I should first note that this tension, which I’ve expressed as a tension between my duties as a Christian and a citizen, is a fault line within broader conservatism. Modern American conservatism is an amalgamation of classical liberalism and evangelical populism. Classic liberalism (or libertarianism to use its modern label) as formulated by Adam Smith enshrines the free market, individual rights, and is skeptical of interventionist government. Evangelical populism (or social conservatism) seeks to enforce communal norms that are constructed from Biblical proscriptions. Perhaps you can already see the source of my cognitive dissonance.

These two streams of modern conservatism come into conflict over the role of the State. Libertarians believe that State action is at best inefficient and at worst in violation of individual rights. Social conservatives, on the other hand, have no problem with State intervention. For many on the Religious Right, the question is a matter of how rather than whether the State should intervene. The social conservative believes that the State is a legitimate vehicle for enforcing moral conformity. (I would also argue that the social liberal is simply the mirror image of his right-wing opponent, but that argument deserves its own post.) Returning to my own personal experience, I found myself giving a debate speech declaring the evils of government intervention in the economy in one breath and in the next arguing for stricter government regulation of marriage.

Now, I am an expert at compartmentalizing contradictions – I find it disturbingly easy to spend a Sunday morning in hypocritical worship without repenting of known sin – but this tension nagged at me all through college. Most people that I knew gave no evidence of having even considered the question. A number of my acquaintances resolved the dilemma for themselves by advocating for some form of dominionism whereby the state effectively becomes an extension of the church. Even prior to becoming a libertarian, I could not follow this path; I was uncomfortable with the Christian reconstructionist’s lofty view of the state.

I eventually recognized that I had a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of morality. In my mind I had been equating morality with moral behavior. See, the most government can ever hope to legislate is conformity, adherence to laws and regulations [though a cursory review of our war on drugs should raise big questions regarding governments efficacy at enforcing conformity]. Government, even in the most repressive societies, cannot legislate our motivations or our beliefs.

I then realized that the source of the tension between my political self and my theological self was a clash of definitions. What did it mean to be moral? Or to put it in Biblical parlance, what did it mean to be righteous? In politics I was supporting a definition of morality which was synonymous with conformity. Government would prevent people from acting in a certain manner and promote moral ways of behaving. Obedience to law was equivalent with morality. But my theology told me something very different. Christ’s righteousness was given, not earned. Righteousness certainly was not equivalent with moral behavior; that is the path of the legalist. The legalist tells us that if we can get someone to behave in a certain manner they will be moral. But Christ taught that righteousness is heart-centered rather than behavior-centered. 

This longstanding tension relaxed as I merged my political and theological thinking. Government cannot legislate morality because the State can do nothing more than regulate external behavior. No matter how many laws that we pass which prohibit vice, our country becomes no more moral in God’s eyes. For example, simply preventing homosexuals from marrying does not somehow make America more pleasing to God. Government legislation can only hope to discourage actual homosexual acts. It cannot prevent homosexuality in the heart. I do believe that homosexuality is a sin before God, but using the government to prevent external manifestations of sin does nothing to satisfy God’s standard of holiness. Government cannot make a sinful heart righteous – only the gracious offer of redemption at the Cross can do that. By confusing righteousness with external conformity we have reflected poorly on the gospel. From our pulpits we loudly proclaim salvation by faith and not by works, but in our politics we whisper, “behave in x manner rather than y in order to be moral and thus more pleasing to God.” We have become political legalists.

The conflict over homosexuals’ right to marry exemplifies the damage that we have caused. In California, Proposition 8 excluded same-sex couples from the legal rights of marriage. Now, in a narrow sense I would defend Proposition 8 from the judicial end-runs of its opponents, but I wish that Proposition 8 had never been passed and that evangelicals had not been complicit in its passage. As believers we should not be afraid of giving offense for the gospel’s sake. Certainly, those who do not believe in Christ will not take kindly to being confronted with their sin. But this principle does not give Christians carte blanche for giving offense. We must strive to give offense only because we preach Christ, not because of our methods or manner. But do we communicate Christ’s love by denying civil rights to homosexuals? Is Christ magnified when we make homosexuals second-class citizens?

