In such a situation, the amateur–the lover, the man who thinks heedlessness a sin and boredom a heresy–is just the man you need. More than that, whether you think you need him or not, he is a man who is bound by his love, to speak. If he loves Wisdom or the Arts, so much the better for him and for all of us. But if he loves only the way meat browns or onions peel, if he delights simply in the curds of his cheese or the color of his wine, he is, by every one of those enthusiasms, commanded to speak. A silent lover is one who doesn’t know his job.

Ah, Capon. This paragraph speaks for itself, doesn’t it? You speak not because it’s right or is a right. His admonition is much stronger than that. You speak because you love.

Love is. And the speaking comes next. It’s not some Erasmusian, highly attenuated and stylized, Praise of Folly kind of speaking. It’s not covert. It’s full-throated and known. Otherwise, it’s not love. Or it’s at least incomplete.

So like Luther to the overly sagacious Melancthon, Capon to us is saying “love loudly.”

When the word discipline enters your mind, do you also think of the word disciple? These two English words come from the same Latin word: discipulus. Discipline is the process and a disciple is the intended product. Years ago in a church history class, Dr. Edward Panosian explained the threefold purpose of local church discipline. He told the seminarians that the purpose was first to remove leaven from the lump (I Corinthians 5:6-8); second, to restore the sinning brother to fellowship with God first and then to fellowship with the local church (2 Corinthians 2:5-11); and third, to teach other to fear or reverence scriptural standards (I Timothy 5:19-20). The goal of church discipline should be to bring about these three biblical objectives and produce disciples.

Our motives normally determine the manner and method in which we deal with people. In the book of Ephesians, Paul said to keep “speaking the truth in love.” Speaking truth should be done out of a motive of love and in a loving manner. Discipline requires speaking the truth. As a parent may have to discipline his or her child out of love, so the church may have to discipline a member out of love with the goal of helping that member put God first.

Undisciplined individuals are self-indulgent. The list of the fruit of the Spirit ends with ‘temperance’ or self-control. For the believer, the purpose of self-denial (by putting God first) is to become a proper disciple (Matthew 16:24).

Too many Bible-preaching churches are unwilling to obey the Lord in the steps of church discipline. However, church discipline has been ordered by the Lord for our benefit. What are these steps?

1. Private confrontation of person sin–go alone and, if necessary, repeatedly (Matthew 18:15).
2. Public confrontation of established sins, especially of church leaders (I Timothy 5:19-20). The sin, if not admitted, must be established by two or three eyewitnesses.
3. Plural collaboration–two or three witnesses (Matthew 18:16; I Timothy 5:19; 2 Corinthians 13:1).
4. Public disclosure (within the church) of personal sin if not repented. “Tell it to the church” (Matthew 18:17a).
5. Public correction (by the church) of personal or public sin if not repented. “Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican” (Matthew 18:17).
6. Treatment of the unrepentant former church member as unsaved (Matthew 18:17b).
7. Private association forbidden with unrepentant former church members (I Corinthians 5:9-12).
8. Personal reconciliation with the disciplined brother if he repents at any stage of the process (Luke 17:1-3; Matthew 18:15; 2 Corinthians 2:5-11).
9. Public restoration of a publicly repentant former member (2 Corinthians 2).
10. Progressive restoration of the repentant church member to certain biblical ministries.

The ten steps listed above need some clarification. If the sinner repents at any stage, he should be forgiven. The church should distinguish between fellowship, membership and leadership in restoring one who is forgiven. Forgiveness should be given instantaneously because God restores fellowship with the individual who asks forgiveness. He forgives for Christ’s sake, not because the sinning brother deserves it (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13).

When a church has removed an unrepentant brother from membership, it usually is better to withhold membership until he cures his wrongdoing (making restitution, telling the truth to those to whom he has lied, reconciling his marriage, gaining victory over drugs, etc.). Leadership positions might never be restored. For example, a Sunday school teacher might return to teaching God’s Word after a sufficient time has lapsed for a credible testimony to be reestablished; but a pastor who becomes sexually involved with a woman other than his wife would always be doubted in biblical preaching and counseling on the family. The majority of a pastor’s counseling time deals with family needs. Therefore, the life of a pastor or a deacon must be blameless in moral issues (“the husband of one wife”) so that family counseling and preaching can be authoritative.

If the sin is private, keep it private if the person is repentant. If the sin is public, then public confession and restoration is necessary. The sin of the incestuous man of I Corinthians 5 was public and not repented; therefore, Paul publicly rebuked and asked for removal of the leaven of this unrepentant brother (v. 7).

When a Christian sins privately against another Christian, the one sinned against is told to “go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.” The Greek for go implies continuing confrontation if necessary. Ken Sande in his book The Peacemaker says go several times alone to repent. If private confrontation does not work, two or three other church members should go with the offended brother as witnesses.

