matter of being a sexually pure single Christian.

When I was your youth minister, all those many years ago, we probably did all the usual evangelical Bible studies and “talks” about sex. It always struck me as strange that every lesson sounded as if the students really wanted advice. I’ve since learned that hardly anyone is looking for advice. Instead, we want to know that we aren’t alone in our humanity, struggles, mistakes and longings. In that regard, I can fully assure you now that you are almost a decade further down the road all men travel, you need not fear being alone. We’ve all made this journey, with a remarkable similarity in our stories.

The questions you have now all share one larger question in common: “How does a Christian man live faithfully and obediently with his sexuality?” Your situation in regard to the woman you have started dating is premised on what you have learned about yourself in other settings, and the questions you are now asking are, in all likelihood, questions you never would have asked when the answers might have been all around you. It’s unfortunate that so much of what the church tries to do to promote discipleship is purely rational, and not existential, realistic and relational. My best teachable moments have been when I awakened in the mud and pig slop, not sitting in a classroom or a sanctuary. My best teachers have been men who failed, not those handing me a worksheet.

Let me start by setting a framework for the entire subject; a framework that is often neglected. We have God entirely to blame for being sexual beings. Not for being sexual sinners, but for being sexual in the first place…it is entirely His fault, and He should be made entirely responsible. (I don’t think He minds at all. It is one of His better inventions.) I think we can quickly shed a lot of our reticence in prayer and accountability if we accept this. We could be amoebas or plants. Nature seems to teach us that God had a number of templates in the toolbox, and He chose to go with this one. Don’t let Him off the hook.

The framework, however, goes beyond just whose initials are on the biology. I think we have to also see that scripture continually says that sexuality isn’t just sexuality. It is an aspect of our humanity that is most similar to the intimacy of love within God the Trinity, the highest levels of love within the creation, (i.e. marriage,) and the love we see and experience in Jesus Christ. What we have in our sexuality is, in some way, a connection to the experience of Divine love itself. I admit that when one thinks of male sexuality in our own culture, this is hardly what immediately comes to mind. One could easily conclude that male sexuality is a universe away from the higher kinds of love.

But this simply isn’t true. Male sexuality is the often choice of scriptural language to describe what is beautiful and wonderful. For example,

John 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

I Peter 1:23 …Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

I John 2:9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

Ephesians 5:28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 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.
I don’t want to force these passages into my cause, but I want to say that God Himself uses the language of male sexuality in a way that ought to remind us that while sin has certainly corrupted what God made, our sexuality was designed in such a way that to know it was to, in some way, know God Himself. It is, indeed, the holiness of all sexuality as it resides in every part of us that we must recover in the Christian journey. We are created and remain holy to this extent: we are vessels in which the creator of the universe placed a window into His own nature and passion. Therefore, we must respect male sexuality, and not despise it, but treat it as a holy thing, not a dirty or demonic thing.

Why do we need this framework? Well, if you haven’t noticed, the church has become so strangely feminized and so fearful of sexuality that men are practically told that only a complete denial of their sexuality will do in the Christian life. When Jesus Christ Superstar hinted that Jesus might have been- in any remote way- a man with normal sexual feelings towards women- you could hear the howling well past Jupiter. Of course, the incarnation absolutely means Jesus was fully human and sexual, and he was “tested/tempted” in every way like the rest of us, though without a fallen nature. Sometime, take a moment and consider what that meant. It won’t be making it into this year’s Easter play at church.

In fact, it is rather amazing to me how many people feel that if Jesus had been married with children, he could not have been our savior. This is absurd. Marriage and sexuality are the creation order, and if Jesus had chosen to be a husband and father, it would make absolutely no difference in his incarnation or our salvation in him. Frankly, sometimes I think it would have saved us all a lot of trouble. I’m sure several million Roman Catholics think so.

The view of male sexuality in evangelicalism today can basically be described as the virtue of choosing to act as if you are castrated…at least until you are married, at which point you are free to populate a small village. This sort of caricature isn’t very far from reality. Most evangelical Christians simply can’t stand the thought of an honest discussion of the single male sexual experience. I’ve tried, and the results are predictably disastrous.

For instance, I’ve endlessly heard the sage advice that if a man looks at a woman in any way that might notice her sexuality, he has automatically sinned. That’s ridiculous, and is not what Jesus said. Now let me be clear: A man can most certainly look at a woman and sin, but looking at a woman is not a sin. There are both wrong and right ways to look and think about a female person. Looking at a woman and saying she is attractive- which includes her sexuality- is not a sin, unless I misunderstand everything about creation and must deem all such observations as “lust.” If the burka is the actual Christian preference on proper female attire, I’d like to know, because I am thoroughly convinced that gratefully acknowledging the basic sexuality of every person is part of respecting them as a human being, and acknowledging that sexuality is a component of every woman I interact with is a highly useful piece of information in keeping myself from acting like a fool.

(On the subject of looking at pictures, rather than at persons, I’ll have more to say later. For the moment, just mark that it we are talking about two very different matters, with considerably different considerations. And ladies, provocative unveiling of the body to draw undue attention to sexual aspects of yourself is another issue for another time.)

This is the problem of saying “pure, Christian thoughts must equal non-sexual thoughts.” It is simply wrong. Pure thoughts are God’s thoughts about sex. Right thoughts about sex. Consider Sally, an attractive potential new friend. Sally is God’s creation. Sally is a beautiful person because God makes us capable of beauty in form and presentation. Recognizing such beauty is a way of seeing God’s creative signature and appreciating someone’s uniqueness. Sally is also a sexual person, because God made her so in his own image and to deny that- or to isolate it from the rest of her humanity- is a completely wrong way to think of her, with its own attendant problems. Sally minus her sexuality isn’t Sally.

Remember, we are not even considering whether a man will think about sex. He will, and we all know this. Adam thought of sex when he first saw Eve, and it was entirely right. He thought God-glorifying thoughts with God-glorifying results.

Now back to Sally. At this point of recognizing sexuality and attractiveness, a man has some choices, and of course, we all have a sinful nature to be reckoned into the picture. A man may say, “I want to have sex with Sally.” That we think like this is an all too familiar fact. In my opinion, this is really the universal post-fall starting place, and is not the conclusion of the matter. Now we are deciding what to do with those sexual thoughts; where to take the “train of thought” that has appeared. In other words, sexual thoughts are always going somewhere, and I prefer we talk about the direction/destination of those thoughts rather than lead people to think they can be entirely free of sexual thoughts. Men think sexual thoughts. Accept it. Now where will those thoughts go? The idea that men can be somehow trained to have no sexual thoughts is really saying we ought to teach Christians to become more effective liars.

