An Evangelical Manifesto

It seems that Evangelical Christians are always trying to figure out who we are.

I remember reading Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto in high school. I don’t remember much of it now, but I do remember it causing me to think a great deal about what we Christians are. Later, I struggled through Lloyd-Jones’s What is an Evangelical?, struggled with statements that didn’t seem to jive with what I had experienced evangelicalism as. A few years ago while we were going through our trials in the South, I came upon Alister McGrath’s Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity; his historical tracing of the roots of American Evangelicalism not only made sense to my own history but also helped make some sense of the chaos we were going through.

This past week, another group of Christian leaders have tried to define who and what Evangelicals are and believe. They have posted a new Evangelical Manifesto. The steering committee features some folks whom I respect–Dallas Willard, Os Guinness, David Neff–and some Charter Signatories that are also meaningful to me–Erwin Lutzer, Mark Noll, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis. My brief skimming of the text reveals a tone that I find refreshing and highlights some qualities that appeal to my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

I do plan on reading the full text in depth at a later point. You can get it here.

5th Sunday of Easter 2008: Dealing with Sick Bodies

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!
—”The Church’s One Foundation”, Samuel J. Stone/Samuel S. Wesley

This past week has been one that has brought back to me a lament we’ve had too often before: when, oh when, will I be able to be part of an organization—sacred or secular—that I can actually be proud of? Even allowing for the reality that every group, organization, company has its problems, how is it that we seem to continually find ourselves attached to real stinkers?
So, as I entered church this morning feeling sorry for myself, distressed, maybe even a bit despondent, I discovered that the service was organized around messages of hope, perhaps, for people such as I.

The First Reading was Acts 17:1-15, the story of Paul and Silas in Thessalonica and Beroea. The reading presents two distinct congregations and their response to Paul’s message. Paul’s opening argument is more about what the Christ will have to do rather than who might or might not be him. He spends **three weeks** “explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead.” Once that point is made, he then, of course, makes the claim that always seems to get folks in trouble: “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” Well, there you’ve gone and done it. There is a small portion who believe, but another portion “were jealous, and taking some wicked fellows of the rabble, they gathered a crowd, set the city in an uproar, and attacked.” They then go to the city officials—”they” being the folks who gathered the rabble and rioted—and blame Jason, Paul, and company with causing trouble. The gall. (more…)

Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent: 2008

Psalm 85:1-7; Ezekiel 37:21-28; John 11:45-53

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As Lent blends into Easter, we see clearly the purpose for our time of fasting and self-examination. Through Lent we prepare for Holy Week and Easter. Certainly part of that preparation is to purify ourselves, to confess our shortcomings. However, we do not confess to an unmerciful Lord bent on punishment. In the first order of the Eucharist, we declare that we serve a Lord “whose property is always to have mercy.” (BCP 337). Even before Jesus’s atoning sacrifice, the Israelites praised God singing “You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin” (Ps. 85: 2). We can look to the prophet Ezekiel to see why God is willing to forgive and is willing that His Son take our punishment. The desire of God’s heart is that His people should be united (Ez. 37:22) and that then “My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be my People” (v. 27). Our privations then are not then punishments but rather cleansings, making us ready to live with a loving God who desires our company.

Friday in the 5th Week of Lent: 2008

Psalm 18:1-7, Jeremiah 20:7-13

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My wife and I once took teaching jobs that we were convinced God meant for us to have. We left the urban North for the rural South to do what we believed God called us to do. Yet others—Christians—made doing that work impossible to the point of affecting our spiritual and physical health. Like Jeremiah I wondered if God had led me astray. Nothing we tried lessened the hatred and negativity piled upon us. It was hard to be reminded that obeying God does not guarantee that others will likewise obey. I must admit that there were moments when I thought that if this was how God works, I didn’t much need Him. Yet, there was always some fiery core that would remind me of all that God had done for us previously: the provision of necessary work, the skill of doctors, the support of friends. Even in this darkest of times we had compatriots; we were not alone. The body of Christ surrounded us, even if it was a part of the body unfamiliar to us. “Sing to the Lord; Praise the Lord! For He has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.”

