Christian Living
Excerpted from Jim Robbins' new book, Recover Your Good Heart -- Living Free From Religious Guilt and the Shame of Not Good-Enough. (www.robbinswritings.com)
IS THAT ACTUALLY TRUE?
The answers to the following questions may surprise you.
1. True or False? The Christian's heart is just as sinful after becoming a Christian as it was before becoming one.
2. True or False? The Christian's heart is a mixture of good and bad.
3. True or False? A Christian's heart is totally good and pure.
4. True or False? Christianity is about right behavior and morality.
6. True or False? God is interested in fixing us.
7. True or False? Jesus' primary offer to us is the forgiveness of sins.
--------------------------------
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN TOLD ABOUT YOUR HEART?
(The ‘gospel’ of guilt, shame, and pressure)
“The revolution of Jesus is in the first place and continuously a revolution of the human heart or spirit.” – Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart
At certain points in the book, you will see questions that I posed to Christians I know. I was attempting to get at the message they were being told about their heart—even after becoming Christians. These friends come from different church backgrounds and experiences, yet their stories are indicative of some sad realities facing Christians today. I suspect their stories are more common than you may think.
Question: “There’s a hymn that says we are ‘prone to wander’—meaning that it’s our nature and tendency, even as Christians, to stray from God. Do you believe that to be true?”
Meredith, from Tampa: “Christians are so often told that we are unworthy sinners and not worthy to be in His presence, that we avoid him in an attempt to hide ourselves from Him. I think that the biggest stumbling-block between God and us is usually other Christians and false (opportunistic) teachings from churches. Sad but true.”
RIGHT DIAGNOSIS, WRONG TREATMENT
Medical mistakes can be made by the most capable and trained doctors. A patient’s condition can be misdiagnosed or mistreated, with dire results. Doctor Jerome Groopman, author of the revealing book How Doctors Think, tells us from his own medical experience what can happen—for he too had failed to correctly diagnose and treat a patient—with painful consequences:
One of my patients was a middle-aged woman with seemingly endless complaints whose voice sounded to me like a nail scratching a blackboard. One day she had a new complaint, discomfort in her upper chest. I tried to pin down what caused the discomfort—eating, exercising, coughing—to no avail. Then I ordered routine tests, including a chest X-ray and a cardiogram. Both were normal. In desperation, I prescribed antacids. But her complaint persisted, and I became deaf to it. In essence, I couldn’t think in a different way. Several weeks later, I was stat-paged to the emergency room. My patient had a dissecting aortic aneurysm, a life-threatening tear of the large artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. She died. … I have never forgiven myself for failing to diagnose it.
Either misdiagnosing an illness or mistreating it can prove disastrous. What happens when your quality of life depends upon the correct judgment of a professional whom you believe to be trained and capable, yet you discover he has given you the wrong “cure”? Or perhaps you are seeing a therapist for treatment of depression. You and your past are thoroughly analyzed and you’re given some emotional goals to work through; yet the real problem is somewhere deeper, at a level that analysis won’t touch—and you remain stuck.
In any of these cases, you are told that the prescribed treatment will work, yet you are not getting better; perhaps worse in some ways. A problem, rightly discerned, but wrongly treated can only lead to further sickness.
The Church in our days has responded with the wrong course of treatment for our greatest needs. What we call the “Gospel” today (which is the solution to humanity’s condition) is at best a weakened and impoverished gospel, and at worst, not the Gospel at all. We have provided the wrong cure. We have incorrectly treated the disease—with disturbing results: our churches are full of people who remain enfeebled with shame, guilt, and futility. They are pinned down by the same things they struggled with before becoming Christians and are anything but restored, free citizens of the Kingdom. In fact, many leaders use shame in order to get their congregants to “be more committed, serve more, do more.”
Many have felt cheated by the Christian “cure” they have been given. Not intentionally deceived, to be sure. There were no preachers or Sunday School teachers who set out to mislead them, for those good-hearted leaders have passed on simply what they’ve been given. What most of us who call ourselves ‘Christians’ have been told about the Gospel is, at best, partially true: We have been told that Christianity is about getting your sins forgiven and going to heaven. This is true, yet grossly incomplete. The deceptive story line running throughout our modern Christian story is that you are merely forgiven, yet unchanged: that you’ve been pardoned and are going to heaven, but you remain essentially the same person you’ve always been. We’ve been left as Lazarus, called out of the tomb, yet still bound by his grave clothes.
Most Christians have been told to be suspicious of their hearts, even after coming to Christ. In essence, the message to us from the Church has been, “Your heart is bad, or at best, a mix of good and bad. Therefore, be suspicious of your heart, your motives, your desires.” How often have we heard the self-effacing idiom, “You’re just a sinner, saved by grace.”? Or that “We’re ‘prone to wander.’”?
As I talked with my friends who trusted Jesus, I asked the question: “Even after becoming a Christian, have you been told that your heart is:
* totally good and pure,
* not at all good and pure,
* or a mix of good and bad?”
Some of those interviewed, even though they had been Christians for years, were still believing that their hearts were a “mix of good and bad.”
More revealing were some responses to the question, “On a scale of 1- 10 (‘ten’ being ‘totally good and pure’), how good/pure do you feel your heart is?” Some of these deeply serious Christians responded with a less than favorable view of their redeemed hearts. Any answer less than “ten” would indicate a misunderstanding of the thoroughly miraculous work Jesus has already accomplished in them. And it’s not their fault. It’s the message they’ve been given. Why are these good people still feeling their hearts are bad in some way—that the deepest part of them is still dirty, marred or unacceptable?
