J. Brian Craig is my favorite Christian song writer. He’s written several congregational songs for our church’s songbook, and those are among my favorites to sing. This song has resonated with me today:
I Need Your Love
J. Brian Craig, 1999
© Discipleship Publications International
O I need your love
In this shadowed place
I can’t get enough
Of your sunlight on my face.
When it’s cold and dark
Or I’m far from home
You are in my heart
And I never walk alone.
And just like a tree
Planted by a stream,
Thirsty for a drink
Of your love,
I can’t face a day
Without some time to pray
I sing this song to say
I need your love.
I’m a tiny child
But when I’m with you
I will not grow tired
‘Cause there’s nothing you can’t do.
Your love makes me strong
Though I’m small and weak,
And the whole day long
You’ll speak through me when I speak.
And just like a tree
Planted by a stream,
Thirsty for a drink
Of your love,
I can’t face a day
Without some time to pray
I sing this song to say
I need your love.
You gave all for me
Though I cursed your name
On that bitter tree,
Lord, You suffered for my shame.
How can I thank you?
Your love paid my way.
All that I can do
Is live for You every day.
And just like a tree
Planted by a stream,
Thirsty for a drink
Of your love,
I can’t face a day
Without some time to pray
I sing this song to say
I need your love.
Update: I revised the lyrics to match those on his old (no longer available) website. His current lyrics are now here..
Update 2 (July 27, 2012): Removed the dead links to the LA ICC and added a link to his new website. No MP3 that I could find anymore.

Please, go read this article at Christianity Today. (Thanks to Daniel at Alien Soil for the link.) It’s a powerful expose on modern western Christianity. Ronald J. Sider does an excelent job pointing out the hypocracy of what is called Christianity in the US today. Quoting many polls and other research, he points out that most Christians today are so in name only.

Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most “Christians” regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.
The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. “Gallup and Barna,” laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, “hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general.”

This story from South Africa is simply disgusting.

Graham Cyster, a Christian whom I know from South Africa, recently told me a painful story about a personal experience two decades ago when he was struggling against apartheid as a young South African evangelical. One night, he was smuggled into an underground Communist cell of young people fighting apartheid. “Tell us about the gospel of Jesus Christ,” they asked, half hoping for an alternative to the violent communist strategy they were embracing.
Graham gave a clear, powerful presentation of the gospel, showing how personal faith in Christ wonderfully transforms persons and creates one new body of believers where there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, rich nor poor, black nor white. The youth were fascinated. One seventeen-year-old exclaimed, “That is wonderful! Show me where I can see that happening.” Graham’s face fell as he sadly responded that he could not think of anywhere South African Christians were truly living out the message of the gospel. “Then the whole thing is a piece of sh—,” the youth angrily retorted. Within a month he left the country to join the armed struggle against apartheid—and eventually giving his life for his beliefs.
The young man was right. If Christians do not live what they preach, the whole thing is a farce. “American Christianity has largely failed since the middle of the twentieth century,” Barna concludes, “because Jesus’ modern-day disciples do not act like Jesus.”6 This scandalous behavior mocks Christ, undermines evangelism, and destroys Christian credibility.

If only they would have known: Since the mid 80’s the church associated with mine, the Johannesburg Church of Christ, has been a racially diverse congregation. Blacks and whites, even under apartheid, worshiped together, in numbers proportionate to the population. Why is this the exception rather than the rule? And why, in the racially sensitive USA, is a church of mixed races so rare?
He goes on to decry our standards in giving & materialism (more on that later), in lifestyle, in sexuality and in marriage. The bottom line is that the only difference between most “Christians” and others is the name that they attach to themselves. This pretty much summed it up:

No biblical passage speaks as powerfully to our situation as the message to the church at Laodicea. Like the American church today, the Laodicean church was rich, self-confident—and lukewarm.
The city of Laodicea (in Asia Minor, now Turkey) was famous in the first century. It was a major banking center and proud of its wealth. The city was especially famous for its wool exports and a highly regarded eye salve.35 Apparently the Laodicean church shared their fellow citizens’ sense of wealthy self-confidence. But knowing they were half-hearted, lukewarm Christians, the Lord said to them,

