Sermon: “What Does Your Heart Tell you?” Mark 7:20-23

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Matt

Note:  I am not a pastor.  However, my pastor was called out of town this weekend, and I was asked to preach in his stead.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is today’s Gospel lesson—especially the last three verses.

Quick tip on reading the Bible: You might have noticed that the first word of today’s Gospel lesson is “and.” That’s usually a pretty good indication that whatever came before it is actually kind of important to the part you’re about to read. So let’s briefly look back at last weeks’ Gospel. If you remember, the Pharisees were confronting Jesus over a break with tradition—his disciples didn’t wash their hands before eating, and he didn’t rebuke them for it. And no, the Pharisees weren’t huge germophobes or anything. They were concerned with being pure before God—specifically, certain parts of the Levitical code that God gave them in order to set them apart from the world. They took the Law very seriously–as we all should. And so, when they read our Old Testament lesson for today, “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live,” (Deut. 4:1) well… they wanted to be sure they obeyed.

Now the Pharisees weren’t stupid—or at least not entirely so. I don’t know about your record at keeping God’s Law, but “do this and you shall live” isn’t particularly comforting to me based on my own performance. It would have been hard for the Pharisees not to have realized this at some point. Over time, they decided that if they were going to get better at keeping God’s Law, they needed a system to help make themselves holier, cleaner, purer. And so they developed one—a new set of rules and traditions designed to help them follow God’s rules and traditions. If they could properly regulate what goes into a person and keep them pure enough… well, maybe they could make themselves righteous before Him.

So they took the law seriously, but not seriously enough. For God also said, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it.”  (Deut 4:2)  Rather than helping them keep the Law, their system actually led them away from it. They taught their own system as though it came from God. And so Jesus told them, “you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” (Mark 7:8)  They wanted to be so sure they followed their own system that they were perfectly willing to sacrifice what God had commanded them. In today’s lesson, Jesus sets the record straight. “Hear me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” (Mark 7:14-15)  In other words, it was never about not eating pork or washing your hands. That was just to set you apart from the nations.

You see, the Pharisees misunderstood where their true problem was. It wasn’t that they weren’t quite disciplined enough in regulating these worldly influences. It wasn’t that their society didn’t abide by godly values anymore. It wasn’t that they were ruled by an oppressive government that was often very uncomfortable with their religion. In our text today, Jesus explains where the real problem lies: “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”  (Mark 7:20-23)

Jesus does not paint a pretty picture of our hearts, and yet, how often are instructed by friends, by television, and by gurus, academics, and philosophers to follow our hearts when we need guidance? “Do what feels right.” “Look inside yourself for the answers.” “Search your feelings.” “What does your heart tell you?” From what Jesus describes, our hearts are the last places to look for advice on being better people. Here’s what your heart tells you: It tells you to be sexually immoral—to fornicate, as we used say. “You and your boyfriend love each other, so it’s ok if you sleep with him.” It tells you to steal. “Oh, just illegally download that album; it’s not like you’d actually buy it, so nobody’s losing any money” It tells you to murder. “You know, euthanizing your sick grandpa or aborting your unexpected child would make a lot of people’s suffering go away.” Your heart encourages adultery. “Well, you’re not really in love with your wife anymore; if you want to feel that way again, you’re just going to have to find someone else.” It’s covetous. “You’re the one who really deserved that promotion; not Bob of all people.” I could go on. Jesus certainly did; I gave examples for a third of what he listed. Whatever the particulars of your hearts’ inclinations, if you really don’t think you’re guilty of things like deceit and pride on a regular basis, then you’re certainly guilty of foolishness as well. That is the bleak reality of our hearts. And yet that is what the world tells us to look to for guidance.

There is no system we can devise that will fix this. There are no tips on being a better you or habits of highly effective people that can clean up this mess. No techniques for getting in touch with our inner selves are going to help us because our inner selves are rotten. We are not up to this challenge. As Paul tells us in today’s epistle, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12)  The voices telling us to follow our hearts are not merely the ramblings of a few misguided people—they are deceptions from the pit of Hell. It is a demonic message that people are giving us.

