{"id":1748,"date":"2012-04-17T18:34:36","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T22:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mercynotsacrifice\/?p=1748"},"modified":"2014-07-17T14:35:29","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T19:35:29","slug":"opinion-and-relationship-the-two-american-evangelical-idolatries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mercynotsacrifice\/2012\/04\/17\/opinion-and-relationship-the-two-american-evangelical-idolatries\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion and relationship: the two American evangelical idolatries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Everyone else is writing about the \u201ccrisis\u201d of American Christianity so I figured I\u2019d add my own two cents. Andrew Sullivan<\/a> wants us to cut up our Bibles and follow \u201cThomas Jefferson\u2019s vision of a simpler, purer, apolitical Christianity.\u201d Ross Douthat<\/a> writes that the problem is we\u2019ve been overrun by heresies. Christian Piatt<\/a> claims that young adults are \u201cleaving the church to follow Jesus.\u201d I think that underneath the prosperity gospel, the ideological echo chamber, and the shallow, therapeutic Jesus-as-boyfriend theology considered by all three of these writers are two basic idolatries\u00a0 \u2014 opinion<\/em> and relationship<\/em> \u2014 which have filled the gap created by the loss of a sacramental understanding of Christ\u2019s body within popular American evangelical Christianity.<\/p>\n

I. Opinion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Idolatry of opinion is how I would describe the basic misconception American evangelicals tend to have about \u201corthodoxy,\u201d the measure we use for determining whether someone is legitimately Christian or not. The Greek word doxa<\/em> has two meanings. When Aristotle used the word, he meant \u201copinion.\u201d But the translators of the Septuagint Greek Old Testament used doxa<\/em> as their translation for the Hebrew kabod<\/em>, which means \u201cglory.\u201d This etymological distinction is useful for illustrating the problem in contemporary pop evangelicalism: our \u201corthodoxy\u201d is built from the wrong doxa<\/em>. We say that people are legitimately Christian if they have the right opinions<\/em> about a set of propositional claims, such as whether Jesus was really born of a virgin, whether He was really resurrected from the dead, whether I can do anything to earn my ticket into heaven, etc. Evangelical teaching and preaching is built around instilling the correct theological opinions in our listeners.<\/p>\n

One of the most important roots of this phenomenon is the way evangelicals understand what it means that we are \u201cjustified by faith in Jesus Christ.\u201d When we make \u201cfaith in Jesus Christ\u201d equivalent to \u201cagreeing with a set of ideas about Jesus Christ,\u201d then Christian faith becomes about opinions<\/em> instead of discipleship<\/em> (which is what it\u2019s about when faith is understood to mean \u201ctrust\u201d). Bible study becomes about finding the passages that support the talking points that will successfully defeat those who have the wrong opinions about Jesus. We avoid wrong opinions by refusing to associate\u00a0 with people whose perspectives have been corrupted by their immersion in the parallel universe of \u201csecular humanism.\u201d We protect our children from these wrong opinions by homeschooling and sheltering them. To negotiate or compromise with our ideological opponents is to put the purity of our own opinions in jeopardy. In this way, the pursuit of an
\n\u201corthodoxy\u201d understood as ideological purity<\/em> prepares a whole bloc of people for complete enclosure within an ideological echo chamber that views its opponents with hysterical hyperbolic paranoia.<\/p>\n

The idolatry of opinion also creates a serious hurdle for Christian evangelism. To share the gospel with other people in terms that will resonate means learning and caring enough about their perspective to address where they\u2019re coming from. If we see non-believers\u2019 opinions as hopelessly reprobate rather than fertile with the seeds of God\u2019s continual revelation to all His creation, then our evangelism will cease to be a serious effort to understand and share God\u2019s love with another person. Those who idolize their own opinions will likely be more aggressive<\/em> in their evangelism than those who don\u2019t, but they will also be less invested<\/em> if the whole exercise is about self-affirmation and proving their fidelity to God.<\/p>\n

What if on the other hand we understood orthodoxy as the \u201cright perception of God\u2019s glory\u201d rather than the \u201cright opinion about God\u201d? What\u2019s the difference? Orthodoxy as \u201cright-glory\u201d does not see \u201ccorrectness\u201d as the end in itself. Rather, \u201cright-doctrine\u201d is useful instrumentally<\/em> in the pursuit of a full experience of God\u2019s glory. Because doctrine is finite and God\u2019s glory is not, two different Christians can have different opinions on a theological issue and perceive an equal portion of different dimensions of God\u2019s glory. Someone who seeks to experience God\u2019s beauty more fully rather than to win every theological debate is going to be a much more compelling evangelist, because they share God\u2019s truths with others not in order to win another argument, but to help another person see God, drawing upon the insights God has already revealed to that person. To one who is orthodox in this kind of way, others don\u2019t have to be wrong for me to be right. All truth belongs to God, which means that it\u2019s okay if non-believers or Christians with theological differences have truths that God wants me to learn from them<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Paul writes to Timothy that \u201cfalse doctrines\u201d are those things which \u201cpromote controversial speculations rather than advancing God\u2019s work\u2014which is by faith\u201d (1 Tim 1:3-4). \u201cThe goal of [true Christian teaching] is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith\u201d (v. 5). What strikes me about this passage and so many others in the Pauline epistles is that heresy is usually identified with that which destroys Christian unity and promotes schism. The basic Protestant heresy is that being \u201cright\u201d is more important than \u201cadvancing God\u2019s work\u201d by collaborating with people whose theological differences might nonetheless \u201ccome from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.\u201d Right doctrine is not inconsequential; it\u2019s indispensable in our journey to experience God\u2019s glory; but God\u2019s truth does not organize itself into a neat set of logical propositions that I can perfect and defend to prove my fidelity to God. And it\u2019s often the case that those who have encountered God\u2019s glory most deeply are the least strident and self-assured about the correctness of their own opinions. \u201cLet God be true and every person a liar\u201d (Rom 3:4). Reverence inherently emasculates opinion in the presence of true orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

