Evangelical Reformation

That statement no doubt sounds like heresy to most evangelicals. It violates our understanding of the gospel, the very foundation of our faith.

After all, if we don’t have to be perfect to please God, Christ would not have had to come. We could get into heaven on our own merit.

This, of course, is true as far as it goes. None of us are good enough to get into heaven on our own merit. We need the justification provided by the sacrifice of Christ.

But what about God’s attitude toward us who have believed, who are His children? Must we be perfect to be pleasing to him?

As noted in our previous post, many contemporary evangelicals assert that we must be perfect to please God. Then they use this position to support the view that God accepts us unconditionally.

The argument goes like this: 1) We must be perfect to please God; 2) However, everything we do, even the most spiritual of us, is tainted with sin; 3) Consequently, God must not accept His children based on their performance or none of us would ever be accepted; 4) Therefore, God must accept us unconditionally, apart from our performance.

Or, as it is frequently expressed, when God looks on us, He does not see us (our performance—our sin), but instead He sees the righteousness of Christ.

This theory leads us to the conclusion that God sees no difference between the believer who is striving to live righteously and the one opting for a carnal lifestyle. None are perfect. All are sinners. Therefore, the lifestyle of none is acceptable. None live in a way that pleases Him.

Of course, as parents, we are more discerning. We may have one child that works hard at living as he should, seeking to obey his parents (though he does not do this perfectly), doing his homework regularly (though not always), and acting in a way that is a tribute to us and brings honor to God (for the most part but not 100% of the time). Then we may also have another child that does just the opposite. He has a rebellious attitude, hangs with the wrong group, does drugs, and is flunking out of school. Though neither is perfect, we are sufficiently perceptive to differentiate between the two in terms of their character and morality.

According to the contemporary evangelical mindset, that makes us more perceptive than God. He does not have that level of discernment. He can only see in black-and-white. For that reason, we have developed a theology that has Him relating to us on that black-and-white basis.

This superficial contemporary theological formula collides with Scripture at many points. Without getting into its theological flaws, I wonder what its advocates do with the many passages indicating that God does notice the performance of his children and is pleased with some and not with others.

For example, though Enoch was not perfect, nonetheless, he pleased God. “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.” (Heb 11:5 NIVUS)

On the other hand, God striking dead Ananias and Sapphira gives the distinct impression that he was not especially happy with them. Likewise, God warns the Corinthians against ungodly behavior because, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.” (1Co 11:30 NIVUS) Most commentators view Paul as saying that because of the bad behavior of some believers, God struck them with sickness and even death.

Scripture includes scores, if not hundreds, of such examples of God showering His blessing on imperfect but righteous people but showing his displeasure toward believers who are indifferent to or rebellious toward His directives. In addition to these examples, there are many passages that teach that God blesses His people that seek to live righteously and deals severely with those who do not.

Why would evangelicals, who view themselves as the ultimate guardians and interpreters of Scripture, maintain a position that is at odds with Scripture on virtually hundreds of counts? That will be the topic of our next post.

Today’s American evangelical church leaves us with the impression that pleasing God is not hard at all.

A major result of salvation is that it is easy for the believer to please God. In fact, he is pleasing to God just as he is, regardless of what that is. After all, he is created in the image of God, is so loved and valued that Christ died for him, and now is a child of God.

Just as significant, when God looks on him, he doesn’t see his performance, He sees His Son, Jesus, with whom He is well pleased. Therefore, God is pleased with him just as he is—unconditionally.

As the contemporary evangelical mantra goes, “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more and nothing you can do to make God love you less.”

These sentiments are reflected in other slogans also. For example, “It is okay to be angry with God.” In other words, even when I am unhappy with something God has done or not done, and reflect my displeasure in my attitude and even words and actions, He is still pleased with me.

Or there is, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” You see, God through Christ disassociates me from my behavior, so that He might not like the way I act, but that doesn’t change His attitude toward me.

Then there is “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” The “perfect” word comes up a lot in evangelical conversation, and it is very convenient. Surely God doesn’t expect any of us to be perfect, and therefore He must be pleased with me even when I am not. That is a handy rationale, since “not perfect” covers all of our behavior from chewing gum in church to living with my girlfriend. The good news is that God is okay with our not being perfect.

Ask about any evangelical today, and they will tell you that pleasing God is easy. I just have to be me. What more could God want.

