A Time to Laugh

Steve Brown cuts to the chase and summarizes my thesis for past projects and future ones:

Power really does corrupt. And absolute power does corrupt absolutely. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t want to see the Religious Right get power. Because, you see, they honestly believe that whereas human nature may be sinful, theirs isn’t (20:34+). . . .

Later on I watched pastors sell out for power. I watched pastors that I trusted say things that they never would have said if it had not been for the power. And I began to realize that there are two views of human beings but the second — which is the biblical view — is certainly true of me also. The reason I don’t want the Religious Right to get power is because they don’t understand what I just taught you. And that is, that human beings are basically evil — that includes Jerry Falwell, it includes Jim Dobson, it includes me and it includes you — but we have a proclivity for good (23:31+).

Reformed Theological Seminary lecture, “Grace in the Church“

The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, 200-proof grace — of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly.

The word of the Gospel — after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps — suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started. . . . Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.

– Robert Capon

Since leaving fundamentalism, I feel like those Reformers. I feel like we’ve found a barrel full of Grace — something that was only a rumor in my previous life — and I’ve been just sipping it since, with lots of ice, from a small glass, and with buckets of fruit juice. I’ll get braver as my taste buds are cultivated to know Grace like I now know Rules.

I found this song this week from the Red Mountain Church. It’s a revision of “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” Listen to it. Really. I’ll wait ’til you’re done.

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The first time I heard that I was taken back by the changed lyrics. I thought, “Oh. I get it. That’s cute.” The third or fourth time, I thought, “Wait a second.  What was I singing before? With the old version?”

You sang it too, didn’t you?

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back. No turning back.

What a weird song when you think about it! I hate to be too English-majory about it, but gee-whiz — I am the actor/agent/subject of every sentence! Jesus is merely the object of the action. I chose Jesus. I invited him in. I choose to slurp his tasteless smoothie. I sit in the formal dining room with Him. I eat God’s healthy food. I keep a neat house/soul. I, I, I. What an arrogant jerk I am when I sing this song!

It misses the biggest sin of all. My own temptation to make rules and make everyone else abide by them. The seduction of seeing everyone else as wrong and me and mine as right. The lure of self-righteousness. The hedge-building. The moralism. The rotten, stinking sin of perfection. After all, I have decided, so I‘m good. What’s wrong with you?

Of course I never wanted to give up my own self-righteousness and follow Jesus. But He rescued me. That’s it. That’s the whole message outside fundamentalism: He rescued me. From myself.

By not recognizing the wretched moralistic sin of self-righteousness as sin, you get Keswick theology. Or just bad theology. Or just anthropology, I guess. Or egocentrism. Or just not-God.

I sometimes fear that many of us (and I include myself) find our definition by our obedience, in our ability to persuade others to be like us, and in our ability to win the battles. There is a lot of ego involved in being good, in being right, and as part of the battle, having others know that we are good and right.

– Steve Brown

In these last two weeks of remembering how God grabbed us by the collar and dragged us out of fundamentalism two years ago today, I brooded about past conversations, wistfully remembered dear (and too often former) friends, and cried over God’s goodness and my own Pharisaical actions.

There was one conversation from November 2007 I couldn’t get out of my mind. We were told that we shouldn’t say this or that because it was sin and Christ’s work couldn’t be done if we sin. We couldn’t be blessed. We were “sitting in the seat of the scorner.” We were bitter. We need to be silent in order to prove that we weren’t bitter. So that God could use us.

Same song, thirty-second verse: “SHUT UP!” Grant actually got a similar email saying the same thing this week.

The thrust of that 2007 conversation, however, was this challenge from our old friend: “There is not one example in Scripture of what you’re doing on your blogs. All confrontation is done privately in Scripture. It is never public. I challenge you to find one example of what you’re doing in Scripture.”

I remember sitting there with this genuinely confused look on my face. I remember saying something about how there are sages (those who speak within a culture) and there are prophets (those who speak from outside a culture), and the Bible has examples of both (obviously!). He insisted that only the sage’s posture is biblical. I got an even more confused look because I know a little bit about this kind of stuff. I said, “It seems to me that everything God has taught me in my education and my experience has brought me to the point of uniquely being able to speak on this issue. Why would I be silent?” He again insisted, “I challenge you to find one example in Scripture.” The presumption being, of course, that such example didn’t exist. And when a religious professional tells you that it’s not in the Bible, you’re supposed to just believe him.

But deep down, like at the end of a tunnel, stuffed with pillows, behind a wall of cement blocks, I heard a tiny Voice screaming, “NO! He’s wrong! HE’S WRONG!! Don’t believe him!!”

I didn’t know what that Voice was yelling about until this week. And it’s not just an example from the Bible. It’s the Example Himself:

Jesus went straight to the Temple and threw out everyone who had set up shop, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of loan sharks and the stalls of dove merchants. He quoted this text:

My house was designated a house of prayer;
You have made it a hangout for thieves.

Now there was room for the blind and crippled to get in. They came to Jesus and he healed them.

Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple was bold, loud, and raucous. It seemed obnoxious and ill-tempered to the religious elite. It was certainly unconventional and far from being “tempered with gentility.” But it was, of course, good and just and full-of-grace.

The sick and the lame couldn’t get to Him, so He destroyed the barriers. Jesus wasn’t trying to convince the religious elite of anything; He was loving, healing, breaking down doors so He could nurture people. It’s the most public and active example that we have of Christ’s actions to stop religious corruption. And it was beautiful to and necessary for everyone in need! What an amazing Example we have!

So now I just giggle at those who chide me for not being “tempered with gentility.” Of course not! Jesus wasn’t either!!!

And I never saw it until just now. Neither did my old friend. It’s hard to see Jesus in fundamentalism. He’s there, but He gets covered up. Or hedged in.

I s’pose I’ll keep hearing new things outside of fundamentalism. A couple friends have emailed me a few that they’ve noticed this week — the praying for the invisible Church, the communing with each other and with Christ over the elements as not a threat. The list will continue because . . . well, the 200-proof Grace takes forever to digest.

No, I really never, ever wanted to follow Jesus. I didn’t. But He grabbed me and showed me the Way. And there’s no turning back. I was home before I started!

See — I think the whole thing comes down to two completely contrasting stories: the one I heard in Fundamentalism and the one I’m hearing now.

Let’s say your (general “you”) soul is like a house.

In fundamentalism, at salvation, you invite Jesus into your house, and He offers to clean up here and there — paint a few walls, steam clean the carpets, fix the leaky toilet. When He’s done helping out, He sits in the formal dining room and waits for you to join Him. “Tick-tock, tick-tock,” the grandfather clock is the loudest thing in that room. You bring Him a couple of meals, and you both talk awkwardly about a devotional you just read. He’s very polite — excruciatingly so — and you just feel stiff. And you hate sitting in those creaky dining room chairs.

In the mean time, Satan is having a rousing party in the rumpus room. See — when Jesus came into your house/soul, He didn’t kick Satan out. He just moved Himself in. Satan’s still there, still tempting you, still making loud fun in the next room.

And at every moment of the day, you must choose: will you sit in the formal dining room talking politely with your Savior or will you go to the rave party in the basement with the Enemy? Sheer will is the only thing that stands between you and your eternal damnation. As your aging senses grow dim and your bones ache more, you are more likely to just stay put in that dining room while you self-righteously rant about those young whipper-snappers who are tempted to party.

And then you die and go to that Great Formal Dining Room in the sky. Your conscience (like your bones) actually grows weaker with maturity. There’s little “progressive” about it.

But that’s not what I’m hearing in my new life. If your soul is a house, this is the way the story goes here:

Before salvation, Satan is your soul’s slumlord. He is a tyrant, and you’re miserable, but you really don’t know any different. Jesus bursts in — He breaks the door down even — and kicks him to the curb. He completely renovates your home — an Extreme Makeover (Soul Edition). He knocks out walls. He yanks up moldy carpet and puts in hardwood. He burns the lice-infested bedding. He fills your fridge. Everything is new again.

Now, Satan does still hang around and peer into your windows. And when you sin — and you will — it’s because you’re acting like Satan is still your slumlord. Progressively, you see Whose you are. And you grow more and more comfortable in your transformed digs. It feels more and more like home. You actually get stronger and you discover that you actually dance more.

If that doesn’t work for you, let’s try this one. Let’s say salvation is like a meal.

In fundamentalism, you sit down to eat. Prior to salvation, you only had one thing on the menu — a McDonald’s Value Meal. But at salvation, you invite Jesus to the pot luck, and He doubles the menu choices. So at every meal, Satan sits at one end of the table and Jesus at the other. Satan has his usual meal to offer you — McDonald’s Double-Quarter Pounder with Cheese, large fries, and a chocolate shake. Jesus brought a very healthy but unpalatable glass of kale juice with two raw eggs and soft tofu. Which are you going to choose? You’ve grown up on a diet of McD’s, but you know the Other is better for you. You must choose! At every meal!! Are you going to eat the right thing or damn your soul’s arteries to Hell? Eventually when you lose your teeth and taste buds, you find the kale smoothie actually easier to eat, and so you assume you’ve arrived in your weakened state and you shake your pious head at those who still steal the devil fries.

Outside fundamentalism, however, there’s still a meal, but it’s vastly different. I found this in Bob George’s Classic Christianity, by the way, which first startled me with the difference years ago. Before salvation, Jesus finds us dumpster diving. We’re accustomed to only the shadows of good food — the twisted and rotting perversion of the ideal meal. Jesus drags us out of the dumpster, kicking and screaming. We like our good ol’ prolific garbage source! He cleans us up, dresses us, and sits us down in front of a feast. A feast! Think Babette! And you’re a little timid at first. “What exactly is this that I’m eating?”

