Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Common Misconceptions Concerning Christian Discipleship

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In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains that knowing a bit of theology is important for Christians now, in a way that it was not in the past:

…In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have got a lot of wrong ones-bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted about as novelties today, are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected… 

C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity 4.1.4

His advice lines up with that of clever-silly economist named Keynes when he explained that practical men who have no use for philosophy often find themselves enslaved by the bad ideas of those long dead.

When I was in seminary and reading “the literature,” I discovered several approaches to Christian discipleship that all seemed lacking in one way or another. Here they are:

  1. The Romantic/Internalist Approach
    This particular approach is focused almost totally on the affections or feelings of the individual. It ends up redefining almost every major Biblical word (faith, hope, love, Spirit, and prayer) in terms of internal experiences. There is a Calvinist version of this (think Jonathan Edwards or John Piper) and there is a slightly charismatic version (think phrases such as, “Jesus told me,” “I don’t feel led,” “I wish I was more ‘on fire’ for God”). I find this approach unhelpful because it focuses almost totally on trying to control or aim the passions so that good deeds will happen which is nearly impossible.[see note a bottom] Or, much worse, this approach equates the passions/emotions with God’s will! In the first instance, believers going through a dry spell feel unfaithful to God. In the second instance, the hamster wheel of self-justification is given free rein over the mind and will.
  2. The Externals Approach
    In this approach, the idea is that getting people to conform in observable ways to good Christian behavior is synonymous with discipleship. While the Bible is clear that externals will come into line, it must be recognized that a system which focuses on external signs of obedience as the goal is precisely what Jesus criticizes over and over again in the gospels. Many of the ways that this system manifests itself include many good things and some made up things: getting people to dress well, getting people to give to their church, getting people to believe right dogmas, getting people to not say cuss words, speaking in tongues, dancing in church, not dancing in church, getting people to come to church regularly, getting people to vote for and against certain things, and getting people to do all sorts of other things.   It is not the case that motivating people to do external things is bad, but basing Christianity on a few easily observable external behaviors misses a large portion of what several of the things concrete, but non-obvious things Jesus said to do: love God, love neighbor, pray in secret, give in secret, fast in secret, deny oneself, show hospitality, call God Father, love enemies, over come lust, wash the inside of the cup, forgive those who apologize to you, reconcile with those you hurt, ask God for forgiveness with humility, become servants of all, be wise as serpents, be innocent as doves, and so-on. This approach often, though not always, comes with a simplistic view of salvation by grace alone. It either says, “Salvation is by grace alone, therefore the words of Jesus aren’t as important as simple faith,” or in certain denominations, “Salvation by grace alone is false, you’ve gotta do good works to go to heaven, so conform to our list of good works.”
  3. The Event Approach
    This one is a combination of the first two because it is based on generating feeling and motivation by means of events. The event approach is utilized most often in mega churches and youth ministries. Discipleship, in this case, is defined as occurring whenever people show up to events. Discipleship is really really happening if even more people come. In mega-church situations, discipleship is centered around the pastor’s vision for a larger church. In youth-group situations, discipleship is built around having bigger, better, and more exciting programs to keep the kiddos motivated.

I’ve talked about this before, but I think that the central idea in Christian discipleship is simply learning from Jesus, because he is meek and humble-hearted (Matthew 11:26-30). The Bible refers to this reality in several ways:

  1. Paul calls it “the obedience of faith,” which I take to mean the obedience which comes from trusting God’s self-disclosure in the gospel message of Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:1-7)
  2. Jesus elsewhere says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples…” The idea is coming to inhabit (in the same way that one inhabits a home and comes to know it, tend to it, and reap the benefits of living there) his whole message about himself, God’s kingdom, God, and how humanity should respond and relate to God. (John 8:31-32)
  3. Peter says, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Here, discipleship seems to mean to respond to God’s grace increasingly and learn from gospel teaching and experience what Jesus Christ wants you to know. (2 Peter 3:18)
  4. James says, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” The word, in James is pretty clearly the gospel message about “the faith of our glorious Lord, Jesus Christ.” (James 1:22-2:1)
  5. John says that “whoever says he abides in him ought to walk as he walked.” For John, the claim of Christian religious identity is born out by means of personal adherence to the way of Jesus Christ. (1 John 2:6)

My point, in all of this is that it would seem that the most valid understanding of Christian discipleship is hearing the words of Jesus and trusting him enough to put them into practice. So the approach to discipleship in our churches should probably revolve around teaching:

  1. What Jesus said and did (including what he said to do).
  2. What the gospel authors interpreted that to mean.
  3. What the other New Testament authors interpreted Jesus’ life and message to mean.
  4. What the Old Testament means in relationship to Jesus (see Matthew 7:12 and Luke 24).
  5. How to actually put Jesus’ teachings into practice.