WHAT THIS MESSAGE IS NOT
Please know that I am clearly not speaking of a self-constructed, self-initiated goodness on our part. We were not born good: God must make us so. We once were rebellious towards God and our hearts were deceitfully wicked. We once were incapable of living and loving like Christ. Any honest person can see that human nature, apart from Christ’s radical intervention, is not capable of living from the standard (kind or scope) of love that Jesus sets before us. Without regeneration (radical interior transformation), we can only produce human love, but not the very love of Christ.
Further, when I try to help a follower of Jesus see that his heart is now good, I’m not offering a self-help, feel-good seminar on how to actualize his inner light. I’m simply advocating the revolutionary and penetrating work of Christ in the heart that occurs when a person says ‘yes’ to Jesus. The language we use to talk about ourselves and others betrays our theology, for better or worse; and the version of Christianity that is so pervasive today has done such great damage to our sense of identity. This is why it’s necessary to provide a better, more accurate language about ourselves and our wholly new identity as God’s sons and daughters.
This message of radical change is exactly what we need, yet we are being given a dangerously distorted version of what actually happened to us. Because of this distortion and anemic teaching concerning what Jesus has actually accomplished in our inmost being, there are many of us who are serious about Jesus yet still captive to shame, guilt, and spiritual pressure tactics.
THE "GOSPEL" OF DUTY, SHAME, AND PRESSURE
Question: “In your experience going to church, have you felt pressure to be good, or freedom to be holy?”
Cindy, from Hartford: “I don’t know that I would call it pressure, but a definite assertion/admonition that as a Christian, I should be behaving a certain way. I don’t believe that I have ever heard (in church, at least) that I am holy.”
Today’s Church preaches a partial, and therefore weakened, anemic gospel. The Gospel has been reduced to: get forgiven—go to heaven. You’ve been pardoned, but now it’s your job to be a “good Christian” and keep your nose clean until Heaven. What starts with grace ends in pressure to be good. (Just get people to do the right thing.) The Christian life soon becomes about acting like a good Christian (religious duty) so that you don’t disappoint God or those around you. The externals (behavioral expectations) become more important than internal realities (the new resources of your heart). Even good practices such as serving others, worship, ministry and kindness become religious obligations, rather than the overflow of a new heart that is now genuinely for others and for God.
Here’s what one Christian discovered about the emptiness of living from religious duty and obligation:
I was a faithful Christian. I went to church every week and joined the men’s ministry—even went on a mission trip to Bulgaria. I want to say I was living for God, but I was living more out of duty and obligation. It was the ‘wanting to do the right thing’ type of living. On the outside I was the model Christian. However, I had a nagging sense of ‘there is something more,’ but I could not identify what the ‘more’ was.iii
Any “gospel” that pressures people to be good inevitably brings shame; because ‘good enough’ is never good enough. How do we recognize the gospel of duty and pressure, and therefore, shame? This false gospel comes with the following message: “You’re not doing enough, you’re not spiritual enough, committed enough, selfless enough.” It’s the “not enough” gospel and it is often called “sanctification.” And how can you argue with that? Don’t you want to grow spiritually? Shouldn’t we serve, become more “Christ-like,” be committed to the mission? Here’s a troubling question, though: How can you ever know when enough is enough?
When you’ve read your Bible enough?
Shared your faith enough?
Been committed enough?
Love God enough?
In order to meet the expectation of sanctification, is spiritual growth something we must try harder at, doubling our efforts in order to be more like Christ?
THE BAIT AND SWITCH "GOSPEL"
We say people can come into the Kingdom through grace, but once they’re in, we switch from grace to duty, obligation, and pressure. Though we preach that you can’t contribute a thing to your own salvation and that it’s all God’s gift for you, once you’re “safe” however, you’d better keep up and step up. This fallacy is why Paul had to be pointedly firm with God’s family in Galatia when he said: “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” In today’s distorted Christianity, you can come in under God’s power, but once you’re in the door, it’s about your effort to make this thing work. Grace dissolves into exertion. And because you can never do enough, exertion soon turns to shame: “I know I’m supposed to be serving, loving, thinking pure thoughts, but I just can’t. It goes well for a while, then I blow it… again.” Soon, shame turns into resignation: “I no longer want to try harder. I feel like giving up.” And God asks the Church, “Why do you turn my glory into shame?!”
Sources:
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002).
Jerome Groopman, M.D., How Doctors Think, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007).
Finnamore and Garvin, Treasures of the Kingdom, Vol. 1, (Coeur d’Alene: Starlight Publishing, 2007).
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Thanks for your thoughtful response, Julia. Good question. I have a couple thoughts: I think that culture of religious obligation and its accompanying message of "never-enough" has been so pervasive that many believers' hearts have been sabotaged -- to the point where they don't even know the truth. It's not that they don't want to be free -- it's just that no one has told them the rest of the Gospel (or even the freedom of the New Covenant). They're hearts are genuinely good -- they just don't know anything else --- yet. I want to see these folks get set free. -- Jim
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Julia. Good question. I have a couple thoughts: I think that the culture of religious obligation and its accompanying message of "never-enough" has been so pervasive that many believers' hearts have been sabotaged -- to the point where they don't even know the truth. It's not that they don't want to be free -- it's just that no one has told them the rest of the Gospel (or even the freedom of the New Covenant). They're hearts are genuinely good -- they just don't know anything else --- yet. I want to see these folks get set free. -- Jim
Julia