What about this: “I want to have sex with Sally…..now, and I will pursue that purpose?” This is certainly wrong. “I want to think about having sex with Sally…now, as a fantasy, though I won’t pursue her.” This is also wrong, though admittedly a different kind of matter in its consequences outside of ourselves. What about “I want to establish a relationship with Sally that treats her as a person made in God’s image, and in that relationship, delight in her as God has made her and within God’s commandments, which includes thinking rightly about sex.” This isn’t wrong at all, and it is warped to say that it is. Eventually, one might even say, “I want to think about having sex, within marriage, with Sally, whom I desire to marry.” Not only is this- in the proper context- right, it’s so fundamentally healthy that to think otherwise is to be perverse. If my son told me he tried to not think about sex with his future wife, I would be very concerned.

I think the best Christian women are aware that a man who claims to have no sexual thoughts is either dishonest, pandering or deeply flawed. A man who can say, “Yes, I have sexual thoughts, but I am continually seek to submit them in honor to God, and to treat you with thoughts and actions that are holy and loving,” should have the respect and appreciation of a Christian woman who values honesty and reality.

But the objection arrives: “You are saying that all a man needs to do is fantasize about having married sex with an attractive woman, and it’s OK.” Here is the kind of short-cut that our sinful nature specializes in creating. The problem here is two-fold. One is that such an “on paper” excuse doesn’t pass muster with an omniscient and holy God. It’s simply a disguise for lust- which is always wrong- and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Secondly, while I will discuss the subject of male fantasy in a moment, it is enough to say that this is isolating sexuality from humanity and pursuing sex apart from persons in a way that betrays the corruption of our sexual nature. Any Christian who claims this as a guilt-free “escape hatch” has a strange notion of bringing every thought into captivity to Christ, and is simply lying about words like “honor,” “respect” and “holiness.”

So, the default position in evangelicalism is “men shouldn’t think about sex.” My contention is that the Biblical position is “think about sex rightly” and to direct sexual thoughts towards honorable, God-honoring ends.

So, now we have a framework for your questions, and I can get down to specifics. In order to address your concerns directly, I want to draw a map. We must journey through four terrains in our journey. All are dangerous, in their own way. Each one of these terrains demands a serious consideration of our sexuality. These four are: the sex we think about in our minds, the pursuit of women in general, the dangers of a woman who is willing to have sex with us right now, and, of course, sex within marriage itself. These will make more sense as we go along.

First of all, the majority of a man’s sexual existence takes place in his own mind, and no where else. If one is a Christian, there will be a strong and serious concern for the life of the mind, and an understanding that mind and heart are the soil where good and/or bad fruit will grow. I am constantly amazed at how my own sexual struggles and sins are basically outgrowths of an undisciplined approach to my own thoughts as a young man. Things I saw as a very young boy have affected my thoughts my entire life. The mind of a young man is powerful hothouse of sexual imagery and feeling.

We must be honest. Male sexual response is overwhelmingly visually triggered. It is a mistake to think that male sexuality is entirely about what a man sees, but we cannot deny what a large part this plays in our lives. Pornography is a visual appeal to the fallen sexual nature of the mind, a promise that sexual fulfillment will be found in viewing, fantasizing and masturbating. The spiritual warfare that occurs around this fact is crucial to recognize throughout the male journey. Most boys develop an interest in the visual female form in preadolescence, and then later on discover the powerful impression images can leave on the mind. I don’t think we ever change much in this respect.

Visual sex is easy. Cheap. Without relationships. Utterly false in its presentation of everything about sex and the humans who are sexual. Yet, visual imagery is powerfully addictive, and for fallen males, powerfully seductive. The short route to some kind of psuedo-fulfillment through pornography and masturbation can become a lifelong pattern. With the internet, it isn’t even a lot of trouble.

There is no simple solution to this dilemma. The obvious route of self-denial is oft-traveled and frequently failed. Spiritual solutions must be appreciated, particularly accountability, honesty and prayer. But these are hardly foolproof, to say the least. I cannot counsel anything more essential than this: We must add to our thinking every ounce of truth about pornography and other visual appeals to our sexuality as we can. We must understand the falsity of the presentation. The insult to ourselves and women in general. We must understand the betrayal of all that is highest and best in human life. The criminality and vileness that produces it. We must develop a sense of revulsion and waste- particularly waste- for those moments spent in visual fantasy.

And beyond this, we need to grow in that dimension of morality that is captured by the “beauty of holiness.” Pornography is a distortion and degrading of true female sexual beauty with the ugliness of lies. It is not guilt or fear, but love- particularly the love of beauty and the love of God’s beauty in sexuality- that will drain pornography of its appeal. What is presented in pornography is truly, vilely offensive, and it is our sanctified and redeemed aesthetic sensibilities that must finally outweigh our fallen curiosity. In other words, we must not just be offended and revolted; we must be bored.

Second, a man will, at some time in his life, pursue relationships with women in which some sexual expression will be a possible goal of that pursuit. Now, I say this without a lot of Christian adjectives, though quite obviously, this is meant to be a holy, God-honoring pursuit, ending in an honorable and holy union. In actual fact, we all know it is a clumsy business that is not always marriage-destined, encompassing everything from high school first kisses to questions of intimacy the day before the wedding.

God made us to pursue the woman we love, and we practice that pursuit with all the women we date. That ultimate pursuit of our spouse is a winning, a conquest, a journey towards trust and sharing. Because we are fallen creations, often those preliminary pursuits give enormous evidence of our corruption, as we pursue sexual gratification, not friendship or anything noble. This is a game Christian single men are very good at playing.

Here in these relationships, a man is confronted with how his thoughts will influence his behavior. As I said earlier, our sexual thoughts are going in some direction. Our behavior with women will reveal how effectively we are disciplining and channeling our thoughts in the right direction. Of course, it is entirely possible to have a wretched thought life and behave honorably, but for most of us, wrong thoughts will reveal themselves in wrong actions.