Sure — sometimes Jesus find us licking out sin’s compost bucket. We have a taste for garbage! And Jesus yanks us out again, wipes our mouth, and helps us back to the feast. Gradually we learn how to enjoy the complex flavors in His cuisine. We also learn that we need the nurture that the food gives us.

And really? It’s all an just appetizer for our upcoming Marriage Supper.

versus

Which is it? Which best pictures the Kingdom of God?

I’ve talked about eschatology qua eschatology in an earlier post, so there’s no need to re-hash that here. As much as dispensationalists — or especially those dispie-lite sorts who call themselves “progressive” or “historic premill” –  insist that the view of The End doesn’t influence the rest of their theological system, that’s bogus. Of course it does.

In fact, it’s a dispie habit to slice-n-dice the Scripture: “this is for that; that’s not for this.” So that the “new dispies” sentimentally and politically (try to) slice off their view of The Future from their view of The Present isn’t a surprise.

Just look at these two representative anecdotes from the last month. Kevin Bauder, a prominent voice in my previous life, limits the goodness of the Good News. Bob Lupton, writing in my current denomination’s magazine, imagines how big It could blossom. The irony of this initial comparison is enough to make me spit coffee on my Eee PC. Pre-mills usually (though not always) reject that most frustrating petal on the Calvinist TULIP — Limited Atonement — as too . . . well, limiting. But uh . . . look who’s doing the limiting and who’s doing the expanding here. The one assumes its his job to draw lines around God’s Good News; the other just trusts God and gets going.

Bauder doubts the validity of an “enlarged gospel.” Lupton doesn’t waste time doubting because he’s too busy building. Bauder says:

The mechanism through which this heavenly arrival is supposed to occur is the Kingdom of God. According to the theory, the Kingdom is already present in the world, particularly among the people of God. Therefore, the main business of God’s people is to put the Kingdom on display by modeling emotional wholeness, social justice, and environmental concern.To be clear, those who incorporate social elements into the gospel do not necessarily deny that personal sin has condemned individuals. Nor do they necessarily deny that the gospel includes the element of personal redemption through the propitiatory death of Jesus. What they do, however, is to place their emphasis upon the psychological, social, or ecological dimensions of the gospel. The effect of this shift is to diminish the importance of personal sin and personal redemption. Some of the more extreme advocates of the both/and gospel display a profound reluctance to engage in personal evangelism, substituting social engagement for direct proclamation.

And Lupton:

The people of the kingdom have a unique mandate to care for the needs of the vulnerable and the voiceless. Our scriptures are quite clear about this. It has been from antiquity both our birthright and our responsibility. We cannot rightly take joy in the rebirth of the city if no provision is being made to include the poor as co-participants. It will not be enough to offer food baskets at Christmas to migrating masses of needy people who are being driven by market forces away from the vital services of the city. Nor will our well-intentioned programs and ministries suffice for those being scattered to unwelcoming edge cities. We must be more intelligent than this. More strategic.

While we remain committed to fulfilling the Great Commission, there is a prior command the followers of Christ are called to – the Great Command. Loving God and its inseparable companion – loving neighbor – form the bedrock of our faith. All the Law and Prophets are built upon this foundation. The prophet Micah captured its essence: “He has told you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you, that you do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

Bauder hyper-focuses on I Cor 15 as the single real Gospel Text, but Lupton sees the Gospel in the Old Testament and New, in Christ’s words and Paul’s. Bauder is talking about “them,” while Lupton is talking about “us.” Bauder thinks he’s convincing his opponents to join him, but Lupton is inspiring us all to get to work.

What’s weird is that after reading Bauder’s article, I feel tired and sad. After reading Lupton’s, I feel like I’ve caught a glimpse of Jesus. And He’s not (just) a cool dude with a soul patch, playing a mandolin in a coffee house with the urban gentry. Nor is He (necessarily) carrying a large study Bible while wearing a navy suit and red power tie at a denominational convention. No, I see Jesus as actually in my little lower-middle-class McSuburb with its growing ethnically diverse population, wearing cargo shorts and mock Crocs while pushing a kindergartner on his training-wheeled bike. I see Him here.

On our way out of fundamentalism, a dear friend was (patiently) listening to my blatherings. I said, “But so-n-so said that just because you’re dispensationalist in your eschatology doesn’t mean you have to be dispensationalist in your soteriology.” She, an M.Div. from Westminster, responded with, “Of course it does! It’s all the same hermeneutic. And it’s all the same Story. The way God saves you is the way God saves the world!”

Huh. I had never heard it that way before. But now every time I pick up the Bible and read anything — even the Old Testament prophets who are often so dismissed in fundamentalism (or reserved for those elite few who can count to 2.5 x 365.25) — I see that same single Story. I see Jesus.

Where has He been?

The Manchurian Candidate was brainwashed to respond to the Queen of Diamonds — whatever he heard after seeing that card he would do without hesitation and then completely forget his actions.

His own loyalties, his own moral boundaries, his own personality, his entire sense of self was subsumed when he saw that card.

It wasn’t the card that was the problem, of course. The tyrannous ideology and the inhumane method was the problem. The complete subjugation of the self was the problem. The card was just the tool.