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. —Revelation 3:14-20

This passage could just as well have been written to contemporary American evangelicals. Enormously wealthy, and proud of it, we think that most things are going well in spite of our blatant disobedience. But our Lord’s word to us is simple: Repent!
Evangelicals have used the image of Christ knocking at the heart’s door as a symbol of our vigorous evangelistic programs. But in truth, it is we, by our behavior, who have excluded him from our hearts and lives. He stands at the doors of our hearts, begging us to welcome his total Lordship.
Weeping and repentance are the only faithful responses to the sweeping, scandalous disobedience in the evangelical world today. We have defied the Lord we claim to worship. We have disgraced his holy name by our unholy lives.

Unfortunately, in my view, after that appropriate call to repentance, he misses the point. The latter part of the article is spent trying to show that things aren’t as bad as they sound. He divides and slices western Christianity up until he finds a segment that is noticeably different than the general population. See, he says, it can work. But he fails to acknowledge the elephant in the room. That is that the overwhelming majority of Christians and churches do not understand what Christianity is. People are being taught at best a thought process or a vocabulary. They are not being taught discipleship or lordship. They are not being transformed into something new. They are not being shown a powerful and loving God, the god of the cross of reconciliation. They are told an empty prayer with a smile and sent on their way, another checkmark on the membership roles.
What he misses is that the bulk of “Christianity” in the US is not Christianity at all. It’s a social club, a self help group or an appeasement of conscience, but it is not Jesus as Lord. Our Lord made it very clear what it takes to follow him, and what is called Christianity here is far removed from that. I have begun to realize that I have stopped expecting such a difference in my friends and in my own church. I have blurred the lines of what real Christianity is for the sake of tolerance. Now hear my right here, I am not advocating determining salvation based on church membership or anything like it. Nor do I want to have a holier than thou, in or out, we know who is God’s kind of ministry. Been there, done that. But God has laid out through the teachings of his son what it means to follow him. How dare I or anyone else lower the standard for any reason, no matter how noble it may sound. It’s a false kind of love to just let ‘each to his own’ when God has made clear that his people are to be different and that we are to help each other be different. How can I face God with a clear conscience one day if I do not do all I can to help those around be stay true to him? God, I was too busy … it would have been awkward to ask him about that … I’m not sure he wanted to hear it … The fact is, Christianity that produces no results, no fruit, is not Christianity and we must call a spade a spade.
For all its warts and faults (and there are plenty), my family of churches, to its credit, has historically taken a dim view of such token Christianity. Becoming a Christian was not to be entered into lightly and it was not simply a name or a place to go on Sunday. Giving was expected, divorce was condemned (in fact marriages were expected to be happy not just long lasting), sexual purity was the standard and evangelism was a given. You confessed you sins and even your temptations to sin. It was a life style, a transformation, a mission and a purpose. Aside from the mistakes made in getting there, I think our Lord would have it no other way.