This is why it is of real importance that a man seek to understand women as God made them and on their own terms, and not simply rely on his own thoughts and assumptions, especially if those have been shaped by culture, media or pornography. When I meet a Christian young man who has ruined a relationship, acted poorly or gotten himself into trouble by his behavior, there is a very similar pattern of acting on wrong thoughts, and pursuing the physical aspect of a relationship on his own narrowly focused terms. I cannot counsel this strongly enough: treat the women you know and date with Biblical, Christ-like wisdom, honor, kindness, deference and restraint. Do not give yourself permission to cross obvious lines based on your feelings. They are utterly undependable.

On the other hand, I want to tell you that I am amused at the evangelical trend towards no physical interaction whatsoever in dating relationships: no holding hands, no hugs, no kissing, etc. until marriage. I respect anyone’s choices, but I find this whole program absurd and insulting. I’m not about to tell someone these sorts of experiments are wrong, any more than I am going to say they are necessary. I would suggest that such an approach betrays a remarkably fearful attitude towards sexuality and total pessimism towards our own ability to shape behavior. (I tend to think that some of have promoted them have possibly reconsidered their Biblical basis and spiritual value.)

The reason a couple disintegrates a relationship from visiting friends and reading to one another into rolling around naked in bed isn’t because sex is so powerful no one can resist its urges. Don’t believe that for a moment. It’s because the couple made a decision- most likely a fully aware decision- to cross reasonable lines and excuse themselves as “weak” and carried away. They are fools, and we don’t have to live like fools, though all of us will. I’m far less inclined to say anyone is “weak,” and more inclined to say they are “doing exactly what they’ve given themselves permission to do.”

I will tell you honestly that there is nothing you will regret more in your life than those times you have pursued what was wrong or pursued a good person in a caddish, stupid, self-centered way. You will not look on those times fondly, even if, at the time, they brought you great pleasure. The advantage of being a little older is to know the revulsion one feels at the prospect of having to face women I once dated and treated poorly. I look back at my younger self, and while I am forgiving, I’m also embarrassed and horrified. Don’t go there.

The third stop on our map is the most dangerous of all. At some point in your life, you will meet a woman who is, or can be made to be, willing to do whatever you would like sexually. (In the current culture, such women are plentiful, and are more and more brash. Note Sex in the City.) The danger here can’t be exaggerated. Male sexuality is best suited for pursuit, and we really become our best selves when we shape our pursuit over the long term by being denied easy access to easy sexual “rewards.” When the whole project is handed to us free, something is obviously wrong. When the necessity of Godly pursuit is removed, and sex is immediately available, a man can lose his rationality entirely, and become completely animalistic.

I am convinced that the danger of the adulterous woman in Proverbs is precisely at this point. She offers the young man immediate sex without restraint, pursuit or any concern for consequences. Yes, her husband may kill him, but right now the young man has become like a senseless beast. In this state, we can become the slaves of our own sexual desires, and lose contact with the “real world” of consequences. I can say with terrible certainty that this is true, and I have seen men lose lifetimes of relationships, reputation and self-worth, all for the immediacy of sex. In the cold aftermath, things look quite different, and I am not surprised that some Christian men speak as if they were possessed by the devil. In fact, they gave themselves over to that part of themselves that should never have unrestrained access to gratification.

How does a man know he has found such a person? I suppose the bad news is that it is generally easy to discern, and then the matter really becomes if a man has the courage to do what must be done: abandon the relationship immediately. Do not go into some fantasy of rescuing the good and avoiding the bad. End it, turn around and don’t look back. You may look bad. You may be talked about. You may appear to be a jerk. Don’t worry about those things. You are quite possibly saving yourself from personal disaster or unmeasured proportions. A woman who easily gives herself to your immediate sexual desires is not the woman you should be with. If you can’t be trusted to discern this on your own, then have someone in your life who can discern such a situation because they have permission to ask you the tough questions.

On the subject of sex and marriage…..I think we need another letter! Enough today. Ponder what I have said, and consider your own situation in the light of what I have shared.

I am sure you won’t be shocked to know I’ve gotten a lot of questions about sex from guys down through the years. One thing I wanted to say was “please have a sense of humor.” We are so serious about something that we need to stop and laugh at much more often. There is a lot of comedy here, and considering how often we are going to fall short of whatever God had in mind, we will need to season our repentance with as much humility and self-deprecation as possible. Pray. Be accountable. Be serious. Be disciplined, but laugh. Forgive yourself. Every sexual addict I have met gave sex all the devotion of religion. I think that is a terrible idea. Laugh at yourself and your situation, before and after shedding some tears. Seek the clarity that will help you see the boundaries and the journey without sentimentality or distortion.

Men talk a lot about sex, but almost all of it is worthless chatter. I hope this letter is the exception to that pattern. It was wonderful to hear from you, and I hope we can continue the correspondence in the future. Send me your thoughts, questions and reactions. I am eager to hear from you.

Peace,

Michael

Lessons of the Gladiator
by Michael Spencer

Stock car racing is one of those gems of America’s heartland that must be a complete puzzle to the coastal cultural gatekeepers. With its roots in running moonshine and it’s heroes being very blue-collar, non-PBS types, it surely seems a very bizarre universe of grown men acting like teenagers and hillbillies cheering cars driving in a circle, albeit very fast.

The death of Dale Earnhardt has made the media look at what has become a uniquely American success story. NASCAR now makes other professional sports organizations take notice, winning new fans week by week and adding corporate sponsors that will never touch Major league baseball, the NBA or NFL. Earnhardt was one of a few NASCAR drivers who took their sport to a level undreamed of even twenty years ago.

NASCAR’s appeal has never been a mystery to those who follow the sport. (Interesting how many media types now admit they are NASCAR and Earnhardt fans, often as a family affair.) Cutting-edge technology combined with life-and-death competition; the American love affair with the automobile; raw competition, and, more recently, the emergence of the driver as a sports superstar and American icon. In the transition from backwater sport to cultural and economic force, Earnhardt was the epitome of all that NASCAR has achieved.

The media, such as TIME Magazine, has done an outstanding job of chronicling Earnhardt’s career and place in NASCAR’s success, but I haven’t seen anyone note that Dale Earnhardt was a uniquely American success story and a lesson in American values. Particularly, the values that liberals love to hate.