But… God has not left us to this plight. Despite our wicked hearts, He has provided for our needs. Paul tells us “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” (Eph 6:10)  He tells us to put on God’s armor—all of it. And one thing you should notice right away about the armor Paul describes is that everything is from outside of ourselves. “The belt of truth” (Eph 6:14) isn’t my truth or your truth; it’s simply Truth—God’s truth. Not “true for me”, but True for everyone. “The breastplate of righteousness.” (Eph 6:14)  Our righteousness does not come from ourselves—thank God—it comes from Christ. Theologians call this “the Great Exchange.” Jesus took our sins to the cross to be atoned for; and in return we receive his perfect righteousness before God. Needless to say, that’s a pretty good deal. “As shoes for your feet, put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.” (Eph 6:15)  Yes, ironically enough, the Gospel of peace prepares us for battle with the world. For the peace given to us by the Gospel is not with the world, but with God; and peace with God means enmity with the world. But this Gospel makes us ready because we have nothing to fear from the world; Christ has won and there’s nothing left that it can do to us. “Take up the shield of faith:” (6:16) the faith by which we receive all of these benefits—the faith that is, itself, a gift of God, as Paul explains earlier in this letter. This faith shields us because it leaves no room for Satan’s lies. “Take the helmet of salvation.” (Eph. 6:17)  Once again—completely free gift. Our salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, a faith that is in Christ alone not in ourselves or our systems.

And finally, Paul tells us to take “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” (Eph. 6:17-18) You might have noticed a certain transition here. We receive God’s word and immediately use it to pray and seek his aid—things we do. Utterances coming out of our hearts, and this is a suddenly a good thing after the big deal Jesus made about our hearts? What happened? God doesn’t stop at simply marking us off as “saved” and moving on. He doesn’t just dismiss us and say “Do whatever you want; I don’t care.” God puts new words into our hearts—His words. And when His word is in our hearts, it also flows out of us in prayer and supplication—and indeed in all facets of our battle with this world. Our hearts are corrupt, but God has not left us heartless. He has, in Baptism, buried our old selves and begun a new life within us. And He regularly feeds this new life with his word and with His own body and blood.

We still carry our old sinful hearts with us; a realistic look at your past week in comparison with Jesus’ list today should confirm this for you. But that sinful heart is no longer alone. The Holy Spirit is also at work within us. We are, at the same time, saints and sinners. Until Christ returns, we have both natures at war within us. There is a conflict raging in our hearts. But as our battle continues, how do we know which side is which? How can we tell whether something is coming from our old nature or our new nature? The answer is the sword of the Spirit—the Bible. It divides truth from error. If you want to know if what’s coming out of you is from your own sinful heart or from your new nature in Christ, compare it to what God says in the Scriptures. God is neither a liar nor a schizophrenic. He’s not going to put something in your heart that’s contrary to what he declares in His Word.

So you see, even the new self looks outside of itself. We do good works; it’s us who does them. We learn, we strive, and we struggle to do them. But we must not look to systems or to our own hearts to make it happen. Saints look to God for what they need. So let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. We, and our hearts, are in his care. And there is no better place to be.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, bearing His Word unto life everlasting. Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

How Not to Suck at Moralizing

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Matt

I love the Oatmeal–it’s a great humor repository for those of us who have the misfortune of being desensitized to coarse language.  Naturally, the latest offering, How to suck at your religion [as implied, language warning], caught my eye.

To sum it up, the comic is a series of short morality plays that instruct us on how to live better lives with respect to our religion.  However, morality plays do not take place in a vacuum, and the author seems to bring certain assumptions to the table:

  • Religion is a subjective preference akin to preferences for certain colors.
  • Religion is personal and individualized expression of ourselves that comes from inside of us.
  • The purpose of religion is to generate certain feelings so that we can handle reflecting on our own mortality and smallness in a vast universe, help people, and be happy.

Now, there might be some religions (like Old Protestant Liberalism and the Emergent Church) that are consistent with these assumptions, and in those cases, the morality imposed on us by the author makes good sense.  Christianity, however, is unequivocally not one of them.

Here’s my religion.  To briefly sum up, two thousand years ago, a man named Jesus walked around Palestine teaching & performing miracles.  He was executed for blasphemy but, in fulfillment of his own prediction, came back to life afterwards.  His explanation for these events was the bizarre claim that he was Yahweh and that his death atoned for the very real problem of my (and everyone’s) rather pervasive wrongdoing.  When I say this is my religion, I’m not saying that I feel this way.  I didn’t navel gaze and imagine a helpful story or make some vague decision.  I’m not saying it makes me more comfortable in the universe.  I’m making a public truth claim that refers to something outside of myself.  I claim that these things actually happened–the same as if I were to claim that I drove a beige station wagon back in high school.