Ok, so I wasn’t planning on blogging about this, but we visited some old church friends over Christmas and the gave me a book that they said I should read. It’s by Steve Johnson, the one time lead evangelist of the NYC Church of Christ. It’s called I Wanna Hear Him Say ‘Well Done’, Instead of Going to Hell and Gettin’ Burned Well Done. We were talking about our church and where we came from and how we got there. This book is supposed to have a lot of history of the ICoC (I haven’t got to that yet) which my church is a part of, which is why they thought I should read it. I had a few minutes tonight before putting the kids to bed, so I thought I’d start it. It’s a short book, 138 pages from the title page to the publisher’s ad in the back, and the pages are small and the type is large. I’m only on page 21 and I’ve come across some great stuff that I thought I’d share.
I briefly though about putting it down after the dedication and the forward by Sam Laing. You see, Steve, Sam, Russ Ewell (whom the book is dedicated too) and Kip McKean (whom the book is almost dedicated to) were all big-wig leaders in the ICOC when this was published 5 years ago. In the past few years it has become fashionable not to trust, respect or hold in any high regard such men. A lot of stupid, sinful things were discovered that lead to such conclusions. I remembered what I had learned over the past 2 years and I wondered if there could be anything of value here in this book by a Leader, written before The Revelation. But reading the intro, the glowing praise for Steve by Sam and by Steve of these men, and I remember what it was like to have men, leaders, to look up to. That seems to be lost and I felt sad that it was gone and realized that I missed it. It’s gone for me party because I’ve seen the failings – rather substantial failings – of men I thought were holy and now my spiritual innocence is lost. But it’s also partly because I won’t let myself see my leaders with such idealism any more. They must be up to something, there is something that they don’t get. They’re part of The System, they don’t understand. You know what, that’s a lonely, cold kind of existence and I’m a little tired of it. I cannot go back to the idealistic trust of the past, but I can’t stay cynical either. I must find the balance between complete and unquestioning trust and constant, tireless questioning and doubt.
Anyway, that’s not what inspired my to pull the laptop out and start writing, that was just the intro! No, the reason I felt compelled to blog is Steve’s unique, matter of fact writing and the points it drives home. Take this:

What does God want? Lots of “don’ts” come to mind. Don’t smoke, don’t cuss, don’t get pregnant if you’re not married and don’t get married to a boy … if you’re a boy. But the Bible reveals that if you really want to understand, God is a loving father who doesn’t want us to get hurt.The devil is an evil child abductor, and God is the fretting dad who doesn’t want his kids to end up on a milk carton for all eternity. He grieves when we run away from home. He is absolutely sick with anxiety when we’re stolen by evil. He mourns when we prefer the company of hoodlums over his presence and the thrill of cheap shenanigans over his agenda for our lives. And just like any of us with our own kids, he wants to be able to say, “Well done, good and faithful son, daughter, beloved of mine” more than we could ever comprehend.

That really hit me because in the place I’ve been I was struggling a bit with the title of the book, the implication that it’s all about making the grade and getting to heaven. It seems a bit selfish, and frankly it also seemed a bit demanding and even ungodly that God would have an expected level of performance for me. But I too long to be able to tell my daughters, “Well done.” Not to see them perform, jump through hoops or meet my expectations or even to please me, but because I want the absolute best for them. Like God, I just don’t want them to get hurt. There’s really no selfishness there, but wisdom of years of life that I want them to apply to their life. I know things that can help them, that are crucial to their happiness or even safety – eternal safety, and seeing them follow them gives me joy because I know the pain that they’ve avoided by doing so. God isn’t trying to control me, he just loves me. Typing that now seems so foolish – Duh, I knew that! – but at the moment it seemed so profound.