Points one and five are especially important because many people do not actually know what Jesus said. Secondly, when they do know, it can be very daunting to try it out without any guidance from contemporary brothers and sisters or those of times past. Pastors and Sunday school teachers have the unique opportunity to make this information available to the members of their churches. Sadly, I fear, the misunderstandings seem too obviously true to most people.

Note: The more ancient approach to Christian sanctification was the idea that habitual obedience and faithful response to God’s grace is the means that God’s Spirit uses to shape the human heart. One can see this echoed in C.S. Lewis and Dallas Willard, but it is explained rather thoroughly in older luminaries like Thomas Aquinas, Richard Baxter, Thomas Brooks, St. Gregory, Horatius Bonar, Charles Finney, Charles Hodge, and so-on.

How to become a Christian

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Religious conversion is difficult to describe in terms of choices and thought. This is largely because most famous conversion narratives include deep emotional or quasi mystical states. That’s fine, but such experiences are simply not the norm. So if you’ve ever wondered how to become a Christian or what the Bible says about becoming a Christian so that you can help others do it here are my brief reflections. This is important because God offers us eternal life in Jesus Christ and a picture of the deepest human perfection and happiness.

To answer this question: “How do I become a Christian?” The simplest response is:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Believe on” means, ‘trust in’ or ‘rely upon.’

You’re wondering, “Is it that simple?”  

Yes.

But simple answers are usually only simple because they summarize big ideas. And Christianity is a big idea.

Simply believing on Jesus is a direct experience of knowing God, even if it doesn’t feel like one. But the Christian life is more than a personal experience with God. This is important to remember. An example might be this: believing on Jesus is not the same as going to church, but believing on Jesus should result from and in going to church.

Here are, as best as I can tell, five points that summarize what the phrase, “Believe on Jesus Christ” means:

  1. Believe that Jesus, as portrayed in the New Testament, is Lord. That means to believe that he is right, that he is your leader in life, and that he is wonderful. This faith will grow as you come to know the Bible through study and personal experience. When you believe in Jesus this way, you naturally also believe in his resurrection and ultimately in his divinity.
  2. Believe that Jesus’ death for sinners is for you specifically (Galatians 2:20). Many believe that Jesus died for all sinners (1 John 2:2), but they do not believe that he died for their specific sins. Most of us do not want to admit that the brutal treatment he received at the hands of other sinners was precisely on our behalf, even for the things we did today.
  3. Put the teachings of Jesus into practice. The Bible says that faith is made complete by works (James 2:20-22). It also says that faith should be of the sort that does the works God planned for Christians to do (Ephesians 2:8-10)
  4. Be a part of Jesus’ community, the local church. The church, through history, has preserved the Bible, proclaimed the gospel, and trained people to be disciples of Jesus. You wouldn’t even be reading this blog post if it weren’t for God’s church.
  5. In that church, get baptized. Baptism is an act of faith, an act of repentance, and a tangible experience of God’s forgiveness. God forgives us at the asking (1 John 1:9), but baptism is a tangible experience of that forgiveness and a perpetual reminder that God acted on our behalf (we get baptized, we do not baptize ourselves). If you’re already baptized, then lift like a baptized person.

Do Women Need Toxic Masculinity?

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In the feminist literature, stoicism is central to Toxic Masculinity. But stoicism is a philosophy of using reason to interpret and control your emotions, it is similar to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy.

For feminists, controlling, regulating, or moderating your emotions is a form of freudian repression that somehow hurts men (or gives them an advantage in the free market).