Earnhardt would never have showed up on the Rosie O’Donell Show. On his way up through the ranks of NASCAR, he earned his nickname of “Intimidator.” Earnhardt was rowdy, unsophisticated and untamed. More than one eulogy has mentioned that Earnhardt seemed a throwback to NASCAR’s days of moonshine running and illegal competition. When he died, Earnhardt’s critics were still after him, showing that he inspired as much animosity as loyalty.

Earnhardt raced to win. He pushed the rules, pushed the machines and pushed the competition. He wasn’t trying to spread the trophies around; he was unashamedly trying to take them all home. Earnhardt openly ridiculed those who wanted to slow the game down and make it safer. He was unapologetic about the sport’s dangers and lack of limits. He refused to wear new safety gear and he was blocking the field so his team could win when his life attended. Earnhardt wasn’t planning a long retirement on the golf course. Going out on the last lap of the Daytona 500 would have suited him just fine.

His success on the track was matched only by his success as an entrepreneur. Earnhardt merchandise dominates the many NASCAR oriented outlets around the country. He translated a dominating presence as a driver into a similar domination of the economic aspects of the sport: sponsorship and fan dollars. Everyone in NASCAR looked up to Dale Earnhardt, because he was standing head and shoulders above the rest of the field in every measurable way.

The appeal of Earnhardt is the appeal of American values. Without education, privilege or advantage, a man takes a car and creates his own empire. Unvarnished competition and tenacious dedication to beating everyone else. Reaping the financial rewards of success in this amazing country, and doing so in a way that makes people feel good about laying down their money. Keeping your edge and ignoring, utterly, those who want success to be less dangerous and deadly. Intimidation, to the very end.

Liberals, obviously, find all this distasteful, crude and threatening to their vision of America. To see Dale Earnhardt on the cover of TIME has a great deal to say about the media’s long overdue discovery of the country between the coasts. (The Red States as one writer said.) This is the America that still goes to church, likes a winner, waves the flag, and owns some guns. They understand the redneck kid who became the greatest success in racing history, and they hail him as a hero. If you want to know why Al Gore lost Tennessee, look at the fans of Dale Earnhardt and NASCAR.

Dale Earnhardt wouldn’t have been who he was in England or Russia or China or Sweden or France. He became what he was in America where we reward the guy who fights his way to the top with relish and guts. We’ll pay to see him do it again. We’ll weep when he hits the wall. We’ll stand in his honor, as a gladiator who went to the arena well aware he might exit on his shield.

And we’ll be at the races next week, cheering the gladiators again. Only in America, and may it always stay that way.

A Father’s Day Remembrance
The Memories, Love and Lessons That Came From Our Dads
by Michael Spencer

The more time passes, the more I love my dad, S.L. “Sim” Spencer, who passed away in 1993. Maybe it has to do with walking through more and more of the life that he lived, as I grow older and watch my kids grow up, and I find myself so often in the identical places dad was in with me. Or maybe it has to do with seeing people as God sees them- after they’re gone.

Robert Capon taught me that, in death, we see people much more as God sees them: all things reconciled by His grace and endless, amazing love for imperfect people. A person only seen in the distorted images of a subjective experience is seen differently in the more gracious lens of God’s mercy. But this perspective only appears as life is ended, and suddenly we find all the missing and neglected pieces coming together, with divine kindness to make it all clear.

That’s been my experience with my dad. I came along late in life, the only child of a second marriage. He was just a year younger than I am now when I was born, with a failed marriage and failed family already in the books. I think it was easier for him to be a dad when I was small, because he loved to laugh and be the one showing me how to fish and shoot and hunt arrowheads. But when I got older, it was more difficult, and we fought ferociously like a lot of families during the sixties and seventies. If I could change anything in my life, it would be things I said in those arguments.

My dad was sick most of the time I was growing up. First with heart disease, then heart attacks, then a crushing five-year depression that took away everything he loved to do. He was an outdoorsman, who wanted nothing more than to provide enough for his family that he could hunt and fish and tramp around with his brothers and friends in the woods. He wanted to introduce me to this life, and when I was small it was fine, but as a teenager, I wanted nothing to do with those plans. So the depression took away his pleasures, and I took away the rest by being a selfish, ignorant brat.

For those years, my only memory is dad sitting in a chair with his hand over his face. I didn’t understand the disease, but accused him of being selfish. I didn’t understand the medications, the hospitalizations, the shock treatments, the shame, the stigma or the loneliness. It would be years later that I would grow enough as a human being to understand some of my dad’s suffering- and how I had added to it.

One day, I bought a CB radio, an expensive faddish purchase for my car. Dad thought it was ridiculous, and railed about it for days like he did about every dollar I spent after I got a job. But a funny thing followed. Within six months, my dad had bought hundreds of dollars of CB and amateur radio equipment for himself. He plunged into the hobby with delight, finding his way out of the world of depression and isolation through the airwaves. He took on a new name, initially the handle “Two Bits,” then “Lee,” a name he’s always preferred over his own. And something else happened. We found each other again. First, as CB radio buddies, and then in other ways. We stopped fighting, and began laughing, talking and spending time together again. I began to appreciate his warmth with people and his many friends. I admired his practical knowledge and wide experience. He was proud of my calling as a preacher. We forgave the past and forged a lasting friendship.

Very soon, I was away at college, then in ministry and finally, married. Dad began to decline in physical health even as he began to recover in mental health. Our visits were all too rare, but they were frequent enough for me to gain some time repenting of my previous foolishness. Whenever possible, I would get him into the car and we would just drive. Drive to all the lakes and woods and fields that he had loved so much. Now he would tell me stories, and honestly, I think I enjoyed his recollections more than I ever would have enjoyed the original experiences.

My dad had five grandsons by his other kids, but his failures had put distance between himself and his first family that he wouldn’t/couldn’t go back over. So there were few visits, fewer pictures and phone calls, and little else. Instead, there was only hollow distance and a shallow formality. So he lavished love on my kids to make up for that failure, teaching my daughter to walk when my wife and I were on a trip, and laughing so hard around my son that it took twenty years off his face. I am convinced he somehow mysteriously bequeathed his entire incredible sense of humor to my son. My kids gave him all the joy a grandparent could want. On his eightieth birthday, we made it a big party for Papaw, and I could not help but feel things had come full circle. The delight I know he took in me as a child, but that mental illness and my selfishness had taken away, God had given back to him as an old man.

