Tullian Tchividjian rethinks spiritual growth

Posted on June 2, 2011 by me

Rethinking spiritual growth

Tullian Tchividjian is Billy Graham’s grandson, and pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (founded by the late James Kennedy). A couple of years ago, he discovered that the Gospel is not just for justification. In his article (reprinted from his own blog) Rethinking Spiritual Growth, he discusses “what it means to ‘work out our salvation with fear and trembling.'” He writes,

In his 2008 movie The Happening, writer, producer, and director M. Night Shyamalan unfolds a freaky plot about a mysterious, invisible toxin that causes anyone exposed to it to commit suicide. One of the first signs that the unaware victim has breathed in this self-destructing toxin is that they begin walking backwards—signaling that every natural instinct to go on living and to fight for survival has been reversed. The victim’s default survival mechanism is turned upside down.

This, in a sense, is what needs to happen to us when it comes to the way we think about progress in the Christian life. When breathed in, the radical, unconditional, free grace of God reverses every natural instinct regarding what it means to spiritually “survive and thrive.” Only the “toxin” of God’s grace can reverse the way we typically think about Christian growth.

The counter-intuitive, external Gospel

As I’ve said before, we need to be constantly evangelizing each other, to counter our natural inclinations to be performance-driven. The Gospel is counter-intuitive, which is one reason why we can rely on it. It is so counter-intuitive that men were not likely to have invented it. It does not arise naturally from within us; it needs to come at us externally.

Humans are created to work; it’s one way we gain our self-esteem. However, it is not how we get saved, healed, better, free, or more holy. At least, not by work in the sense we usually think of it.

Tchividjian continues,

Christian growth does not happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. Rather, Christian growth happens by working hard to daily swim in the reality of what you do have. Believing again and again the gospel of God’s free, justifying grace everyday is the hard work we’re called to.

In John chapter 6, the disciples asked Jesus about the work that he talked about. Here’s the exchange:

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (NIV)

The hard work of Christianity is to contend for the Gospel—to continuously preach to ourselves and to each other the counter-intuitive truth that, to quote myself, “only grace leads to freedom.” Any other work leads to bondage.

Shameless plug

This is a great place to tell you about my book, co-authored with Dr. Ken Blue (Healing Spiritual Abuse). The Gospel Uncensored: How Only Grace Leads to Freedom, which has been described as “a primer on grace.” We examine grace not only as it applies to salvation/justification, but how it is also the key to living the Christian life. Buy it today—you’ll be glad you did. Seriously.

Posted in Good News, The Gospel Uncensored | Leave a comment

The Importance of the External Word

Posted on June 1, 2011 by me

Steve Martin (not the banjo-playing comedian) published a thought-provoking blog post today, discussing how important the external Word of God is to faith, as opposed to placing our faith in our own emotions and thoughts. An excerpt:

Lot’s of Christians speak of the grace of God. “He is our all in all.” He has done it all.” “There is nothing we can add.” That is a good thing.  But there is nothing for many of these Christians to grab hold of. Their beliefs inhabit the nebulous territories of heart and mind. Yes, we believe them. But now what? How can we be SURE that they are true, and real, IN OUR LIVES, at this moment?

It seems that because of the kind of creature that we are, a tactile, tangible, experiential being, our faith must land somewhere. The rubber must meet the road,  somewhere, somehow.

If there’s nothing to grab a hold of that is tangible, that comes to us from outside of ourselves, then we will internalize this desire for solid proof. We will rely on our emotions, our deeds, our thoughts, our knowledge, even our own faith. Welcome to ‘religion’ in the 21st century. Look familiar? It ought to. It’s no different than the religion that humans have practiced for as long as they have been around. It hides behind the pious words and works of those who have no assurance of their salvation, other than what they are able to muster up of their own volition. Then you end up with holiness churches where people are movin’ on up.

But the external Word, which includes the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, are different. They do not eminate from inside of ourselves and are not dependent on anything that comes from our side of the equation. They are real events that happen in real places with real earthly elements in real time. And the action in these events is not our action, but God’s. His Word is attached to them. Otherwise they just remain earthly elements. And these actions of God are apprehended by the very gift of faith that God also gives to us, in these Sacraments and in the hearing of His Word.

Now we have something that we can HOLD onto. Something that has been given to us with NO strings attached. Something that is REAL…and NOT subject to the winds that blow in and out of our often weak frames, hearts and minds.

We often forget that Christianity is an incarnational faith; that is, it relies on the belief that the “word became flesh” and that Jesus turned real water into real wine and used real mud to heal real eyes. He was baptized with real water, told the disciples to remember him through drinking real wine and eating real bread, and had his real body executed and resurrected.

With regard to his teaching, he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” not “look into your heart to find the truth.” And, yet we want to spiritualize our faith today, making it dependent upon our own understanding and feelings. No wonder so many fall into doubt and despair.

As Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

How positively archaic.

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt | 1 Comment

The Heresy of Charles Finney

Posted on May 14, 2011 by me

Among American evangelicals, Finney stands as something of an icon—a paragon of modern evangelism, a hero to folks like Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham. While I am by no means an expert on Finney or early American revivals (I was raised Lutheran, after all), it has been my impression that Finney actually contributed to the loss of the real gospel (Gal 1:6,7) among many protestant groups.

And yes, I’ve never been one to avoid controversy.

Finney is probably the best-known figure of the 2nd “Great Awakening” (the 1st GA featured folks like Jonathan Edwards, who I’ll save for a future post).  Finney was a Presbyterian, though very much a non-Calvinist (this is probably due in part to the influence of the 1st Great Awakening, with its emphasis on free will).