I’ve had this written for a few days now, but I’ve been hesitant to post it. I know at least two members of my church read this blog regularly, and I fear both hurting their faith and, to be honest, a potential backlash at me for publicizing these thoughts and opinions. But this blog is for me to help work out what I feel and believe, express myself, vent a little and solicit input. As always, these words represent me alone and do not in any way represent my church or its leadership.
Thursday night we’ve had another of our Deacons’ meetings. I’m not sure why I call it that. It’s more than just the Deacons, it’s our ministry staff (main minister and campus minister) as well and another respected member of the congregation, but some how “Deacons, Ministry Staff and Another Guy Meeting” doesn’t have a good ring to it.
Anyway, we had one Thursday. We’ve been meeting every other Thursday since the end of May, and it’s been quite good. At the beginning, it was just a little weird for me. The six of us have some pretty different perspectives on our church and where we need to go from here. All in all, however, it’s been a good six months. We’ve grown much closer together. Going in, I only had a decent relationship with one of these men, now I can honestly say I feel close to all of them.
Thursday night, however, was a bit unsettling for me. When we started this, we started with the idea of having a team leadership. The deacons went to the lead minister and sort of demanded, respectfully, to be included in the decision making. There would not be a single leader, we would lead as a team. I loved this idea. I’ve seen first hand in the ICoC what a strong, one man leadership can do. It can surely move a church, but it can also squash opposing views and trample on those who see things differently. A team approach would mean that the diversity of our leadership could be put to good use in directing the church. One man’s blindness would be counteracted by another’s vision. That was the ideal anyway.
On Thursday our main minister or evangelist, spoke up against the idea of team leadership as we’ve been practicing it. This came on the heels of the meeting two weeks ago. He was out of town and a couple other men couldn’t make it. The four of us spoke about the state of the church in light of some news of more folks leaving the church. We had a great talk at that meeting and came up with some ideas on how to change some of our structure and meetings to meet some needs and to move the church toward stronger relationships and deeper Bible study. I typed up a summary and emailed it to the group, explaining our conclusion and soliciting the thoughts of the men who were not there. Our intention was not to exclude the others, nor to make decisions without them, but we did come to a consensus ourselves on what we thought. In hindsight, my summary was probably too conclusive.
So he thought that perhaps we had gone beyond what we should have. Not just in that incident two weeks prior, but over time. He referred back to the appointment of the deacons, about a year ago, saying we were appointed to specific areas of ministry (children, poor, campus and administration) not to a broad leadership role. He thought we had gotten away from our focus on specific areas of serving and had taken on a larger role than we were given. He said that he did not see a team approach to leadership in the scriptures, that it was the evangelist who led the church until such time as there were elders in place. We have no elders, so it was his role to lead, not the group’s. His thought was that this was a better plan because, as our group has demonstrated, group leadership can lead to paralysis, lack of focus and stagnation.
Well, to say I was surprised would be an understatement. I did not see this coming. A plethora of emotions were running through my mind. He went to great lengths to reassure us that he was not trying to take over or grab power. He has grown to appreciate our meetings greatly and plans to rely on us for support and advice. He would be a fool, he said, to ignore our council, and other mature men in the church, in leading the church. He emphatically expressed his desire to involve us in the decision making process.
After a silent prayer for wisdom, patience and restraint :-), I spoke up. I acknowledged that I was pretty attached to the team leadership model and that there were some emotions involved that were probably clouding my judgment. I expressed an agreement that we had been distracted from our core responsibilities as deacons. I also agreed that we had become bogged down in an aimless leadership style that had not been serving the more pressing needs of the church. On the face of it, I did not necessarily object to the idea of him leading the church, nor do I doubt his sincerity in wanting to involve the deacons. My biggest concern was how are we practically going to move forward under such a plan? How would the deacons be involved in the leadership of the church? I am very much concerned that their influence and role will be diluted and marginalized. Now, I must check my heart here. I see in myself a little desire for power, a want to be influential and to have a say in everything. I have a control streak and I must acknowledge it and crucify it. But the deacons were appointed based on their heart, their lives, their character and their service to the church. They absolutely should be involved in the decision making and direction of the church, they have helped build this church. I am greatly concerned about how we make this happen. My fear is that without some formal definition of the roles and responsibiliies of deacon, minister and evangelist, and a plan to move forward together, we will revert to the old paradigm of one man leading, getting advice sporadicaly as he goes and as he sees fit, as opposed to consistent, active group involvement in the decision making.
Let me clarify a couple of things. First, I realize that as a deacon myself I am tooting my own horn a bit. Let me say, that I think that these principals apply to whomever is in that role. If there is a consensus that I am not qualified to be there, so be it, I will step down. It is not about me, it’s about what’s appropriate and best for the church and I believe that a strong leadership is a broad and diverse leadership. Second, do not misunderstand my words as criticism of our lead minister. It is not. I trust that he desires what’s best for the church. I agree with much of what he has said. I do not doubt that he respects the deacons and me personally and desires to involve us. He has said so emphatically and I take him at his word.
I’ve said some strong things here, but they’re not directed at anyone in particular. They are simply because I feel strongly for this church. I have been here from the beginning and I’ve helped build it. 16 years ago I pledged my life to God and His church and I take that commitment seriously. My wife and I dropped everything and moved here 8 years ago to begin this church. We came with big dreams to build a congregation that would meet the needs of men and glorify God. I’ve watched over the past few years as those dreams have faltered. I’ve been frustrated at the leadership’s, myself included, inability to stem the tide of men and women compelled to leave our fellowship. We’ve been fumbling with other, less important issues while people continue leaving. Why can’t we seem to get it together and shore up the foundation to protect God’s people and God’s name? Only then will we be able to build again.
As far as a leadership team of equals or a strong evangelist, I’m not convinced there is a ‘right’ way. I don’t see in scripture a prescription for how, specifically, to put together a church leadership. There is no place to find the roles laid out in plain, concrete language, like a job description. It seems that God left this open somewhat (outside of the ultimate goal of leadership by elders) to our discression. While I feel that a team approach is quite valuable, I cannot say that it is God ordained. What I don’t know is if the contention that leadership by evangelist is God ordained is true or not. That’s a topic for another study and another post.
In the events of last Thursday I see hope and I am afraid. I do not know what will come of it, but I did not know what would come of our meetings when they began 6 short months ago. They have brought us together and built a foundation of trust that can be built upon. In that I see hope. What was once a fractured, disunified leadership now has a foundation of unity. I hope that my fears are unfounded, the unhealthy result of an aversion cultivated by the past pattern. I’ve seen many years of hierarchy leadership with one man at the top and only 6 months of a team based system. It scares me to put one man in charge again. But now I know this man and I know his heart. I also think I know God’s heart a little better and I have a little more conviction and courage to speak up, and because of our new relationship I have the confidence that I will be listened to as well. As I said six months ago, time will tell what this means.