Public correction is the next step for an unrepentant church member. After repeated confrontations, unrepentant members should be removed from membership. In I Corinthians 6:1-5, Paul points out the importance of having Christians urge matters among themselves.

If the unrepentant member withdraws his membership before the church votes, a church cannot legally proceed with an official vote. However, if a second church requests from the first church a letter of release from membership for the unrepentant one, the leadership of the first church can tell the second church that the individual is not in good standing.

Paul makes it clear that we should not “keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner” (I Corinthians 5:11). Jesus said to treat an unrepentant brother who has trespassed against another Christian as a heathen man and a publican (Matthew 18:17). Obviously, though, a mate or a blood relative should relate naturally to the one who has been disciplined.

Early in one of my church pastorates, a teenage church member who admitted to immorality refused to listen to appeals calling for repentance. With brokenness we voted to remove this one from membership.

It is essential that a church have a clear constitution and that it publish clear information regarding what is required of members. Often, pastors are concerned that they will scare people away if they spell out on the front end what is expected of church members. In fact, the opposite may be true. One Sunday our church leadership asked a person in public sin to ask for forgiveness. That person stood before the church and asked for forgiveness and asserted repentance A visiting Bible student who witnessed the event came and said, “I want to become a member of this church. I have never seen this done where I come from.”

Scriptural church discipline has been ordered by the Lord for our benefit. We cannot please Him by ignoring His instruction. The steps should be followed in order and carried out in love. The desire and prayer of the church must be that the offending brother will respond positively and be restored. “If he shall hear thee, thou has gained they brother” (Matthew 18:15).

Anybody care to discern where the Bible ends and Greenville Syndrome begins? My favorite is paragraph #6.

While the difference between mortal and venial sin seems obvious, don’t be fooled. There is more to this than meets the eye. What is really bad and what isn’t? And who decides?

Here is a routine situation that every Catholic of my generation had to deal with: You are at a baseball game at Yankee Stadium on a Friday night in June 1950. Catholics are forbidden to eat meat under penalty of mortal sin. But you want a hot dog. Now, just considering eating meat on Friday is a venial sin; wanting to is another. You have not moved in your seat and you have already sinned twice. What if you actually ate one? Aside from the risk of choking on forbidden food and getting punished right on the spot, have you committed a mortal sin or a venial sin? Well, if you think it’s mortal, it may be mortal; and if you think it’s venial, it still may be mortal. After much thought, you decide it’s venial. You call the hot dog vendor, you take the money out of your pocket, and you buy a hot dog. This is clearly an act of free will. You figure you can go confess your sin to the priest on Saturday night. But wait! Does a venial sin become mortal when you commit it deliberately? That’s a chance you take. What if you’ve forgotten it’s Friday? In that case, eating the hot dog may not be a sin, but forgetting it’s Friday is. What if you remember it’s Friday halfway through the hot dog? Is it a venial sin to finish it? If you throw it away, is wasting food a sin? Within five minutes you have committed enough sins to land you in purgatory for a million years. The safest thing to do is not to take any chances–stay away from Yankee Stadium on Fridays.

The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning

It might be funny if it didn’t sound so familiar.

I’ve taken my own sort of vow of poverty. I’ve participated in endless cumin-dividing discussions about the fine arts (as if “fine” had more to do with its size than character). I’ve “done devotions” with every sort of program, cutesy name, and innovative strategy since early elementary school. I’ve been lured to strive for that “higher life” monastic upper-class known in my world as “full-time Christian service.” I’ve endured endless preaching where justification by faith is just a brusque bro-hug that gets you in the sanctification-by-works club. And we think we’re so different from the “Romish” church?

The crazy-making internal conversation cum tailspin that Manning describes is the life of a fundamentalist. That’s it.

What stuns me is how we do it together.

Just like the Shakers. Really. The Shakers’ individual (tail)spinning and twitching developed over time (due to outside criticism) into a full-fledged communal performance. I look at that picture and imagine how easy it is to get swooped away into the spin. The individual must persist with the dance because well . . . people are watching, and it’d be a bad testimony for . . . the group. You wouldn’t want to be “ungracious.”

I got shoved out of the spin. But I’m not sitting in the crowd watching on the left either. I don’t know yet where I am, but I’m kind of amazed at how many people keep calling me back to the dance. Or back to the prison, as Steve Brown would say.

This would be Ted Mercer’s final post to his blog (if he had one in the 1950s). But, of course, the story continues without him.

In his final “post,” Mercer is plainly exasperated. Bob Jones Sr. has called him more than just “inefficient” and “disloyal,” more than just “criminally insane” and “demon possessed.” In numerous private conversations with students, alumni, staff, and constituency, Jones has called Mercer a homosexual. And in this document, Mercer is trying to set the record straight (pun intended).

