When the Gospel Causes You to Lose Your Faith

Mike Leake

photo-1550391383-bbd922a8d8cfThe most important aspect of your faith is it’s object and not it’s vivacity. This means that a weak faith can lay hold of a strong Christ. It also means that a really strong faith can be misplaced and ultimately end up with the Son of God saying, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” An implication of this truth, though, is that the Spirit of God is constantly working to tear down an impure Jesus-sounding faith and replace it with an unadulterated Jesus-grounded faith. The gospel aims to deconstruct your faith.

Two Paths/Two Trends

This truth, I believe, explains two trends which I see.  The first is the almost weekly occurrence of a well known celebrity-type renouncing their Christian faith. It seems to me that in a vast majority of these stories what is happening is that a nominal Christian who was heavily steeped in a Christian sub-culture no longer finds that culture appealing. Therefore, they reject the faith altogether. As Josh Harris explained, it became too much work to untangle his faith from the culture of his faith so he just threw out the whole thing (that’s my summary more than his exact words).

Now, I don’t want to overly simplify what is happening here. Nor to dismiss their stories and try to put them into a neat little box. But I’m writing about this general trend and not specifics so forgive my simplification here. Rejection of Jesus Christ doesn’t seem to be the issue these days as much as it’s a rejection of a certain type of Christian sub-culture. And it’s a sub-culture which I’d argue Jesus would be fine with us abandoning.

Which leads to my second observation. This is also why I hear so often of Bible-preaching and Jesus-loving pastors being eaten alive in churches—especially in the South or rural settings. These pastors have been brought to a difficult mission field. Dean Inserra says it well:

But many American pastors are faced with a similarly daunting task: to bring Jesus to a place where He is admired but not worshipped, where God is a grandpa in the sky, where many of their congregants are ‘good people’ who don’t know they need to saved. (Inserra, 30)

And they will fight tooth and nail to hang onto a culture that Jesus is working to overtake with His kingdom. The gospel calls “good people” to give up their comfortable Christianity. And there are many cultural icons which must fall by the wayside. When Jesus-loving pastors preach through the Bible and apply the Scriptures they are met with an angry resistance.

In both instances I believe Jesus is calling people to abandon their faith. Not to abandon their faith in him, but to abandon a faith which is more grounded in the culture and less in Christ. And it really is a difficult task, but it’s worth it.

The Path of Embrace

Some people aren’t able to give up their faith in order to embrace Jesus. Some choose a path of anger. Others choose a path of abandonment. But there is another path—the path of embrace*.

I found myself at one of these moments a couple years ago. I was crushed by Christian sub-culture. I’ll give you one little slice. I was tasked to write an article about a few hymns which might have theology we need to reconsider. I’m a pretty modest and moderate dude. I don’t write articles with a flame-thrower. I think my tone was pretty irenic in the article. But I received hate mail. Yes, HATE mail. I was told that I didn’t know Jesus. I received threats. A big part of me was able to laugh it off and just shake my head. But it was also eye-opening to see how ugly “good church people” could be.

There was so much more going on in my life at this point as well. That article wasn’t written in a vacuum nor was the criticism received in a vacuum. I was hurting. And I found myself at a crisis point. There are two things which the Spirit of God used to helped me choose the path of embrace instead of the other paths.

First, a little book I’ve read multiple times on pastoral ministry—The Sacred Wilderness of Pastoral Ministry. In that book there is a chapter called Confusion, and it’s on “risking doubt versus denying dissonance”. It was an invitation for me to dig into my doubts and all the things which I was feeling. The words here of Dave Rohrer were being played out in my life:

What we try to push away or deny always seeps out somewhere else, and any futile attempt to try to plug up these cracks in our armor diverts our attention from doing the very work we are trying to protect. To make this choice is to live with a divided heart, and this is the beginning of the end of effective service as a pastor. (Rohrer, 137)

And so I dug in to my doubt. I put it all on the table. If God wanted me to step away from pastoral ministry I would do it. I had to press into all those doubts. I had to wrestle with feelings of disappointment in God. Why did God call me to a place which was, to put it bluntly and honestly, pushing me to the brink of suicide? Why take me to a place to crush me when he had promised His presence? And there in the doubts I found these words of Rohrer to be true as well:

When we are confronted with the truth that God is not at all like what we might have expected him to be, when we have to face a crisis where God has not come through for us in the ways that we had hoped and believed he would, we are invited to let go of our projections and make space in our lives for the God who truly is. (Rohrer, 140)

At this same time God placed into my life a second resource—a godly man who is a Christian counselor. He was used by God to help me rethink what the goodness of God meant and to tenaciously cling to hope. He helped me confront some of the emotions that I was feeling and take the shame out of much of them. To sum, he helped me to see Jesus in the midst of all the fog.