There’s a great new article at Douglas Jacoby’s web site by Michael Cameron. It takes on the common Christian notion about ‘Human Nature’ and the associated idea of original sin I suspect that many folks who call themselves Christians haven’t thought much about original sin, but they may know and hold to the idea of the sinful nature. I certainly believed in the idea that, as humans, there’s a part of us that is inclined to sin. It’s the part of us that longs for sin, it’s why we cannot help ourselves.
Michael Cameron’s article makes the case that what’s referred to as the ‘sinful nature’ could really be translated as ‘the flesh’ meaning a reliance on ourselves rather than God. He also says that this idea of humans having an ingrained sinful nature shares a common heritage with the idea o original sin. They both rely on the idea that we inherited the desire to sin from Adam and Eve. He makes the argument that it is really not consistent with the story in Genesis. What was passed down to succeeding generations is not an inborn inclination to sin but an environment of sin.

What do I mean? Adam and eve are tempted externally – by Satan. The idea of sin doesn’t actually come from them first, but rather from outside of them. But the idea of sin is then transferred into the general environment (let’s call this “the World”) as humans pass it on to each other. We see this as Eve passes the idea on to Adam, and so infects his thinking with it, as he simultaneously also chooses to doubt God’s goodness. The world now becomes the agent of Satan in infecting each successive generation with sin, as people also individually choose to doubt God’s goodness, and so to rely on the false hopes of the world.

He goes on to show how sin is a result of our doubting God’s goodness, but needing hope. We turn to the false hopes and temporary satisfaction of sin. This begins a self fulfilling spiral where sin produce guilt which keeps us from approaching God deepening our need for fulfillment and leading to more sin. Sin is like an adictive drug; it provides a temporary cure for our lack of love but leaves us empty and longing for more to satisfy our need.

Worldly influence towards uncertainty of God’s goodness, and therefore worldly influence to sin is all that is required to pass this situation on from one generation to the next. This is enough to fully explain the situation we see in the world, so there is no need to find anything intrinsic in human nature to explain it. This also explains how Jesus death potentially breaks the chain reaction through providing a basis for certainty despite our sin and weaknesses.
Here, for once, is a way of being forgiven and accepted that is dependent on God himself, on his decision to forgive – rather than on how we measure up to God’s expectations.