Now, people can certainly think these claims are incorrect for a variety of reasons (though in my experience, very few of these seem to involve historical evidence.)  If people want to fake total agnosticism about the distant past or refuse any facts that don’t fit with their own experience, they can have fun doing so.  But as far as I’m concerned, if we know anything factual from historical evidence, then we also know the bizarre fact that Jesus actually performed miracles and actually rose from the grave, lending a certain credence to his equally bizarre claims.  That kind of changes the nature of my religion.  And it changes it in a way that makes The Oatmeal’s morality plays senseless.  What is right depends on what is real.  Atheists don’t possess a special privilege to act according to their beliefs about the universe that religious people do not share.  Neither do they possess a special authority to share their morality with the intent of improving the behavior of others.  Pretending otherwise is a shallow rhetorical device.

And so I’d like to offer this quick piece of advice on how not to suck at moralizing:  if you don’t even understand what a person’s religion is, you’re probably not going to do a good job of telling him how not to suck at it.

Posted in Apologetics | 1 Comment

Theology is an Acquired Taste

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Matt

Coffee is typically considered an adult beverage–not because children are incapable of drinking it responsibly, but because they’re uninterested in drinking it at all.  At 31, I myself don’t drink coffee for the same reason children don’t:  1) I have no reason to, and 2) I tried it once and I didn’t like the taste–it was way too bitter.  Those who do regularly drink coffee generally have a specific reason for starting.  Maybe they were cold and it was the only hot beverage available.  Maybe they were with a group of other coffee drinkers and wanted to fit in.  Maybe they had a long night ahead and needed something that would keep them awake.  But regardless of what got them started, most coffee drinkers do something that kids who have just taken a little sip could never do–they genuinely enjoy drinking coffee.

Coffee is what we call an acquired taste.  It’s not something people like naturally, but it’s natural to learn to like it.  Most of life’s worthwhile endeavors are like this.  Because it takes real effort to enjoy, reading Dostoyevsky may not provide the immediate gratification that reading the latest Dresden Files book does.  However, once the effort is made, the return is well worth it.  Whether its the edification that only comes through capital-A Art or the satisfaction that only comes with a job well done, there are some things in life that we need to learn to enjoy and work to appreciate.  One of the chief tasks of parenting is to encourage children to develop these kinds of tastes.  A child may prefer to stay home and play video games*, but good parents will nevertheless take them to see plays or visit nature preserves.  Sometimes they’ll love it & sometimes they’ll hate it, but regardless of the outcome, parents have a responsibility to lead their children into opportunities to live deeply whether they want to or not.

This is why it’s such a travesty that our churches have largely abandoned this responsibility to the youth in their charge.  With so many dying congregations in America, an irrational fear of irrelevance and a misguided drive to “save” the church has lead many Christians to try and bury their youth with instant gratification because that at least gets some immediate reaction.  Rather than doing what they’ve been given to do (baptizing and teaching everything Jesus taught), their resources must be dedicated to actions that bring about measurable results.  They gave their youth a sip of theology once, but the youth thought it was bitter.  For the marketeers, that simply means action taken, measurement recorded, time to move on and find something that “works.”  And for children, nothing gives a more immediate positive reaction than sugar.  Action taken, measurement recorded, let’s find more sugar delivery mechanisms.  The church cannot afford to be such a lazy parent.  She needs to teach her children to enjoy and appreciate the doctrine and theology that have been handed over to her so that she might, in turn, hand it over to them.  We have more important things to offer than sugar.  And if we don’t…  let’s face it, the world generally makes better candy than we do.

Unfortunately, the marketeers aren’t the only ones failing the youth.  Many Christians oppose that erroneous approach and even do so for the right reasons:  because Word & Sacrament are what build the church, they must be at the center.  However, too many of these anti-marketeers fall into the trap of over-correcting for the error.  If the marketeers teach anything, they generally teach a kind of self-help–a shallow subset of the Law which contains exhortation divorced from the Law’s full convicting power–and the Gospel is off in the corner somewhere.  In overreaction to this, the anti-marketeers decide that they will preach the Gospel accompanied only by those parts of the Law they can “trust” to fully convict–completely divorced from any part of Scripture they fear might be taken as exhortation or instruction.  Whereas the marketeers want all law to be third use, the anti-marketeers want it all to be second use, and both sides end up re-engineering the law rather than simply preaching all of it and letting the Holy Spirit decide how He will use it.

The sad consequence is that the anti-marketeers likewise fail to help those in their care acquire a taste for theology.  Despite the fact that they, of all people, should know better, they only have the sacraments and a subset of the Word at the center of their ministry.  They do not preach the whole counsel of God.  Oh, they preach sermons and hold Bible studies, but they’re so scared of “making a law out of the Gospel” that they seldom, if ever, actually instruct anyone to come.  On Pentecost, those who were cut to the quick by the law asked Peter what they should do.  Whereas Peter told them to repent and be baptized, the anti-marketeers would rather tell them “No!  You don’t do anything at all.  God does all the work.”  Meanwhile, the hearers reluctantly repent from their repentance, and then scratch their heads and wonder to themselves “God does all of… what… exactly?  Just send me to heaven when I die?  Why do I bother going to church again?”  The Gospel seems needed only because everyone is technically guilty of everything (the shallow understanding of original sin), and forgiveness is a check-box that was apparently marked off at Baptism.

