My Savior Isn't An Insurrectionist

This is not the post I’d planned to write today. I’d planned to muse on how the the reset of the New Year, though in many ways arbitrary, kindles in us fresh hope that maybe this year will be different. Then, we woke up on New Year’s Day to a car that wouldn’t start. Our dryer broke this week. And now, making them seem childish in comparison, yesterday we saw a disgraceful attack on the U.S. Capitol and the democracy it represents. Gone are those thoughts on naive optimism. We’re back in the land of the living.

As I started to see the events in Washington D.C. unfold, I sat watching live updates on Twitter with tears streaming down my face. It was a day, sadly, I was not shocked to see, but it was one I had hoped and prayed would not come. Look at what has happened to us, I texted my dad. Look at what we’ve become. For all of the calls for “law and order” over the last months, “law” transferred to the whims of a mob, and order descended into chaos. And I grieved.

Above it all, one picture set me over the edge, sent the tears flowing, and made me beg, “Lord, have mercy.” Amidst the mob pushing up the Capitol Building steps, entangled with the Trump flags and the American flags, there it was in florescent yellow: JESUS SAVES. I saw others later, including a small wooden cross, with the words emblazoned in white.

And this is why I’m writing today. Because what we saw yesterday is not the way of the Jesus I follow, and yet violence has been baptized in His Name. This is not the first time this has happened in the history of the church or the history of our nation. The events of yesterday were not an unforeseen or unpreventable anomaly, but rather the natural overflow of the language and actions of both political and religious leaders. In this case, we are well past the point of holding space for different political applications of our theology. We have passed the point for finding unifying common ground in the midst of diverse views. (I do believe, for the record, these things are of incredible value.) We, in the American church (specifically the white, evangelical, American church that raised me), once again must take a good look and a prayerful reflection on the way of Jesus and of His Kingdom.

I’ve been thinking today of two moments in the last day of Jesus’ life. The first is the moment when, as Jesus is being arrested, Peter draws his sword and cuts off a man’s ear. It’s not a violent moment in a vacuum, just as yesterday was not a moment in a vacuum. It was the culmination of a misunderstanding, even among the disciples, about the type of Kingdom Jesus brought and the type of King He would be.

The Jews who longed for Messiah to come expected someone to come powerful, strong, victorious, and defeat their enemies. They expected a King on a war horse, bearing the sword, bringing Rome to her knees. But instead Jesus came asking them to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. He exalted those who were lowly and overlooked—and even those who were hated. As we just rehearsed throughout the Christmas season, He came in a humble way, in a quiet way, setting aside His power to become a servant.

Jesus wasn’t interested in political power then. I don’t think He’s much interested in political power now. But Peter, bless him, didn’t understand this. And so he drew his sword, as if Jesus needed defending. Jesus chastised him and told him to put his sword away, and then he healed the man who had come along to take him to what would become a brutal end.

“My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus would tell Pilate in the hours to come. “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews” (John 18:36). Jesus’ Kingdom and power were not the type the Jews expected nor the form Pilate could recognize. It was not a kingdom of strongmen or brash shows of strength. It was not a power held by destroying or dehumanizing his enemies or by the size of an army. It was—and is—a kingdom where the lowly and weak are called blessed. It was a kingdom of peace and of service.

But this is not the sort of kingdom the Jews were looking for—and based on the events of yesterday, it’s not the sort of kingdom some who claim the name of Jesus want today. This leads me to the second episode I’ve been reflecting on—and I have the Bible Project to thank for that, as I heard them discussing it recently in a very unrelated podcast episode.

When Pilate found no cause to kill Jesus, he offered the Jews a choice for prisoner release: Jesus or Barabbas. Barabbas, which literally means “son of the father,” was an insurrectionist. According to the Gospel accounts, he had committed multiple crimes including robbery, insurrection, and murder. He was a freedom fighter, one dedicated (we can presume) to freeing Israel from her foreign oppressors. He fought in the way the Jews longed for the Messiah to fight—with the sword, with violence, to gain power. And on that day, when God’s people were offered a choice between these two “sons of the father,” they chose not the Son who spoke peace but the one who bore the sword. The true Son of the Father, who offered the way into the Kingdom of God, was sent to His death.

So, we come back to the current events at hand. If the mob yesterday had been faced with the same choice, which “son of the father” would they have chosen? In spite of their signs, there is no doubt in my mind. Though many of them, I am sure, would profess to be Christians, as would some who, though not present, cheered them on from afar, they show by their actions that they would rather follow the way of Barabbas, and not the Jesus they claim to follow. They want political power and expediency—at all costs. They think violence will bring about peace. And they do it in the name of God.