And eventually the fog lifted as I abandoned many of those Christ-haunted but ultimately Christ-empty aspects of my faith. The truth is my faith is still deconstructing. But it’s being wrecked by the wrecking-ball of the gospel and reshaped by the nail-scarred hands of the God who stoops and saves.

And maybe that’s a difference too. It’s not for us preachers to deconstruct the cultural faith of others. We don’t have the surgical precision our Master does. It’s our task to faithful preach the gospel and love people. And that’ll come with blows, certainly.

It’s also not for us to deconstruct our own faith either. We’ll throw out the wrong stuff and keep all the wrong things. We aren’t the source of truth. We need the good news of Jesus to be our anchor. But that’s not a tidy task.

So when I hear of another pastor being decimated by “good Christian people” it hurts me. It gives me great sorrow. Likewise, I’m deeply grieved when I hear of folks abandoning their faith. But there is another story here—God is working to deconstruct any faith which isn’t grounded in Him.

So when I hear of these two trends, while my heart breaks, I’m left with just one overarching conclusion…

Aslan is on the move.

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Photo source: here

*I almost used the word “acceptance” because alliteration is part of the preaching culture I grew up with. But I have, without anger, abandoned that practice 

Polarization Is Always An Identity Issue

Mike Leake 1 Comment

A couple years ago Scientific American published a study which found that “identifying as liberal or conservative was a stronger predictor of affective polarization than issue positions”. To put that in more understandable terms the study found that a person who identified as a conservative would have a stronger negative emotional response to someone who identified as a “pro-life liberal” than to a “pro-choice moderate”. The article concluded with this warning:

If Americans slide into seeing all policy debates as battles between Us vs. Them, we stop selecting policies based on their actual content. Ironically, this would lead to choosing policies that don’t match our personal values, because the content and evidence would become less important than the source. In short, seeing politics as a battle may worsen things for everyone. (Here)

What is true within American politics is also true within religious circles such as the SBC. We’ve broken up amongst various camps. The SBC has always been a “big tent” denomination with several differing beliefs partnering together for the sake of missions. But in our increasingly polarized society our predominant identities are now found within our splinter groups instead of the name outside the big tent. As such we’ve become Corinth. “I follow Tom, I follow Beth, I follow JD”.

We might say that our fractures are centered around issues, but it’d be interesting to do a study within the SBC similar to that done by Robert Talisse which finds that “Americans are less divided over the issues” but we “see ourselves as profoundly at odds.”

This means that when you see a Tweet from someone from the “other” party our first instinct is to suspect instead of engage the actual statement or argument being presented. When all is said in done we probably have more in common with the “other team” than we think we do. But our polarization causes us to maximize those difference.

This was the very thing which plagued the church at Corinth. We will always attach our identities to something or somebody. As those created in the image of God who are hard-wired for worship this will always be the case. We were made to have our identities attached to the Lord. But if our identity is not attached to Christ it will be attached to someone or something else.

In Corinth they had similar things. Who are you? I’m part of team Apollos. I’m the guy who speaks in tongues better than any of those other jokers. Oh, I’m not like those fools who can’t eat meat they got at the market, I understand the gospel. I’m a forgiving dude. I’ve arrived. I’m knocking this Christianity thing out of the park.

And what Paul does here in the very beginning is remind them of who they are in Christ and how empty all those other identities are. No matter what that self-focused identity is founded upon it will always hinder our ability to be kingdom-focused.

And this was precisely what was taking place at Corinth. When God used Team Apollos perhaps Team Cephas was getting upset about it. That promotion should have gone to them. I belong to Apollos…

But notice what Paul does at the very beginning of his letter to them. He reminds them who they are. Their identity is found in Christ not anywhere else. They were saying “I belong to Apollos, I belong to Cephas, I belong to Paul” and God is saying, “No, you belong to me.” Notice how verse 2 begins. “The church of God…” Not Apollos, not Paul, not Cephas, but God. It is God’s church. They belong to God– those who have settled in Corinth and have been rescued by Jesus.

So how does that change things?

If my identity is found in money then I’ve got to claw and scrape and do everything I can to be financially successful. Same with power. Same with parenting. Same with pastoring. None of those are big enough to hold the weight of our identities. They will all come crumbling down. So when I hear in the gospel that my identity is found in Christ that changes everything. I don’t have to make my life about these other things. I belong to God. And so does my neighbor.