The anti-marketeers certainly provide the divine service and Bible studies.  The youth are even welcome to attend.  However, they are not rigorously instructed, exhorted, encouraged, or even welcomed to attend.  The anti-marketeers set the table with a wonderful feast (minus some items that look too much like candy) and then simply stand there and hope the Holy Spirit makes the youth leave the candy shop to join them.  The youth, however, tasted theology once.  They found it bitter, and so they avoid it because nobody ever trained them otherwise.  They keep eating nothing but candy because their parent didn’t want to appear too legalistic by telling them to eat their vegetables.  They don’t have any particular animosity towards the church, but neither do they have any clue why they should be part of it.

Neither the marketeers nor the anti-marketeers have taken on the responsibility of training and disciplining the youth, and those studies showing the vast majority of young Christians leaving the Church in their late teens/early 20’s indicate the grim result.  By God’s grace, many blunder back into the Church later in life, but that does not take away our failure.  In the long-run, nobody is going to be particularly glad that they got to sing “Jesus is my boyfriend” music.  They’re not going to feel much attachment to those who provided pizza parties and gross-out games with an awkward prayer tacked onto the end.  Though immediate, such gratification is also short-lived.  If that’s all that’s keeping them in church, it’s only a matter of time until they move on.  Likewise, the youth aren’t receiving anything from those adults standing in a corner and occasionally casting a furtive glance in their direction hoping that the Holy Spirit will somehow lead them to spontaneously participate.

The very same youths will, however, build their lives on a foundation provided by those who taught them to understand what they believe and why they believe it–whether it comes from their pastor or an atheist college professor.  They will be attached to those who give them an opportunity to understand a liturgy that tangibly expresses continuity with something greater than themselves–whether it’s the chants & rituals of some activist group, or the chants and rituals of a communion of saints going back thousands of years.  They will keep coming back for forgiveness every week when they understand they actually need it every week–otherwise they’ll just keep going to whoever tells them they’re doing fine.

Coffee is not essential to life.  We can afford to let that taste go unacquired.  Theology, however, is essential.  Good parents will recognize this and train their children accordingly.  Those children whose mother is the Church deserve no less.

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*This is not to say that there aren’t video games that are legitimately Art (Silent Hill 2, Xenogears, I’m looking at you).  However, like most movies, most books, most television, etc, most video games are pretty shallow.

Posted in The Modern Church | 2 Comments

Excellence in Vocation: Chick-fil-A Day Wasn’t a Big Deal, and It Didn’t Need to be.

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Matt

“All you did was go and eat a sandwich!”

After Wednesday’s huge show of support for Chick-fil-A, marriage, and/or free speech (depending on the patron), such comments are really all that the bullies have left.  It’s just hard to verbally bully people when they’re not inclined to go along with it.  And so the protest is being minimized instead:  “It didn’t involve a painful sacrifice.  It didn’t require courage.  It therefore doesn’t matter.  You all are making way more of this than it really is.”

True, we shouldn’t make it more than it is.  But let’s not deceptively make it less than it is by pretending it’s being overblown and then denouncing the pretend overblowing.

Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day was exactly what a protest should be: a proportional response to the problem at hand.  Some big city mayors and media figures tried to pretend that believing two men or two women can’t marry is this radical & bigoted position that just isn’t tolerated in civil society.  In response, lots of people proved them wrong by going out to eat sandwiches made by someone who holds that view.  Mission accomplished.

In our pride, we think excellence in a vocation is performing some grand act of virtue. When it comes to protesting, we like to imagine ourselves as the one who calmly stares down the firing squad or risks everything to make a stand for what he believes.  In reality, excellence in vocation is no less about simply doing the day-to-day necessities well.  Far from making simple protests irrelevant, we wouldn’t even need grand acts of courage and sacrifice if people were actually consistent about these straightforward, day-to-day needs.  How many small good works are lost because we’re holding out for opportunities for big ones?  Some days require more courage and sacrifice than others, but excellence in vocation is always in taking up whatever trial the day brings.  That is how we do well.

This simple act of protest was done well, and I am thankful for that.  Good on everyone who participated.

