NeoZine

The Young, Restless Reformed are leaders of remarkable movements in the Reformed tradition.¹ Their “bleeding edges” are split into the Emergent Church and Piper-Reformed Church movements racing away from the Reformed status quo still held by senior citizens. But dead traditions remain unchallenged in the new movements. The Restless Reformed are courageous, but they still need to examine the legalism in the Reformed tradition, because this builds real spiritual prisons:

But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Galatians 3:23 (NASB)

The Piper-Grudem Team

The conservative branch of the Restless Reformed is led by John Piper, famous for Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and other books about God’s sovereignty. Along with popular young leaders Driscoll and Chandler, the Piper-Reformed are spreading across the country through the Acts 29 Network., which provides tremendous resources to the Christian community.

Another fascinating figure in this movement is Wayne Grudem, from Trinity Seminary. When my brother “Buck” was at Trinity he was excited by Grudem’s systematic theology for Gen-X readers, which surprised me because my experience with Dr. Grudem was a little different.

I knew Dr. Grudem from a class I took at Trinity when I was still a young “Fishy” elder at “The Fish House” OSU ministry, and what a bunch of juveniles were were back then! We called this esteemed theologian, “Dr. Gruntum” behind his back (I’ve matured since then). To be fair, he was skinny with a whiny voice that made him a classic “Ivory Tower” academic so irresistible to wise-crackin’ sophomoric minds (he’s buff now).

There is a redemptive point here: Dr. ‘Gruntum’ surprised us.

God-Terror

What shock we faced one day when Dr. Grudem leaned forward, deepened his voice, shook a finger and declared, “FEAR THE LORD!” It may be exaggerated by memory, but he somehow transformed from a mouse into a threatening stalwart of theological prowess. The wiry Grudem arrested all us Fishies, and we were all Wise Guys. The silence was stunning.

“The Bible says ‘fear’ God, which is ‘phobos’ in the Greek, meaning ‘terror’,” he said. “To ‘tremble with fear’.”

Fishies were flabbergasted. We were steeped in radical grace from Dallas Theological Seminary, and Grudem’s “phobos” challenged our foundations.

One confident student spoke up: “‘Phobos’ also means ‘awe’, so context determines meaning. 1 John 4:18 says ‘perfect love casts out ‘phobos’. That means terror doesn’t belong with God’s love.

Dr. Gruntum rubbed his (pointy) chin. “I’ll…get back to you on that.”

How many professors retreat with such nobility? (Yet how many should!) Dr. Grudem never did “get back” with a resolution, but he did acknowledge the problem, and deserves accolades.

The Universal Fear

The story demonstrates a terrible poison saturating many Christian teachings and lives: fear of Jesus. This fear is irreconcilable with all gospel records of Jesus, and the antithesis of “the New and Living Way” Jesus brought, but it is compatible with all manmade religions.

Fear is an institutional necessity in religions around the world, and writers like Dawkins are nauseated by the trite, self-inflicted punishments triggered by religious fear. The God Delusion was a best-seller because many readers were Christians! His Web displays heartbreaking testimonies from Christians who lived in fear until saved by The God Delusion. Dawkins was victimized by Jesus-Fear until saved by atheism.

Institutionalized Jesus-Fear makes Christianity nearly indistinguishable from other religions. Fear of spirits or a spirit-force like Karma is the pervasive, universal trait in religion, and it’s a terrible enforcer. “Blind obedience” and “blind faith” are synonymous terms, both driven by religious fear, and both necessary in authoritarian, religious regimes.

Is it any surprise that “obedience” and “holiness” are the pillars of sermons in Institutionalized Christianity? “Holiness” is vague and so trivialized: it is the religious behaviors that characterize Institutionalized Christianity, but stray far from biblical holiness.

Holiness is a cuss-free zone, and this is a huge pillar for Institutionalized Christianity. I can prove it: go to a nice-looking Christian church, find the narthex, find someone friendly-looking, walk up and say, “Hey, what the F*** is goin’ on? My name is…” and offer to shake hands. Watch the reaction. It will be similar to what happened to this “youth pastor”:

“It was way out of line,” says the chairman of the board. “We’re still trying to figure out why he felt he had license to speak that way.”

At last Tuesday’s board meeting, a 3-D rendering of the church’s master plan was revealed, causing the youth pastor to let loose the word.

“It was long and drawn out and sort of lingered in the room for a moment,” says a co-worker. “I think he meant it in a positive way, but everybody froze.”

The youth pastor says he had been practicing using the word in his office so it would roll off his tongue naturally when he uses it with young people, but that apparently it came too naturally at the meeting.

He has been suspended from pulpit duties for two weeks. Source: Lark News.

What did he say? “The f-bomb” — means “F***”. And for those who feel words like “F***” don’t belong on a Christian publication, let me point out that “F***” is not an obscenity: it’s three asterisks and a letter ‘F’. Such are the silly games in Christian Legalism. All this big stink comes from merely one verse in Ephesians 5 which may or may not be referring to obscenities per se (most likely it’s referring to pornographic language like you might hear at Hooters, however). Meanwhile, the scores of passages renouncing rich American greed and materialism go unnoticed in Legalistic ethics!

“Holiness” should describe a loving character like God’s character, and not simplistic prohibitions against behaviors like cussing, smoking, drinking or gambling (none of which are temptations in the sheltered world of Institutionalized Christianity).²

So many Christian sermons manipulate through guilt and fear, like Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards, the famous Reformed preacher. Like the other “fire-and-brimstone” sermons that followed his pattern, he raised the threats of Mosaic Law which Jesus buried at the cross (see Rom. 7:6,9; Gal. 2:19,21). Edward’s sermon style became a stereotype of mean Christianity, tragically, and God is not praised by the slander this brings on His kindness:

Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? Romans 2:4 (NASB)

How many Christian institutions would lose their members if their sermons focused on “the riches of His kindness” instead? The problem is an issue of the wrong rules.