Thursday in the 5th Week of Lent: 2008

Genesis 17:1-8, Psalm 105:4-11, John 8:51-59

My parents once made a chart with days and chores on it. Each day I did my chores, I earned a star on the board. At the end of the month, if I earned enough stars, they promised to buy me a skateboard. It was our covenant. What made me enter into this covenant? How did I know that my parents would hold up their end of the deal? I knew because my parents had a history of keeping their word. Likewise, how can we trust Jesus when he says “whoever keeps my word will never see death” (John 8:51)? We can trust Him because God has a long, long tradition of keeping His word. At the age of 75 God told Abram that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). 24 years later God reiterated his promise that Abraham would be “the ancestor of a multitude of nations (Gen. 17:4). Hundreds of years later, the Psalmist sings of the Lord’s faithfulness to his chosen: “He is mindful of his covenant forever…the covenant that he made with Abraham” (Psalm 104:8-9). Centuries later, Jesus appears, and Abraham “saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

Wednesday in the 5th Week of Lent: 2008

John 8:31-42

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“You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31). These words are among the most famous declarations Christ made. As hopeful and inspiring as these words can be, they were not so to Christ’s original audience. These believers immediately grasped the implication that to be made free means that we are somehow not free, and they quickly marshaled together all the reasons why they were not only free but righteous. Jesus responds simply that “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (v. 34). As we walk through Lent, it is easy to feel a bit self-righteous. “I’m basically a good person. I haven’t harmed anyone. I haven’t robbed a bank.” But Jesus doesn’t let us off that easy. He doesn’t list out any specific sins that will enslave us. Perhaps part of the truth that will set us free is the truth that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). If we continue in that word, self-righteousness is sure to fail. If we continue in that word, we see that focusing on the sins of others only blinds us to our own sin.

Tuesday in the 5th Week of Lent: 2008

Numbers 24:4-9, Psalm 102:15-22, John 8:21-30

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Forty days of Lent can sometimes feel like forty years in the desert. We leave the heady celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany to enter stark cold, short days, blustery wind, and gray skies. Remembering the festivities, we long for the liveliness of spring. Along the way, we grumble and grow impatient. Why must we fast? Why must we examine ourselves? Why must we be uncomfortable? Like the Israelites we wonder why we ever left the land of shortbread and lights and wassail. After hearing over and over the Christmas story, we still ask Jesus “Who are You?” Who are you to ask this of us? And Christ responds, “What have I been saying to you from the beginning?” (John 8:25). When at the end of Lent we lift Him up on the cross like Moses’s fiery serpent, when the innocent baby of Bethlehem is transformed into the symbol of Edenic evil, we who believe shall not “die in our sins,”(John 8:24) and “a people yet unborn may praise the Lord” (Psalm 102: 18). It is this hope that sustains us through the arid times and spurs us on to freedom in the Promised Land.

Monday in the 5th Week of Lent

John 8:1-20, the book of Susanna

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What does it mean to have the “light of life” (John 8:12)? Today’s lessons feature stories of men accusing women of sin. In one story the woman is innocent of the charge; in the other, the woman appears to have committed the sin. In both cases, the woman is set free by someone being compassionate and steadfastly seeking the truth about the accusers’ motives. In neither case do the accusers seek the restoration or betterment of the accused. Their only goal is to use the suggestion of sin in others for their own gain. In contrast, Christ, while acknowledging the sin of the woman caught in adultery, does not seek to condemn or profit from her. Daniel, spurred on by the Holy Spirit, decides first that he wants “no part in shedding this woman’s blood” (Susanna 46) and then seeks to find the truth of the situation. In both cases, the godly man seeks to give life rather than take it. In a culture where sordid public accusations with scant knowledge of the facts passes for entertainment, perhaps one ray of light that Christians can bring to the world is following Christ’s policy to “judge no one” (John 8:15).

Second Sunday in Lent: 2008

Ok, so here’s the thing about the Lectionary Muse: evidently you have to actually write down the stuff that the muse sends your way in order for anyone to read it. Go figure.

And here’s the second thing: The Muse this week, ironically as you’ll soon see, didn’t especially move in the totality of the readings, but, wow, have I been stuck on my heels thinking about this one sentence from the Gospel reading. Here it is:

The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s in John 3.

