Watering Down the Gospel: Numero Dos

This is the 2nd and final installment I will be doing that is interacting with Mr. Ben Corey's blog post on watering down the Gospel. Mr. Corey is the author or a blog entitled "Formerly Fundie." The article I am commenting on can be found here:

Watering Down the Gospel

And, my first installment that deals with reasons #6-10 on his list is found here:

Part 1 - Watering Down the Gospel

Tonight, I will deal with ways 1 through 5 on how we, in the author's view, water down the Gospel.

5. We water down the Gospel when we eliminate the centrality of social justice.

Reason #5 put forth by the author is simply not true. In short, he has, once again (see first blog) severely confused the law with the Gospel. Doing justice, loving mercy, and so on, falls directly under the umbrella of loving the Lord your God and loving your neighbor as yourself.

Loving the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself is the Great Commandment; not the Great Commission. It's the summation of the law. It's not the Gospel. Jesus said as much:

Matthew 22:36-39: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He goes on..."In Mathew 23:23 Jesus goes off on the conservative religious leaders, and tells them that while they seem to value keeping small rules, they are missing the “more important” part of the law, which is justice, mercy, and faithfulness."

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees quite a bit during His time on earth, and a lot of it is recorded for us in Scripture. The Pharisees were very scrupulous keepers of the law. Jesus rebukes them not for being "conservative religious leaders" but rather for trying to earn salvation by law keeping (salvation by works). Not to mention, even in their law-keeping, they were massive hypocrites, as Ben points out in his appeal to Matthew 23:23.

In short, He rebukes them repeatedly because they are false teachers who have missed the entire point of the law - to point us to Jesus Christ, who alone fulfills it on our behalf. They've denied the Gospel altogether and are hoping in their works.

Ironically, putting social justice at the heart of the Gospel is to do the same thing in a way. Keeping the commandments is good. Doing justice is good. But neither are the Gospel. Never is anything we do the good news. Never. Our works are filthy rags, says Isaiah. (Isaiah 64:6)

Lord, have mercy.

"However, the idea of “social justice” is offensive in much of Western Christianity, which tends to value wealth and individualism"

Yeah, sort of. Wealth is neither here nor there. It's not sinful to be wealthy. But it's not the goal of Christianity either, contrary to what seems to be the message of the prosperity teachers. Individualism though, yeah, for sure. We do value that. We love the idea of self made men pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and earning their keep. We have an I can do it attitude that manifests itself in both individual ways and group ways. Interestingly enough, the majority of the major cult movements in the United States are a result of this idea. They all have a very high view of humanity. More precisely, they are children of the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening is responsible for things such as Mormonism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the outright Pelagianism of men like Charles G. Finney - which still plagues the American church to this day. The Glenn Beck thing, well, I'm not even going to go there. It will suffice for me to say that I am not a Beck fan and what he says regarding the church is utterly irrelevant.

"I’m pretty sure that if Jesus came to America, he’d go off on us for the same thing– because when we focus on small rules, and resist or ignore the larger need for forms of justice in society (restorative justice, economic justice, etc.)… we have watered down the gospel and missed the most important part (Jesus’ phrase, not mine), just like the leaders in Matthew 23."

And I am pretty sure that if Jesus came to America He would rebuke people who make the law into the good news, just as He rebuked the Pharisees for a similar thing - trusting in their obedience to the law.

Christ, have mercy.

4. We water down the gospel when we explain away the whole nonviolent love of enemies part.

I'm not really going to say much on this one. It's another confusion of law with Gospel and gets into much deeper theories about war and pacifism and what not. Ultimately, this turns into a politcal conversation - which isn't the Gospel. Perhaps I'm a wuss, but I'm really not that interested in entering a political conversation. That and I just plain haven't hashed out a really firm stance on war and Scripture.

Jesus also said He came to bring a sword too. (Matthew 10:34) Reconciling those texts can be tricky.I don't think Christ is a peace sign wearing, patchouli smelling hippie either though.

Love your enemies. Let's stick to that. You know how you love your enemies? You give them Christ in the Gospel. That's the biggest act of love you can do for them.

3. We water down the gospel when we over emphasis sins rarely mentioned in scripture, while conveniently neglecting the ones that are talked about constantly.

No, not at all, although I do not disagree that we tend to emphasize certain things a lot and overlook other things. We actually water down the Gospel when we fail to preach the Christ who died for those sins and paid in full. Although not all sins are temporally equal, all sins put Christ on the cross. Likewise, we are incapable of doing anything to earn anything. We are all universally law breakers (James 2:10), and there is nothing we can do to reconcile ourselves to God. Hence, Jesus reconciles us. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) We should remember that every day. That is Christianity.

"In my lifetime, I think I’ve heard hundreds of sermons that focused on preaching against issues that oftentimes are rarely and obscurely mentioned in scripture."

Yeah, you get that a lot in fundamentalism. More moralism and less Christ crucified for the forgiveness of all your sins. And they love to pick certain pet sins to go after, don't they? I sympathize with this one. Big time.

"The top two sins spoken against in scripture are idolatry and greed- sins that don’t often make the playlist in many churches today. Honestly, I rarely hear sermons on either of those topics. Maybe idolatry, but definitely NOT greed."