Dad declined rapidly, and died suddenly in the summer of 1993. On my last visit home, he asked me if I really believed in heaven?

Now, almost ten years later, I see in my dad so much that is the treasure of life. His endless laughter. His mind for jokes. His tenderness and friendliness. His deep devotion to God and his constant prayers for others. His wisdom and simplicity and wonder. An eastern Kentucky mountain man with an eighth grade education, his children and grandchildren have lived in a different world, but we all look back to him with admiration and affection. I miss him more every day.

More and more, I see him as God sees him. All the pain and depression and loss bound up and made, somehow, into the crowns of gold the righteous wear. His struggles and disappointments, sins and human frailties, all transformed into the glorious garments of the redeemed. In heaven’s city, I think he has found the woods, and the water and many old, good friends. And here below, he has left me the path to the same.

Talk Hard
In which the iMonk describes and defends the role of the critic in Christianity.
by Michael Spencer

In the almost four years that The Internet Monk web site has been posting my thoughts on the door of the world, I’ve received over a thousand letters. Pretty cool. And 95 percent of them have been positive, complimentary and encouraging. Also very cool. So you won’t be surprised that I am going to write about the other 5 percent. My personal insecurity knows no bounds.

The reason I am going to write about this 5 percent, is that the vast majority of these writers have something in common. And it’s not that they disagree with me, or think my politics are rabid, or that I’ve over romanticized Catholicism or failed to solve the mystery of it’s and its. No, the majority of these writers are upset that I am criticizing other Christians.

For purposes of illustration, let’s consider a fictional generic negative response to my criticisms of contemporary “Praise” music.

Mr. Spencer, I just read your essay ________________. I don’t understand why you are criticizing worship music. These musicians love God and they are doing their best to lead people to Him. The Holy Spirit is using these musicians and their songs to encourage Christians all over the world. Many have been saved through this music In fact, my brother’s best friend picked up one of my worship CDs by mistake last week, and now he wants to go to church and hear these songs played by our praise band. Praise the Lord! He may be saved because of this music.

I think you should look into your heart and see if there isn’t a lot of sin, pride and hostility where there ought to be love. The Bible says we shouldn’t judge, but that’s almost all your web site is about! How can you have any joy in the Lord when you are critical about the very things that God is using to bless people? If “Calvinists” like yourself had their way, we would just hear long sermons on predestination all the time. I’m glad that some people are listening to God’s voice and obeying him rather than tearing down the body of Christ.

sincerely, Colleen.

(It’s almost always a woman. But that’s another essay.)

I don’t fume about these kinds of letters. I know these sorts of people very well. I was fuming at them back in 2000 when I wrote “Singing Praise Choruses With Barbarians At The Gates” because one of my co-workers said I was too opinionated. My point then was the Christian worldview inescapably leads to specific applications in all areas of life. We either follow that worldview and embrace the implications, or we purposely bail out on the truth before it gets us in trouble with other worldviews, some of which want to do terrible things to our children.

These days, I am more reflective about my role in the body of Christ, but no less committed to the value of what I do. While I am a preacher who happens to write, I really believe I am divinely called and gifted to be a critic. A critic operating within the body of Christ and particularly with my own kind: evangelicals. I feel I’m doing God’s work. I can’t thoroughly defend the exegesis, but I think the Biblical concept of “exhortation” contains what I am doing, and I believe there is plenty of Bible that exemplifies it.

The entire Prophetic tradition is a kind of criticism. I call the prophets “the cops of the covenant,” because it is their job to show up and write Israel a ticket from time to time. It’s their job to warn and nag, as well as assure and promise. The covenant life is the play God wrote, and the prophets are critics. They criticize ideas, people, worship services, politics and culture. They are not writing for applause, but telling the truth from the highly biased point of view of those who see the world and all that is in it belonging to Yahweh. They use humor, sarcasm, blunt description and highly charged, emotional prose. They are critics in the best, and holiest, sense of the term.

Jesus himself is a critic. Now I won’t be numbskulled enough to say that gives me the right to be a critic, because obviously Jesus has a superior point of view to my own. But it is impossible for me to conclude that, once I know the viewpoint of Jesus on, let’s say, rich and successful religious braggarts, I can’t apply it in my writing. My first responsibility is to live out the truth, of course. But when James warns the rich in church that they are in danger of going to hell, he’s doing it on the basis of the Old Testament prophets and the words and examples of Jesus. He’s not sinning, or being presumptuous or particularly apostolic. He’s being pastoral and, yes, critical.

One passage that particularly influences me is Revelation, chapters 2 and 3. Here Jesus critiques seven churches quite specifically, and uses many of the literary techniques that I value in my own writing and communicating. I would commend John R.W. Stott’s excellent and recently reprinted book, What Christ Thinks Of The Church as a good visit to these chapters.

In August of ’01, I was asked to bring 4 hours of lessons from Genesis 1-11 to a group of about a hundred preachers. I chose to preach on Christ in Genesis 1-11 (disappointing young earth creationists, I’m sure) and, of course, I got in trouble with one man out of the hundred. He said he thought I was trying to be “provocative.” Now you have to remember that my usual audience is 400 middle and high school students and staff at a Christian boarding school, many of whom are so vaccinated against Christianity I need large explosives to get through the walls.

Was I provocative in my choice of illustrations and applications? You bet. And I learned it from Jesus. Anyone want to cut off a hand or pluck out an eye? Was Paul provocative when he criticized Peter publically for dissing Gentile brothers? And then writing about it to the Galatians? Do I criticize in my applications? Without a doubt, and I learned it from my Bible. (And from Luther 🙂

My suspicion is that some Christians don’t know what to do with my criticisms because criticism, in general, has fallen out badly in recent evangelical life and thought. Our desire to be relevant, winsome, persuasive and influential hasn’t been able to incorporate a healthy place for criticism or the critic. Criticism sometimes makes us feel bad. it makes us nervous. It sometimes tells us we are wrong. Evangelical publications, even the most high profile ones, are usually backwards, embarrassed, sissified or absent in the area of real criticism.

(At this point, it would be good to say that I know a lot of critics are jerks. And without making excuses, I want to say a word in their defense. If we weren’t jerks, we wouldn’t write a lot of what we say. I’ve probably been told 400 times that “you’ve written what I’ve thought, but always was afraid to say.” Well, there is a reason for that, and picking the jerkier among us to be critics is part of how it happens.)