Or the problem was turning a human being into a mere tool, the simple agency of the tragic drama of a cold war.

The word “surrender” is my Queen of Diamonds. And I know it. “Surrender” in my previous life is vaulted as the chief ideal. When you read everything as a fight between Great and Angry God and little ol’ you, “surrender” is the natural trajectory. Just giving-up makes perfect sense.

So when I hear “surrender” in sermons or in books, I cringe. And I hate that I cringe. Grant and I have even realized separately and then admitted together that, as Grant says, “It must not mean what we think it means. It can’t. There’s something we don’t get.”

I’ve actually put-off writing this post for months because I still don’t know kinesthetically what “surrender” means. Maybe you can see it better than I.

Here’s how VanVonderen in his most recent book Soul Repair puts it. I think he addresses my uneasiness as well as the term’s healthy function (you can see my notes in the margin there):

It sounds like VanVonderen is telling us to give up our own attempts at moralism — at going “our own way” through our human rules. Thots?

I think the biggest difference is Who you’re “surrendering” to: your Heavenly Father or a mob boss? Your Abba Father isn’t trying to conquer you. He’s already sovereign and He already redeemed you. While a mob boss is worried about his own tenuous power and saving face before his enemies, a daddy doesn’t think in terms of power. At all.

I still don’t like the term “surrender” (as a rhetorician) because of the heavy military connotations. But plugging it into a God as Heavenly Father metaphor, I can see the point.

I think.

When we covered Bolgia 2 – the level of Dante’s Inferno reserved for flatterers where they wade knee-deep in excrement — my BJU Classical Lit teacher quipped, “After having two kids, I feel like I’ve been through this level of Hell.”

After potty-training two, I now understand what she means.

Now, this post is about poop. Or poop as a metonymy for sin (even Dante does that!).

Have you heard the one about the dog poop brownies?

I’m not kidding about this one. This story was an email forward that made the fundy rounds a few years back. It’s probably an old sermon illustration. It goes like this. . . .

A dad wanted to make a point to his teenage children, so he made them a plate of brownies (the kids should have known something was up at this point. Dad? Baking??). After they had begun to devour them, he asked them how they were enjoying them. He responded to their compliments with, “That’s good. I’m so glad. And I just put a little dog poop in them.”

After their gagging and puking, he feigned surprise, “What? Is that a problem? It was just a little bit!! . . . Oh? You don’t like that? REEEEEEALLY???? . . . . Well, how do you think God feels about just that little bit of sin in your life?”

:/

And lest you think this was just an old fuddy-duddy’s story from a by-gone era and that the new enlightened fundamentalist would never use such an ignorant illustration, I heard it again from one of my peers within the last month (listen at ~20 minutes in). Same dog-poop-in-the-dessert trope.

Sigh. I guess as we age and our illusion of control gets dismantled, in fundamentalism we resort to particular other delusions — harsher discourses of power.

Jesus talked about poop too. And vomit. But His take was completely the opposite of the fundamentalists’:

What Pollutes Your Life

^1-2 After that, Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the way from Jerusalem, criticizing, “Why do your disciples play fast and loose with the rules?”^3-9But Jesus put it right back on them. “Why do you use your rules to play fast and loose with God’s commands? God clearly says, ‘Respect your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.’ But you weasel around that by saying, ‘Whoever wants to, can say to father and mother, What I owed to you I’ve given to God.’ That can hardly be called respecting a parent. You cancel God’s command by your rules. Frauds! Isaiah’s prophecy of you hit the bull’s-eye:

These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they’re worshiping me,
but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy.”

^10-11He then called the crowd together and said, “Listen, and take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up.”

¹²Later his disciples came and told him, “Did you know how upset the Pharisees were when they heard what you said?”

^13-14Jesus shrugged it off. “Every tree that wasn’t planted by my Father in heaven will be pulled up by its roots. Forget them. They are blind men leading blind men. When a blind man leads a blind man, they both end up in the ditch.”

¹⁵Peter said, “I don’t get it. Put it in plain language.”

^16-20Jesus replied, “You, too? Are you being willfully stupid? Don’t you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the intestines and is finally defecated? But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It’s from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That’s what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods, washing or not washing your hands—that’s neither here nor there.”

A. Maz. Ing. The fundamentalist says the sin is out there and must not be touched. Jesus says the sin is in here and can’t not be touched. The fundamentalist judges everyone around him who doesn’t use his brand of spiritual hand sanitizer before communing. Jesus rolls His eyes at the absurdity. The fundamentalist tries to gross us out with a rather ridiculous and forced dessert recipe. Jesus just holds up a mirror. And a Light. A really, really big, universe-sized Light.

The fundamentalist separates from you because you might taint him. Jesus forgives you because He knows you have no other hope.

On some weird dysfunctional level, accepting the fundy view of sin seems easier. It promises some sort of control, offers some lie that we can get better with just a liiiiittle more effort. But it just sends you on a gerbil wheel of religion. A gerbil wheel that makes you kick off your cage-mates because you’re on a roll . . . so to speak.

