I don’t know much about gardening. So, when I’m reading through Bonhoeffer’s Life Together and I see the phrase “hothouse flower” my mind goes to an early 90’s Irish rock band. A hothouse flower is actually a flower which isn’t able to grow under normal conditions. If it’s outside then it’s going to die. It can only grow when it’s pampered inside of a greenhouse.
When I read that definition I start thinking about so much of the “deconstruction” that is taking place in evangelical circles. That’s how it’s phrased. I think it’s probably better to call it fundamentalist circles, but that’s for another day. And I’m particularly seeing this happening within many who, like me, were heavily influenced in the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. (And I’ve had my own share of feeling fragmented).
Many of my peers are abandoning the faith altogether. Some are moving away from unhealthy baggage that was more cultural than biblical. Others seem to be digging their heels in further and becoming something else entirely. But the YRR movement, it seems to me, is definitely over. I think Kevin DeYoung’s recent Why Reformed Evangelicalism Splintered admits this much.
Bonhoeffer, I believe, gives a prescient autopsy of the YRR movement. In this section he is outlining the difference between spiritual love and human love.
Therefore, spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ. It will not seek to move others by all too personal, direct influence, by impure interference in the life of another. (26)
Bonhoeffer is saying here that the only access we really have to another person is through Christ. When we try to influence based upon the strength of our own personality we are moving away from spiritual love. Think of Driscoll’s bus. (“There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace, it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done”)
Perhaps it’s unwise of me to give one of the worst examples within the YRR to prove my point. We know how the Driscoll/Mars Hill story ended. But ask whether or not there isn’t often in our churches a similar environment. Bonhoeffer charts another path:
It will not take pleasure in pious, human fervor and excitement. It will rather meet the other person with the clear Word of God and be ready to leave him alone with this Word for a long time, willing to release him again in order that Christ may deal with him. (26)
This very point is where I credit the Lord with using John Newton to rescue my own soul. Early on in this movement I stumbled upon his “On Controversy” and dove deeply into his interactions with John Ryland, Jr. Newton was passionate about preaching the truth to people but ultimately leaving them in the hands of the Lord. He believed that the Spirit knew better how to cultivate and grow a believer.
But consider all of the discernment blogs which came out of the YRR movement. I would argue that part of the issue with fundamentalism is an inability to leave the growth of another believer in the hands of the Lord. And I believe this type of fundamentalism attached itself to the YRR brand. If you wanted to be part of the speaking circuit, have your books promoted, your articles linked, etc. then you had to toe the line.
Our “somebody is wrong on the internet” impulse is what Bonhoeffer is talking about here. Because of our misunderstanding about the nature of community (that Christ always stands between me and others) we could not bear the thought of giving independence for other believers to even be wrong for a moment.
I believe the YRR movement failed to do this:
Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love. The other person needs to retain his independence of me; to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became man, died, and rose again, for whom Christ bought forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ’s; I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ’s eyes. (26)
All of the unhealthy cases of church discipline gone wild, spiritual abuse, cult of personality, etc. can be traced back to a failure on this very principle. And it, I believe, has lead to our fracture as a movement. The YRR is no more because it viewed itself not as a part of “the one, holy, catholic, Christian church” (27) but as the school of piety. And in doing this it could not allow others to “be Christ’s”.
Leave him freedom to be Christ’s. The degree that any movement, denomination, or individual believer fails to do this is the degree to which fellowship will be lost and fracturing will result. It is what Bonhoeffer termed human love and it is always doomed to fail.
Human love produces human subjection, dependence, constraint; spiritual love creates freedom of the brethren under the Word. Human love breeds hothouse flowers; spiritual love creates fruits that grow healthily in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God’s outdoors. (27)
Hothouse flowers. That’s what we grow in our discipleship when we try to exert far too much control. When we build fences around our disciples. When we filter through all of the resources they read. When we try to be the center of control in their relationship with Jesus we do more harm than good.
Certainly, a new believer needs help and discipleship. He needs rails around his newfound faith. She needs to grow into maturity. But never are we to “desire direct fellowship” with them. They belong to Jesus. Always. Definitively. We need to be humble enough to acknowledge that new disciples need to be protected from their well meaning shepherd maybe as much as they need to be warned of the wolves.
Give them Jesus.
—
Photo source: here