What I love is how he goes on to show how this idea that we have a sinful side prevents us from feeling certain of God’s love for us.

How does the idea of “human nature” in itself affect certainty? The concept of an intrinsic “human nature” and the related concept of original sin fights against certainty because they make one feel intrinsically ashamed, in a similar way that some people are made to feel intrinsically ashamed of their skin colour through racism. Another example is people feeling shame over being sexually abused as a child, or being abandoned by a parent, even though these things are not their fault. All of these phenomena dissociate shame from the actions of the one feeling the shame, making it a false, and very toxic idea of shame.

The idea of a ahuman sinful nature also works against the idea that Jesus was fully human and can sympathize with our weaknesses. If he was fully human, did he have a sinful nature too? If not, then was he truly fully human?

He bore our sin – that much is true, but he wasn’t sinful in his nature, he was perfect, that’s why he could be our perfect sacrifice. (2 Cor 5:21). But did he feel tempted to sin through the external environment he was in? Of course he did – exactly as we do, but he resisted (Heb 4:15). There is a good argument to say he was so empowered to do so largely because he was so certain about heaven, having just come from there, and so certain about God’s love because he was God’s only Son. This certainty would have helped him to block out the external influence of the world.
According to the idea of a sinful nature, it is impossible to be both perfect in nature and also fully human. This begs the question of whether the idea really fits, and whether the one exception – Jesus, disproves the rule. In other words, the idea of a sinful nature doesn’t fit both with Jesus’ full humanity, and his total perfection. The idea of certainty versus external influence does.

If is was no sinful nature, then how do we explain the spread of sin?

Another common verse touted as a justification actually argues to condemn the idea that sin passes to the next generation by birth. Romans 5:12 says that sin entered the world through Adam, and death through sin. Then the next bit is interesting. “And so, death spread to all men, because all sinned”. It didn’t spread to all men because all men were born, but because they all made the choice to sin, to doubt God’s goodness, to rely on the flesh instead of on God’s promises.

He nicely wraps up his argument here:

Some might say that I am missing the point entirely. They might say Jesus died on the cross and through this crucified our intrinsic sinful nature, destroying it on the cross, and setting us free from its power. But if the sinful nature is our intrinsic tendency to sin, and this has been destroyed, this doctrine leaves such people in the difficult position of having to explain why they still have this tendency at times– even as Christians. And this persistent contradiction would put doubts in their mind as to whether they really are saved after all, further compounding the problem in the familiar vicious cycle.
If they say they no longer do sin however, (as some do), then they have a problem with 1 John 1:9-10, which says they are deceiving themselves, and calling God a liar. Here, at the very least we see that the doctrine of the “sinful nature” or “human nature”, together with the doctrine of original sin, is a foothold for uncertainty, and therefore for Satan. It is also historically, the genesis point for a whole raft of other false doctrines that have relied on it.
For these reasons, it makes much more sense to say that sin is a choice we all make, because the environment we live in is strongly influential towards this, and it becomes emotionally compelling because of our uncertainty. Jesus’ death gives us a basis for certainty, through knowing that our sin is paid for up front. As we believe, the addictive power of sin, uncertainty and emptiness drains away. We don’t actually need sin any more – we have the real thing now, so we can progressively decide to discard all the substitutes as they become apparent, but from a position of security and confidence.

There’s so much good stuff, there I have only scratched the surface anad frankly haven’t done it justice. Please, go read.