My friend Lori Ramey has repeated Christ’s message on sin to me many times. She very patiently says it again and again when I ask. I need it here so I can re-read it when I forget. It speaks for itself.

But I just have to say again — I never, ever heard this in fundamentalism.

1. Sin is not a THING.

It doesn’t “exist” as its own entity somewhere, rubbing off like black tar on “good things” … so that we can simply keep ourselves away from the tar.… Sin is a twistedness, a perversion, a brokenness, a falling short. It exists only as the perversion of what is good….

2.and more precisely & biblically, sin exists IN ME. Not in objects. This point is well established in orthodox theological literature.

Paul writes in Titus that “to the pure, all things are pure.” Jesus says in Matthew (and He was speaking in that context of physical things, and in a conversation with the law-loving Pharisees), it is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out from the heart that defiles a man. Jesus locates the problem of sin within humans, not outside of them. We are  “drawn away by our own lusts and enticed” (James 1).

Jesus then goes on to name a representative short-list of sins as His examples. His “going in” examples were food (reminds me of Paul’s meat discussion). His “coming out” examples are all sins of the heart — envy, hatred, lust, etc.

The sin problem is INSIDE ME. This is foundational to biblical thinking. As soon as you define any particular thing as sinful, you’ve missed the point…. because we must agree that God Himself sees all things yet does not sin.

So, a test case:
Is pornography sinful?
Well, lusting certainly is.
Adultery is.
The sins of the heart are the point. You can commit the sin of lust without ever opening a Playboy magazine.

Is it the physical photograph of the naked woman in her debauched pose that is the sin? No.

Jesus could have picked up a porn magazine, flipped through it, and wept over the exploitation of those girls (whether they realize it or not) and such blatant perversion of God-granted beauty… yet never lust. [Don't misunderstand my point: I'm not suggesting that men go look at porn. I agree with 99% of the godly ministers I know who argue that porn is a huge problem for Christian men. But my point stands that the sin is taking place inside the heart, and the object that stirs up the illicit desires for a wrong kind of sex isn't the issue. If an unfallen man (or a glorified one) saw a centerfold, he would not sin.]

We sin because we are sinners.
The sin is not in the object.
Thus….

3. Mature, growing Christians experience a growing freedom of conscience as their knowledge of God and His Word grow. (At least, as the Spirit applies the Word to our hearts, we ought to.)

Paul never commends the “weaker brother” for his weakness. All of the protections he mandates (Romans 14, I Corinthians 8-10) are there to prevent him from being “destroyed” by his unbiblical conscience. Implicit in these passages is the expectation that the weaker brother will grow into a mature faith, one that realizes that meat offered to idols is okay; that no day is more important than another … that our external expressions of liberty are NOT where sin resides...

Sin is in the heart.

If I do something despite believing in my heart by conviction (whether I’m right or wrong) that it’s sin, Paul says, I sin against my conscience. And THAT is the sin. Not the activity itself.

4. The battle is never about the top-level, external, surface issues. When it comes to defining sin, the gray areas are actually very small.

You cannot play a game and create some “gray area” which you label “not-sin” yet “still bad.” The Bible never goes there.

Wisdom is justified by her actions, yes, but you’re dealing in different categories (sinful vs unwise). It would not be wise for me to play heavy metal for you at dinner, or in your church service. But that action alone wouldn’t be a sin (other than, possibly, my obvious omission of “love your neighbor” and “do unto others…”).

If you can’t enjoy screaming heavy metal, fine. Don’t listen.
But understand: NO particular style of music is sin in itself. Period.

If you do, great. There are some sweet guitar riffs and incredible musicianship on display, often mirroring classical-era harmonies and chord progressions.

If you can’t look at Michelangelo’s David without being bothered by the nudity, fine. But understand — nakedness is NOT a sin.
If you can, great. You’ll weep at the incredible beauty of the sculpture.

5. So…judging someone’s spiritual status by their list of favorite music … movies… TV… books… businesses… where they buy their socks — it’s just silly.

We are justified.
We are sanctified.
We are made holy solely through the blood of Jesus Christ and the work of the Cross.… nothing else.  I cannot trust God for my salvation and then try to “work my hardest” to “keep Him happy” during the rest of my Christian life! (Read Galatians)

Yes, we are “to be holy” — to be “set apart” indeed. One might argue that Jesus helps us understand that holiness when He calls us to see that the Law’s demands are inward, and not just outward. And that we are to be known, as His followers, by our LOVE. Not by what music we eschew.

We are losers. Gone. Hopeless— APART from God’s redemptive work.
And THAT is Grace:
you are totally sinful, yet totally loved by your Father.

Your actions will never make you any more or less holy. “Righteous Lot” was tormented in his conscience outside Sodom — but God terms him “righteous.” Unbelievable.

And my sinfulness is on par w/ Lot’s. Both of us enter God’s presence through the Blood. No other way.