As an aside, having anger is also considered a form of toxic masculinity. I’ll agree that outbursts of uncontrolled anger are bad. Most authors who ever wrote about masculinity or virtue have only ever said that anger, even when justified, is dangerous to allow to grow uninhibited by reason. See Marcus Aurelius, Paul the Apostle, Jesus Christ, Aristotle, Xenophon, Cicero, Musonius Rufus, James the brother of Jesus, Epictetus, William James, Jonathan Edwards, and so on.

Keep that in mind when you read this:

‘We are treating more women than ever who are struggling to regulate their emotions and express themselves appropriately,’ says Dr Monica Cain, a counselling psychologist at London’s Nightingale Hospital.

So what is causing the red mist to descend for so many women? And why is this anger afflicting so many upstanding women, the sort you might hope would be immune to, or too ashamed of, having outbursts?

Some experts suggest women believe that such outward displays of aggression allow them to seize the initiative from traditionally dominant men. Whether it’s in the workplace or around the dining table, shouting, swearing or throwing things are increasingly viewed as valid methods for women to assert themselves.

Dr Elle Boag, social psychologist at Birmingham City University, says: ‘Women feel aggression is a form of empowerment. It has become so commonplace that it’s not even shameful.’

Indeed, Jo insists it’s her right to shout at family and strangers alike. ‘When I’ve calmed down, I apologise if I’m in the wrong. But if someone has been rude or disrespectful, I feel my temper is justified,’ she says.

‘Lashing out is just a way of expressing myself.’

As well as this sense of entitlement, there’s the ever-present, age-old pressure to ‘have it all’. With competitive streaks accentuated by demanding careers and the seemingly perfect lifestyles displayed by celebrities, women are cracking under the pressure.

‘There is a perception that women have to have the perfect home, raise children and have a career that’s fulfilling and brings in an enviable lifestyle and income,’ says Dr Cain.

If someone has been rude or disrespectful, I feel my temper is justified. Lashing out is just a way of expressing myself

‘We are driving ourselves to the limit and a build-up of internal pressure over time can lead to us getting very frustrated over issues that would normally cause no more than a niggle.’

Such outbursts can also become addictive, a form of almost animalistic release. The burden mounts, tension builds and the almost exquisite joy of letting it all out becomes almost compulsive for some women.

It’s a feeling that Jo, who lives in Brighton with her partner Steven, 50, and his two children Jane, 21, and Tommy, 17, can identify with.

‘While I don’t feel proud of myself there is a cathartic release in letting my emotions out,’ says Jo.

It seems to me that a lack of toxic masculinity (stoicism) is harming women and their relationships in the UK. Antonia Hoyle’s alarming report that women seem to be exhibiting significantly less self-control with respect to anger than they used to is not unique!

Here is another example of non-toxic femininity from the paragon of sensibility and reason, Jezebel:

One of your editors heard her boyfriend flirting on the phone with another girl, so she slapped the phone out of his hands and hit him in the face and neck…

According to feminists of this sort, an example of a toxic male in ancient literature would be Marcus Aurelius’ friend Sextus:

[A]nd he had the faculty both of discovering and ordering, in an intelligent and methodical way, the principles necessary for life; and he never showed anger or any other passion, but was entirely free from passion, and also most affectionate; and he could express approbation without noisy display, and he possessed much knowledge without ostentation.
Marcus Aurelius, “The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,” in The Harvard Classics 2: Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, ed. Charles W. Eliot, trans. George Long (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1917), 195.

Instead of showing displays of uncontrollable passion, Sextus was known instead for affection, intelligence, knowledge, humility, and praise of others. Interestingly, accumulated research tells us that acting out on anger without deliberation leads to further irrational displays of anger:

Psychological research has shown virtually no support for the beneficial effects of venting, and instead suggests that venting increases the likelihood of anger expression and its negative consequences.

In other words, the women discussed in the articles above need to absorb the lessons of toxic masculinity (self-control) rather than buying into the idea that angry displays are empowering or worse, the idea that controlling your emotions is a failure to “express yourself.” Stoicism would also be helpful with respect to food.

How to Face Overwhelming Odds

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Bruce Charlton explains:

But Christians are equipped with the infinite power of repentance; which means that no matter how many times we are ‘broken’, no matter how many times we are defeated and unconditionally surrender to evil – or actively support and promote evil. We can and should simply repent our sin, we will be forgiven, and we start over again: fighting and resisting. 