Sure. But, the top thing in Scripture that pays for these sins is the work of Christ! We need to hear the law proclaimed to condemn us. And then that sweet Gospel that forgives us of our sins via the means of grace. But we don't need to be bashed over the head with the law all the time and never get to the Gospel. That's just spiritual death waiting to happen.

Christ says I baptise you. The Father says this is My Son, with who I am well-pleased. Christ dies on the cross and rises from the dead. Christ gives you His true body and blood. The Spirit works faith in you. Gospel Gospel Gospel. Grace Grace Grace. You know that contemporary song called "Your Grace Is Enough?" Well, it is. It saves you.

"I just can’t figure out why we’d preach so often, and build entire ministries against, sins that might be referenced six or seven times– yet we never preach about the sins that are condemned hundreds of times."

This is just more adventures in missing the point. I hear you loud and clear again here. But where is Christ crucified in all of this? Where is the Gospel? We're not watering down the Gospel by not preaching sin A more than sin B. We're neglecting the Gospel altogether when we do not hear the proclamation that Christ died for sin A and sin B, as well as every other sin.

"Your sins? Well, you get a concentrated version. My sins? Watered down, please."

Which is called hypocrisy. Which is why we need Christ.

2. We water down the gospel when we exclusively use the concept of “penal substitution” to explain the Gospel.

Hey!!! Awesomeness! We agree on something!

I agree with this one nearly entirely. Now, I will say that we cannot reject penal substitution; it's in there (Scripture). However, Scripture speaks of the atonement doing more than just that. I am a big Christus Victor proponent myself, so I am glad Ben mentioned it. And Recapitulation is a big one too.

Colossians 2:13-15: And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

There it is: Christus Victor, Penal Substitution, and Recapitulation all in 3 verses.

1. We water down the Gospel when we invite people to trust Jesus for the afterlife… but not this life.

Yeah...but also no. We must remember that invitations are not the Gospel; Christ's work is. Other than that, I won't go off much on this one. I think Mr. Corey is correct here. Trusting Christ here and now is important. Yet, only Christ in grace can deliver that gift of faith to us.

"Maybe I’m just weak, but I need a Jesus who can help me in the here-and-now."

Yeah man, you are weak. So am I and everyone else in this fallen world. Christ has to come to us, to rescue us. It's a one-sided divine transaction given to us in Word and Sacrament. It's grace.

Lord have mercy.

Conclusion

My main concern with the entire article is that the Gospel is nearly never mentioned at all. For an article that uses the word "Gospel" so much, one searches in vain to find it in there. The only point that really hits on something that is Gospel is #2 when the author talks about the atonement of Christ. The rest of the points are geared towards our works. Nearly everything spoken about is law. It's a lot of works and very little grace. We need that grace. The water is the grace. The sound coming from the preacher proclaiming Christ crucified is the grace. The bread and wine are the grace. We need to be focused on Christ and His work at Calvary for us, given to us by the creative power of His Word in water, Word, bread, and wine. You see, God uses the natural world as means to save the natural world. Pretty cool, huh?

I am concerned that the version of the Gospel being presented here is not the Gospel at all, but rather a reaction in the wrong direction to fundamentalist errors. Instead of running to the cross and clinging to Christ, what is being presented is just another version of the law. Maybe it's more loving. Maybe it focuses on the weightier aspects of the law that the Pharisees laid a brick on (Matt 23:23). But it's still the law.

In short, the article does very little more than give us a repackaged law to follow and more things to do. None of these are the Gospel, as I have reduntantly pointed out over and over again. It's really not much different than the believe in yourself message guys like Joel Osteen preach. Osteen may preach an easier version of the law that has to do with believing in yourself and self-esteem and this version may pitch social justice. Another version may base everything on the choices of the individual instead of God saving sinners through the work of Christ. The author may balk at this comparison, but it's quite valid. Both are works-based. They both are conditioned on human doing and not divine doing.

This doesn't surprise me, as nearly all consistent synergistic systems default to this. The Gospel becomes something to be done (law) and not something that has been done and is completed outside of us on our behalf.

I think, at the end of the day, the author needs to be very wary of the fact that he may have replaced the law-based brimstone of his fundamentalist days with a different law-based religion of social justice and confusion of the Great Commandment with the Gospel. Instead of clinging to the cross of Christ alone wrought for him at Calvary and given to him in his baptism, in the cross preached, and in the body and blood of the Lord in the Holy Supper.

Have I judged too harshly? I don't think so. Christ is not preached in this Gospel. There is nothing about the forgiveness of sins, Christ on the tree, the resurrection, or His fulfillment of the law on our behalf. Instead, this Gospel defaults to our works. Those, as I have pointed out to a fault, are not the Gospel. Instead of running to Christ and clinging to the cross, this Gospel makes it about running to society and working to improve it through sacrificial giving, love for people, help for the poor, and so on. If that is the Gospel, that in essence makes ourselves our own Savior by our following of Christ. The ironic thing is, despite the well meaning intentions of this Gospel, it's actually extremely prideful in that it seeks to earn something before God by following Jesus the best we can; despite the author's open and honest admission that we fail at this daily.

In the meantime, keep your crosses full with the Savior that saved us all, and your tombs empty. He is not there, He is risen!

 

Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

It really is all about Jesus.

Plus nothing.