I’d like to suggest some of the reasons the role of criticism has fallen on such hard times among evangelical Christians.

1. We think it’s a sin- and unloving- to criticize. As my generic letter indicates, there is a strong equation of criticism with sin. Isn’t it wrong to “tear someone down?” Isn’t that what critics do? Just sit around and pass judgment on other people? That’s wrong.

The culprit verse here is Matthew 7:1-5, my nomination for most often quoted, and most universally misunderstood passage in the New Testament

Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

It quickly appears that Jesus is outlawing the “ministry of criticism” without taking a pause for a sip of coffee. This passage, coupled with other New Testament verses encouraging us not to “devour” one another, should have me running for a safe house. But is this passage really what it appears to be?

If Jesus means that we are never to evaluate and draw conclusions based on truth, then the Bible is pretty much a magnificent waste of time. Those who throw out this verse as a universal command to never think or speak to others based on ideas of truth, goodness and beauty have a lot of explaining to do, because the Bible- and the ministry of Jesus- is full of encouragement and example to do just exactly that. I couldn’t preach without making an array of judgments. I couldn’t parent. I couldn’t be a decent and civilized person.

This passage plainly teaches two things. First, it means that you must apply the standard of truth to yourself, and not just use it against others to establish your own righteousness. It’s not that you don’t see the speck, but that you don’t use your knowledge of the speck to convince yourself that it’s a bigger deal than the plank in your own eye. The speck is worth mentioning and removing, but not as a way of masking the wooden beam that’s obscuring and potentially blinding you. So when you judge, the judgment has to be universally, compassionately and proportionally applied.

The second point is, in my opinion, that none of us can judge in the way that God judges or as if we were in the all-knowing place of God. Our judgments are human and limited, not divine. The Pharisees acted as if they had a pipeline to God and were speaking the very words of heaven. Jesus severely condemns this, but not as a way to silence all criticism. It is a way to make us aware of the difference between God’s judgments and our own.

The story of the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8 is the perfect application of this passage. Adultery is wrong. But it’s bad behavior in the context of human sin. Hypocritical judgmentalism and self-righteous blindness to the truth of your own sin are not just as bad; they are much worse.

If Matthew 23, that scorching example of Jesus’ inventory of Pharisaical hypocrisy, isn’t an example of criticism, I don’t know what is. If I can live among evangelicals, and read that chapter, and not write about what we have become, there is something wrong with me.

What about loving? Doesn’t love “speak no evil?” Doesn’t love only speak words of positive encouragement? This is the theology of Joel Osteen and his apparent spiritual hero, Robert Schuller, and it is, in the end, cruel and unloving. The scriptures place love at the center of the Christian worldview, and that love works out alongside God’s holiness, justice, truthfulness, mercy, compassion and righteousness. Isolating love from these other qualities of God is idolatry and an abandonment of the Biblical God. We have had enough of the Hallmark Card Trinity. Let’s live and speak as if we belong to the God who crucified his Son to balance love and righteousness in the universe.

Frequently, my ministry brings me in contact with terrible human problems like depression, self-destructive behaviors, eating disorders, sexual abuse and so on. There is a familiar response among those who are the friends of those who suffer with these situations. They believe it is unloving to speak of the problem, and that it is loving to be silent and secretive. This silence is a terrible, sometimes, deadly error, and it says all I need to know about the need for truthful, loving judgment in life.

2. We don’t know how to criticize, so we say it’s wrong. My school has a rule against dancing. It’s been there for most of a century. It’s ridiculous, but it’s (apparently) financially necessary in our subculture. It grows out of a certain kind of post-Elvis knee-jerk fundamentalism that needs to stop things that go on in taverns. (The loss of a good use of a pub among Christians is truly a sad state of affairs.)

So after most a century, it is safe to say that the staff at our school is as ignorant on the subject of dancing as any group of human beings on the planet. We know nothing, and are happy to know nothing. The difference between Celtic folk dancing and the worst kinds of freak dancing are wasted on us. We haven’t danced in so long, and we have cared nothing about dancing for so long, that we simply believe all dancing is wrong. When anyone dances, for whatever reason, we are offended.

Evangelicals have virtually forgotten how to be critical. This shift is there before me every time I read our state Baptist propaganda rag, The Western Recorder.

There was a time in the long ago, that the pages of the Recorder were full of little but hard talk, criticism and debates. Opinions. Lengthy essays taking on opponents and advocating theological and denominational positions. The WR was a Baptist partisan, and proudly so. As time went on, this aspect of the paper began to recede, first into the editorial pages, and finally into oblivion. (This coincides, btw, with the success of Southern Baptists as a whole, their morphing into generic evangelical fundamentalism and the disappearance of discipline in the local church. Draw what conclusions you will.)

Today, the WR runs promo pieces from the denomination, promo pieces from the various entities of the convention, promo pieces from churches, and generic, USA Today type articles on churches with coffee shops. Debate, opinion, criticism? Look for the loonies in the letters to the editors, or in the occasional liberal squeal about some fundamentalist shenanigan. “Criticism” in the WR is now a books column, where two predictably liberal reviewers churn out monotonous descriptions of terrible little books about tiny and tediously generic evangelical concerns.

Is there a CCM magazine that tells the unwashed and unvarnished truth about the product? I won’t retell the story of CCM Magazine running a review that suggested, in short, Carman’s new album of the time was terrible. The fans descended on the editorial offices with tar and torches. Let’s be honest. Christian reviews now mostly just ignore the majority of what is produced, says good things about everybody and frequently reminds us that this is all a ministry. Evangelicals couldn’t take the thought of someone saying Carman was terrible, or even just dull and ordinary. I mean he’s Carman. He has to be anointed, right? Hard edged, biting, truthful reviews? Dennis Miller style fair and unbalanced on the side of real art? No. We don’t do it. We don’t know how.

It is the Internet that now allows sites like Internet Monk to publish the sort of things that The Door Magazine always dared to say, at the risk of losing subscriptions. But it’s apparent- we have a lot of evangelicals that don’t know how to criticize even a reeking phony and Tetzel like Benny Hinn. They don’t know how to call Warren a mediocre author or say the megachurch movement is arrogant and ghettoized. Worst of all, we’ve become a kingdom of sheepish consumers and we don’t know how to produce critics who will criticize the products we are devouring or the corporate interests that sell us the need to buy them. (All so we can be good Christians, of course.) We’ve become a community that eats out four times a day, but jails any critic who says the food is bad.

