Prettying up people who are far from life

I ran into an old friend today and asked what he’s doing for a job.

“I help people who are far from life look their best,” he said.

“Oh, so you sell makeup,” I replied.

“No, not really. But I do apply it.”

“You’re one of those beauty consultants at the mall?”

“No, I said I do it for people who are far from life.”

“You mean, you’re a mortician?”

“Yes.”

“And your clients are dead?”

“No! That’s cold. I prefer to think of them as just being far from life.”

The conversation is ridiculous and fictional. Much less fictional is a theology that seems to guide a growing number of churches who tell us that they are reaching people far from God.

Or, more accurately and bluntly, people who are dead.

Before we go further, perhaps it’s worth explaining why semantics matter. When you have an action-oriented theology that ditches creeds for deeds, the best way to know what some of these innovative churches believe is by looking at what they do and say. The new church movement (emergent, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, etc.) is quite deliberate and generally successful in trying to change the speech patterns of its adherents. Speech influences and reveals thinking, so I think it’s important to flag and challenge the thinking and the doctrines (creeds, if you will) that are behind the words being used in so many modern churches. Important words mean important things.

Saying that someone is far from God is about as useful as describing a corpse as being far from life; it’s just an attempt obscure the awful reality that the corpse is dead.

What does God think about our “far from life” status?

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins (Colossians 2:13)

There’s nothing a dead man can do to get closer to life. It’s a fundamental element of our faith that Christ alone saves us and that there is nothing we can do to initiate or reject it. If Christ decides not to save us, nothing we can do can change his mind. If Christ does mercifully decide to save us, there’s nothing we can do to resist him.

Describing sinners as being far from God is a fiction that, while trying to preserve the dignity of the sinner, ignores the absolute wretched position that he finds himself in. It’s a fiction that incubates thinking that if we could only change the way the unsaved think about Jesus, Christians or the church, that they would start to close the distance between themselves and a God who wishes they’d come closer.

Mark 12:34 does tell of a particular Pharisee whom Jesus describes as being “not far from the kingdom of God.” It’s a curious account because we don’t know whether the man did eventually enter the kingdom, though I suspect that Jesus was telling him that by God’s grace he was being drawn. The Pharisee had affirmed Jesus and demonstrated a clear understanding of Scripture, which is something that’s impossible to do without God’s help. One thing we do know about the Pharisee, he was not seeking God before his encounter with Jesus; he came to challenge and test Jesus with the intent of tripping him up. Although he sought God with evil intent, it appears that God demonstrated his mercy and gave the man a new heart. By his actions and intent, the Pharisee was living and running far from God, but by Jesus’ love and power he was brought close to God.

After this, no one dared asked Jesus any more questions. Why not? A hostile sinner asked Jesus a question and it probably appeared to all observers that he had been converted. When Jesus speaks to you, you change.

Look at Romans 3.

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

All have turned away, they have together become worthless.

The most moral sinner is just as far from God as the most murderous tyrant. Just as the distance between life and death for a dead man is infinite, so the distance between my unregenerate self and a holy and just God is infinite and terrifying. I am either so far from God that distance is irrelevant, or I am an integral and valued part of his body by virtue of his saving grace.

Once a part of his body, although I can be far from sanctified maturity, I can never be far from God.

This is the wonderful miracle, security and beauty of grace.

It’s got nothing to do with image

Brammer takes issue with my criticism of using Christ follower instead of Christian, though he seems to agree with me that the reason for the popularity of the term is discomfort with how the culture views us.

He says

I’ve got some bad news, until we live as Christ, the Christian or Christ-Follower image will not change.

Actually, it won’t even then. The world does not like us because it does not like the cross. A sinner’s attitude toward Christians will have absolutely no bearing on the deadness of his or her heart or the Holy Spirit’s power to bring it to life.

Only Christ lived as Christ, and look what his culture did to him.

Are you a Christ follower or mainly just a label avoider?

If you listen to emergent preachers and boosters for any length of time, you can’t help but notice the studied avoidance of Christian and its replacement with Christ follower. A couple of weeks ago I offered a critique of how the church tries to make Jesus famous, but Christ follower is the term that gives me the willies more than anything else the new church says.