I had a whole thought poem on disc golf worked out over this thing, but it went nowhere; just came and went. I thought for most of Tuesday afternoon that I’d worked out a connection with the reading from Romans

If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and and the promise is void.

but in the end turned out I didn’t. I even wondered if there wasn’t some connection to the 33rd Psalm

From where he sits enthroned he turns his gaze on all who dwell on the earth.

but again, not so much. And I really had nothing going on with the passage from Genesis about Abram going from his country.

In fact, intellectually, I had very little trouble at all linking together the OT, NT, and Psalm readings. Probably could have written up a nice little something there. But the wind…

First Sunday in Lent: 2008

Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save
—Collect for First Sunday in Lent

• Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17, 35-3:7
• Psalm 51:1-13
• Matthew 4:1-11
• Romans5:12-19

It’s not quite the Romans Road, but the readings for the First Sunday in Lent could easily be turned into a nifty evangelistic tool. We begin in Genesis with the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. We then move to the Psalms where we acknowledge that we are sinful and beg God for cleansing. Next comes the Gospel where the temptation of Adam is replayed, except this time the tempter fails as Christ rebuffs his increasingly attractive offers. Finally, in Romans, the explanation of how the free gift of justification is purchased by Christ’s sacrifice.

Sin, confession, propitiation, justification, righteousness not of our own. The whole story.

Perhaps it is appropriate, but two passages dealing with the nature of sin stick out to me:

“Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful spirit” (Psalm 51:13)

It’s the “again” that catches me here. Up until this point in the poem, the confession could easily be read as the first time confession of the sinner. The depth of the poet’s despair over “my wickedness” that exists “from my birth” and submission of “you are justified when you speak” all sound to me like the words of a person just come to the realization of their plight before the Lord. But then the clincher, “Give me the joy of your saving help AGAIN.” This is no first-time felon tearfully seeing the error of his ways and turning around to take a new path in life. This is the despairing cry of a struggling believer who, having before confessed his sin, falls right back down. It’s a person caught in the midst of a muddy mire who slips and falls face first into the muck time and again. Each time he falls, he begs for a hand up and cleansing bath only to step in exactly the same slippery spot again.

There’s a seeming contrast here to Christ’s temptation in the desert; after all, He only gets tempted the once. But not really. Not only does Satan keep coming back to Christ three times with increasingly grand offers, but even though Christ resists this once, are not these the kind of offers that He could take at any time? We know that Christ had no home. Tell me He never was tempted to wave his hand and conjure up a comfy abode, warming fire, tasty feast when He was on the dusty roads of Galilee. Tell me He never wanted to give in to the messianic fantasies of His disciples and fellow Israelites. Tell me He never wanted to call on the angels to save Him from the tortures of the Cross. No, Satan may have only come to Him once in the desert, but the temptations he placed before Christ were the kinds of sin that would constantly pick at Him throughout His life, constantly whisper in His ear. Yet, while we were yet sinners (and sinning), He, Christ, the perfect one who knew all of our troubles, died for us.

“Sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin was not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam” (Romans 5:13-14).

I’m reminded here of Romans 1:18-20, especially the words “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” In other words, even though without the Law there is no credible way to catalog sin, there are things in life that we innately know are wrong. C.S. Lewis, in an appendix to The Abolition of Man, collects various moral values from religions around the globe, rights and wrongs which seem to be universally knows to humanity even when people groups have been isolated from any contact with Judeo-Christian ethics. The first time I read this list, I remember thinking that such a list gives the lie to those who would like to believe in Christianity simply as a moral code. If your sole purpose for believing in Christianity is for its morals, there is really no reason in the world to believe in Christianity over any other religious, or irreligious, moral system. The attraction to Christianity must be more than just its morality; it must be centered in the person of Christ and the character of God. Otherwise, it’s simply yet another expression of those truths which are evident in Nature about what is right.

Further, even though there might not be a codified rule of behavior, God still expects us to behave. “Death reigned from Adam to Moses” because even without a mandate from heaven, we still knew what was wrong and did it anyways. The Psalmist shows us this. “I have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb.”

It’s easy in these verses to fixate on the universality of sin and the hopelessness of our ability to rise above it. But this wouldn’t be a Gospel tract of good news if there wasn’t light at the end. And so it is. “As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men…by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Soli Deo Gloria.