Posted in Ethics, Politics, Vocation | 3 Comments

The Persecuted Atheist

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Matt

Earlier this year, the Financial Times put together a sob story about the ruthless persecution of atheists in the United States.  The writer collects a number of anecdotes of discomfort at family gatherings, difficulty rising through the ranks of the Boy Scouts, and worst of all, lost baby-sitting opportunities.  Of course, I doubt that any of these brave atheists would be inclined to trade places with the 100,000 Christians who are murdered for the faith every year.  What is most striking about the piece, however, is not the triviality of the “persecution”; it is the complete obliviousness to exactly why atheists rank lower on America’s social totem pole than gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, and so forth.

The author inadvertently provides the quintessential example at the end of the piece with a woman living in Alabama.  Though this poor, persecuted young lady admittedly has the love and pride of her family, one thing is still missing:  she’s not allowed to babysit.  This might just seem like another trivial discomfort brought on by her beliefs, except for the fact that she goes on to explain exactly why she’s not allowed to babysit:  “I have all these cousins who need babysitters but they’re afraid I’ll teach them about evolution, and I probably would.”  So… she’s not allowed to babysit because she has every intention of undermining parents on a subject they obviously find to be important.  How she can complain about not being trusted when she is admittedly untrustworthy is a mystery.  It’s not just her, though–the only thing the author finds “extraordinary” about the situation is that the parents would hold such a view.

The ongoing misunderstanding in this article and society at large is that discomfort at atheists fulfilling certain societal roles is some kind of a religious test.  As the article notes, “Americans” tend to be more ok with minorities such as Jews and Muslims despite their different religions.  For that matter, a polytheist will probably receive the Republican nomination for president.  In light of such facts, the better explanation is that the test is ethical rather than religious.  Yes, I know; atheists can be just as moral as Christians.  This is true to a point, but there is still the matter of the first table of the Law–the one with commandments necessarily excluded by atheism. As many scholars have noted, the common ethical beliefs across cultures nearly universally mirror a generic reading of the Ten Commandments.  This includes the commandments about respecting the supreme benevolent being or beings and refraining from blasphemy.  Why then should we expect people to not look in askance on those who intentionally flout these universal ethics?  Mormons and Muslims may be blatantly wrong in their beliefs, but they do respect a higher power–they’d fail a religious test, but pass a generic ethical one.  On the other hand, go right back to the example of the baby-sitter girl to see what happens when one sees herself as the highest possible authority by default.  Even those atheists who do embrace a “higher power” tend to embrace the constantly shifting and politicized winds of scientific consensus.  Even if it were reliable, however, the fact that it’s methodologically blind to things like goodness and beauty make it a poor higher power indeed with respect to ethics and how we ought to live amongst each other.

When religious people see the most popular atheists openly compare religious upbringing to child-abuse & write books about ending religious faith and then look at the track record of 20th century atheist political leaders who have actually had the power to do something about it, we get understandably nervous.  After all, a substantial part of those ongoing 100,000 annual martyrdoms are still at the hands of atheists in countries like North Korea, Vietnam, China, etc.  We aren’t oblivious to people condemning us as hopelessly ignorant and then desperately trying to make sure our children and our society are “safe” from us.

Posted in Atheism, Ethics | 2 Comments

It’s ART!

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Matt

Art Patrons Pay $100 for the Privilege of Eating Rat

I think my favorite part of “Tomorrow We Will Feast Again on What We Catch” is that this attempt to “explore self-sufficiency in an urban environment” and “put people outside of their comfort zone” involved hiring a chef to prepare rat bruschetta and rat braise with rats purchased from a company that processes “perfectly safe” and “humanely killed” rodents.  How very urban and self-sufficient!  Tomorrow we will feast again on what we order from a catalog.

The current tradition of making the arts all about causing offense and provoking discomfort is a symptom of our decline, but it’s telling that they can’t even bring themselves to actually do that anymore.

Posted in Culture | 1 Comment

Preaching the Law vs. Preaching About the Law

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Matt

About a month ago, I posted a comment over at Brothers of John the Steadfast on a thread regarding legalism and a high view of the law.  The gist of the original post (with which I completely agree), is that anyone with a genuinely high view of the Law is going to be desperate for the Gospel.  If you actually take the Law fully & seriously, there’s no way you could be under the impression that you have upheld it or can uphold it in the future.  Ironically, legalists don’t take the law seriously enough.