Important words mean important things, and the sheer repetition and deliberate care with which emergents use Christ follower suggest that they understand that there’s an important battle of ideas they can win if they can place the term into widespread circulation.

It needs to be resisted. Here’s why.

1. It rejects Christianity. Although this is a simple and indisputable point, it is by no means unimportant. Where most believers would use the term Christian, emergents insert the term Christ follower. No matter the arguments in favor of using CF, you are ditching a profoundly important term. Emergents will counter that Christian isn’t really important because it’s only used twice in the KJV Bible. Sure, but how many times does God need to say something for it to be important? When parents tell you their child’s name, do you make a habit of arguing with them?
2. It rejects tradition. God’s redemptive story doesn’t end in the last chapter of Revelation, although his revealed Word does. The Holy Spirit continues to act in human affairs through the institution of the church. To ignore all that wise men of God have left us (the creeds, the reformers, the traditions, etc) is to ignore God’s work over the last 2,000 years. The early apostles assumed that the Bible was understood within the context of the church that Jesus left us. When a church tries to untether itself from church history, it rejects godly wisdom and leaves itself susceptible to error.
3. It rejects God’s family. God refers to the church in familial terms. We are all adopted. We are Christ’s bride. We are brothers and sisters. You might not like it, but when Christ saved you, you joined the family. When my wife married me, she married into my parents and siblings as well. Just because she’s embarrassed by my brother (I jest, bro, because I care) was not enough of a reason for her to suggest that we change our last name to McSnickenmeister so no-one could connect the dots between her and the rest of my family. When Jesus chooses you, his family comes with him. It’s a package deal. It’s a good deal.
4. It rejects grace. Christian denotes a state of being and belief; we are part of Christ’s church. Christ follower denotes a state of action and effort. Being a Christ follower is always a secondary state compared to our status as Christians. I am a Christian because of what Christ did, not anything I did. To be a Christ follower I must do something. In terms of how both terms explain the essential quality of God’s grace in our salvation, Christ follower couldn’t really be more wrong. The consequence of being a Christian is that one follows Christ, but one can never follow Christ before, or without, being a Christian.
5. It embraces paganism. Although I argue that you must be a Christian before you can be a Christ follower, and that the first term should take precedence, that’s not necessarily the meaning that emergents convey. Following Christ is about living like Christ and doing things he would like. When you boil Christianity down into terms that suggest that it merely means living well, you remove the offense of the cross and let anyone claim they’re Christ followers if they’re living good lives. There are many pagans who live honorable lives and perhaps demonstrate the values of the Sermon on the Mount better than some believers. How does Christ follower communicate the message of the Gospel to a good-living sinner?
6. It welcomes heresy. Rejecting Christianity as a term puts you on the road to rejecting the beliefs that are part and parcel of it. It at least puts you in the company of people who are further down that road than you ever expect you might go. The value of the creeds and of the great traditions of faith is that they act as speed bumps for believers who so easily can lapse into heresies. By rejecting Christians and Christianity, you’re ignoring the speed bumps. We all hope you have skilled drivers.
7. It embraces cowardice. For two thousand years believers have been persecuted and killed for declaring that they are Christians. Now, because a bunch of ignorant MTV types think we’re silly, we get our knickers in a knot and flee the term. What fools the martyrs were. All they needed to do was change their label and catch the next bus home.
8. It embraces culture. The common reason for adopting the Christ follower moniker is that Christian has too much baggage and makes people think of the church more like Brussels sprouts than pop tarts. The world thinks the church is all about creeds (see #2), is full of old people (#3) and makes you study silly stuff like theology and doctrine (see #4). Tell me when the church or Christianity has ever been embraced by culture. The nature of the cross is at cross purposes with our sinful nature. We will never be loved and accepted. That’s the point of grace. Only with the Holy Spirit’s enabling can I ever hope to love Christ and his church. Besides, changing your terms to chase culture is a fool’s errand. In 20 years you’ll have to change Christ follower to something else more acceptable, perhaps to nice person.

If you’re a Christian, simply say so.

If not fame, then what?

I’ve argued against overusing the phrase To make Jesus famous. What, then, could we replace it with?

How about To make Jesus known?