Okay. I’m a weeper. Yeah, that’s me. So if you hear sobbing in church, it’s most likely me.

Sorry about that.

I did it again this past Palm Sunday.

Growing up, we never really did anything for Palm Sunday. I heard the story of the Triumphal Entry, of course. I remember seeing all the Catholics (well, they might have been Lutherans or Methodists or even — eegads! — Presbyterians, for that matter. But to my Baptist eyes, they were all Catholics.) at the Beefcarver for lunch that Sunday, and they all had their little label-pin palm frond. My dear mom explained the custom to me. It was as mysterious as the ashes on the forehead a few weeks before.

But this past Palm Sunday — my first one really outside fundamentalism — I got it for myself. And I cried for joy.

Because the children led us in worship. They. Led me. To Jesus.

I’ve said it over and over — that one of the biggest reasons for our departure was because of the poor “theology” of the child. I don’t even know if that’s the way I’d say it, but that’s becoming a big phrase for our fellow believers across the pond. The children are treated as lesser. “One anothering” is good for everyone, but the wee. The Gospel counts for you only if you can understand it, otherwise you get Law and Order! Which is really ironic because none of us really understands it, and, in fact, Jesus Himself said that the little ones get it better than we grown-ups do! A dear friend described her similar epiphany when she realized on the mission field that she was kinder to those she was trying to win to Christ than to her own children.

But all that will come later in a larger tome.

When the children entered the sanctuary that Palm Sunday morning waving their palm branches, they sang:

Hosanna, loud hosanna,
the little children sang,
through pillared court and temple
the lovely anthem rang.
To Jesus, who had blessed them
close folded to his breast,
the children sang their praises,
the simplest and the best.

From Olivet they followed
mid an exultant crowd,
the victor palm branch waving,
and chanting clear and loud.
The Lord of earth and heaven
rode on in lowly state,
nor scorned that little children
should on his bidding wait.

“Hosanna in the highest!”
that ancient song we sing,
for Christ is our Redeemer,
the Lord of heaven our King.
O may we ever praise him
with heart and life and voice,
and in his blissful presence
eternally rejoice!

I burst into tears. Jesus welcomed the praise of the forgotten and the less-than. Just like He accepted the extravagant perfume foot wash from a prostitute. Or met the tax-collector after hours. Or talked with the Samaritan woman by her watering hole.

But there it was: a regular ecclesiastical practice as part of the liturgical calendar. Children were included. Children led us to praise Jesus the King.

Look at how Matthew describes events after our King’s entry:

Jesus went straight to the Temple and threw out everyone who had set up shop, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of loan sharks and the stalls of dove merchants. He quoted this text:

My house was designated a house of prayer;
You have made it a hangout for thieves.

Now there was room for the blind and crippled to get in. They came to Jesus and he healed them.

When the religious leaders saw the outrageous things he was doing, and heard all the children running and shouting through the Temple, “Hosanna to David’s Son!” they were up in arms and took him to task. “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

Jesus said, “Yes, I hear them. And haven’t you read in God’s Word, ‘From the mouths of children and babies I’ll furnish a place of praise’?”

Jesus our Hero-Redeemer comes in on that donkey to the praise of “infants,” kicks out corruption, and makes room for the broken, sin-sick people to get to Him. When the religious leaders scoff at the children, Jesus stops them cold: the kids were fulfilling prophesy!

That’s when I am just sick when I hear more sniping Pharisee than loving King in our talk with and about the children. Just as one example. . . . in Fundamentalism, I heard a preacher insist that he must explain to his preschooler, while she was coloring, that her picture was meaningless to a great and powerful God.

I understand what he was trying to say: that God exists and He’s big. But that’s not what came through. What came through is that we adults, like God, don’t care much for child-like things.

It’s all very pagan, to be honest.

Where did we get this stuff? How easily we  become so egocentric! Augustine would have words for us. He would remind us that actually we adults are “better” sinners than our children because we’re sneakier about it. So it only proves his point that these critiques of children’s egocentrism are so blazenly egotistical.

No, we need a reminder. We need a regular reminder every year of how Christ included children. We need Palm Sunday.

There are times in this recovery process that I feel a little like a Native American dropped in the middle of ol’ England. It’s not that I regret or begrudge my more organically American religious culture. I miss it sometimes. But this newer-to-me world seems so . . . foreign.

We were taking the New Members Class a year ago. I had never taken a New Members class before. I don’t know why exactly.

But the seminarian leading the discussion said:

Remember your Baptism.

Huh? What’s that mean? How?

In (credo) Baptist circles, Baptism is a statement — a public declaration of your commitment to living for Christ. A Coming-Out Party. For some Reformed Baptists, it’s a carrot-on-a-stick. An initiation rite so hard to reach, that once you get there and get in and get wet, you know you’re “in.”

I do remember my baptism. I was six. It was in the Fall. I had practiced in the bathtub for months beforehand with my cat, Charmin, officiating. My mom bought me a pretty little dress with small embroidered flowers on it that was “permapress” or “wash-n-wear” or something so I didn’t have to wear a robe. And she tied my hair up in two skinny pig tails to stay out of my eyes.