Of course, none of the above is rooted in valid exegesis of Scripture, not even the part about God hating the sin but loving the sinner. Though I do not have time to go into all of these issues in this post, the fact is that there are lots of passages that convey that God is hard to please.

He apparently is not please with those who take the broad way, but only happy with those who choose the narrow way. He is not pleased with those who choose to ignore the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, instead building their house on the sand.

Psalm 1 conveys that He is pleased with those who delight in His law and meditate on it day and night, but He is not pleased with the wicked, i.e. those who do not do so.

In Luke 14:27, Jesus says, “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” (Someone can try to make the point that this does not mean that Jesus is displeased with those do not take up His cross. It is that sort of desperate rationale that has brought the evangelical community in America to its present sad condition.)

Or there is 1Peter 3:12 that asserts that the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Or James 4:4, (which, by the way is written to Christians) indicating that anyone who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.

Paul states the case from the positive perspective in 2Corinthians 5:9 by stating, “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.” Apparently he did not think that pleasing God was a given. Rather, it was a goal to be pursued.

Likewise, he tells us in Romans 14:17-18, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things [is] acceptable to God and approved by men.” Maintaining a lifestyle characterized by those qualities is a tall order.

Well, it might be protested, doesn’t that means we have to be perfect to please God—the point of such a protest being to debunk the theory. “Since we can’t be perfect, you must be wrong.” The fact is that we don’t need to be perfect to please God. The proof next time.

How did practical minded mainstream Americans buy into the “I have a right to do my thing” mantra of the hippies?

Americans have a reputation for being practical people, not philosophical eggheads. Yet, there is nothing at all practical about assigning the individual the right to do his own thing.

Common sense insists that doing so will result in chaos. For example, if you tell a college student that he has the right to do his own thing, do you think he will go to class? Do you think that instead he might get his girlfriend pregnant and then bail out on her?

This is precisely where that philosophy has led. We find the rubble all around us.

We understand why college students would buy into this philosophy. During those idyllic days with no spouse and kids to support and mom and dad footing the bill, it is not hard to choose between responsibility and fun. Give them a philosophy that makes doing their thing noble, and of course they will immediately grasp its profound wisdom.

But one would think that mom and dad would know better. Well, they did, that is until a psychologist named Carl Rogers came along.

Just as an aside, it seems that every society adopts its own gods. The Canaanites chose Baal, the Europeans, after rejecting Christianity, opted for philosophy. Americans, in our post-Christian pagan state have deified psychology.

As Isaiah demonstrates so graphically, idolatry is idiotic, making fools out of its followers. Philosophy has made fools out of intellectual Europeans. Psychology is doing likewise for Americans.

Rogers taught that we optimize ourselves as human beings by accepting ourselves unconditionally, i.e. feeling good about ourselves regardless of how bad we live. A bad self-image is the ultimate disease and unconditional self-acceptance is the cure.

However, we can only accept ourselves unconditionally if significant others accept us unconditionally. This means that allowing our kids to do their own thing will not turn them into unbridled hedonists, but will make them into psychological saints—wholesome, actualized individuals.

This belief that unconditional acceptance fixes broken people and makes them into the persons they were meant to be dovetails beautifully with the gospel denuded of repentance, described in the past two postings.

In the absence of repentance, the gospel is reduced to unconditional acceptance. Though this is an unbiblical message, in our culture shaped by the psychology of Carl Rogers it feels right.

Rogers taught us that unconditional acceptance provides the power to change and grow. The gospel stripped of repentance seems to be saying the God agrees. It seems the grace is synonymous with is unconditional acceptance. Salvation comes through a realization that God accepts me “just as I am.”

Change comes, not from repentance, but from this realization that God accepts me apart from any intent to change—even though I am living with my girlfriend, watching pornography, and smoking pot. As I experience God’s grace, His unconditional acceptance, I change will come spontaneously.

This is a life-changing gospel in the sense that it gives people freedom from guilt without change of lifestyle—sort of like spiritual Paxil offered free at your church pharmacy. This is not a biblical gospel and, as George Barna has demonstrated, the promised change in behavior is not occurring.

However, evangelicals are hooked on the message because it is extremely comfortable, fits well with secular culture, and sells well.

Evangelicals have sold a lot of this elixir to their Republican friends. Now these politicians know the God feels good about them regardless of self-serving pork and political duplicity.

Polls reveal that the American voters are not accepting them unconditionally. They may make it, but only because the political alternative is worse.

Make it or not, one can only hope that the voters’ ire will generate enough repentance-producing guilt to produce some change in their behavior.