The root problem with our opposition to homosexual marriage is not that we believe homosexuality is wrong. The fundamental problem with our opposition to homosexual marriage is that we have confused the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man. We are trying to use the State to delineate the Church. But when we combine Church and State we run the risk of blending the two. Thus we have made marriage, a biblical covenant between two individuals and God, something to be regulated and defined by civil government. Today, it is the State that marries us, not the minister.

This little example of blending illustrates a far bigger problem; I believe that we have come to equate American citizenship with heavenly citizenship. Now it is true that American Christians are citizens of both kingdoms, but the requirements for each must remain distinct. That seems so obvious it sounds silly, but when we conflate the kingdoms we blur the distinctions between the two. Want to be a full citizen of the United States? Well you’d better not be a homosexual (we won’t let you marry) or an atheist (we won’t let you hold office). Blurring the lines between the kingdoms of God and man ignores Christ’s proclamation, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Do we not then err when we attempt to make it so?

I became a libertarian because I realized that our rights and responsibilities as Christians are different from our rights and responsibilities as Americans. Being a libertarian gives me the freedom to fully embrace both identities. I can defend the civil right of homosexuals to marry while simultaneously preaching to them their sin and need of a Savior. I can vote for a politician while realizing that no amount of legislation, no matter how effective, can make our nation more pleasing to God. I can evangelize the lost while fully aware that as the gospel changes hearts it will make us better citizens.

But when we wrongly define Biblical morality or blend church and state we distort the gospel. Our faith in Christ transcends the kingdom of man. Like the Apostle Paul we eschew hope in “earthly things” and proclaim that “our [pre-eminent] citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

But Madoff’s sentencing took on a special significance. As the judge “read his sentence, the courtroom, filled with many of Madoff’s devastated victims, broke into applause.” NPR interviewed a number of Madoff’s victims who took turns alternately decrying how horrible Madoff’s actions were and wishing that he could be punished above what the federal sentencing guidelines allow. 

America united to condemn the many sins of Bernie Madoff. He became a larger-than-life figure in the process. Not only was what he did wrong or criminal but his crimes revealed his ‘extraordinary evil.’ This theme repeated itself on blog posts and online forums. Madoff’s trial and sentencing were opportunities for ritualistic, communal condemnation.

One of the oddities of our current economic recession is that most people don’t know who to blame. Was it corrupt bank CEOS? Greedy lenders? Average people borrowing beyond their means? Government interference in the market? Too little government interference in the market? There is no widespread consensus. Bernie Madoff gives us an opportunity to point our collective finger. I suspect that much of the emotion surrounding the case had less to do with Madoff’s crimes per se and more to do with our delight at finally finding a solid target.

We are using Bernie Madoff to expiate a lingering sense of communal guilt. I wonder if many Americans feel a vague, subconscious sense of guilt over what has happened; even if it isn’t guilt, we do fear that others will misinterpret our actions. So the family that just bought a new house with an adjustable rate mortgage for which they can no longer afford the monthly payments, the newlyweds up to their ears in credit card debt, or the bank CEO who accepted a large bonus can each justify (or at least distract from) their own actions by decrying Bernie Madoff’s.

This compulsion is typical of human behavior. By condemning other people who engage in less communally acceptable forms of behavior we look all the better by comparison. “I may have told a little white lie to my spouse, yelled at my kids, or lusted after a co-worker, but at least I didn’t cheat on my spouse, beat my kids, or sleep around.”

The case of Bernie Madoff shows how fundamentally lacking our understanding of human nature is. We are depraved, sinful creatures with fallen natures. In our hearts we are no different from Bernie Madoff. His extravagant sins are no worse than our own. It is only by the grace of God that we can ever do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. We need God’s freely offered mercy in order to have any hope of living lives that conform to the image of Christ.

What would a Christ-like response to Bernie Madoff’s sins look like? I believe that the Amish reaction to the shooting deaths of five of their little girls in 2006 should be a real rebuke to us who are so quick to condemn Mr. Madoff. They grieved, certainly, but they also forgave the man who killed their daughters. They provided for the shooter’s family, paying for the future education of his children. They lived out the gospel.

