How Our Unbiblical Views of Forgiveness Perpetuate Our Social Media Outrage

Mike Leake 3 Comments

I’ve read quite a few articles lately about something sociologists are calling FOMO. That’s short for “fear of missing out”. It’s why you keep your phone with you all the time and are almost constantly checking out social media. But I can save you from FOMO…at least a little bit.

Here is what you are going to miss out on this week if you disengage for a little while. I don’t know the details but they don’t matter—or at least won’t matter once the next big story drops.

At some point this week somebody important is going to say something dumb and insensitive. Some people will laugh. Most will be outraged. This person is going to offer an apology. Depending on how much we liked this person in the first place, many will offer forgiveness. But some won’t “forgive” and will call for this person to face the consequences of their actions. Then they will get in trouble for being so unforgiving and not letting it go.

The cycle is predictable. I do something wrong. I say I’m sorry. You forgive me. We bury it in the depths of the sea…only we don’t actually bury in the depths of the sea and our relationship is awkward and strained for a lengthy season…but, hey, FORGIVENESS!!!!

The problem with this cycle is two fold. First, sorry isn’t repentance. Secondly, forgiveness isn’t unconditional. Forgetting these two points is why so many relationships have all kinds of junk bubbling under the surface. And it’s why our media/social media is caught in a vicious cycle of dumb outrage.

“I’m sorry” is not repentance

In his book, From Forgiven to Forgiving, Jay Adams helpfully shows the difference between asking for forgiveness and apologizing. Noting that the concept of apologizing is not found anywhere in the Bible, Adams gives a visual picture:

Picture the wrongdoer holding a basketball. He apologizes saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ The one offended shuffles his feet awkwardly. It is always awkward to respond to an apology, because you are not asked to do anything, and yet some sort of response is expected. The offended party says something inane like, “Well, that’s OK.” But it isn’t. The matter has not been put to rest. When you say the wrongdoing is OK you either lie or condone a wrong. At the end of the transaction the wrongdoer is still holding the ball. (Adams 59)

In our feelings-centered culture we’ve turned forgiveness into a feeling. We assess whether or not somebody is “really sorry” by how deeply the feel bad about what they’ve done. If the person can sufficiently show that they feel terrible and have egg on their face, then we are more likely to grant forgiveness. In the mind of many, if they feel bad, they’ve done the time, and to not offer the “it’s OK” is to be far from Christ-like.

But repentance isn’t a feeling. Asking for forgiveness isn’t centered on how people feel. It’s more like a business transaction. The offending party has put themselves into the other person’s debt. Forgiveness is deciding to no longer charge them—it is to absorb the cost of the offense. Again, Adams helpfully explains:

Now, consider forgiveness. The wrongdoer comes with his basketball. He says, ‘I wronged you. Will you forgive me?’ In so doing, he tosses the ball to the other person. He is freed form the burden. Now, the burden for the response has shifted. The one wronged is asked to do what God requires him to do…The wrongdoer confessed to wrongdoing; he committed himself to that confession. The offended party committed himself to burying the matter. At the end of the transaction, the ball is tossed away and obligations concerning the matter are over and done with. Both are free to become reconciled. The matter has been set to rest. (Adams, 60)

Listen, if you are really “sorry” for what you’ve done, you do not want to hold onto that basketball. You have sinned and you put yourself at the mercy of the offended party. Apologizing doesn’t get the job done because it doesn’t actually address the problem. Repentance isn’t present. The offending party is still maintaining control in the relationship.

But we get away with this because our culture (and especially our Christian culture) has swallowed another error concerning unconditional forgiveness.

2. Forgiveness is not unconditional

It sounds so counter to everything we’ve been taught about the gospel, but forgiveness really is not unconditional. If it were then every single person would be saved. Yes, there is a posture of forgiveness that every believer must have. But we cannot fully forgive unless the other person repents. (See more here).

This is why stuff is never actually dealt with in so many of our relationships. This is why we are stuck in this perpetual season of outrage on social media. It’s because nothing is ever actually dealt with. Only biblical forgiveness provides the healing and reconciliation that we need.

Settling for apologies and unconditional forgiveness traps us in a cycle of non-resolution. The offending party is not given the opportunity to actually pursue repentance and redemption in Jesus. And the offended party is not given the opportunity to actually forgive and pursue healing and full reconciliation.

The sooner the church drops these unbiblical notions the better off we will be. And maybe then we can be a bit more of a beacon of light on social media than joining in on the perpetual outrage.

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Are Unhappy Christians a Poor Witness?

Mike Leake 5 Comments

In a sense a depressed Christian is a contradiction in terms, and he is a very poor recommendation for the gospel. –Martyn LloydJones (Spiritual Depression)

I’ve labored over this quote for quite some time. I battle depression. So when I read statements like this from a pastor I revere it causes me to be a bit unsettled. Even more so when he says things like, “such people are very poor representatives of the Christian faith”. Now it’s possible that what Lloyd-Jones means by “depression” is different than what I mean by depression. It is a bit difficult to pin down exactly what he means by “spiritual depression” but he continued to use terms like “unhappy Christians” and “cast down” and “their souls are disquieted within them”. So, I think for the most part we have similar definitions of depression.