I remember walking out. Seeing the crowd. Listening to the pastor. Nodding. And getting wet.

I also remember the doubt that my first grade teacher at Grace Baptist School put in my gut because the next day when I told her about the previous Sunday’s event, I couldn’t articulate exactly what it meant (I was six and I was painfully shy). So I wondered if it took. Since I couldn’t say.

But that kind of remembering is not what the phrase means. With credo-Baptism, baptism is something you do. With pedo-Baptism, baptism is something God does. And that sums up for me why I am a fully converted pedo-Baptist.

The credo sees baptism as an act of obedience. The pedo sees it as a “tattoo” with the Family name. The credo describes Baptism as a recent part of the Church Age. The pedo describes it as a continuation of circumcision. The credo celebrates individual commitment. The pedo celebrates communal involvement. The credo says to God, “I’m yours!” The pedo hears God say, “You’re mine!”

In Fundamentalism soooo many services ended with a hand-raising question:

Do you know beeeyond a shaaaaadow of a doubt [voice quivering] that if you died today, you would go to Heaven?

So after hearing the Word and (hopefully) feeling the Spirit working, doubt was introduced as a test of your justification. You get to the point that you ignore the Stirrings just so you can push past that question.

And, you know, if you catch me on a particularly lousy day, I might not know. Luther didn’t always know. But my doubt doesn’t discount God’s salvation. God’s bigger than my big (negative) feelings.

When Martin Luther told us to “remember your baptism,” he was admitting that doubt was part of being human. It’s not proof that you’re not saved (as we heard in fundamentalism) or proof that you are saved (as the Puritans assumed). It’s proof that you’re a finite creature, tempted to despair by the Great Doubt-Stirrer himself.

Baptism is a comfort to us (I’m sensing a theme), not a test. Luther puts it like this:

If, then, the holy sacrament of baptism is a thing so great, so gracious and full of comfort, we should pay earnest heed to thank God for it ceaselessly, joyfully, and from the heart, and to give Him praise and honor. For I fear that by our thanklessness we have deserved our blindness and become unworthy to behold such grace, though the whole world was, and still is, full of baptism and the grace of God. But we have been led astray in our own anxious works, afterwards in indulgences and such like false comforts, and have thought that we are not to trust God until we are righteous and have made satisfaction for our sin, as though we would buy His grace from Him or pay Him for it. In truth, he who does not see in God’s grace how it bears with him as a sinner, and will make him blessed, and who looks forward only to God’s judgment, ‘that man will never be joyful, in God, and can neither love nor praise Him. But if we hear and firmly believe that He receives us sinners in the covenant of baptism, spares us, and makes us pure from day to day, then our heart must be joyful, and love and praise God. So He says in the Prophet, “I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son.” Wherefore it is needful that we give thanks to the Blessed Majesty, Who shows Himself so gracious and merciful toward us poor condemned worms, and magnify and acknowledge His work.

God loves me and pities me like I love and pity this little punkin standing in here in a pull-up. God has lifted me up, identified me as His Own, and has given me His Name. Just like a Daddy does with his mysterious and other-worldly child placed in his arms. God started it. Just like a Mommy first loves that wrinkly, wriggly bundle before the child ever loves back.

God loved me first, so why wouldn’t I run into His loving open arms? When I doubt that I’m good enough or saved enough, I remember that God’s big enough, merciful enough, and loving enough.

That’s something to remember. For pedos and credos!

During a series on Christ’s parables, we hit eschatology twice. You know eschatology — that big bugaboo that really defines conservative Evangelicalism in the 20th century.

I was born and bred a dispensationalist. Those charts lined the Sunday School classrooms. We had all the  MacArthur and Chafer books at home. Ryrie was a regular author among my college texts. We BJU grads joke that former executive VP Bob Wood’s usual (but still fictional) 3-point outline was:

1. Turn or Burn
2. Singe or Cringe
3. Shake or Bake

Prophecy sermons were a sometimes-favorite (depending on which current event was worrisome). Van Impe lived up the road from us. At age six, I laid awake all night panicking that the USSR was going to attack the US because our Whirly-Bird teacher claimed it would happen any day. A Thief in the Night terrorized my dear brother too.

I threw away my dispensationalism, however, in a truck stop trash can somewhere between here and Missouri two years ago. We had been reading LaHaye’s Left Behind series in the car. This is our cheap version of audio books — I read books out loud to Grant while he drives.

The Left Behind books were some of our favorites. Not because we thought of them as terrific literature (I always joked that they are about in the same intellectual strata as The Munsters), but because I did a goooood Antichrist impression. My Carpathia voice was da bomb!

Really. The books are dumb. Really, really dumb. The female characters are all two-dimensional, all the “good guy” conservative Evangelicals are rich and tech-savvy Hummer-owners (puhleeeze!), and every ethnic stereotype gets exploited. Yawn!