The point is not so much winning, as not being defeated; and the point is not so much not being defeated in our bodies and actions, but not being defeated in our souls.

A Christian should be indomitable, and all Christians are able to be indomitable – perhaps most of all those who are weakest and least likely to suppose that they can win by worldly power.

On Why We Need Logic

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John Henry Newman was talking about his own era, but his thoughts are relevant today:

It were well if none remained boys all their lives; but what is more common than the sight of grown men, talking on political or moral or religious subjects, in that offhand, idle way, which we signify by the word unreal? “That they simply do not know what they are talking about” is the spontaneous silent remark of any man of sense who hears them. Hence such persons have no difficulty in contradicting themselves in successive sentences, without being conscious of it. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated (London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1873), xvii.

Learning basic logic is crucial for training in moral, academic, and practical formation. For example, being able to infer what somebody else would find offensive or pleasant takes logic. Similarly, determining contradictions between behavior and ideals takes logic. This is why some of the Pharisees hated Jesus. He applied logic to them in order to point out their hypocrisy. Logic and simply processes of elimination are very important in various service industries and home repairs that very few people my age can do that I remember all adults being able to do when I was younger (case in point: I totally missed a very simple fact when working on my car, the radiator reservoir had water…but the radiator didn’t, but I didn’t check the radiator, I jumped straight to replacing the thermostat, thankfully my uncle solved the problem).

Yet, despite its advantages, logic is not typically a part of the curriculum in most fields. It was not a part of my training in seminary nor was it a part of my undergraduate degree. Logic is not a requirement for my engineering degree either (though you have to learn it intuitively in computer programming, circuits, and mathematics). I learned logic in high school from a rogue English teacher who was not following the curricular guidelines and it has been a study of mine since then. I talked to a logic professor just last year after watching a debate he moderated. We discussed how amazing it is that essentially the same syllogistic rules work for inference in all fields and apparently in all physical space. He said, “That is troubling for me as an atheist. But have you read about Graham Priest’s paraconsistent logic?” This is precisely the trouble. Instead of teaching the thing that works and is supremely useful, we find logic replaced by theoretical substitutes apparently for the rhetorical purpose of making the universe seem less orderly.

I would guess that the inability of many people to follow a basic syllogism, find the hidden premise in an enthymeme, or discover contradictions, fallacies, and necessary truths leaves them in a state of confusion. Being able to determine what merely may be, or is likely to be true and what must be true is so crucial in our world of data overload.

I suppose the solution is to learn logic yourself (by a textbook or two) and start applying it to your life. Also, teach it to your children. Have classes at church. It’s more important than we realize, which is exactly the problem. We do not even realize we’re flying blind without logic precisely because we no longer use it.

In all toil there is profit

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In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.

(Proverbs 14:23 ESV)

The proverb above is one I have always associated with one particular type of talk: talking about what you’re going to do instead of doing it.

I think that this aspect is true, but incomplete. I have overly limited the meaning of talk.

Here are forms of talk that are justifiably included under this heading because they replace labor and thus prevent profit:

  1. Being critical of others to the neglect of self-reflection or self-improvement
  2. Being a whiner, complainer, or malcontent
  3. Making excuses and being a wimp (we’re all going to die anyway)
  4. Talking about other people’s accomplishments without accomplishing anything yourself
  5. Talking about how other people messed up your life
  6. Talking about what you would do if only you had this or that
  7. Talking about theology instead of praying, reading Scripture, learning Greek/Hebrew, or putting the words of Jesus into practice.
  8. Talking about what other churches do wrong instead of fixing your own church
  9. Complaining about your neighbors instead of ordering your own household or picking up garbage when you go for a walk
  10. Complaining about the government without knowing local politician’s names or platforms or voting
  11. Preaching sermons but not praying, meditating, or otherwise attending to matters of personal spiritual care
  12. Having endless meetings at work but doing no work
  13. Being a part of dozens of Bible studies but not studying for your calling
  14. Being a part of dozens of Bible studies but not memorizing or reading any of the Bible
  15. Talking about your crush and never asking him/her out

I’m sure that this isn’t comprehensive, but I hope it helps.

Any other aspects of “mere talk” that distract from actual labor and therefore from profit?