Thus we come face to face with the ugly, natural end of our failure in discipleship. This failure extends beyond the events of yesterday and the people who participated in them. We have sold ourselves out to the violence committed yesterday with a thousand tiny steps and silences, quietly supporting or ignoring the ideology that has allowed it to blossom. It has appeared time and time again throughout the history of the church, when we have lost sight of the suspicion Jesus teaches his followers to have towards earthly power.*

The church has failed these men and women, who see no incongruence with erecting a cross and a noose on the same lawn. She has failed her people when they pledge allegiance to a political party or a human leader above the Savior they claim to follow. We have failed when Christians cheer for a man who dehumanizes his enemies, who mocks those made in God’s image, who refuses to bend from arrogance, who incites violence, and who has the blasphemous audacity to suggest God needs his protection. We have failed in our discipleship when people do not have the ability to discern truth from lies or conspiracy theories from reality, no matter how many voices join in telling the same tale. We have failed when disciples of Jesus lose sight of a Kingdom that is infinitely larger and more precious than any nation or people group.

The answer for this will not come in trading one political party over another. It will not be remedied with a new administration or even with the prosecution of wrongdoers. The answer comes by taking a long look at our blind spots and graciously listening to our brothers and sisters who are trying to point them out. (For example, the white evangelical church in America can learn a lot from the Black church and the church in the Majority World. I have benefited greatly from diversifying the voices I listen to and developing friendships with people from different traditions and perspectives than my own.) It comes as we lament and repent over the ways we have played a part in this discipleship failure. And it comes as we humbly ask Jesus to show us the way of His Kingdom.

Today, many of us are grieving, and it feels appropriate to do so. But then we need to get back up—because we’ve got a lot of work to do.

*This is a longer conversation for another time, but as a student of church history, it becomes clear that increased earthly power and “influence” in culture is dangerous to the faithful witness of the church. This does not mean that Christians must alway forgo traditional power and influence, but it does mean they should always be held extremely suspect. We would do well to be aware of the dangers they have posed in the past and of the negative things that have resulted. The church is not the empire, and we would do well to remember this.

What Kind of Disciples Are We Making?

My elbows were propped on the dark wood of their table as I listened. They were friends we didn’t see often, and there was much to catch up on. I settled back in my chair, and the rungs nestled into my back. My full belly and the thick warmth of the summer evening were soothing after a busy week.

They were sharing about the challenge of finding a new church. The perplexity was familiar. The questions from those who didn’t understand why they were leaving. The sudden lack of community, lack of friends, the starting from scratch. The uncertainty of how to decide—the criteria of how to make a good decision.

I asked, “Why did you decide to leave your old church?”

This question serves up such a variety of responses.

They looked at each other, their chins tilting as if to say, “Do you want to take this one?” Finally one of them spoke up. “We saw the type of Christian that church was making, and it wasn’t the sort of disciple we wanted to become.”

* * *

When we become Christians, we respond to Jesus’ invitation to “come follow Me.” Follow me into your work and your play. Follow me into your relationships, your dreams, your financial decisions. Let me transform the way you see the world and other people, the way you see yourself.

Obviously, there is a personal component to our discipleship. We spend time reading the Bible, in prayer, and engaged in other spiritual disciplines. We seek the guidance and molding of the Holy Spirit, to weed out our sin and to allow Christlikeness and obedience to flourish.

But discipleship is also inherently communal. Our Christian life is as a part of a Body, in which all the parts work together and encourage or discourage our health. This is obviously true in our friendships. I think we’ve all seen how the people close to us shape our thinking, words, and attitudes. We see this in our family life. Hopefully we get to experience this in a discipling relationship, in which a mentor invites us to follow them following Jesus and shapes our growth with their hard-bought wisdom.

The church community as a whole fosters our discipleship. We are taught about the highest good and the ideal picture of the Christian life. We learn about how we should engage the culture and the vast world outside of the church walls. We are taught about right belief and right practice—and perhaps taught which of those beliefs and practices are more important than the others. We are given a model for faithful living.

Ideally, this discipleship is occurring explicitly (more on that another time), but discipleship is happening in the church, whether we intentionally engage in it or not. These lessons are communicated implicitly in what we celebrate and teach, what we model and how we teach people to think. The question is not whether it’s happening, but rather what sort of disciples we are making.

Are we making disciples whose lives are marked by the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5)? Do we see people who are compassionate and kind, humble, slow to anger, quick with self-sacrificing love? Are we teaching them to idolize marriage and children, to think their work is only meaningful if it’s explicitly “spiritual”? What are we teaching about pain or how to support others when it strikes? Are we cultivating a love for God’s Word, a desire to obey it, and equipping people with tools to study and apply it themselves? Are we making disciples who are grace-obsessed and grace-dependent, or ones who still think they have something to prove in order to earn God’s favor?