But the end infuriated me. Christ has returned. He’s standing right there fellowshipping with the Tribulation Saints. He’s right there in front of them. And what does LaHaye have the characters do? They whisper to each other and say, “I wonder what he’s going to do next?” and they scurry off to their commentaries to find out.

I. am. not. kidding.

It was a light-bulb moment for me. The Word Himself is completely present in the flesh, and the protagonists want to know his next move? They run off to the 10th generation copy (a commentary) to find out?! What?

It all hit me. Dispensationalism is more about knowing the future before anyone else does. The rune-casting within the hyper-literal hermeneutic makes the few who can figure out the mystery significant. No preacher gets voted off in Dispensationalist Survivor! Knowing-it-all is the highest virtue. That’s why LaHaye’s fictional ending makes sense within the dispie ethic: Sure, sure — we’re relieved the battle is over, Jesus. Thanks bunches! But we just want to have a leg-up on these Sign-of-the-Beast-wearing bullies you used to pounce on us. Give us a minute here while we look up your return in Walvoord’s index. Let’s see, let’s see . . .  page 34. I wonder what 7 + 3.5 + 365 + 10.5 + pi equals? . . . Rayford, get the Strong’s, would ya? . . .  Where’d I put my Scofield?”

Finally seeing it as more about knowing than loving, more for the few than the many, more about the being right than being kind, more about the charts than the Sermon on the Mount, more about men than Jesus, I literally chucked the last novel in the can along with Gavin’s stinky diaper. I was done.

But I still get a sick lump in the pit of my gut when the usual dispie Texts come up in a sermon series. I feel the threat coming — the one that kept me up all night after Whirly-Birds. That I’m not ready, that I’m not good enough, that I’m going to be Left Behind. “I wish we’d all been ready. . . .”

But that’s not what he said. That sermon about usual end-times Parable of the Ten Virgins ended this way:

What keeps this from being a Turn-or-Burn message? Because that’s the way this would normally be preached. . . . I am not saying, “Because Jesus is coming back, go get right.” You know, it’s not a threat. That’s how it’s usually preached. “Jesus is coming back, and so you’d better get right. Jesus is coming back, and so you’d better shape up.  Jesus is coming back, so you’d better. . . .” It’s not a threat. Jesus’s return is not a threat. It’s a blessing! It’s something that we should take and say, “Oh God, hasten the day! Hasten the day!! When our faith should be made sight and our prayers should be made praise. Lord, hasten that day!” It’s not a Turn-or-Burn message because I’m not saying, “Go get cleaned up.” I’m not saying, “Go buy oil.” I’m saying, “Go find Christ. Go find Christ! Go find the Groom. Go find a relationship with the Groom.” So that whenever He returns, you can say, “I was waiting. I was waiting for you!”

What? The Ending doesn’t make me want to crawl under a rock? You’re not going to try to guilt me into a particular culturally safe kind of behavior?

Fundamentalism (i.e. dispensationalism. I still don’t see much difference) really gets it all backwards. They make love a duty instead of a joy. They make a blessing into a threat. They make Christ’s finest sermon irrelevant for the Church Age. They turn a relationship into a religion.

A blessing and a comfort! Wow!! It really is the Good News!

It’s been eight years since we said goodbye to our Elise. I still get anxious as June comes to an end. I get urpy when the starry bunting goes up for sale. I still feel wistful when we watch the fireworks in uncomfortable lawn chairs. It still feels like someone’s missing.

I still try to make her extra short life meaningful and happy. I’ve smocked some dresses for other little girls who’ve gone to Heaven before their first breath. I try to do it every year, but once my little brood on Earth doubled, I had a hard time finishing. I started one dress three years ago (!) that I’m determined to finish this summer.

But my grief has changed. I’d like to think it’s “aged.” Like wine. Sweeter.

All because of these little people around me.

When they see a little girl in a picture book, Isaac explains to his brother, “Gavin, that’s Elise!”

When he asks about Heaven, he imagines that her house “smells like grapes.”

When they look at my baby charm bracelet, they ask about each charm — the ones for themselves and for their siblings in Heaven. I explain that they for sure had an older brother in Heaven.

“What’s his name?” Isaac wonders.

“Well, we didn’t name him, honey, because we didn’t get to know him enough. What do you think his name is?”

He thinks. For a long, long time. “Sonic. Yes, Sonic!”

Awhile back I told them that when they find a penny on the ground, that’s Elise saying “hello!” This helps them and me. They feel connected to their sister and it helps me remember. And it saves me from having to lean over to pick up any change we find.

On a recent and long car ride, Isaac pensively decided, “Mommy? I think that Papa and Sonic are sending me pennies from Heaven too.”

He is planning a party for Elise’s birthday. “She’s never seen a train movie. So I think it should be trains. . . . and red. She needs a red cake!”

Celebrating is so easy for him. So joyful. I think, thanks to these little ones, my grief is growing up to be more like theirs. It’s maturing to be more like a child’s.

A foretaste of Heaven, if you ask me.

Cross-posted on Mothering by Grace