Finney’s theology appears to have been all over the place, but he was definitely in the Arminian camp, and possibly even Pelagian, holding that man had total control to choose good or evil. Furthermore, sin caused man to lose his justification, resulting in what I call “eternal insecurity”:

“Whenever he sins, he must, for the time being, cease to be holy. This is self-evident. Whenever he sins, he must be condemned; he must incur the penalty of the law of God … The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true … In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground (p. 46, Systematic Theology).”

While Finney claimed to believe in justification by faith, faith for Finney seemed to be a human work. So according to Finney, whether or not you were “saved” appears to depend upon whether you had just sinned or not, or if you repented, whether you had repented sincerely enough.

Dr. Michael Horton, a Presbyterian (and, I believe, a Calvinist), has written a critical analysis of Finney in The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney. He points out that Finney didn’t believe in original sin (and therefore Total Depravity was out of the question), and then discusses Finney’s unorthodox views of the atonement:

The first thing we must note about the atonement, Finney says, is that Christ could not have died for anyone else’s sins than his own. His obedience to the law and his perfect righteousness were sufficient to save him, but could not legally be accepted on behalf of others. That Finney’s whole theology is driven by a passion for moral improvement is seen on this very point: “If he [Christ] had obeyed the Law as our substitute, then why should our own return to personal obedience be insisted upon as a sine qua non of our salvation” (p.206)? In other words, why would God insist that we save ourselves by our own obedience if Christ’s work was sufficient? The reader should recall the words of St. Paul in this regard, “I do not nullify the grace of God’, for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” It would seem that Finney’s reply is one of agreement. The difference is, he has no difficulty believing both of those premises.

That is not entirely fair, of course, because Finney did believe that Christ died for something—not for someone, but for something. In other words, he died for a purpose, but not for people. The purpose of that death was to reassert God’s moral government and to lead us to eternal life by example, as Adam’s example excited us to sin. Why did Christ die? God knew that “The atonement would present to creatures the highest possible motives to virtue. Example is the highest moral influence that can be exerted … If the benevolence manifested in the atonement does not subdue the selfishness of sinners, their case is hopeless” (p.209). Therefore, we are not helpless sinners who need to be redeemed, but wayward sinners who need a demonstration of selflessness so moving that we will be excited to leave off selfishness.

Not only did Finney believe that the “moral influence” theory of the atonement was the chief way of understanding the cross; he explicitly denied the substitutionary atonement, which

“assumes that the atonement was a literal payment of a debt, which we have seen does not consist with the nature of the atonement … It is true, that the atonement, of itself, does not secure the salvation of any one” (p.217).

Then there is the matter of applying redemption. Throwing off Reformation orthodoxy, Finney argued strenuously against the belief that the new birth is a divine gift, insisting that “regeneration consists in the sinner changing his ultimate choice, intention, preference; or in changing from selfishness to love or benevolence,” as moved by the moral influence of Christ’s moving example (p.224). “Original sin, physical regeneration, and all their kindred and resulting dogmas, are alike subversive of the gospel, and repulsive to the human intelligence” (p.236).
[bold type mine]

While I disagree on points with Horton (as I am not a Calvinist), I do respect him as a theologian and have benefited from his thinking. Finney raises a few points which may have some merit, such as questioning the penal substitution theory or the Calvinist doctrine of perseverance. However, Finney’s theology—such as placing our salvation in our own hands rather than in God’s—is clearly heretical.

Then, there is Finney’s emphasis on personal experience rather than on objective truth (the Word of God), etc. Someday it may prove to be an interesting analysis. But, not today. However, if someone has a contrary point of view, I’d be happy to consider it.

 

Posted in Good News, The Gospel Uncensored, Theological Musings | 7 Comments

On de-stressing my life

Posted on April 27, 2011 by me

I’ve dealt with stress for many years. I tried to avoid it for many years, but ended up in a high stress job, which became more and more stressful as the company got more and more screwed up. But, let’s not get into that.

Now, life is also very stressful. I need to find another job or career, and suddenly there are other worries and demands. But, let’s not go there, either.

Three months ago I went to the ER as I was experiencing what I thought was stress-related symptoms, and stayed for triple bypass surgery. Not directly stress-related, but still probably a big factor; it turns out that while I need to stick to a low-cholesterol, low-sodium, low-sugar diet, they told me that managing stress is probably the most important factor in keeping my heart going as long as possible.

Things I learned while replacing a garbage disposal

So, in trying to “manage” stress, here’s what I have discovered: Stress is a response. More accurately, a lot of what we experience as stress is our own programmed response to our circumstances. I’m not saying that stress isn’t out there—there’s a lot of it, and it’s out to get you. But, external stress doesn’t have to become internal stress.

Some of you may be going, “duh…,” but it’s new info for me. At least it’s new info that I have acknowledged. I am not always quick on the uptake.

I have discovered that I have choices as to how I respond, and that this affects my internal stress. At times, I have to choose to walk away from something. Or, instead of getting frustrated over things, I can look at them humorously, like how the “Cosby” characters always responded to each other. I never could relate to that kind of light-hearted approach (my humor tended to be more of the Hawkeye Pierce variety), but am finding that it works.

I’m not successful all of the time.  Okay, much of the time. But, I am looking for the humor in circumstances whenever possible.  If that doesn’t work, I can always go play my banjo.

 

Posted in Random Thoughts | 5 Comments