“There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

We rightly use that Abraham Kuyper quote to be involved in many different things—a host of missional enterprises—but perhaps we should extend it to our fellow humans. While I’m certainly involved and our unity and shared responsibility in Christ says something to a church which features dancing storm troopers, a faithful starting point is that such a church belongs* to God—even if they are fully apostate. It’s ultimately His to sort out. My higher calling is to be faithful with what God is calling me to do and be. (John 21:21)

Again this is what Paul is doing when he reminds them that they aren’t the only church. They are a church and not the church. Their identity is found in Christ just like all of the others who “in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. You don’t have to compete or compare yourself with other churches. That’s just silly. But you’ll do that if your identity isn’t found in Christ. You’ll compete instead of cooperate. You’ll start asking the wrong questions and make wrong comparisons. But Paul reminds the Corinthians that they aren’t alone in calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are in this with other believers from all around the globe. Their calling is to be the church at Corinth. To be obedient to God and do their thing that God has called them to do.

Polarization happens when we move away from our identity in Christ being primary. Such a move will always call me to put undue weight on the identity of something else. And it’ll impact the weight that I give to the words of others as well. It’ll shape the way that I view them. If we want to fix our squabbles and increasingly polarized tribes within the SBC (or within Christianity at large) it’ll do us well to begin with digging into what it means to be “in Christ”.

Notice that Paul never really settles whether team Apollos or any other team is the one who is theologically correct or the one who is knocking it out of the park. He changes the focus for every one of the groups. If Christ isn’t their identity then everything else (even correct theology) is going to miss the mark. 

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Photo source: here

*When I’m using the term “belong” I mean in the creational sense and not necessarily in the relational sense. Though I’m not necessarily saying they don’t belong to the Lord in a relational sense. I’m simply not making that point.

Is Blogging Slothful?

Mike Leake

photo-1534847684521-4a6f2fb83174Being a sluggard isn’t just about loving sleep. Slothfulness actually has more to do with not doing the right thing in the right moment. A sluggard is one who does the thing which he wants to do instead of the thing he is called to do. (Of course when the gospel transforms our hearts our want to and our called to typically merge).

I try to read a chapter of Proverbs every day and yesterday I read about the sluggard in Proverbs 26. And these words particularly struck me, “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly”. And my mind started making a few connections to social media.

I’m convinced that, at least for me, social media is the playground of sluggardry. I’ve found that when I am most prone to engage in foolish Twitter battles it’s because I don’t want to tackle the very real issues that I have in front of me.

I wouldn’t be entirely forthright if I didn’t confess that some of my blogging and social media engagement a couple years ago flowed out of being absolutely miserable in my place of ministry. Blogging was a way to somehow feel that I still mattered—whenever almost everything around me was saying that I didn’t. And blogging provided an avenue for me to maintain a mirage of knowing what I was doing while everything around me was falling apart.

I know that my story isn’t quite that black and white. The entirety of my ministry and writing wasn’t defined by these things, but it was a part of them. Much has changed within my heart in the last couple years—and my setting has only changed within the last year. In a very real way my entire worldview has changed towards one grounded in hope. And that’s made my writing difficult. Not only because I’m trying to learn to speak this new language of hope but because it’s no longer motivated out of escapism.

I don’t think it’s an accident that the articles which gain the most traffic are those which are of the “lion in the street” variety. One has to wonder if it’s more than coincidence that the verbiage of sluggards and the coinage of “discernment” bloggers is one and the same.

I suppose some people are fighting real lions and shepherds are fighting real wolves. But can’t we be honest and say that at times it’s far easier to warn someone five states away about a lion in their street than to have the difficult coffee-breathed conversation with the disgruntled member down the street?

God has given some folks a wider ministry which might include proclaiming truth to power and pointing out truth in the midst of error. But I’ll speak for myself and say that for the most part—and in this particular season—God has given me a much more narrow scope of responsibility. And it’s an act of slothfulness for me to neglect those things to engage in lengthy online debates.

I might be alone in this. But I think it’s worth asking the question. Am I engaging on social media because I’m trying to avoid something in front of my face? Am I engaging in this Twitter battle because I’m not engaging in the one I need to be in front of me?

Is blogging sloth? Could be. But it’s not necessarily. Am I doing what God is calling me to do in this very moment? That’s how you go about answering that question. And it’s a question we need to ask.