However, I thought that one part of the original post needed further commentary:  how does one analyze complaints from laity who think they’re getting too much Gospel and not enough law?  I’ve noticed an unfortunate tendency for confessional pastors to dismiss such complaints as indicative of legalism, self-righteousness, and “itching ears” without really examining whether they might be in any way legitimate.  My comments don’t usually occasion people tracking down my email and thanking me.  Since this particular comment resulted in multiple such emails, I thought it might be worth re-posting here:

I completely agree with Machen & Tullian. If you have a high view of the law (relative to one’s view of man), you want more Gospel because you realize how badly you need it.

However, while I cannot speak to your specific situation, there is at least one more possibility that can lead to parishioners making the kind of confused complaints you recount: a pastor who has a high view of the law but does not preach it accordingly. I raise the possibility precisely because of Machen’s argument. A high view of the law should lead to a greater desire for the Gospel, and yet… they were complaining not just about not enough law, but also about too much Gospel. So could there be a reason the high view was not passed on?

Unfortunately, many pastors with precisely the high view of the law that you describe end up preaching about the law rather than actually preaching the law. For example, they’ll tell their congregation that nobody lives up to the Law but never tell them that God condemns fornication. They’ll tell their congregation that we are all tainted by original sin but never inform wives that God wants them to submit to their husbands. They’ll tell their congregation that none of us love God with our whole hearts or our neighbors as ourselves, but never address the man who doesn’t bother bringing his children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. When they do mention specifics, they do so in a shotgun approach intended to cover everyone in the congregation–a mere rhetorical restatement of “everyone’s guilty.” In short: they proclaim their high view of the law without really proclaiming the law itself.

Pastors really need to do both. The law without the proper interpretation just leads to legalism or despair. But the proper interpretation without the law leads to original sin being seen as nothing more than an abstract check mark on some divine spreadsheet. I only recognize the gravity of original sin because I recognize how pervasive is my desire to commit sins. I only recognize the pervasiveness of my sinful nature when I begin to wonder what kind of person would so frequently want to punch someone who is being irritating, or stare at scantily clad women, or play video games instead of fulfilling my vocations, etc. I only wonder such a thing when I am consistently told that such things are sinful–after all, my culture spends a lot of time and effort telling me exactly the opposite. Without specifics from the pulpit, sin just becomes an abstract concept. It’s hard to have a high view of the law and therefore thirst for the Gospel until one recognizes the sin enfleshed in their own lives.

If we simply preached the whole counsel of God instead of trying to game the system by trying to artificially bring about results (e.g. “every sermon’s got to be 49% law & 51% gospel” or “I have 15 mintues to use today’s Bible reading to make everyone feel equally guilty for a second and then make them all stop feeling guilty before I finish”, etc), this wouldn’t be an issue.

Later in the thread, in response to a question about what we then make of the sanctified man and examples of Scripture’s loving exhortation, I also commented:

In my opinion, verses like that have both law and gospel in them. I can still see my sinfulness in falling short of what a sanctified man is supposed to be. They’re also promises of what God will one day make me and is now making me. They remind me that my salvation will one day be enfleshed in a full and abundant life of faithful obedience (which is even now at work) and graciously instruct me on what that looks like. Whether or not they’re “full” of either, they are part of the whole and should be part of the whole that’s preached.

At the end of the day, it’s not the preacher who decides whether we’re restrained, crushed, or graciously instructed by the law–the Holy Spirit does. The preacher’s responsibility is simply to preach the whole counsel of God, including the verses you list. They’re not authorized to restrict their preaching to verses with loving exhortation because they’re more concerned about their flock doing good works (as some missional Lutherans and Evangelicals do). Neither are they authorized to skip or minimize those verses because they’re afraid their flock might become self-righteous after trying and succeeding in doing some good works (as some confessional Lutherans do).

Posted in Law, Lutheranism, Theological Pietism | Leave a comment

The Dark Knight Rises is too Good to be either Liberal or Conservative

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Matt

Is new Batman movie liberal or conservative?  There’s already been a lot of back-and-forth on this.  Like some idiotic Obama supporters, the idiotic Rush Limbaugh thinks that the villainous “Bane” is an obvious reference to the villainous “Bain Capital,” Mitt Romney’s old company.  Meanwhile, others have claimed that the film is unabashedly Reaganite.  I’m kind of sympathetic to conservatives on this one because the movie can’t help but look pro-conservative in comparison to what Hollywood usually puts out. But it’s simply not pro-conservative or pro-capitalist.

Having seen the movie yesterday, I’m happy to report that it is not particularly political one way or the other. Political values are shallow values, which is why overtly political movies usually just aren’t very good. Good movies reach so far deeper than politics that although they may contain political commentary, they end up transcending that commentary and making it part of something far more important. Both conservatives and liberals will find some of their values crystallized in the film because ultimately conservatives and liberals are all humans and have the same law written on their hearts even if sin has twisted that law in different ways.  Nevertheless, the film isn’t so myopic as to be blind to any deep value that isn’t clearly seen through a liberal or conservative filter.

