He is not alone. There is no shortage of people who see some things in the Bible as worthy but who discard most of it as either unreliable or inaccurate or hopelessly out of date and out of step with the times. In fact, there are many Lutherans who do so. Not all of them are on the lunatic fringe but, indeed, most of them see themselves and believe themselves to be faithful and even exemplary in this regard. Blindly following the Bible is seen as cultish while taking the Bible with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of reason is seen as enlightened. Indeed, there are many who think themselves in the mainstream or even conservative but who allow their reason to dictate to the Scriptures.
Notably, the realm of this is typically morality and the social gospel. More important than echoing the language of Scripture or calling people to repentance is standing with the oppressed, advocating on behalf those without power, and identifying with them. It becomes less about sin and redemption and more about freedom and service. Strange as it seems, I would suggest that it cannot be about freedom and service until it is first about sin and redemption. You simply cannot get there from here unless the road leads through the cross where the Savior gave His life as a ransom for many. Again, the problem here is not that this language is necessarily wrong but it is placed above the cross where sin's debt was paid and it transforms the Gospel into a principle (see yesterday's post). Jesus act of redemption is not to save you from something but for something and, in particular, for this life and for the difference you can make today.
Somewhere along the way I read this man's post quoting another author but in agreement: don't make the mistake of treating this language too literally, turning metaphor into mechanism, poetry into ledger sheets. The Bible is a book of symbolic language, of metaphor and myth, and of poetry instead of prose. We are all tempted to this because symbolic language does not demand anything of us and it certainly does not give us anything of substance. We are all tempted to this because metaphors are to be appreciated and do not convict us of sin nor direct us to the cross where sin's redemption was made. We are all tempted to this because poetry is about the language as much as it is about what it says. We want the Gospel to be this way as well.
Reason and education seem to help us believe that the cross of Christ is about everything but sin and forgiveness, that the Gospel is about how we live as much as about what Christ has done, and the life we need to be concerned about is how to live life now -- not eternal life. The end result is that we are ever more distant from the cross and from the new life Christ has accomplished and the ball ends up back in our own court. The guy I am speaking about is nothing if he is not eloquent and logical and even passionate. The problem is he is simply wrong. You cannot get there, where he wants to be, without the cross as Christ's surrendered life a ransom paid for sin, a satisfaction offered to the Father to appease God's wrath, and a propiatory sacrifice (as in 1 John 2:2 or Hebrews 2). If redemption is symbolic, then sin is symbolic. If the cross is only an example, it is not an altar where Christ gave Himself a sacrifice for our sin. If the story is poetry (sort of an elaborated version of Abraham sacrificing his son), then our life in the Spirit is poetry and not prose (less about right and wrong than about authenticity). It is no wonder that in the end it is so easy to go from the cross to causes like gender affirming treatment of pre-adolesents or just about anything else on the trendy wave of the moment. In the end, you begin to realize that words like these tell you something. Voices like this are telling you they are recovering Christians, trying to get away from the eternal Gospel proclaimed down through the ages and not looking to get closer.
1 comment:
I think America today reflects the setting of Athens in Acts 17, when Paul saw the city given over to idols and people worshipped many gods.. To some, Paul was simply bringing a new philosophy, just another foreign god to add to the crowded field of deities. “What does this babbler want to say?” Asked the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Well, Paul had simply one desire, to “preach to them Jesus and the resurrection.” I think the message Paul declared, based on the altar he saw inscribed, “To the unknown god,” was perhaps one of his finest. Fast forward today, we still have many deities and philosophers around, and the days of the false prophet remain. ELCA has done as much damage to the Lutheran church and the Christian faith as the worst of the Epicureans. The home grown heretic, raised in the church, is often as fierce an opponent of Christ and His word as the pagan deities who despise Christ as well, yet from their ignorance. Everything, one notices, that the Bible points out, comes to pass. The Bible says that the “natural man” receives not the things of God, which he considers foolish, simply because the things of God are “spiritually discerned.” The so called recovering Christian indicts himself before God and man, because in rejecting the truth, he indicates he was lost and unsaved in the first place, and his prior religious profession was a lie. Soli Deo Gloria
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