It’s hard to imagine the weight of this accusation today. I’m not going to deconstruct it anymore than to say that Jones’ “poisoning the well” for Mercer’s reputation is despicable and shameful.

A few people to note:

• Mr. James H. Price was “a member of the executive committee” and “attorney for Dr. Jones [Sr.].” He still resides in Greenville, and his son is a local attorney.
• Mrs. Keefer, Dean Keefer’s wife, worked at the Dining Common.
• Glen Lockwood told Mercer the exact numbers of enrollment (in contrast to the published numbers in the Sword) and was subsequently expelled for “[supplying] information to an enemy of the institution” (20). I believe he’s preached recently at Reformed Presbyterian Church, Southside in Indianapolis.
• Another faculty member is mentioned as resigning — Mr. Warwick.
• Matt and Millie Weld resigned because of BJSr.’s accusations against Mercer.

Alice Mercer, Ted Mercer’s wife, provides an honest and shoot-from-the-hip rebuke of Jones Sr. She clarifies what have been only fuzzy glimpses of the Family for those of us who followed her.

• She describes the more Pentecostal ethic in BJSr. with his “biblical discernment of spirits and of character” claim degenerating into a simple and blatant accusation of his argumentative opponents.
• She points up the double-standard on the “beverage use of alcohol” among the administrators — specifically that “little bottle” that BJSr. “[carries] around and take[s] sips from” (14).
• She draws the obvious connection (for the times) between BJU and the USSR.

Ted Mercer’s most startling and eerily-resonant statement in the whole document:

Your failure as individuals to support what I and hundreds of others believe is a reasonable request (for Dr. Jones to retract and apologize or to grant an open hearing to determine the guilty ones in this controversy) will only serve to prolong and intensify the controversy. The alumni have spoken. I have more than a thousand letters which the Board may inspect under the conditions of a hearing. These tell abundantly what many alumni think about these matters (5).

This explains much of the BJU official reaction to the Please-Reconcile movement a year ago. It was completely an alumni-driven effort to coax BJU to apologize for what was clearly institutional racism. While BJU did apologize, their spokesman, Gary Weier, went to great pains to explain that the alumni had nothing to do with their statement. No one, of course, believed him. So the question becomes why does BJU work so hard at proving that the alumni and faculty are irrelevant?

Habit may be one explanation.

“And after that,” said Edmund, “came about a dozen Dwarfs: and then Jill, and Eustace, and last of all yourself.”

“I hope Tash ate the Dwarfs too,” said Eustace. “Little swine.”

“No, he didn’t,” said Lucy. “And don’t be horrid. They’re still here. In fact you can see them from here. And I’ve tried and tried to make friends with them but it’s no use.”

“Friends with them!” cried Eustace. “If you knew how those Dwarfs have been behaving!”

“Oh stop it, Eustace,” said Lucy. “Do come and see them. King Tirian, perhaps you could do something with them.”

“I can feel no great love for Dwarfs today,” said Tirian. “Yet at your asking, Lady, I would do a greater thing than this.”

Lucy led the way and soon they could all see the Dwarfs. They had a very odd look. They weren’t strolling about or enjoying themselves (although the cords with which they had been tied seemed to have vanished) nor were they lying down and having a rest. They were sitting very close together in a little circle facing one another. They never looked round or took any notice of the humans till Lucy and Tirian were almost near enough to touch them. Then the Dwarfs all cocked their heads as if they couldn’t see anyone but were listening hard and trying to guess by the sound what was happening.

“Look out!” said one of them in a surly voice. “Mind where you’re going. Don’t walk into our faces!”

“All right!” said Eustace indignantly. “We’re not blind. We’ve got eyes in our heads.”

“They must be darn good ones if you can see in here,” said the same Dwarf whose name was Diggle.

“In where?” asked Edmund.

“Why you bone-head, in here of course,” said Diggle. “In this pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable.”

“Are you blind?” said Tirian.

“Ain’t we all blind in the dark!” said Diggle.

“But it isn’t dark, you poor stupid Dwarfs,” said Lucy. “Can’t you see? Look up! Look round! Can’t you see the sky and the trees and the flowers? Can’t you see me?”

“How in the name of all humbug can I see what ain’t there? And how can I see you any more than you can see me in this pitch darkness?”

“But I can see you,” said Lucy. “I’ll prove I can see you. You’ve got a pipe in your mouth.”

“Anyone that knows the smell of baccy could tell that,” said Diggle.