When I go through one of my seasons of darkness is it true that I’m a poor recommendation of the gospel?

I know in the midst of that darkness it certainly feels that way. And as I’ve given this some thought I have to admit that there won’t be depression in heaven. So whether it’s part of my finitude or fallenness it really doesn’t matter. It’ll be gone in the New Jerusalem. So depression isn’t the ideal state. If all Lloyd-Jones means is that the depressed Christian doesn’t accurately represent the full victory Christ has purchased for us, then I suppose I’d give him a thousand “Amen’s”.

I also know that some of the sinful responses which often accompany depression are definitely poor representations of Christ. Grumbling, being malcontent, and the like are certainly expressly forbidden in Scripture. This is not to mention that Scripture calls us to “be joyful always”. I suppose not being joyful is a poor witness to Christ.

But I’m not yet ready to concede.

I’m arguing that there is a type of robust faith that sits upon the ash heap of one like Job. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, was not a poor witness. Nor was King David and the other Psalmists of whom God used to give us a song book filled with lament. These are not miserable witnesses or poor recommendations of the gospel but beacons—though shrouded in darkness—of the redeeming Christ.

If Lloyd-Jones is saying what I believe he is saying then I disagree with him about the witness of those Christians battling depression.

First, I believe in this instance MLJ is reflecting a very pragmatic understanding of the gospel. He admits this much when he concedes that we live in a pragmatic age and such folks are drawn away from the gospel because of depressed Christians. Because “Christian people too often seem to be perpetually in the doldrums and too often give this appearance of unhappiness and a lack of freedom and of absence of joy” then “there is no question at all but that this is the main reason why large number of people have ceased to be interested in Christianity”.

What he is saying is that for many unbelievers Christianity simply does not work. But what did the gospel aim to do? Make people happy? Meet our unmet needs? Or did the gospel aim to set God’s children from death to life and begin the work of total redemption? If I believe the gospel is meant to make men happy here then I have to concede that in some instances it doesn’t work. We’d have to say the gospel only partially took in the life of someone like William Cowper. But I imagine we’ll sing a different tune in glory. The gospel is meant to get people to God. Mission accomplished. But until we reach glory we might still struggle with shaking off the remnants of our finitude and fallenness.

Sure, unhappy Christians are a poor witness if the gospel is that God makes men happy. But I believe (and believe MLJ also believed) the gospel is a bit more than this.

Secondly, I question whether or not Lloyd-Jones was a bit overly simplistic in his understanding of the causes of depression. That sounds ridiculous because it is MLJ who gave us great lines like this one:

Many Christian people, in fact, are in utter ignorance concerning this realm where the borderlines between the physical, psychological and spiritual meet. Frequently I have found that such [church] leaders had treated those whose trouble was obviously mainly physical or psychological, in a purely spiritual manner; and if you do so, you not only don’t help. You aggravate the problem. (Quoted from Murray, p31)

But in my mind MLJ undercuts what he said in this paragraph by his statement concerning unhappy Christians being a terrible witness. Certainly we would not say that a person who has cancer is a terrible witness. That’s the prosperity gospel. But if my unwelcome and unhappy condition isn’t simply the result of sin or a spiritual problem but a bit more complex then it is incredibly unhelpful and aggravating for Lloyd-Jones to then stack upon guilt for such a thing.

Lastly, it doesn’t leave much room for the sovereignty of God. I address this at length in Torn to Heal, but I’m convinced that on occasion these “fits of melancholy” are a divine help to us. Would I say that God is giving us something which will cause us to be a poor representation of Christ? Absolutely, not. Everything he gives is meant to bring us into conformity with Christ.

Conclusion

Where does this leave us? Certainly, we do not want to pursue misery and being an unhappy Christian. But if you find yourself in a season of darkness don’t fake it for the sake of not being a bad witness. (And Lloyd-Jones agrees with this). Don’t take the path of the stoic. Learn to use the bible’s language of lament when you need to.

I believe this quote by Christopher Wright is true because too many have taken Lloyd-Jones quips here to an unhealthy end:

…the language of lament is seriously neglected in the church.  Many Christians seem to feel that somehow it can’t be right to complain to God in the context of corporate worship when we should all feel happy.  There is an implicit pressure to stifle our real feelings because we are urged, by pious merchants of emotional denial, that we ought to have “faith” (as if the moaning psalmists didn’t).  So we end up giving external voice to pretended emotions we do not really feel, while hiding the real emotions we are struggling with deep inside.  Going to worship can become an exercise in pretence and concealment, neither of which can possibly be conducive for a real encounter with God.  So, in reaction to some appalling disaster or tragedy, rather than cry out our true feelings to God, we prefer other ways of responding to it.  –(Christopher J.H. Wright, The God I Don’t Understand, 52)

I’m not attempting to defend misery. I’m simply hoping to encourage suffering Christians to not hide in these seasons of pain because of the mistaken belief that their struggle is a poor witness. Instead I’m hoping to encourage them…us….to use these seasons to display the beauty of the gospel and a Savior who clings to us even when we’ve got hands full of ashes. 