Contrast the Amish response to tragedy with the response of Madoff’s victims (and the watching public as a whole). Where the Amish forgave, we have condemned. Madoff’s sentencing reminded me not a little of a passion play. I almost expected a “crucify him!” to punctuate the judge’s statement. The same investors who crowned Bernie Madoff as the king of investment gurus were crowing for his blood just a few months later.

Of course the analogy breaks down very quickly. Christ was without sin while Madoff was anything but! Yet I believe that the curious case of Bernie Madoff ought to encourage us to think hard about expiation, human depravity, and our desperate need for grace.

The prosperity gospel is self-validating and non-falsifiable. Consider the case of the fictional (though realistic) Mr. Kilpatrick. Mr. Kilpatrick has been struggling to break through into management at his office. He happens to attend a service at Lakewood Church where he hears Joel Osteen declare that “those same winds that are trying to defeat you, God can cause to change direction and be the very winds that propel you into the destiny He has in store for you!” Mr. Kilpatrick realizes that he just needs to “sow into God’s kingdom” (tithe and purchase materials from Joel Osteen ministries) and God will fulfill His covenant by financially blessing him. Mr. Kilpatrick digs into his pocket and gives. Lo and behold, several months later Mr. Kilpatrick gets a promotion! Clearly God had rewarded Mr. Kilpatrick for giving. Now Mr. Kilpatrick can buy a new home (with an adjustable rate mortgage), get a nice, new car, and give even more generously to Joel Osteen’s ministry.

Mr. Kilpatrick’s financial success validated Osteen’s ministry. But if the opposite had happened to Mr. Kilpatrick, if his financial situation had worsened, it would not have invalidated the prosperity gospel. Mr. Kilpatrick’s financial failures were a result of his lack of faith or his insufficient giving. If only Mr. Kilpatrick had trusted God a little more or given more than he would have been rewarded. The prosperity gospel is unfalsifiable since circumstances are always interpreted as proof of its validity.

The unfalsifiable and self-validating nature of the prosperity gospel, at best, undermines its followers pursuit of sanctification. A believer in the prosperity gospel who is financially prosperous will be tempted to ignore personal sin since the prosperity gospel replaces holiness with wealth as the standard of God’s pleasure. Alternatively, a prosperity-follower who is fiscally impoverished may spiritually castrate themselves as they seek for the sin in their lives that has caused God to frown upon them.

Ultimately, as John Piper has eloquently noted, the prosperity gospel runs counter to the true gospel.

[Add. 10/30/09 - Article]

It has been some time since I have heard expositional preaching from the Old Testament, so “Face to Face with Consuming Fire” from Exodus 19 was a real blessing. After sharing the story of the children of Israel at Sinai, Tim showed the continuities and contrasts with Mount Zion drawn by the author of Hebrews 12.

I was also impressed by the beautiful prose of Scripture. Hebrews 12: 23b-24 (ESV):

God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Isn’t that a beautiful phrase? The language is the same, which speaks to the continuity of man’s need for something transposed between him and divinity. But the blood of Abel declares our guilt whereas the blood of Christ declares us righteous!

PS – An interesting aside: I find the choice of “better word” (ESV), or “speaks better things” (NKJV), fascinating. God spoke the world into existence. His word speaks our salvation. It reminds me of the concept of “true names,” the idea that there are words that have power because they correspond with the underlying real nature of a thing. Examples abound in contemporary fiction, like Ursula LeGuin and The Wizard of Earthsea or CS Lewis and The Great Divorce, but the idea is really much older. The Plato’s Cave analogy portrays a world behind the world, that what we see as real is really just the shadow of reality. True reality is a transcendant, eternal form.

This concept fits perfectly with Scripture. When Paul writes to the Greeks at Corinth he used the language of Plato to say that on earth we but “see through a glass, darkly.” But once we transcend this world of shadows to the realm of true forms and see Him, “we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2). Heavenly reality, the true form, will transform us instantly.