“Oh the poor things! This is dreadful,” said Lucy. Then she had an idea. She stooped and picked some wild violets. “Listen, Dwarf,” she said. “Even if your eyes are wrong, perhaps your nose is all right: can you smell that?” She leaned across and held the fresh, damp flowers to Diggle’s ugly nose. But she had to jump back quickly in order to avoid a blow from his hard little fist.

“None of that!” he shouted. “How dare you! What do you mean by shoving a lot of filthy stablelitter in my face? There was a thistle in it too. It’s like your sauce! And who are you, anyway?”

“Earth-man,” said Tirian, “she is the Queen Lucy, sent hither by Aslan out of the deep past. And it is for her sake alone that I, Tirian your lawful King, do not cut all your heads from your shoulders, proved and twice-proved traitors that you are.”

“Well if that doesn’t beat everything!” exclaimed Diggle. “How can you go on talking all that rot? Your wonderful Lion didn’t come and help you, did he? Thought not. And now–even now–when you’ve been beaten and shoved into this black hole, just the same as the rest of us, you’re still at your old game. Starting a new lie! Trying to make us believe we’re none of us shut up, and it ain’t dark, and heaven knows what.”

“There is no black hole, save in your own fancy, fool,” cried Tirian. “Come out of it.” And, leaning forward, he caught Diggle by the belt and the hood and swung him right out of the circle of Dwarfs. But the moment Tirian put him down, Diggle darted back to his place among the others, rubbing his nose and howling:

“Ow! Ow! What d’you do that for! Banging my face against the wall. You’ve nearly broken my nose.”

“Oh dear!” said Lucy. “What are we to do for them?”

“Let ‘em alone,” said Eustace: but as he spoke the earth trembled. The sweet air grew suddenly sweeter. A brightness flashed behind them. All turned. Tirian turned last because he was afraid. There stood his heart’s desire, huge and real, the golden Lion, Aslan himself, and already the others were kneeling in a circle round his forepaws and burying their hands and faces in his mane as he stooped his great head to touch them with his tongue. Then he fixed his eyes upon Tirian, and Tirian came near, trembling, and flung himself at the Lion’s feet, and the Lion kissed him and said, “Well done, last of the Kings of Narnia who stood firm at the darkest hour.”

“Aslan,” said Lucy through her tears, “could you–will you–do something for these poor Dwarfs?”

“Dearest,” said Aslan, “I will show you both what I can, and what I cannot, do.” He came close to the Dwarfs and gave a low growl: low, but it set all the air shaking. But the Dwarfs said to one another, “Hear that? That’s the gang at the other end of the stable. Trying to frighten us. They do it with a machine of some kind. Don’t take any notice. They won’t take us in again!”

Asian raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. But it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly. They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said “Ugh! Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at! Never thought we’d come to this.” But very soon every Dwarf began suspecting that every other Dwarf had found something nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on to quarreling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under foot. But when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and their bleeding noses, they all said:

“Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being takers in that they cannot be taken out. But come, children. I have other work to do.”

He went to the Door and they all followed him. He raised his head and roared, “Now it is time!” then louder, “Time!”; then so loud that it could have shaken the stars, “TIME.” The Door flew open.

C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, “How the Dwarfs Refused to be Taken In”

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.

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.

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

A busy kitchen remodel and a frenetic Disney vacation have given me time to digest some of the more subtle but still dramatically different ideas I’m hearing outside of fundamentalism.

In fundamentalism, appeals to humility are a persistent trope. Keswick author Andrew Murray’s little book Humility is a regular assignment to BJU undergraduates, and so it both describes and prescribes fundamentalist preaching on the subject. You can read the text for yourself. In essence, Murray laments that humility should be the chief virtue we pursue. Which is like saying that we have to work hard at relaxing or we need to wash ON some dirt. That just doesn’t make sense.

It’s as (oxy)moronic as saying that we have to earn grace.

So I sat with my mouth hanging open this past Sunday during the sermon about “Putting off Pride.” Pastor DuBose described pride initially with Edgar Allen Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado.” The antagonist Fortunato falls into a drunken state and is immured — goaded by his destructive arrogance in his own prowess.

The definition of pride in this sermon?

Pride leads to isolation. Moral self-righteousness, correct doctrine, or elaborate formulas all let the walls build up and destroy community. They are all prideful.

What? I have never heard that one before. Never. Never, ever.

I know that my rank introversion makes isolation an easy habit. Being social or part of a large group is not my bent. And that natural and God-given personality quirk can be good. But it can also be insulating and dysfunctional.

Even (dare I say it) . . . separating.

Fundamentalism got it all backwards. In that ethic, humility is putting yourself down to put God up. It’s binary. It’s either-or. It’s individualistic. It’s something to strive for.

In this new world, humility is being with. It’s being with God and with your brothers and sisters and with your neighbors and with your “enemies.”

And because this is so new and so against my personality, I’m really out of practice.