II. Relationship<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Jeff Bethke posted his viral video \u201cWhy I hate religion but love Jesus,\u201d<\/a> it was shared on our church facebook page by a young adult who hasn\u2019t been to church in over a year (presumably to explain why he doesn\u2019t need to come anymore). I don\u2019t think Bethke anticipated how many \u201clikes\u201d he was going to get from \u201cspiritual not religious\u201d Millennials who love (a projected therapeutic BFF) Jesus, but hate (the discipleship of being part of a) church. He thought he was following the anti-sacramental polemical tradition of evangelicalism (\u201cIt\u2019s not a religion; it\u2019s a relationship!\u201d) but his polemic viralized because it was co-opted by those who prefer \u201crelationship with\u201d to \u201cdiscipleship of\u201d Jesus Christ. Many of my fellow young adults have been driven out of church by the repercussions of the idolatry of opinion discussed above, but the reason they have felt okay with themselves about leaving church is because of a theological poison pill that they likely received in youth group in a particular account of \u201cpersonal relationship with Jesus Christ.\u201d The \u201cpersonal relationship\u201d concept is how it becomes possible to leave the church<\/em> in order to follow Jesus<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m all about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but not the disembodied, individualist adventure starring me and him that it\u2019s been marketed to be. When the Christian youth experience is about \u201cmaking Jesus famous\u201d in huge praise stadiums filled with hype and energy, then the \u201crelationship\u201d youth are taught to have is basically a relationship with a supernatural form of Ryan Gosling. The difference is that Ryan Gosling Jesus actually answers every single piece of fan mail he gets in the form of prayer. He responds to my prayers (I think and hope) because he gives me goose bumps (which means that he\u2019s listening) when I sit in the dark and pour out my heart to him. Going to church makes me \u201cfeel close\u201d to Ryan Gosling Jesus because it gets my heart all churned up. That\u2019s why I would never consider going to a church that doesn\u2019t get my heart all churned up. But sunsets and poetry get my heart all churned up too, so I start to wonder if maybe I can \u201cfollow Jesus\u201d without having to sit through all the angry opinions that get spewed out during the message time at church.<\/p>\n

I really believe that evangelicals have created the means of our own demise by making Jesus a sort of phantom celebrity figure who we\u2019re supposed to try to \u201cfeel close to.\u201d We are absolutely supposed to have a personal relationship with Jesus as the head of the body in which we are all parts. <\/em><\/em>Exchanging the inherently corporeal nature of Christianity for an individualist, \u201cpersonal walk\u201d gospel is what lays the groundwork for \u201cfollowing Jesus out of church.\u201d Paul captures the journey of incorporation that we are supposed to be taking as Christians in Ephesians 4:14-16: \u201cLet us no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.\u201d<\/p>\n

We cannot have the personal relationship with Jesus Christ into which He has called us unless we center our worship around the goal of becoming the body of Christ. Communion is not just a ritual we do because Jesus said so. It should be the climax of every Christian gathering because it provides the framework for understanding our relationship with the Savior whose broken body has become both our food and our body at the same time. If worship is understood as nothing more than flattering a phantom \u201cpersonal\u201d celebrity Christ with songs and testimony about how great he is, then our congregations\u2019 commitment level will be contingent on their ability to stay perpetually enthusiastic. The real test of whether worship attendees have incorporated itself into Christ\u2019s body is how people behave when the momentum plateaus and starts to sag. Will they jump ship and go to a place with better hype? Will they figure out they can get their Jesus fix from Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer without leaving their couches? If a personal relationship with Jesus doesn\u2019t involve incorporating ourselves in His body, there\u2019s no reason not to substitute televangelist broadcasts for membership in a brick-and-mortar congregation.<\/p>\n

III. We need the Body<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Christians try to live by opinion and relationship alone, we drive other people out of the church and give ourselves permission to leave. The body of Christ is our true sustenance both in the physical wafer or chunk of Hawaiian bread that we put in our mouths every time we take communion and in the community that is created through the celebration of this sacrament. It\u2019s time to dial back the polemic against \u201creligion\u201d within popular evangelicalism, because the sacred practices that the Holy Spirit has cultivated in God\u2019s people over the centuries provide the basis for a much richer personal relationship with Jesus than any Christian pop love song could as well as an experiential orthodoxy that emerges from an authentic encounter with God\u2019s glory rather than the flat orthodoxy of propositional opinions. Let us hunger for more than correct opinions and a warm and fuzzy relationship. Let us hunger for the eternal life that comes from eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man (John 6:53).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone else is writing about the \u201ccrisis\u201d of American Christianity so I figured I\u2019d add my own two cents. Andrew Sullivan wants us to cut up our Bibles and follow \u201cThomas Jefferson\u2019s vision of a simpler, purer, apolitical Christianity.\u201d Ross Douthat writes that the problem is we\u2019ve been overrun by heresies. Christian Piatt claims that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1934,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[125,337,519,860,893,1269,2427,2447],"class_list":["post-1748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology","tag-1-timothy-1-andrew-sullivan","tag-bad-religion","tag-christian-piatt","tag-ephesians-4","tag-evangelical","tag-idolatry","tag-romans-34","tag-ross-douthat"],"yoast_head":"\nOpinion and relationship: the two American evangelical idolatries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Everyone else is writing about the \u201ccrisis\u201d of American Christianity so I figured I\u2019d add my own two cents. 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