Writing...

Dear Christianity,

 

Wake up!

 

Nearly half of all professing Christians from 2000 are now gone. The numbers aren't mere pie charts and bar graphs. Millions of people have been oppressed or injured. They walked away for their safety and freedom and are now your casualties. You have a crisis that future history books will chronicle, pointing to this time as the swiftest and most significant shift in the shape of American religion.

 

A growing pool of analysts report the trend and, like using a storm tracker, forecast increasingly tragic numbers thirty and forty years out. Some highlight the data and add commentary, such as pointing at the ones who left and how their tastes have moved beyond traditional values. They conclude that your followers must redouble their efforts to appeal more to the new generation. Others suggest that as long as you don't compromise any of the hard teachings of Jesus, the shrinking numbers are lamentable, but it is what it is.

 

I hold a different view. I believe you are failing all generations. This conclusion seems evident when we look at your central mission to love God and all other persons. If you were flourishing at this, it is reasonable to suppose you would have much better results.

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The main problem is the root of all the others. You have unknowingly abandoned the person and the work of Christ. Your followers are not encouraged to fix their hearts and minds on Jesus. You rarely mention Christ and what he accomplished for them on the cross. Instead, you prescribe rules for Christian living. One unintended consequence of this focus is that many leave Christian gatherings saddled with more burdens than when they arrived. Another byproduct is that those who feed on the rules and those who prescribe them lose the essence and goodness of the gospel.

 

When you read Paul's letter to the Galatian Christians, note that he criticized them for abandoning Christ and the gospel. They went back to slavery and laws and tried to please God with obedience. They were being foolish and fostering a religion rooted in no gospel at all. They must have been under a spell, "bewitched," to go from knowing the grace of Christ to retreating to the law and obedience. Read the whole letter with your eyes wide open.

 

In fairness, moralism comes naturally to almost everyone everywhere, as the path between cause and effect is slick and fast in the human brain. Doing labor and getting paid is one of a zillion examples of this scheme. Yet the New Testament uses work as a cause and wages as an effect to illustrate that the Christian gospel is a radically different paradigm.

 

The gospel is about God's cosmic swap on Calvary's cross. God made Jesus to be sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In other words, the gospel's paradigm is that righteousness is the cause, and Christian obedience is the effect—good trees of faith bearing good fruits of the Spirit.

 

Also, you operate on the unchecked presumption that your followers' faithfulness to God's "callings" leads to their progressive moral improvement, which you equate with Christian maturity. One manifestation of this is your preacher's penchant for highlighting God's "callings" in their sermons.

 

Three things magnify the mismatch between obeying God's laws and making moral progress: logic, scripture, and personal experience.

 

First, since you conceive Christian maturity as moral progress, what chance do believers have of deepening their faith? Logically, if I am driving my growth by following God's rules, I can potentially gain self-reliance. I am not, however, growing to love God more deeply, nor am I more yielding to Him and His goodness to me through Christ.

 

Also, with my constant focus on obedience, logic doesn't allow me to be increasingly loving in the selfless manner of Christ and the New Testament's teaching about love. Authentic love is not growing on me like ripening fruit on a good tree of faith if my focus is on me and my obedience.

 

Second, the New Testament explicitly rejects the presumption that obedience fosters maturity. Have you not noticed Jesus and the Apostle Paul's many references to "self-righteousness?" Paul states that if what you believe were possible, Christ died needlessly. The obedience-righteousness scheme operates as though this vital promise was not part of the New Testament: "You are no longer under the law but under grace." 

 

The disciples James and John employed the obedience-righteousness scheme when they asked Jesus which of them was the greatest. He rejected the question's premise when he told them they should each be like a child. So, there is no biblical support for your unchecked presumption that your obedience yields Christian maturity.

 

Lastly, my testimony in this regard is that I am not permanently further from anger (murder) and lust (adultery) now than I was forty years ago when I was in my twenties. The same is true for everyone else. Were this not the case, forty million persons would not have abandoned Christianity after feeling judged and oppressed by Christians. True Christian growth only ties to deeper faith—the polar opposite of self-righteousness. A mature Christian's faith entirely depends on God's love and favor through Christ.

 

As evidence, the writer of more than half of the New Testament referred to the sum of everything he did after his conversion as rubbish. Why? So that he would "gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of [his] own that comes from [obedience to] the law, but...the righteousness from God based on faith." 

 

Also, he urged the Philippian Christians to be like Jesus, "who did not consider equality with God a thing that could be grasped," even though he was God. And when James and John asked Jesus which one of them was the greatest, he told them, rather than answering, to be like a child. Lastly, if we resist the temptation to think we are progressively becoming more holy, we can trust that Jesus is our holiness, righteousness, and sanctification.

 

You have also trained your people's eyes to see only the Bible's rules and not the gospel's promises of liberty, hope, and peace. No one can credibly suggest there are no prescriptive statements about behavior in the Bible. Still, if you took to heart the promises throughout the New testament, they could read the commands through the brighter and softer lens of the gospel.