The Wrong Rules

The Piper-Reformed Church embraces the Mosaic Covenant (or, “The Law”), which was a legal code for nation Israel in the 1500s BC, and was never intended for Gentile nations, especially in the modern era. This is a popular and egregious error: Reformed doctrine applies the “blessings and curses” of the Law to modern America, so the secular world howls at the glaring incompatibilities between The Law and the real world. In Deut. 22:8, for example, parapets are required on roofs. (A parapet is a balustrade, if that helps understanding.)

Uneducated Christians are quickly embarrassed defending Old Testament Law in today’s world. If the “blessings and curses” of the law apply to America, why not stone gays and rebellious kids to death, as prescribed in The Law? But the embarrassment is defending Reformed theology, not the Bible! The Emergent church resolves the anachronisms by reducing the Bible’s authority rather than moving away from their stifling Reformed roots. Perhaps it is easier for those raised under strong traditions to discard the Bible than to break church tradition.

There is no reason to fear modern criticisms of Old Testament law. First, it applied to Israel, not modern Gentiles. And second, compared against any culture of its time, the Hebrew Bible is remarkably lenient and enlightened. Third, and most important, such criticisms are a phenomenal opportunity to cite the Jesus Ethic that matters here-and-now:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you… John 13:34

The “new commandment” is the Jesus Ethic (what the NeoZine calls Love Ethics), and this marvelous ethical view describes how love works. It is a revolutionary ethic which always draws people into freedom, and non-Christians respect it (see John 13:35; Gal. 5:1).

Reformed theology suffocates the Jesus Ethic with the Mosaic Code, which is guaranteed to produce guilt and failure: “the Law came in so that transgression would increase” (Romans 5:20). The Law was given to create a desperate need for forgiveness and realize the need for God’s help, specifically for salvation (see Gal. 3:24). The Law reveals moral inadequacy only in order move us towards God’s Grace, which means that eternal salvation is a gift from God (see Eph. 2:8,9).

The Law is useless beyond salvation, and this is a central theme in New Testament ethics. Christians are dead to The Law, pure and simple.³ Spiritual life and growth come from Identity Truths, which we cannot possibly elucidate here, but this large body of understanding is not taught or understood in Reformed theology. Instead The Law is a “means of growth” and a source for spiritual life.⁴

Here is the tragedy experienced by young Christians living under Reformed doctrine: they will necessarily struggle with guilt as they rely on The Law for spiritual growth, because they will fail, and the failures will erode their joy. The Law identifies failure, not success:

At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Romans 7:9-10 (NLT)

Anyone who claims to be joyful and spiritually-alive by living under The Law is either lying or is not understanding “the law’s commands,” because they cause “spiritual death instead.”

Lonely Legalism

Living under The Law is angst: “a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition…” (OED). It is a great word to describe the defeat produced by The Law. This is called Legalism.

Legalism is especially depressing because it is a lonely effort: me, myself and I fighting against moral defeat. The joy of Christianity begins when we understand our battle is not a personal moral battle, but rather a group effort to help each other overcome immaturity and build increasingly-mature and stable love relationships: this is the outcome of Love Ethics in the New Testament, and it is not burdensome.

Reformed theology produces the misery of Defensive Spirituality, where each person fights for moral improvement in private worlds. Recent sermons in Reformed pulpits are moving from hellfire-and-brimstone diatribes towards Spiritual Disciplines, which is more positive, but Spiritual Disciplines still occur in the same isolated context.

The loneliness of Spiritual Disciplines still perpetrates angst: “I’m failing, and nobody knows,” the heart groans. Often in Reformed churches people appear happy because behavior improves, but few dare expose their angst.

Where is the joy of the the Jesus Ethic in Spiritual Disciplines? Where is the Body Life and the love relationships that impact the secular world as Jesus describes in John 13:35?

In Pursuit of Change

The Love Ethics taught by Jesus changes character, not behavior, because it is “the kindness of God that leads you to repentance,” and not Jesus-Fear. This is a radical departure from the fear-threat motivation common with Institutionalized Christianity. The Restless Reformed are innovative thinkers, but they remain sadly attached to the fears of Legalism:

I have provided the following verses of Scripture to simply scare you into seeing God in his holiness and power rather than re-envisioning him in your mind as much less holy than he is, and subsequently your sexual sin as much less unholy than it is. From Re:LIT Web, a ministry of The Resurgence.

The intentions are honorable but the effects are short-term, at best. A porn habit is not a behavior controlled by fear and threats. A porn habit is a failure to connect intimately and sexually with a spouse, and this issue requires Love Ethics and deep character change, as Paul describes:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 (NASB)

“There is no law” that build love or joy. Can anyone stipulate a”joy” rule or live by it? “You will be filled with joy–or else!” What a self-refuting lifestyle that is! So many Christians give up because they live in a soul tortured by the hypocrisy built on fear, rules, threats, and deceptive behavior-change.

Footnotes:

1. Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists by Collin Hanson, Christianity Today editor. [↩]
2. See Spiritual Maturity for more on the holiness of Love Ethics. [↩]
3. Paul teaches we died to The Law, sin, self, and “the world” all in the same fashion, so any return to The Law would be considered a fleshly life, in Pauline theology. Compare Gal. 2:20;6:14; Rom 6:11;7:6. [↩]
4. Berkhoff’s Systematic Theology — the tertius usus legis (“third use”) of The Law is for Christian growth. See Christian Ethics for details. [↩]

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