The litmus test could be long. Ultimately, though, we must ask: are we making disciples that look like and abide by our particular brand of Christianity? Or are we making disciples that love Jesus, submit to His Lordship, and look like Him?

Billy Graham and the Legacy of the Gospel

People around the world are mourning the death of Billy Graham, who passed away yesterday at the age of 99. He was, without a doubt, one of the most influential church figures of the 20th century. 

I swim in the stream of his legacy. I attended a seminary which he helped to found, and I'm thankful to have his signature on my seminary diploma. This is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of his influence.

But I don't want to talk today about his accomplishments or the way he's shaped the Christian church as we know it. If you would care to read more about his life, ministry, and legacy, Christianity Today (of which he was a founder) has a lovely special issue in Billy Graham's honor. 

Today, I'm thinking about what was even more dear to Billy Graham's heart - the Gospel. As I've been thinking of his legacy, I'm reminded how simple that Gospel message is. It is simple enough that we can summarize its basic truths in one sentence: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) 

The message of the Gospel is profound. There is a reason why we devote time to understanding the theology behind it, why we want to study it and dissect it and diagram it. There is a reason why we treat it with awe, not wanting to oversimplify it, not wanting to twist it into something it is not. There is a reason why we look at the historical sweep, the context of Jesus Christ's coming, the prophecies He fulfilled and will fulfill. It is right and good to dedicate this thought and study.  

But in the midst of this complexity, the Gospel message is still simple. It is hard. It is beyond our full comprehension. We could spend a lifetime diving the depths of its riches. But it is simple: God loves you. He entered time and space to make a way for relationship with you. In Him you find complete forgiveness, redemption, and restoration. 

This simple-yet-profound Gospel message changes lives. It changes families and cultures. It touches our minds, our hands, our feet. It transforms. 

Billy Graham never forgot this simple Gospel message, and he never forgot its power. This is, perhaps, his most precious legacy.

“Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”

- Billy Graham (1918-2018)

Luther's Letter to the Barber: Reformation Reflections

In honor of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, I'm taking some time to reflect on what the Reformation means today. If you'd like to learn more about the Reformation, see my post "Protestant Amnesia: What's So Important About the Reformation?"

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When we think of Martin Luther, it's typically as a fiery Reformer. He's nailing the Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg (though there's some debate whether the nailing actually happened). He's engaged in hefty theological disputations, defending his understanding of salvation by grace through faith. He's a larger-than-life figure. He's a genius with a witty and cutting pen.

But Luther was above all a pastor. His ultimate concern wasn't the intense theological debates - it was the normal every-day Christians who were being led astray. He saw the way the Church's theology affected the simple German folk in his parish, and he wanted desperately for them to know the Gospel and to be free of the intense fear of a conscience haunted by God's judgment. His theology wasn't coming from a theoretical, scholarly high ground. It was intensely practical and pastoral, driven by real people.

The Ninety-Five Theses were at heart a pastoral concern about how peasants were being manipulated into giving money they couldn't afford to give up in the name of something morally and theologically suspect.

Luther once said he preached his sermons with the servants and children in mind, keeping the ideas simple and straightforward so that anyone could understand and learn. 

He translated the Bible into German so it could be read and understood by laypeople. He rewrote a new worship service, also in German, so that it would be in churchgoers' own tongue, to be understood and followed.

One of my favorite examples is Luther's A Simple Way to Pray, dedicated to Master Peter the Barber. Do you see how powerful this is? This great man - one of our church history giants, who wrote to kings and the pope - also took the time to write to an ordinary German man, his friend, a barber, to explain how to pray. (I would recommend you take a look at this one - it's still incredibly insightful!)

It's easy to get caught up in theology or theory or debates. But Martin Luther reminds me that to do so for its own sake is missing the point. Christianity should never become so heady that it becomes distanced from or feels inaccessible to normal, every-day Christians. It is for the everyman (and woman), for the ordinary. 

The message of the Gospel is not far from us. It is not beyond our comprehension or understood only by those with advanced degrees. It is simple. It is for us. And the church's ministry should be too. 

Soli Deo Gloria

Protestant Amnesia: What's So Important About the Reformation?

My friend recently posted on Facebook about this year’s 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. It was short, sweet, simple. 

Someone commented calling the post gibberish and my friend a history nerd. 

It was all in good humor—a friend teasing another friend—but I was shocked. I was shocked because the words were coming from a fellow Christian, and a fellow Protestant Christian, and she had no sense of the Reformation’s significance. 

I know she isn’t alone. 

It’s been said that Christians have very bad memories. (I would say this is generally true of humans.) We easily forget where we’ve come from. We forget our history. We forget that our present was birthed from the past. We are heirs of the ideas and decisions of the people and cultures that came before us. We did not emerge from nothing, ex nihilo. We are irreparably tied to our history.