For New Life Church’s The Thorn, the Passion is not only about the violence of crucifixion. It’s about spiritual violence: the larger story of the forces of good vs. the forces of evil. Like some early medieval Passion plays, according to Columbia University’s James Shapiro, The Thorn captures the whole sweep of the Bible, seasoned with Paradise Lost—we see the fall of Lucifer, the creation, the fall of man, even a bit of the plagues in Egypt and the exodus of the Hebrews. Then baby Jesus arrives and is presented like Simba into the Circle of Life. Satan and his demons hang around the edges of the production and fill the stage at key moments of the story, especially the betrayal of Jesus (when, according to the Gospel accounts of Luke and John, “Satan entered Judas”) and the anguished prayer of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Muscular angels and demons clash on the margins of center stage, and the outcome of Jesus’ journey seems to hang in the balance.

At moments, the experience rivals Cirque du Soleil: Everywhere you look, there are flaming swords, pyrotechnics, and barrel-chested bodies dancing, leaping, flipping across the stage, and swirling down from the rafters. The scale is epic. And with its scenes of the creation of the universe and the fall of Lucifer, so is the story.

In the article Patton Dodd asked, “is the Gospel narrative truly an epic tale?”

If some church Passion plays suggest so, their creators might have mingled their beloved Scriptures with their beloved stories. Christians cherish a lot of contemporary epics because they are Christ-type stories. On some level(s), The Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, and even The Matrix and grand historical dramas like Braveheart say something about what the story of Jesus means. The epic and its basic components—good battling evil, foes of near-equal strength, the whole world at stake—resonate naturally with biblical themes. Many a Sunday sermon has been illustrated with an epic-movie clip.

New Life Church’s The Thorn

But it’s one thing for an epic to evoke the Jesus story. It’s another altogether to make the Jesus story an epic. Epics are audaciously bigger than life, but does any reader of the Gospels get that epic feeling? The Gospel of Mark is no Lawrence of Arabia, much less The Illiad. (Literary critic Erich Auerbach famously contrasted the “realistic” writing of the Bible with the highly stylized forms of the Greek epic poem.) The elliptical, talky New Testament doesn’t present itself in that way—if it did, there might be less discussion about whether its events actually occurred. If, as Christians believe, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were historians, then perhaps plays based on the Gospels should be realistic about more than just blood. Why aim for verisimilitude in violence but not in other historical points? The typical Passion-play Jesus, grinning warmly in his bright white robe, doesn’t tell us much about the first-century Jewish itinerant whose bold, sometimes bewildering stories and proclamations led him to the Passion path.

Churches should also consider other approaches to storytelling. Their ur-story should be not just epic but multiform. To quote writer and preacher Frederick Buechner, the Gospel is “tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale”—it happens on scales that are grand as well as domestic, historic, comic, mythic, realistic.

I think a hearty amen is appropriate! Christ’s resurrection is the epic fulfillment of the promise of the gospel, the climax of the crucifixion crisis. Yet Christ’s triumph over death is perhaps the dominant frame for the resurrection. We believers today look back with the benefit of hindsight and Scriptural revelation, but the resurrection was a part of other narrative threads: the story of how a woman saw her son come to life, the tale of a group of disheartened disciples confronted by a returned mentor, and the fulfillment of the promise of a heavenly Father to an incarnate Son. These stories may not be epic, but provide us with equally important glimpses at our beautiful Savior.

Admittedly I am hardly non-partisan, but I took great pleasure in calling J. over to read the article so that we could compare Dodd’s experience of passion plays with what I remember from attending the Living Gallery series at Bob Jones University. Living Gallery is the name for a series of Easter passion plays performed by the students and staff of Bob Jones. A full orchestra and choir performs sacred musical pieces while representations of Baroque paintings are portrayed on stage; these representations incorporate live actors into the paintings and sculptures, making the pieces come to life. There is typically a frame tale that ties the vocal, visual, and theatrical elements together. One year it was the story of a modern day father telling his son about his departed grandfather who was a carpenter. Several of the plays have told the story of the resurrection from the perspectives of various characters in the gospel account.