I’ve heard that the movie is inspired by A Tale of Two Cities, and that certainly seems to be the case. But while some would impose modern notions of “social justice” on Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities is a classic work that goes way too deep to be boxed into modern partisan politics. The Dark Knight Rises is similar. It is decidedly anti-occupy-wall-street in the same way that Tale was certainly anti-revolutionary. In both, the “revolution” is undeniably ugly, brutal, and offers nothing but destruction and false hope.  Any veneer of nobility in the revolution is quite obviously just that–a pretense that hides what’s underneath.

This must not, however, be read to imply that either one is “for” the other side. Tale is not kind to the aristocracy and Dark Knight is not kind to wall street or capitalism. Each work describes a corrupt society which is corrupt precisely because both “sides” are rotten. Virtue and decency are found in the individuals who know something deeper and pursue something more than what either “side” has to offer. If either “side” wins, everyone loses. Both Batman and Bane buck the trends of their natural “side.” But whereas Bane hates people because they’re infected by the culture’s wickedness and wants to destroy them, Batman loves people despite the infection and wants to pull them out of it.  Regardless of what liberals and conservatives might want to believe, that particular virtue of Batman isn’t liberal or conservative.

Conservatives and liberals will both find their sides represented in this movie somewhere and cheer when the other side gets zinged.  Some will like that Gotham’s upper class are portrayed as snobbish, self-indulgent, and out-of-touch or that a wealthy corporate suit makes such a substantial contribution to Bane’s villainy for the sake of greed.  Others will appreciate the unsympathetic treatment of the blatantly socialistic rhetoric of Bain and his thugs or the brilliant scene with where Catwoman laments that a seized apartment “used to be someone’s home” and her apprentice’s shallow response that “now it’s everyone’s home” only highlights that a place that’s “everyone’s home” isn’t really a home at all.  If they’re shallow, partisans will assume the movie must be on their side, where all goodness is located, simply because the movie is very good. But in the end, the movie is just too good for that.

Bonus Mini-Review

It amazes me that each film in Nolan’s Batman trilogy is so different from the others despite being so similar.  That alone makes them hard to compare to one-another.  I can say that this movie is excellent.   Though not as good as The Dark Knight, I think it’s better than Batman Begins.  Thematically, it’s greatest strength is that it desperately grapples with the one flaw I thought the second movie had–that victory in the battle for Gotham’s soul hinged on lying and manipulating the people of Gotham.  Its greatest flaw is probably that, for a movie about the battle for Gotham’s soul, the people of Gotham are conspicuously absent as compared to the second movie.  Rises really needed a “ferry” scene.

Posted in Culture, Politics | Leave a comment

Why is the Church Obsessed with Sex?

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Matt

The direct answer to this frequent complaint about the church is a very practical one:  American churches are obsessed with sex because American culture is obsessed with sex, and American churches are full of Americans.  Seriously; the best selling book at the moment is straightforward verbal porn based on Twilight fan-fiction–I don’t think you can lay this one at the Church’s feet.  Now, God obviously has different things to say about sex than our culture does, and churches are supposed to pass along God’s teachings rather than the culture’s, so the shared obsession does take the form of a cultural war between Christian and mainstream views of sex.  This conflict makes many people uncomfortable at best and outraged at worst, which is what leads to people asking this question in the first place

But for offended skeptics, both inside the Church and out, another question usually lurks behind the straightforward one.  Why does God teach the strange things He teaches in contrast to our culture’s entirely sensible views on sexuality (you know, the ones that lead to the popularity of Twilight fan-fiction porn)?  Where they don’t consider it blatantly harmful, skeptics usually consider God’s view on sex to be either archaic, unimportant, or both.  Without any reason for its existence, one naturally asks why one should bother wasting a breath passing it along–let alone the many argumentative breaths wasted by churches today.  Accordingly, I would like to take the opportunity to provide two reasons:  one for Christians, and one for everyone (including Christians).

We like to think of our bodies as things that we have and use rather than things that we are–as though a body was some kind of shell that we inhabit.  The upshot is that we can use a screwdriver as a chisel if we like without any kind of deeper meaning, and we think we can use our bodies for fornication if we like without any kind of deeper meaning.  This false dualistic view is often held to in response to atheists and materialists who proclaim that we’re just our bodies or no more than our bodies.  If we are our bodies, aren’t we just soulless bags of meat walking around an absurd world?  Not at all. We are our bodies, but we are not just our bodies.  It is not that we are no more than flesh, but that we are no less than flesh–there is no “me” without my flesh.  This can be seen quite easily.  I can change how you feel by pumping you full of hormones.  I can change what you know by hitting you in the head.  Having sex with someone against her will is not the same as wearing someone’s sweater against her will.  If I punch you in the face, I’m not just punching some flesh and bone that you’re particularly fond of–I am punching you.