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Read This! 06.01.17

Mike Leake

Moral Outrage in America is Now For Everybody

I find this very interesting. The house of cards is collapsing will the church be ready with the alternative narrative?

The Professionalization of the Home

I don’t believe I would have ever thought about this.

Single For a Reason: Eight Lies We Tell Unmarried Women

If you are an unmarried female, don’t believe these lies.

The Ninth Commandment and the Pain of Social Media

This is spot on.

Deny Yourself for More Delight

This is vintage Piper.

Is the Lecture Dead or Alive?

Preaching isn’t lecturing, but I’m still interested in this topic.

Church History: The True Story of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was one of the history characters my son was intrigued by this past school year.

Don’t Pursue Feelings. Pursue Christ.

Very true.

This is the story of how God saved David Powlison:

How God Saved David Powlison from Destroying Himself from Crossway on Vimeo.

What If Unbelievers Aren’t Miserable?

Mike Leake 14 Comments

It was probably about seventeen years ago that my mom called me in a panic. She had gotten my “suicide note” and was terrified. When I picked up the phone I was confused at how worked up she seemed to be and wondered why she was so passionately asking where I was and if I was alright.

I was confused because I hadn’t actually left a suicide note. It was a journal entry that I had penned a few months prior. I had photocopied this journal entry to share with a group of students about my past and how Jesus had redeemed me. I wanted them to see my frame of mind before Christ. But I had ignorantly left the master copy on our coffee table at home and my mom thought it was current.

If you know my testimony you’ve heard the many ways that Christ has redeemed me and is continuing to redeem me. (This is a decent summary here). I was absolutely miserable as a lost person. But this isn’t true of every person who doesn’t know Jesus. And if I’m not careful I’ll end up sharing a truncated gospel which is founded in my own personal experience rather the Bible.

Phil Moore says it well:

Most contemporary Gospel preaching assumes that unbelievers are dissatisfied with their lives and that they will respond to Jesus if we show them he is the answer to their unmet needs. If they are lonely, Jesus will be their friend. If they are afraid, he will be their shelter. If they feel guilty, he will be their forgiveness. If they feel empty, he will give their life meaning. The problem with this message is not that it is untrue – the Bible tells us that Jesus really is the answer to all these needs. The problem is that this is only part of the truth. Most unbelievers are not unhappy at all. (The Myth of the Unhappy Pagan)

If the only gospel we know how to share is “Jesus is the answer” we are going to find it rather difficult to share the good news when our neighbor doesn’t have any questions. We’ll have to spend most of our time trying to deflate their tires and make them miserable so that we can show how Jesus is the solution to a problem they didn’t know they had. The Proverbs (and many other places in Scripture) do not present the unbeliever as necessarily miserable, depressed, and grasping to fill an aching void. Instead we read of men “who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil” (Proverbs 2:14). 

This is why so many of those who share the gospel in the New Testament do not start with a person’s psychological emptiness but rather with their guilt before a holy God. Consider how Paul shared the gospel in Acts 17. He didn’t say, “I see that you are very religious and therefore show a heart that is deeply searching to fill a void. Let me tell you how to fill that void.” I think we’ve take a bit too much license in often supplying that last part. Instead he simply told them who God is and explained that they are accountable to Jesus whether they acknowledge it or not and they’d do well to repent and believe in him.

I’m convinced that one of the reasons we do not have a sense of urgency in sharing the gospel with our neighbors is because we don’t really believe they need it…at least not now. They seem to be getting along just fine without Christ—so why should we turn over the apple cart? And so we go about waiting for the wheels to fall off so we can share Christ. We are better equipped to share Christ in loss than we are in luxury. And so we bide our time waiting for the whirlwind to come, then we’ll have a gospel to share.

But what if the gospel isn’t to make happy people happier? Or even to make miserable people moderately happy? What if the gospel isn’t merely a means to meet our unmet needs? What if the good news of the gospel is so much more? What if it’s about being transferred from a kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light? What if it isn’t about smiles and frowns but instead about life and death? Then I’ve got a gospel to share regardless of your emotional state.

And it’s message is unchanging.

God created you to enjoy God and extend His glory. You’ve rebelled and went about trying to find joy in other things and to extend your own glory. As such, you’ve robbed God of his glory and are guilty before Him. Jesus, God incarnate, perfectly fulfilled our mandate to enjoy God and extend His glory. His perfect record is graciously given to all those who are united to Him in repentance and faith. This means you either have the righteousness of Christ credited to your account or you have no righteousness. This is true whether your life is going amazing or it’s blowing up. Repent and believe in Christ today.

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