This use of multiple perspectives on the meaning of the resurrection encourages the members of the audience to reflect on what the resurrection means for them personally. Christ is not portrayed as “the Savior” so much as “my Savior.” But most significantly in light of Dodd’s article, the artwork chosen for reenactment is a mix of the domestic, public, grand, and intimate. Much of the chosen artwork comes from the Museum and Gallery, a collection of sacred art affiliated with Bob Jones University. Here are several of my favorite pieces of art from either the M&G or that have been used in Living Gallery.

Easter is over, but we can still rejoice that our Redeemer lives!

Those within the Anglican church who are sympathetic to Gene Robinson’s cause tend to be theological liberals who disbelieve in the inerrancy of Scripture. These Anglican liberals tend also to be from wealthier portions of the developed world, sometimes referred to as the Global North. They are typically Caucasian.

Those within Anglicanism who are uncomfortable with homosexual clergy tend to be theological conservatives who ascribe to the inerrancy of Scripture. These Anglican conservatives are mostly from the developing world, often called the Global South. They are mostly African, Indian, and Asian. There are exceptions among both groups, but the generalization is viable.

A group of around 250 conservative bishops held an alternative conference in June called GAFCON.
Both sides have been lobbing grenades at one another. The conservatives accuse the liberals of heresy and the liberals attack the conservatives as being out of touch.

But contemporary liberals have had to soft-peddle their criticism, unlike in the grand old days of the 1910s and 1920s when the kid gloves came off. Guys like H.L. Mencken had a field day with Billy Sunday and the like; Fundamentalists were simply uneducated hicks in the South and Midwestern United States.

Anglican liberals today have to toe a careful line. They dislike Fundamentalism and would normally blast the Fundamentalists in question, native African conservatives. But like most liberals they have a strong sense of “White Guilt.” They believe that Western imperialism is largely responsible for Third World woes like poverty, corruption, and war. It is politically incorrect and frankly uncouth to accuse Africans of being the source of any problem (i.e. the support Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe received from Western liberals until very recently), so they have to find someone else to blame.

Aha! The Economist [July 26th 2008] discovered that blame can be assigned to “missionary work in Africa [that] was carried out by evangelicals who reflect a rather fundamentalist strain of British Christianity.” It wasn’t the poor Africans’ fault at all, but those evil British Fundamentalists!

Some African conservatives have cried foul. It is insulting for liberals to insinuate that Africans just believe what they were taught. No one likes to be accused of being passive, gullible, and simple. Men like Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda prefer to trace their heritage to native African revivals. Others decry attempts by the “western press” to villify African prelates. Indeed it can be argued that liberals are practicing a modern version of cultural imperialization. If Africans want to be taken seriously in liberal circles than they must make sure that their theology conforms to Western liberal ideals. Not particularly multicultural, eh?

“it is extremely seldom that one has the opportunity to think a new thought about a familiar subject, let alone an original thought on a contested subject.”

Unfortunately for Hitchens’ ego, he is a bit late in his discovery. On October 5th, 1847 Louis Agassiz, a “founding father of the modern American scientific tradition,” proposed an investigation of the “blind-fish” of Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Although Agassiz never found the time to carry out his experiments, possibly because of his new professorship at Harvard, some of his students later performed groundbreaking research into subterranean blind animals. It has been a bit awkward for evolutionists to embrace Agassiz and his research since he was a vocal opponent of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution as well as a proto-creationist.

Christopher Hitchens has been called “the reincarnation of H.L. Mencken,” famous American journalist and social satirist (the man responsible for the modern stereotype of Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”). Hitchens cum Mencken considers the majority of Americans, particularly the ones who believe in God, to be boobs. Ironically, a frequent target of Mencken’s ire in the 1910s was fundamentalist evangelist Billy Sunday.

Sunday had some knowledge of Louis Agassiz and recommended to William Jennings Bryan that the retired Senator should use some of the late scientist’s arguments in his defense of creationism at the Scopes Trial. Sunday even used the blind-fish of Mammoth Cave as a sermon illustration. It gives me great pleasure when a modern day skeptic, who is evangelistic in his atheism, “discovers” an idea once used by a fire-breathing fundamentalist to win souls to Jesus ninety years ago.