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Photo source: here

What You Call Soft I’d Call Pastoral Acts 17 Strategy

Mike Leake

280px-V&A_-_Raphael,_St_Paul_Preaching_in_Athens_(1515)Christianity Today (CT) published an article a few days ago which seemed to be an attempt to open the conversation on how we will pastorally relate to polyamory. In the article the authors give a quick explanation of this phenomenon (something like 5% of people claim to be in a polyamorous relationship) and then give a bit of a strategy for engaging with those involved in such a relationship.

Their strategy was to affirm potential good desires which might go out of its banks into polyamory. The key sentences which some would pick up on as an example of the softness of evangelicalism are these:

And in churches that idolize marriage and the nuclear family, polyamory’s focus on hospitality and community can be an attractive alternative. We can acknowledge that many of the elements that draw people to polyamory—deep relationships, care for others, hospitality, and community—are good things.

Owen Strachan called this “a piece arguing that ‘good things’ draw us to polyamory”. To which he then labeled this an unsound hermeneutic of “identifying ‘good things’ in abominatory pursuits…” Doug Wilson said, “These are soft men, writing soft words for a soft magazine, published in a soft generation, and all of it guaranteed to go down softly. Talk about oleaginous”.

My desire here isn’t to defend CT or Strachan/Wilson but to use this as a place from which to talk about missional strategy. I will say this, after reading Strachan and Wilson’s criticism, my first reaction was to think that I had read a different article than these two men. I didn’t see the CT article as soft but I read it as pastoral. But then it hit me why we’re perhaps talking past one another here.

What Is Paul Doing in Acts 17?

When I read Acts 17 I see the Apostle Paul coming into the hostile environment of the Areopagus and using a bridge—their many idols—to proclaim the living God. I read the CT article as employing a similar strategy. In fact its something I do in preaching often. It’s something I’ve picked up from Zack Eswine. In his book, Preaching to a Post-Everything World, he encourages us to consider the echoes of creation. He notes that we will discuss how the fall impacts us but:

“…before we do this, we want to learn how to ‘begin our message where the Bible begins—with the dignity and high calling of all human being because they are created in the image of God.’ We desire to learn this skill because if we as preachers always and only start with the message of sin, without placing our sin into the context of our having been created, we discard vital aspects of the beauty of redemption.” (Preaching to a Post-Everything World, 43)

There is much more of value that Eswine shares, but that is sufficient to understand the strategy. When we are dealing with folks living with in a post-Christian world with such a mindset it might be effective to find the fingerprint of God on their life and then declare to them that which they are worshipping in ignorance.

This is why I read that CT article through that lens. I viewed them as finding echoes of creation within a polyamorous relationship and then showing how sinful hearts can hijack good things and make them bad things. I didn’t view it as them saying that these “good things” would inevitably lead to a polyamorous relationship. Or even that “good things” come from polyamory. But I saw a missional strategy similar to what Paul employed in Acts 17.

Talking Past One Another

What I think is happening is that some will read a statement like this…

Another important pastoral step is to distinguish elements of polyamory that are in violation of God’s will from elements that are simply culturally unfamiliar to us. When we want to lovingly call people to repentance, we should be precise about what needs repentance and what relationships or elements can and should be sanctified in Christ.

And they’ll conclude from this that what needs to be repented of is every single element of a polyamorous relationship. They’ll, rightly, say that these elements which can be sanctified in Christ aren’t elements of  polyamory but elements of being created in the image of God. But that’s not the argument that I believe CT was making. What they are saying is that when someone in a polyamorous relationship evidences a longing for deep relationships with others you point out how this is an echo of creation (much as Paul saw the religiosity in Athens) but then show how this is fulfilled in Christ an not polyamory. So what they mean by elements of polyamory “can and should be sanctified in Christ” is precisely this that I’ve mentioned. It’s not polyamory which can be sanctified. But those who are engaging in polyamorous relationships are made in the image of God and there are still echoes of creation within—and it is here where sanctification in Christ can happen.

Though I don’t believe I would use some of these words in the same way they do, I do not see this article in CT as soft. I don’t see them necessarily turning a blind eye to sin. One certainly could use this missions strategy to be soft on sin. But it’s not a necessity. The key moment comes in whether or not you can pastorally and boldly call sin exactly what it is when it comes that time. Can you be both pastoral and prophetic? Can you lovingly show echoes of creation but also proclaim the truth of the Fall and how our wicked desires will turn to good things—like a longing for a relationship—into a wicked thing like polyamory.

Identifying the finger-print of God on a human being who is in an “abominatory pursuit” isn’t soft, it’s Pauline. And I didn’t even mention Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well.

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Photo source: here