Losing the War on Grace

The war on grace is one that, despite what you might think, everyone is fighting.

Believers and non-believers alike have served on both sides. It seems odd to think of someone like Jerry Falwell fighting alongside a secular humanist like Bill Maher, but they are both in opposition to Grace. It may seem odder still to think that men like John Piper and Tim Keller are aided in their fight on behalf of grace by secular rock bands like Radiohead.

To explain this in a little more detail, I'll have to borrow some material (but since this is bit of Christian writing, plagiarism is, if not outright encouraged, at least overlooked).

Everyone lives their life within the model of salvation from hell. What that salvation is, the means by which it is acquired, and the hell from which it delivers may all vary-but that model is consistent for everyone.

If you're overweight, you want to be saved from fat hell, and you'll go to the gym, diet, and sacrifice sugar in order to be saved (reach your goal weight).

If you're a businessman, you'll want to be saved from unsuccessful hell, so you will put in long hours, serve your boss, and sacrifice time with others (family, friends, etc) so that you may be saved (get rich, powerful, your name on the door).

I could go on and on, but the point is that if you think about yours, or anyone else's life in this context, you can usually identify what hell you are trying to escape, and how you are trying to do it.

Any of these efforts to save ourselves, from whatever hell it may be, is worship of an idol. The idol being whatever form of salvation we seek. This idol worship is how we fight the war on grace.

If we are going to be truly saved, from hell in all it's forms, we are going to have to stop fighting, and start losing.

The War on Grace

"...We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified."

- Galatians 2:16 -

The most singular distinctive of Christianity is Grace.

While every other religion, system of belief, philosophy, 12 step program, self-help book tells you what you must do in order to be saved, be cured, succeed, kick the habit, win, etc. the message of the Gospel is totally opposite, and unique.

It's not unsurprising (considering the current state of the world, particularly in relation to Christianity) that this idea of Grace is lost in the ether, the majority of human culture, literature, art, and philosophy exists in opposition to this concept.

The story surrounding the verse in Galatians is one of the earliest attacks (and Paul's defense) on Grace. There was a group of early Christians who said that in addition to faith, obedience to Jewish law was required for justification (being declared "not guilty" by God).

Peter and James, two of the Apostles, were essentially giving in to the influence of this group (known in Scripture as "the circumcision group"), this was hypocritical, since they had both been living a lifestyle that did not strictly follow Jewish law.

Paul intervened, reminding Peter and James that they were saved by Grace. And that justification could not need anything other than grace by faith, because the gift had been bought, and that gift was Grace.

What is Grace?

After consulting my handy theological dictionary (titled Crazy Talk), I found this...

Grace: The free gift in which God gives all-eternal life, forgiveness, purpose, meaning-to human beings, who respond by trying to earn it.

The most important part of this definition is the last line. Not only is the world filled with religions, philosophies, and ideologies that deny Grace-but Christians themselves deny it daily, by trying to earn it.

The problem is that while Christians cognitively understand what Grace is (ask 10 believers to define Grace and 8 will say "God's unmerited favor"), they don't understand it practically. And while there are a lot of reasons for this, the one that interests me the most was revealed by this example:

"If God wanted me to pay for my salvation, it would be like paying my taxes, I would know how much I owed, and I'd pay it. But because I am saved freely, by Grace, there is no limit to what he can ask of me."

The truth is we don't want to comprehend or acknowledge God's grace. We still want to be free of God's authority, and the fact is, our free salvation by grace is a ball and chain. We are slaves to righteousness, by grace.

Redeeming Reason: An Introduction

In my short tenure as a student of UT, I am quickly perceiving a source of tension between culture and the Church. Science and reason are viewed by most of culture as being antithetical to faith. This divorce between God's love and our mind has created a vacuum. And yet, it isn't as though science elbowed it's way between us and our Father. Rather, we as a community of faith in history, tossed science to the curb like a toy Rubik's cube, too complex to understand and thus best left alone.

I won't pretend there was some time when science and faith existed in harmony. Since the earliest history the reasoning, knowledge based approach to understanding the world has been in direct conflict with those who cherish faith.

I have yet to see in history who struck the first blow in this long waged war, but if I were to make my first of many potentially disagreeable claims I would lay blame at the foot of the church.

I don't see a time in history when men of reason, motivated by their belief in science, set out to unravel faith (at least before they had been first attacked by the faithful, but more on that later). Sadly, Christians have more often than not been in a position to defend their tradition, often with violence.

Where we began as the persecuted purveyors of truth, through a series of sad events the roles were reversed and we became the boot pressed on the neck of all we perceived false. If you look at men of history who made great discoveries in the sciences you will often see a common theme of persecution from the church.

That in our current culture men of reason are seeking to eradicate religion and more specifically Christianity is only a natural reaction of self-defense.We deserve to be in their sights, and unless we repent in humility, deserve to be shot.

I'd like to write a little about how that repentance and ensuing redemption may come about, not by building a bridge from one side to the other, but hopefully, with a lovingly applied swift kick in the pants, to knock both sides into the water and force them to swim together once again.