Hitchens appears unfamiliar with the term “regressive evolution,” which describes the loss of function over time. Most hardcore evolutionists are also hardcore modernists. Except for some who suffer from varying degrees of cognitive dissonance, modernists believe in the gradual progression of mankind toward a better state of being, as defined by ideals of the European Enlightenment. In other words, things be gettin’ better and better. Sure, evolution is often defined as simple “change over time” denotatively, but words like “upwards,” “better,” and “toward greater complexity” tend to creep in connotatively. Since regressive evolution describes a type of devolution, it has not been a very popular subject for study until recently.

Hitchens contacted his buddy Richard Dawkins, who agreed that Hitchens had hit upon a great argument against creationism. The problem is that regressive evolution should no more bother creationists today than it did in the 1910s and 1840s. Creationists believe in change within species and would typically embrace the idea that species can lose genetic information, even to the point of whole organs. The aspect of macro-evolution with which creationists contend is the addition of new and unique genetic information.

Actually regressive evolution is as much of a challenge to evolutionists as to creationists. When faced with a dark environment generation after generation why would salamanders and fish all over the world lose their eyesight rather than gain new ability? Why didn’t the salamanders’ visual spectrum increase to include infrared or ultraviolet light similar to what some snakes use? Indeed, the loss of function could be expected by creationism, whereas natural selection would seem to dictate not the loss of eyesight, but it’s perfection.

Hitchens’ epiphany about blind salamanders is no more original, nor in my opinion more accurate, than his attacks upon theism.

After singing It Is Well with My Soul, I shared what I thought was an accurate version of that hymn’s dramatic history. In lurid detail I recounted how Philip Bliss wrote the lyrics to the song after watching his wife and daughter drown before his eyes when their ship was sunk in a violent storm. What better way to contrast external confusion with the inner peace found in resting in Christ?

Unfortunately, my poetic recounting was nearly completely inaccurate. The author did not witness the sinking, it was his four daughters who drowned, and his wife survived. The ship was not sunk by a storm, but by a collision with another boat. All of these errors are somewhat understandable; it is true that close family members drowned at sea and sorrow inspired the author to write a masterpiece. But all hope for forgiveness is lost when I substituted the hymnist for the lyricist. It was Horatio Spafford who wrote those moving lines, not Philip Bliss!

If forced to offer a defense I can only claim to have told the “dynamic equivalent” of the story. After all, the original autograph was laden with distracting details and was woodenly literal. My goal was to convey the emotions of the author rather than just his original “meaning.” By spicing up the story somewhat I attempted to bridge the gap between 19th century author and 21st century audience. Besides, if Eugene Peterson can do it with the Apostles than who’s to say I can’t do it with the Spaffords?

Maybe I can release a new exciting brand of hymn histories for worship leaders. I call it The Message: Hymn Stories in Contemporary Language, on sale wherever mass marketed pop-Christian books are available.

A complaint might begin with, “Well, his baby momma gonna beat him,” or, “No he dinnint call you fat!” Why is a “pimp daddy” or rude customer so insensitive? It certainly has nothing to do with the depravity of his heart, his incapibility of doing what is right because his will is corrupted by sin. No, it is because he is Ignorant.

My roommate, Michael Gembola, confirms that Ignorance is in the vernacular of his inner city kids. They may not know how to find the US on a globe or do basic algebra, but they know that the fundamental reason why people hurt one another is Ignorance.

I call it the Doctrine of Absolute Ignorance. If people understood the consequences of their actions they would be better people. The implied solution is education. If you teach people what their actions mean, than they will no longer offend others by word or deed.

I admit that I’m of two minds on the Biblicism of this idea. On the one hand you have the apostle Paul telling us that the good he knows to do, he never gets done, while on the other hand you can train up a child in the way he should go and that child will remain faithful to the truth he has been taught.

The idea is not original. Plato and Socrates discussed ignorance as the root of evil. Even Augustine can be interpreted in support. Still, it is interesting that this idea has permeated all the way down to the lower ranks of society.

Note on Pronunciation: Ignorant is normally pronounced “Ig-nur-rint” in Philadelphia.