1. It describes evangelism and discipleship equally well. Fame is too heavily biased towards presenting Jesus to the unsaved and leaves the family of faith in the cold. By emphasizing knowledge, we acknowledge both the need to fish for men and to feed Jesus’ sheep.
2. It demands that we offer the world substantive truth. Fame thrives best in a world of happiness, glitz and glamor. While Jesus brings joy, he also places demands on us that our unregenerate human nature recoils from. Knowledge lets us present all facets of Jesus’ nature.
3. It focuses on individual responsibility. Fame is a collective quality; once I’m aware of someone, that person can’t become more famous in my life. Fame only increases when someone else also thinks of the famous person. Knowledge exists on an individual level and can increase over time.
4. It better describes the relationship between the divine and me. Fame made some quality of Christ dependent on me. Knowledge reverses that dynamic. Jesus is all and in all, complete, perfect, infinite. My knowledge of Christ can improve or deteriorate, but neither state affects his nature. He is the rock that I throw myself against and on. It is my responsibility to know him, and by his grace he has given me all the tools I need to do that. It’s the church’s responsibility to introduce me to Jesus through the logos he’s left us.

What do you think?

Does Jesus really want to be famous?

One or two commentators have referenced Newspring’s oft-repeated mission of making Jesus famous, a term that is also in widespread use beyond Newspring. It’s a phrase that has long bothered me for its carelessness. I’ve tried to use Google to help me understand what its users think the term means and where it comes from, though I haven’t been able to turn up anything substantive yet.

Perhaps someone can tell me what is meant by it, but I suspect that its overuse is more a product of a fame-fueled media culture than of careful biblical reasoning. Here’s why I think it’s a weak foundation to base a church’s entire mission on:

1. Fame is usually incompatible with knowledge. Consider someone like Alex Rodriguez. He’s a  famous athlete, though the more we know of him, the smaller he gets. He may still be as famous, especially since the steroid story attracted the attention of people who don’t pay attention to baseball, but his fame has certainly turned into something very different now. Also, is anyone still listening to Milli Vanilli?
2. Fame is independent of knowledge. We all know of people who are famous for being famous. Paris Hilton comes to mind. In this sense, we see how the fame-making mission of the church is consistent with the usually hostile responses given to people who ask for more teaching about Jesus. You’re being selfish; go and invite someone else to church, is the customary and curt response. Of course it is. Knowledge of Christ is an optional and self-indulgent accessory.
3. Fame is a merely a state of awareness, not an attitude or belief. For someone to be famous, it just requires a relatively large number of people to be aware of a person, regardless of what they think of him or her. For example, Barack Obama is probably the most famous living person in the world, but almost half the people (at least of Americans) who generate his fame disagree with him, and some even want him to fail. Fame and persuasion are very distant relatives.
4. Fame is independent of the famous. A person’s fame vacillates depending on how many people are disposed to think of that person. For example, Britney Spears’ fame increases whenever I think about her (not often), and it decreases when I forget her. This is why you find so many Hollywood has-beens in reality shows; they need to remind people to think of them again. Britney Spears has no inherent fame; it’s totally dependent on us.
5. It suggests I can do something to change some quality of Christ. To emphasize Jesus’ fame puts his wholeness in my hands. My attention has the power to make Jesus greater or smaller. Heaven forfend. If it were possible for the whole world to forget about Jesus, would he be diminished in any way? If the whole world started talking about him, would he be enhanced in any way? Absolutely not. Jesus did not care about fame when he walked the earth; in fact, he often rejected it when it was his for the taking, telling recipients of miracles not to tell anyone about it.

The KJV uses the word fame to describe several instances of news of Jesus spreading throughout the land. Most are simply descriptive of Jesus’ effect on the people, though the most interesting usage is in Luke 5:15, where the news of Jesus is linked to a public response to him. In contrast to other uses of fame, this one uses the word logos, which denotes knowledge based on teaching and doctrine.

Oh, and what did Jesus do after attracting all that fame? Check out verse 16. He withdrew to a lonely place and prayed.

I understand the well-intentioned impulse behind the drive to make Jesus famous, and I recognize, along with the Gospel writers, that preaching about Jesus will have that effect. My argument is that fame is a low-value product of our following the Great Commission, not the raison d’etre for it.

Jesus didn’t ask us to be his publicists. He simply asked us to make disciples.

Update: If not fame, then what?