History matters—not because of nerdiness and not for obsession with fact-collecting. History matters because it reminds us who we are. 

How does this relate to the Protestant Reformation? 

At the time of the Reformation, there was one Church in Western Europe—the Roman Catholic Church, and one Church in Eastern Europe—the Eastern Orthodox Church. It’s hard to imagine today, when we’re accustomed to a variety of church traditions. In my hometown and its surrounding township, for example, there are dozens of churches, and I can’t begin to list the various denominations these churches represent.

If you attend a church of any tradition aside from the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches, you are a child of the Protestant Reformation. (In many ways, Western history as we know it, including my native United States culture, is also a child of the Reformation, but that goes beyond the scope of what we can talk about here.)

This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. In honor of the occasion, I’ll be taking the next few weeks leading up to "Reformation Day" on October 31 to reflect on how the Reformation speaks to us today. But first, we need to cover some basic history.

Martin Luther and Reformation Beginnings

The Reformation started with a monk named Martin Luther. He was obsessive and anxious, hyper-aware of his sin and fearful of God’s judgment. As a professor at Wittenberg University, Luther threw himself into the study of Scripture.

As he studied and lectured, he gradually began to see the Bible's teaching differently. God's righteousness, like it's talked about in the book of Romans, isn't about God waiting to smite us. It's about God's gracious gift in making us righteous because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. He gives us His righteousness, bringing us to a place of right relationship, adopting us as His children. And He does this not because of our own merit or worthiness or action but merely by His grace, through our faith in Christ. 

For any of us who grew up in a Protestant church, this probably sounds like old news. But for Luther, it was revolutionary. He “rediscovered” this presentation of the Gospel, which now sounds so common to us. It was his reformation breakthrough.

The trouble started when Luther wrote and posted the Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. At the time, traveling preachers were selling indulgences. They told townspeople, often poor peasants without money to spare, that if they paid money for an "indulgence," one of their loved ones would be released from Purgatory. They even had an advertising jingle: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from Purgatory springs.” 

Luther was a concerned pastor. He saw a practice that was taking advantage of poor churchgoers, a practice that was theologically suspect in suggesting people could buy salvation, a practice that was conveniently funding a grandiose building project in Rome. So, he wrote ninety-five objections to the practice and publicly shared them for scholarly debate. 

The Ninety-Five Theses circulated widely and quickly, and controversy erupted. The next few years were a whirlwind for Luther. He wrote furiously, explaining the theological views that had slowly been forming during his studies. He publicly debated church leaders and stood before religious and secular councils. He was eventually declared a heretic, excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and made an outlaw. But the “damage” had already been done. The Protestant Reformation was taking Europe by storm. 

Reformation Basics: The Solas

I will not take the time to explain all that Luther did and taught for the rest of his life. And I will not detail his followers and the various early fragmentations of the Reformation. If you’re interested, this information is readily available elsewhere. Instead, I want to simply explain the Reformation distinctives, these significant shifts that revolutionized the expression and theology of the Christian Church. We call them the “solas.”

Sola Scriptura: Scripture alone is the highest authority.

This was the starting point of the revolutionary shift of the Reformation. No longer did the judgments of popes or church councils or the traditions of the church bear the authority of what was true. Scripture alone was the judge and standard of truth. It is the authority for our faith and doctrine, and everything must be interpreted in its light.

Solus Christus: Christ alone is our only mediator to God.

We could not come to God on our own, and we needed Him to reveal Himself and come to us. Christ alone is the way for us to be in right relationship with God and know what He is really like. Our salvation was accomplished once and for all by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the only way of salvation. 

Sola Fide & Sola Gratia: We are saved through faith alone, by the grace of God alone. 

It is impossible for us to save ourselves or work our way into God’s favor. Our salvation is entirely by His grace, not by any works or good things we have done. We do not add to the saving work of Christ—He has already fully won our salvation. We receive this salvation and are made right with God by responding in faith to what Christ has already done. In a “great exchange,” the penalty of our sin was paid by Christ on the Cross, and we are given His righteousness, declared to be right with God. The simple statement of the Gospel, which we have inherited from the Reformation is: Justification (we are made right with God), by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone.

Soli Deo Gloria: Glory to God Alone

God alone receives glory from our salvation and our lives. Because salvation is entirely His work, and not our own, He receives all the glory and praise from it. The whole of our lives should be lived for His glory.

Luther never wanted to break from the Catholic Church. His intention was always reform—to call the Church back to its roots, back to the basic teachings of the biblical Gospel. But the reformation turned into a break, and produced a new branch of Christianity. This year, we mark its 500th birthday.