Monthly Archives: April 2011

In Defense of the Church

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Having just finished De Young and Kluck’s “Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion” I thought I’d share one of the best paragraphs ever written in defense of the Church today.  It’s popular to cut the Church down, to highlight her faults and ignore her contributions, but are we consistent in our critique.

Consistency is not a postmodern virtue.  And nowhere is this more aptly displayed than in the barrage of criticisms leveled against the church.  The church is lame crowed hates Constantine and notions of Christendom, but they want the church to be a patron of the arts, and run after-school programs, and bring the world together in peace and love.  They bemoan the over-programed church, but then think of a hundred complex, resource-hungry things the church should be doing.  They don’t like te church because it is too hierarchical, but then hate it when it has poor leadership.  They wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to meet in a coffee shop with other well-educated thirtysomethings who are into film festivals, NPR, and carbon offsets.  They want more of a family spirit, but too much family and they’ll complain that the church is “inbred.”  They want the church to know that its reputation with outsiders is terrible, but then are critical when the church is too concerned with appearances.  They chide the church for not doing more to address social problems, but then complain when the church gets too political.  They want church unity and decry all our denominations, but fail to see the irony in the fact that they have left to do their own things because they can’t find a single church that can satisfy them.  They are critical of the lack of community in the church, but then want services that allow for individualized worship experiences.  They want leaders with vision, but don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or how to think.  They want a church where people really know each other and care for each others, but then they complain the church today is an isolated country club, only interested in catering to its own members.  They want to be connected with history, but are sick of the same prayers and same style every week.  They call for not judging “the spiritual path of other believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people,” and then they blast the traditional church in the harshest, most unflattering terms.

They’d like to have their cake and eat it too.

Everybody’s Got A But

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“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…”
(Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV)

I hate to point out the obvious, and I want to avoid any semblance of “potty humor,” but the truth remains:

Everybody’s Got A But.

No, for those of you snickering at your computer, that’s not what I’m talking about.  That’s “but” with one “t” not two.  The “but” to which I refer is the juxtaposition of two opposing and conflicting statements (i.e. “We should see other people, but we can still be friends”) which compose the greater truth (“It’s over”).  

I came upon this revelation as I was studying the lives of the Old Testament Kings.  Consider this with me for a moment.  King David: he is described as having a heart after God’s own heart, but he had Uriah killed to cover his own sin with Bathsheba. Solomon built the temple dedicated to the glory of God, was endowed with great wisdom, wealth, and honor, but he turned his heart from the Lord and clung to his 700 wives and 300 concubines (yikes!). 

After the division of the Kingdom of Israel, we read that some of the kings of Judah were evil kings while others brought reform and sought the Lord.  Yet even those good kings had buts.  Asa (2 Chron 15) renewed the covenant with the Lord, and the Lord gave Judah rest, but the high places were not taken out of Israel.  Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 17-20) was a good king who sought the Lord, but he made alliances with Ahab and Ahaziah (wicked kings from the northern tribes) and the high places were not removed, nor did the people set their hearts upon the God of their fathers.  Joash (2 Chron 23-24) was a king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord while Jehoiada was priest, but after the priest’s death, Joash abandoned the house of the Lord and had the priest’s son stoned to death.  The stories go on and on.  Everybody’s got a but.

We’ve even got them today.  We put our best foot forward, we have a outward appearance that we work hard to show to the world around us, but we know that we are sinners.  Paul recognizes this in Romans 7, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me… I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out… I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”  Jesus put it more succinctly, when encouraging faithfulness in his disciples, he called them to pray that we not enter temptation, for “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  Everybody’s got a but.

If I may be so bold today and go one step further, let me suggest to you that this is the gospel message, and that we are saved by the “but” of God.  I know that sounds shocking, and I have a hard time writing it, but I mean it with all seriousness.  It is the “but” in our lives that separates us from God.  We are called to righteousness, we were created to live for the glory of God.  But sin keeps us down.  Sin stains us and obscures the reflection of God in our lives, so that what we mirror back to God for the world to see is a cheap and broken imitation of who God really is.  Sin brings captivity of the will, corruption of the heart and mind, and ultimately leads to eternal death.

Paul puts it this way,

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:1-5).

This “but” is the gospel!  This is the juxtaposition of two opposing realities.  We were dead in our sin, but God is merciful and gracious!  We were lost, but we are now saved!

So I say it again, everybody’s got a but.  I’m just thankful that mine’s been covered by the grace of God.

SDG