 

Also, you reduce the Christian religion to a lifestyle framed mainly by moral rules. As an example, reports from many who walked away stamp you as anti-gay. If this is your unofficial stance, here's a helpful experiment. Jot down the verses you believe settle the matter of homosexuality. Roll up the list, tuck it into a thimble, and place it near the shoreline of the closest ocean. Step back ten paces, keeping your eyes on the list and please stay long enough to watch it drown in the sea of verses about how we should treat all other persons. Let this be instructional.

 

As a practical implication of your short-sightedness, consider guilt. If Christianity is merely a lifestyle, only a small list of responses is available for your followers when the Spirit provokes their conscience. They can either wallow without peace and confidence or gird themselves to try harder and be better.

 

But neither anxiety nor steely resolve are the reason for the Spirit's prompting, nor are these constructive responses. God's loving-kindness is conveyed through the Holy Spirit to draw your followers to come to Him for mercy and renewal. Let them breathe fresh air from 1 John 2, Philippians 3, and Romans 7. Help them want to run to Christ and make veritable snow angels in his mercy and goodness. Be sure they know that if they must make one or one hundred angels every day, the gospel and the Holy Spirit will renew them.

 

Fortify their faith to reject the strawman argument that if they dare make grace too great, they will glide down a path of hellish living. Their faith affords them lavish benefits, such as freedom from the wages of sin, peace of mind and heart, and the lively presence of the Holy Spirit. Help them see all this and watch them glow with light and life. Luscious fruit will fall from their branches.  

 

Too good to be true? It is exceedingly good, but please resist rejecting it because of its goodness. Concede that liberty of conscience is not just superior to guilt-driven slavery in theory. Take Paul's encouragement to the Colossians and "let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." How could this not appeal to your conscience?

 

Consider love, joy, peace, and kindness; fruits of the Spirit and life-affirming traits. Compare these to the data that many perceive you as anti-gay, too political, narrow-minded, and unloving--not life-affirming qualities. The disparity reveals that you are not on the right path. If the fruits of the Spirit grew on every branch, can you imagine your sanctuaries bulging rather than shrinking nearly by half? You would be irresistible.

 

I do not address this letter to Christianity per se, but to your contemporary state and expression, thus Dear Xianity. I have loved your gospel for many decades, and if you were feeding on it, manifesting it, and giving it away generously, there would be no need for anything but an effusive thank-you note.

 

Also, I am painting with a broom. Not rendered here are needles in the haystack churches where grace and Christ's finished work are the focus of every gathering. Urge your leaders to seek out these communities and emulate their steady diet of Christ, faith, joy, and freedom. This strategy alone will begin to turn the tide.

 

If you take two suggestions, your best days can still be in front of you.

 

First, return to your roots in the gospel of faith. Recognize that faith is not a teeny affirmation that Jesus is God's Son; a preliminary nod so your followers can move on to the real business of Christian living.

 

Faith is a frequent topic throughout the New Testament because of its central importance to the church and the Christian gospel.

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• Faith is a gift from God. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

• Faith makes us pleasing to God. (Hebrew 11:6)

• Faith grants us God's grace. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

• Faith credits us with Christ's righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)

• Faith makes us children of God. (Galatians 3:26)

• Faith is how we receive the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 1:13)

• Faith allows us to be in God's presence. (Hebrews 10:22)

• Faith will unify the church. (Colossians 3:14)

• Faith renders us guiltless. (1 Corinthians 1:8)

• Faith grants us peace. (Philippians 4:6-7)

• Faith produces love for God and others. (Galatians 5:22)

• Faith is an ethic for abundant life. (John 10:10)

• Faith is the source of our assurance. (Hebrews 10:22)

• Faith is how Christ dwells in our hearts. (Ephesians 3:17)

• Faith animates our obedience. (Romans 6:4)

• Faith is the tree where the fruits of the Spirit grow. (Galatians 5:5, 22-23)

 

Come back to Christ and the gospel of faith. Pray the words of the man who presented his demon-possessed son to Jesus, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."

 

Second, receive James' admonition for praying for wisdom, comprising two vital ingredients: knowledge of God and oneself. Each of these has a filling-out and a clarifying effect on the other. For example, Paul compares God's perfection with his limitations and troubled conscience about his imperfect daily living. This wisdom causes him to fly to Christ for rescue and thanksgiving to God.

 

In closing, try these prayers to bolster your faith.

Dear God, through Jesus Christ, give us your Holy Spirit

that we may rightly be comforted by your resurrection,

and day by day increase in such faith and certainty and hope,

and finally be saved. [And] grant us your grace

that we may eagerly and thoroughly study the Holy Scriptures

and seek and find Christ in them, and through them have eternal life.

Help us in this, dearest God, in your grace. Amen (Martin Luther)

O merciful Father, do not consider what we have done against you;

but what our blessed Savior has done for us. Don't consider what

we have made of ourselves, but what He is making of us for you, our God.

O that Christ may be "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption"

to our souls. May His precious blood cleanse us from all our sins, and your

Holy Spirit renew and sanctify our souls. May He crucify our flesh with its

passion and lusts and cleanse all our brothers and sisters in Christ across the earth.

 

Amen (John Wesley)

 

Love,

Dale Westervelt

www.DearChristianity.net