Because we don’t do things with our bodies but simply do them, we don’t get that extra layer of abstraction to moderate what our doings mean and accomplish.  You can use a screwdriver to accomplish one thing or to accomplish another, but you can never strangle a person without accomplishing hate and destruction.  Strangulation can never mean “I love you” no matter how hard we try to use it for that purpose.  Strangling an innocent man means hate and accomplishes murder–we don’t get a choice in the matter.  In the same way, sex means things and does things regardless of what we would like it to mean and do.  When we sleep with someone, it bonds us to that person (what the Bible calls a “one flesh” union).  For example, upon orgasm, a flood of the hormone oxytocin is released that emotionally bonds one to one’s partner (the same hormone is released during childbirth and contributes to a mother’s bond to her new baby).  Like it or not and regardless of agreements not to think differently of each other in the morning, sex attaches you to a person in a way that other activities do not.  Instead of two people with two fleshes, the result is two people in one flesh.

Another thing sex does is create children.  Here the complainers scream, “But nowadays we’ve separated sex from procreation!”  Have we?  Think about it:  the procreative tendency of sex is so strong that despite absolutely unprecedented amount of time, effort, money, education, equipment, and drugs all dedicated to making conception optional, nearly a million unintended children are murdered before their birth every year and still more “accidents” run the gauntlet successfully.  Once again, we cannot change human nature as much as we think.  And so sex not only creates a bond, it creates new life that requires that bond to thrive.  Two persons in one flesh bring yet more persons who share the same flesh as the parents.  To Christians, this should begin to sound very familiar.  We are created in the image of God–specifically a God who is three persons in one essence.  Our families are an image and proclamation of Him.  To simply create and then tear apart our one-flesh unions is to desecrate the very image of God Himself.  And so one reason Christians should appreciate for the Bible’s teachings on sex is that our culture’s view of sex is rank blasphemy.  A Christian should have no desire to go around putting graffiti on pictures of Jesus.

The reason that everyone–including Christians–should appreciate is that fornication harms ourselves and our neighbors.  Because our sexuality is a bonding agent, there are negative consequences for tearing apart those bonds we make and become part of.  J. Budziszewski provides a brilliant example in the form of duct tape.  It doesn’t matter whether you tell a piece of tape not to stick;  sticking is simply what tape does.  So if you put it on your arm, it will stick.  When you tear it off, it will hurt.  Do it again, and it will stick less and hurt less.  After repeated sticking and tearing, you may eventually reach the point where the tape no longer does what tape does and it can be removed without causing any pain, but that is because the tape is destroyed.  Nothing in the world will make that tape stick again.  In the same way, abusing our sexuality by using it outside of marriage (a lifelong promise to love and never separate) damages it along with that of our partner.  Eventually it will no longer do what sexuality does, and the ability to be emotionally intimate with another in that way will be lost.  There is a reason people speak derisively of “sloppy seconds” and “damaged goods” while still others think such shaming language shouldn’t be used at all:  the truth hurts.  “Sleep with whoever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone” is just about the stupidest ethic ever conceived.  You might as well say “strangle whoever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone” (and, of course, euthanasia proponents say precisely that).

God’s law also does what God’s law does.  It shows us how bad we are, instructs us on how to love our neighbors, and restrains our wickedness so as to reduce the harm to our neighbors.  His law on sexuality is no different, and churches are right to proclaim it in the face of a culture desperate to cover up even the limited portion of the law written on their hearts.  For the sake of our neighbors, the church must speak out on the subject.  It must do more, for our responsibility is to proclaim the whole counsel of God and not just the parts about sex.  We therefore must resist the temptation towards obsession.  But though the Church must do more, it can surely do no less.

Posted in Apologetics, Chastity, The Modern Church | 8 Comments

Do Not Resuscitate

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Matt

Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?

Better question:  why would we want to?  So-called Liberal Christianity (which is a theological category, not a political one) is a massive tragedy.  But nobody is doing anyone any favors by trying to help this zombie maintain some semblance of life.  By all means, preach and teach Christianity to them, but there’s no sense in Christians keeping a false religion afloat.  Let this poison dissipate and help those afflicted.

Posted in The Modern Church, Theological Liberalism | Leave a comment