A response to Justin’s challenge to describe the Gospel in your context.
First assignment; describe your context. Hmm. That’s an interesting one, because in my context we don’t think about context. 🙂 I am one that finds himself caught between the modern and the post modern, leaning toward the safety of the modern way of thinking. Frankly, I don’t know that I understand post-modernism at all, I only know that modernism’s biggest failing is it’s assumption that it can figure it all out and that context doesn’t really matter. So here I sit, having been brought up in a modern, well defined world, looking around and seeing that things don’t always fit in a nice neat package, but not feeling quite equipped to deal with that.
I think that modernism’s way of looking at things, defining problems and seeking concrete solutions has much to say for itself, just not as much as it claims. But neither does post-modernism either.
But this is supposed to be about the gospel, not a comparison of world views. The gospel to me is good news that is defined as much by the bad news. The bad news is that I have no idea what I’m doing here, how to live, how to treat people, how to be Right. Not just act or seem right or do right but be right. I fall short, way, way short. I don’t want to but I can’t help it. I fail my wife, my kids, my family, my job, my neighbor, my God. I try, and try hard but I fail. I’ve learned many lessons on how not to fail, but they do not produce less failures. No, they reveal deeper chasms in my character, deeper failings, more things to work on.
I am not what God wants me to be, by any Biblical measure, likely any measure. Bad news indeed.
The good news is that God, in his infinite and amazing love has come to my rescue. He’s sent me a scapegoat, someone to take my burdens, my problems, my failings as His own. Jesus takes my sin, takes the punishment, takes the blame. “Put it on me.”, He says, “Don’t worry about it.” My failings are no longer fatal, they no longer need to drag me to me knees in disgust. Jesus takes them away and I am free. Free of the burden of guilt and free to go at it again. What a relief to be able to shake off this guilt and focus only on becoming my best, something I could never so before because my failures stayed with me, distracting me and preventing me from moving on. I was ever chasing the unattainable dream of perfection, and suddenly it’s been handed to me, undeservingly. Now I am seen as perfect, though I’m not. What can possibly keep me down? What can keep me from greatness?
Now that’s good news.

Over the past months I’ve had an on again off again conversation with Jared about Calvinism and free will. Jared is an unapologetic Calvinist. I, frankly, had no idea what that meant until recently, and even now I’m not entirely sure. But thanks to Jared’s patience in answering, probably, the same question repeatedly, I’m getting there. I am still a long way away from being a Calvinist, and probably never will be entirely, but I’m finding that it is not nearly as far fetched as it seemed a few months ago. (BTW – The Calvinist belief can be summed up with the acronym TULIP. There’s an explanation of TULIP here.)
My debate with Jared began in the comments thread here. Jared had taken offense at another’s claim to sovereignty over his own life. I had written a paper on God’s putting us in control and I commented that I felt that God has given man sovereignty over his own life. (that paper has seemed incomplete ever since it was completed. There’s more to the story, but I haven’t been inspired to go back and dig into it yet. As Jared pointed out, it’s a little too ‘Deist’) A very civil conversation ensued about all things Calvin but settled down to the idea of free will or not. Jared made his points, I tried to provide examples in scripture of free will and then Jared said

Salguod, I’m not sure if you haven’t made it through my previous comments yet, but I have specifically said several times that I don’t deny the reality of the will or the reality of man’s choosing.
All you’ve done with these references is provide examples of man making choices or the call to man to make a choice. I have never denied any of those things.

If I wasn’t already confused, that did it for me. A will that is not fee? Choices but not freedom? How can this be? I attempted to understand his position, but couldn’t get it.
Then, a few days ago he posts A Will Conformed to Reality in which he makes the argument that it is our role to change our will to match God’s. I let it sit for a couple of day, but couldn’t take it any longer. So I asked

How does this idea of conforming our will to God’s square with your position that we have no free will of our own? If God’s in control of all and directing all, how can we say to have conformed our will to His, as you suggest here?

So Jared graciously explains it to me one more time and this time it clicks and I respond:

So the idea then is that we seem to have free will before we are saved, but in reality we cannot help but to sin. It (perfection or ‘being good’) is an ideal that is a lie for we are powerless to achieve it. We are perhaps more or less successful than our neighbor, but ultimately sinful beyond our control. It is only because God has given us grace in Christ that we have a chance to be saved from this depravity.
So the lack of free will is not an inability to make any choice, but rather a limitation on making all the right choices. Our freedom is limited by our tendency to sin.

It turns out that this Calvinist idea of no free will isn’t as wacky as it might seem. In fact, it makes perfect sense.
Jared, you’ve still got a long way to go on original sin and predestination, though.