When the secular media does our criticism for us, we don’t know what to do with it. I, for one, tend to say thanks. Note this famous review at NRO of the first Left Behind flick. It’s scathing. And true. Why didn’t an evangelical publication write it? Why didn’t Christianity Today or Focus on the Family say it? Because we are selling this garbage to one another and we don’t how to stop. Or whether we want to stop.

In Mark 11, Jesus entered Jerusalem and goes right to the one aspect of Temple life that the leaders had lost the capacity to criticize: the religious flea market that stole from pilgrims by over-charging and defrauding them. Jesus’ actions are unmistakably LONG OVERDUE. Why? Any question about what Jesus would do if he visited the evangelical temple today?

3. Our idea of criticism is it’s either “of God” or it’s “of the devil”. If it’s of God then, of course, you shouldn’t criticize it. This is why evangelical marketers spare no effort to wrap their products- be they personalities, books, methods, art, etc.- in the blanket of divine origination. Once the status of “God-given” is awarded, then the critics are wrong, no matter what we say.

Such all or nothing thinking has an ominous history in Christianity, both in approving what is evil, and in condemning what is good. Have we learned our lesson from those mistakes? Apparently not. Nothing has earned the ire of IM readers like my criticisms of popular television ministries like T.D. Jakes or Rod Parsley, or saying something good about the Roman Catholic Church. These ministries are of God (or of the devil), my readers tell me. End of story. Prosperity Gospel? Rejection of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity? Faith healing? Lying. Profuse sweating? It doesn’t matter. It’s of God. Leper hospitals? St. Francis? Fine scholarship? It’s of the devil. Hate it, if you know what’s good for you.

This kind of black and white evaluation is particularly damaging to any real consideration of the content or quality of art or literature. For example, I find Warren’s Purpose Driven Life to be “mediocre.” Not evil. Not heretical. Not bad. Mediocre. The rejoinder: Warren and his book are “of God.” OK. I would tend to agree, at least as much as I understand Rick Warren from what he says and writes. (In fact, I just discovered he’s a Calvinist. Now, what am I?) But what does that have to do with whether his book is mediocre? Nothing. Can’t Warren be mediocre? If not, why not? Because his church is big? Puhleeze.

Can a song be “of God” and still be terrible? Can a movie be “of God” and be poorly written and poorly acted? These are silly questions, since we all know that if “of God” means intended to honor God, then all kinds of homely results are acceptable. But if by “of God” we mean, “this is from God and can’t be criticized,” then I am going to yell “Manipulation!”

If you want to see this at work, read the product summaries in any current CBD catalog. Whoever writes these blurbs is required to imply- or announce- that the book or CD under consideration is ‘of God, from God, by God” or whatever will make the point and get inside the wobbly minds of the consuming public. This means that it’s not just someone’s opinion about worship, it’s “God’s anointed wisdom for a dynamic worship experience from the most Spirit-filled worship leader in Australia.” And so on. Reading fifty pages of this stuff is dangerous to your sanity. You begin thinking that Yahweh has quit running the universe and gone full-time into publishing and marketing.

The other side of the coin is just as bad, if not worse. Can Christians possibly watch a movie other than G-rated pre-1970 Disney fare and find anything commendable? Not if you listen to the majority of vocal evangelicals. It’s “of the devil,” and that’s all we really need to hear. In fact, just going into the theater or having the television in your house is dangerous.

I will admit that it’s hard to get people to think in terms of seeing the good that remains in the bad, but it’s really our only authentic option in this fallen world. When we say that something is “of the devil” do we mean it’s from the devil? The devil likes it? It will turn us into Satanists? The devil will get into us if we watch or listen to it? I have to tell you that I can’t bear to imagine my intelligent and sensitive children looking at the whole world of secular art and believing that it is all “of the devil.” Or worse, looking at evangelical “art” and believing it’s “of God” and must be praised. That would be an utter failure to teach them the truth. If I must believe The Omega Code is good because it’s “of God,” then pass the hemlock.

In the classic Arthur Miller play, The Crucible, we get a glimpse into what happens when complex problems are reduced to “God” and “the devil.” Fallible human judges are given the status of infallible authorities. Hysterical and jealous girls are seen as instruments of the devil. Middle ground and more subtle analysis are not allowed. In the end, innocent people die. Terrible things are done, and anyone who doubts is in league with darkness. This is a story about us. Like it or not, it happened because the critics- of preachers, particularly- were silenced.

Evangelicals who reject the legitimate role of criticism do not necessarily run to these extremes, but they pave the way. The critic may not rescue anyone from these errors, but is it really so bad to have those in the body of Christ who think beyond simplistic categories, ask uncomfortable questions and raise more possibilities than we usually consider? Am I buggin’ ya? Then tip me.

4. God can use anything to save people, so we shouldn’t criticize what God can use. Any discussion of criticism in the body of Christ eventually will get to some anecdotal story of God’s use of whatever is under discussion for the salvation of a person, thereby rendering criticism inappropriate. “If one soul was saved…..” The ultimate stamp of God’s approval is His choice to use something as the instrument of bringing a person to faith in Christ. After that is established, we can quit thinking and starting saying amen.

My generic letter, for instance, referred to music that was now creating interest in church on the part of a formerly uninterested young man. If the critic has his/her way, such music wouldn’t be around, and this man wouldn’t be saved. Right?

Of course, this isn’t the case at all. Criticism should never claim to see into the sovereignty of God, because none of us can, and if we could, God would do something different just to play with our minds. What God chooses to use in any way for His purposes is utterly beyond our ability to predict. In fact, God has shown that He delights in bringing people to faith using what we might find foolish or unsophisticated. Men like Spurgeon, for instance, were often influenced and converted by people whose theology was crude, errant and incomplete. God uses bad books, bad sermons and bad preachers all the time. Just ask anyone who thinks I’ve said or written anything good.

I assume that even as Jesus criticized the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, there was evangelism going on, and some of the converts were solid. Did that nullify the criticism of those churches?

