Well, at least as it's popularly defined. Before you start calling me Davis the Apostate; allow me to explain:
There is a system that crept into evangelical Christianity somewhere along the way. A system that relies on doing good deeds more than it relies on grace. It seems to say you will be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ but the rest is up to you. You have to be good from the point of conversion on for God to love you and so help you if you fail because God is just waiting there to snatch away the gift of salvation that he so hesitatingly bestowed upon you in the first place. So we go forth trying to play the part; acting good, acting like we have everything together to show ourselves and others that we are good and God's favor is upon us because of our righteousness. Scared to show any chinks in the armor because that would negate our holiness, destroy our "witness", and render us totally undesirable and useless to God (who had doubts about you to begin with.) Horse poo!
Sadly, this seems to be the prevailing view of non-believers in relation to Christianity. Two positions are likely to arise from non-believers with this view on Christianity: 1. "Christians are hypocrites because they are no where near as holy as they act or think they are." People can see our faults a lot easier than we think they can. 2. "I could never be a Christian because I'm not good enough."
In either case I can't say I blame them for not believing. If this is what Christianity is I'm done. I'm not saying people who believe this way aren't believers but they aren't as free as they could be. For me, being a follower of Christ means redefining this popular view of Christianity. It means not living within this system trying to prove to everyone I'm a believer because I say and do the right things all the time. Not that we shouldn't try to do good, we should; but it is by no means what we should hang our hats on. The good we do should be out of our love and gratitude for Christ. Not out of a sense of indebtedness; we'll never get out of the red. Not to prove to others how good we are; Christianity isn't that self-serving. People won't believe us or they won't feel they can measure up.
I'm beginning to realize that God loves me (no, I mean for real), his grace is bigger than my mistakes, that he won't let me go no matter what; I'm not going to worry about being perfect anymore. I want to be more vulnerable, willing to say I don't have all the answers or even most of them; that I fall constantly. God help me, I'm no longer going to carry a burden that I was never meant to carry. Through Christ I'm his child; He's not angry at me. He'll always be there whether I screw it up or don't and he's not looking for me to pay him back or return the favor because grace always has and always will be unmerited.
dig it.
Ya, your right. This blog sounded a little reformed. I may be listening to Steve Brown and Michael Spencer to much. I'm definitely feeling their influence but I don't think that's a bad thing.
5 comments:
I'm gonna keep your blogspot going here...
I like your line of thinking. Your title seems as if you're ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater.. (That's a strange visual cliche!)
But the content of your heart is there, and it's simply that you want Christians to be real again. All these false expectations are a result of modernism, and as generations die, so will these old ways.
Ya man I definitely don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I still love a lot of things about traditional Christianity. Honestly, I guess the title was just summing up how I was feeling about popular Christianity when the idea came to me and it didn't hurt that it was a nice sensationalized title. (I want attention!)
I don't think we can blame it all on modernism though. I think it's part of human nature to believe you get what you pay for and we some how need to work for God's grace on some level. So I think we need to be careful no matter what era were in not to slip into that trap.
I think some liberal postmodern Christians would say that you can do absolutely nothing to recieve God's grace, therefore, you should do nothing. It's another excuse to live however one chooses, and abuse the concept of grace.
Good works should not be done for what you can get in return, but simply for the sake of loving God and loving people, and following the example of Christ and the apostles.
I guess to back up my point is that doing good works for the reason of what you can receive in return is the consumerist mindset of the church, which was born from modernism. But I'm sure it will pervade into the emerging (and Emergent) churches at some point.
I think the consumer mentality is just another form of works-based theology that, as we know; has been around a long time. I'm not defending moderns but I think vilifying them and hoping for there death is not going to bring an end to works-based theology. Their not the enemy. We've must attempt to bring them with us.
And you know I'm not down with the easy-breezy Christianity or whatever it's called.
So true my friend. I concede to your everlasting wisdom.
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