Evangelical Reformation

Sure, Jesus had both. John tells us that He was full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) But it seems that today we must settle for one or the other.

It tends to be a generational thing. The previous generation majored on the truth. This one stresses grace.

The previous generation was (and still is) into Bible teaching, expository preaching, and personal devotions that includes systematic Bible study. They were also into living by the book, especially the rules of the book.

To today’s generation, the latter description may sound pejorative. They would be shocked to hear that the rules of Scripture are not all bad, that holy living may have some merit.

However, the one rule the pervious generation stumbled over was the mandate to display grace. The problem with that one is that it seems to undermine all the rules. After all, if you go around showing grace to rule breakers, how can you keep them in line?

Contemporary evangelicals see through that one. They tag it as judgmental and legalistic. They abhor its rigidity and critical spirit. And they are right. Rules without grace produce a pretty sour existence.

Instead, contemporary evangelicals have opted for grace. Grace is the absolute of this generation. Grace is always the answer.

This orientation reflects itself in its embrace of the concept of unconditional acceptance. It is always right to accept. To do otherwise is to judge. That, obviously (to them), is always wrong.

I talked with a cohabiting couple who claimed to be believers about the unbiblical nature of their lifestyle. Their response was: “How dare you judge us.” Actually, I have had that conversation and received that response more than once.

And if grace trumps the biblical teaching on sex outside of marriage, it will trump about anything. This approach to life captures the slogan adopted by Outback Steakhouse: “No rules, just right.”

This generation avoids being bothered by the rules by avoiding serious Bible study. They may read short devotionals, especially if they feature grace, or read some books, especially if they feature grace. But serious exegesis and theology are nowhere near their scope of interests. One Christian bookstore owner indicated that 80% of his sales consisted of music and tee-shirts.

However, this fixation on grace is not all bad. Giving high priority to grace can be quite nice, especially if the alternative is the judgmental attitude of the past. It is a blessing to enjoy a church atmosphere free of critical spirit, but rather characterized by a kind and friendly ambiance.

However, at some point there is a need for a commitment to righteousness. The absence of this emphasis is destructive to the contemporary evangelical culture.

In our last post, we warned against idealizing the good old days and asserted that evangelical reformation should not be an attempt to go back to the past. Rather, it is an attempt to move beyond the errors of the present by striving toward a biblical worldview and lifestyle.

This matter of grace and truth is another area where we should emulate neither past nor present. The Christian life, and life in general, works only if it embraces both grace and truth and assigns the rightful place to each.

This requires serious Bible study and commitment to the principles of Scripture. That must include the concept of grace. If we, like Jesus, were full of both grace and truth, we might start an evangelical reformation.

Dennis the Menace, in reflecting philosophically with one of his buddies, whimsically pronounced, “These are the good old days. We just don’t know it yet.”

That is the human tendency, isn’t it, to reflect on how much better it was back then, when people ate a really healthful diet of whole grains and vegetables straight from the garden—and died at age 42.

There seems to be something embedded in the human psyche that sees the past through rose-tinted glasses. When I was in the military someone observed that the two best assignments in the army are the last one and the next one.

Consequently, it is easy to misinterpret evangelical reformation as a yearning for the good old days when Christians were spiritual giants. However, this is a misconception.

Reformation means to re-form something, especially for the purpose of correcting flaws and making it better. Going back is not an inherent part of the meaning.

I believe that some aspects of the past were better. But some were worse. We pine for the past because we tend to forget the bad parts and remember the good ones.

For example, in the past evangelicals were largely isolationists. They tended to shy away from politics and media and other aspects of the public arena. This resulted in the loss of territory that we are still seeking to recover.

However, it is true that that isolation led to a greater purity in some dimensions of life. For example, back then many evangelicals did not attend movies, which pollute mind and heart with cursing, nudity, and promiscuity.

The challenge in that dimension of Christianity is to be engaged in the world but to keep from its contamination. We achieve that not by going back, but by going forward guided by a commitment to understand clearly the teaching of Scripture and to follow it.

Ecclesiastes 7:10 warns, “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.” This verse does not actually say that the old days were not better. A times, this would be invalid. Sometimes the past is better than the present.

Rather, I believe Solomon’s point is that we should not revere and seek to emulate the past. Rather, we should work at being all that God wants us to be today.

These are different days with different opportunities and pitfalls. An evangelical reformation includes reshaping evangelical Christianity so as to take full advantage of today’s opportunities and avoid today’s pitfalls.

An evangelical reformation not focused on the present and the future will produce not just a reshaped, but a misshaped, form of Christianity.