It’s with churches that we have the most problems. The entire church growth/Willow Creek/Purpose Driven/Emergent Church phenomenon has put a lot on the table to be evaluated. These churches are numerically prospering, and that numerical prosperity convinces many Christians that any criticism is inappropriate and diabolical. Yet, it is the message and methods of these churches that most need our scrutiny, precisely because their numerical success can obscure serious problems of Biblical faithfulness, content, compromise and theology. These are uncomfortable questions, but they must be asked, and the megas and the smart guys don’t get a pass.

For example, if the largest church in the country says, “No Cross, No Sin, not here!” are we to assume that their numerical success ends the conversation? Or is there a role for the critic in pointing out that a crowd of 25,000 gathered to NOT HEAR the Gospel isn’t really a good thing? Are the ideas in these various movements going to be evaluated, or simply tested by their results? Some of the worst ideas in human history were numerically successful. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate.

Many of my readers will recognize the name of Mike Warnke. Warnke was, at one time, one of the top Christian entertainers and speakers in America; filling stadiums, selling thousands of albums and winning awards and acclaim. Warnke managed the unique role of the first broadly successful evangelical comedian of the “Jesus movement” generation, while at the same time being a successful minister in Charismatic circles based on his best-selling autobiography, The Satan Seller. In that book, Warnke told of his conversion from years as a Satanic high priest and drug lord. From this testimony, Warnke built a ministry that led thousands to faith in Christ and was poised to go to even higher levels of secular prominence.

I heard Warnke many times. He was a breath of fresh air, with his irreverent attitude, story-telling wit and heart-felt messages. There was only one problem. Mike Warnke was a fraud, a liar and a thief. Two writers at Cornerstone magazine, one of the few evangelical Christian publications with any real consistent spine when it comes to tough reporting, “outed” Warnke as a serial liar, fraud and bigamist. Warnke squirmed on the hook, but the Cornerstone crew landed him. Warnke’s ministry was virtually destroyed. (Oh don’t worry, he’s still in business. It’s not that easy.)

Why do I use Warnke as an illustration? Because thousands of evangelicals pelted Cornerstone with hate mail and whine mail premised on the theme of this discussion: So many were saved under Warnke’s ministry, how could anyone doubt that God was using him to spread the Gospel? In other words, Warnke’s ability to share the Gospel, which he did well, rendered his fraudulent lifestyle and lying autobiography as insignificant, at least to thousands of his fans.

In fact, this familiar line often came to Warnke’s rescue: How many souls has “Cornerstone” won to Christ? (Actually, quite a few, but I digress.) If you haven’t won as many people as Warnke, you have no right to criticize, said the defenders. Tune in next week for “Yeah, well I DOUBLE DOG dare you!” or “I put a curse on you!”

5. We’re really quite relativistic, and criticism just doesn’t sit well with us. Evangelicals are very odd. Here is a group of people that can get a riot going about any aspect of morality. Should we even watch “Friends?” Can homosexuals date right out there in the open? Should praise and worship bands be sponsored by major car companies? Is it right for Michael York to play the antiChrist when he’s so funny in Austin Powers?

Yet, at the same time that we have our razors out to split hairs on morality, evangelicals just don’t care five cents about the good, the true or the beautiful when it comes to art, literature or music. At that level, they are complete pragmatists. (Lord, have mercy on whoever designed the TBN set.) Has it occurred to anyone that the same Christian worldview that cares so much about sexuality, also might care about art, movies, fiction or poetry? Or the quality and content of anything?

In a relativistic culture, the critic is engaging in subversion. Asserting the values of the Biblical worldview can be dangerous- even among people carrying their Bibles. Relativism has the appeal of allowing each one of us to define what is right, good and true “for us.” Challenging that means admitting we might be wrong, and that our resulting choices might be wrong. Do we want to live in a world where we are wrong, and someone might tell us so?

A culture where everyone does what is right in his own eyes is one thing. A church that lives and thinks the same way needs correction. But can fallible, sinful, very human critics really do the job? How can a constructive ministry of exhortation/criticism contribute to an evangelicalism that seems reluctant to own even its own worldview with any enthusiasm?

How the critic works will be important. Most TV watching Americans are familiar with Joan and Melissa Rivers, the self-appointed critics of fashion and style who have turned themselves into celebrity anti-Christs. The Rivers girls are highly opinionated, but I can’t find a trace of an objective standard in all their outrage. They pretend that the celebrities they pan really are tacky, but how do we- or they- know? What we really watch with the Rivers girls is the entertainment of their own opinions, not a glimpse beyond them to what is really good or true. Christian critics can easily sink to this level of constant, baseless, offendedness, but it’s a parody we must avoid.

A Christian critic does have an objective standard. If he/she is outraged, it needs to reflect the outrage of Jesus. And it helps that Jesus was outraged, and it’s not hard to discover why. God is outraged in the Old Testament at the violations of the covenant and the depths of Israel’s apostasy. A prophetic critic can echo that outrage if it’s clear that God’s Word, not human preference, is what has been violated.

Can criticism be entertaining? There may be aspects of Christian criticism that make us laugh at something in order to help us see the truth more clearly. (Thank God for The Door, and its children Lark News and Holy Observer.) Jesus used humor precisely to make us see spiritual truth. Absurdity ought to often strike us as funny. Fools are presented as comic in Proverbs. But the critic has to be careful not to let the desire for humor obscure the truth. If it leads us to see the truth, humor can be an expression of love. If it brings perspective and helps to see the true significance- or insignificance- of things, then it is a gift. But if it becomes an exercise in ego and ridicule, it can be cruel, and cruelty is never right. Not even in the best of causes.

The best critics in history were not relativists, but had a strong point of view outside themselves; a point of view that includes themselves. Good critics can poke as much fun at themselves as they can any target, and they aren’t reluctant to show the follies of their own tradition. (cf G. K. Chesterton.) It ought to be fun to read a critic, not just for what he/she says about others, but for how they bring themselves and the reader into the picture as well.

Relativism has already made significant inroads into evangelicalism’s ability to define its doctrines. Now relativism threatens to make it difficult for evangelicals to know what’s wrong, because ultimately, relativism kills off the doctors who diagnose disease and says the medicine of reformation is unnecessary.

An old song says “Does anybody really know what time it is?” If we lose the role of the critic by embracing relativism or denying that critical thinking and writing have a place in evangelical culture, then no one will know what time it is, and everyone’s watch will be a little tyranny. Whatever the risks of letting the critics sometimes bug and irritate us, isn’t the alternative much, much worse?