A Placebo Faith

We may think that because we're spiritual that we're right with God.

We may think that because we are part of a church, we're right with God.

Both seem to be popular approaches to feeling good about ourselves depending on the circles we are in.

We post "praying" on Facebook at the appropriate times. We read popular spiritual or Christian books. We tell our hurting friend that we will pray for them. We read our Bible. Whatever it is that we do to think we're right with God may just be a placebo.

A placebo "is a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient." It's given because some people get better just from the thought of being treated. It's fake. It's not real.

And we fill our spiritual lives with so many placebos.

James wrote, "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless" (James 1:26 ESV). Talking religion can make people think that they are religious. The right answers. Impeccable theology or witty spiritual guidance. James recognized the danger in words. It can lead to a worthless religion. Just talking, even though it may make us feel like we have done something, is not religion. The focus of James' letter was to emphasize that having the right beliefs or saying the right things is no substitute for actually living out true religion.

When we think that we're right with God, yet it is not leading us to love the lease of these, we're just taking a spiritual placebo. It may make us feel good, but it is not true religion.

James continued, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:27 ESV). To visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep unstained from the world. True religion is living the life that we read or hear about. True religion is truly helping rather than just saying that we will pray in passing. True religion is living out what we read in the Bible and not just memorizing it. It's about living the sermons we hear rather than just listening to and critiquing them. It's keeping ourselves free from the chains of this world that will bind us, so that we can love the way God wants us to love.

Our times spent together as a church and learning together are important. That is not to be discarded in our search for true religion. For those outside of a flawed yet reclaimed community, it is something to be part of. True spirituality is not found outside of relationships with God and other sojourners. Without authentic relationships where we learn together, we will not know the direction God wants us to go. But we always must remember that talk is not the goal. Knowledge is not the goal. Attendance is not the goal.

God has a different plan for humanity. When we are in touch with Him, our hearts hunger for that reality. We know it is there. We know things aren't supposed to be this way.  We can see something greater than what we are experiencing. Glimpses grow greater.

Jesus wants us to love like He loves. He doesn't need a bunch of people being spiritual or going through the religious motions. If our hearts aren't breaking when we see injustice around us or when we see suffering - if our hearts are calloused to the pain around us or we have developed excuses to just let people suffer, then Jesus is asking us, whether we profess that we are already Christians or not - Jesus is asking us to follow Him. To bring His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. His kingdom. His love. May we learn to follow Jesus. May we learn to love sacrificially and completely. God, help us.

Getting Past the Right Answers - Becoming Honest with Ourselves

People who have been churchgoers for a while know the right answers to say so that we can look like we are totally committed to Jesus, but when it comes to actually living out the right answers, we fail more often than not.

For instance, we say that we believe in the power of prayer, but when was the last time that we spent thirty minutes in prayer?

We say that we believe that the Scriptures are the inspired word of God, but when was the last time we seriously studied them?

We say that we believe that following Jesus is the best life that anyone could possibly live, but when was the last time that we shared the gospel with someone?

We say that we value living life together in Christian community, but when was the last time that we sacrificed, whether financially or with our time, for our community?

We say that we trust God, but when was the last time we despaired and doubted?

What we do shows what we really believe.  The right answers are easy.  Too easy.  But living out the radical call of the gospel in our lives is difficult.

Paul wrote in his letter to Colossae, "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Colossians 3:9-10 (ESV)

I heard Craig Groeschel give a sermon the other week where he said, "I'm guessing that some of you know someone who has told a lie so many times that they start to believe the lie is true."  Then he went on to ask, "How many of you would honestly say, that for you that battling with self-deception is a significant problem?  You're really, really deceived about a lot of things?"  Only a few people raised their hands.  Then he asked, "How many of you know someone else who is really self-deceived?"  The hands then raised from nearly everyone.  He told them to look around and ask, "Do we have a statistical problem?"  The problem is that we can notice the self-deception in other people while we consider the self-deception in ourselves justified.

Why is it so hard to be honest with ourselves?  Do we not like who really are?  Are we embarrassed about our failures?  Paul said to not lie to one another, but I think we really need to stop lying to ourselves.  We need to put on that new self, allow the knowledge that we become enlightened with to transform us, but we can never do that if we keep telling ourselves that the old, out-of-style clothes that we are still wearing are still in.

We have developed an immunity due to familiarity with the Gospel that should transform us.  As churchgoers, we have developed, what I consider, sermon immunity.  It means that we can listen to a sermon, think it is great or awful, and go home and not do a thing about.  We have learned how to listen to a message and remain immune to any change.

This has become easier because we have become more and more inundated with knowledge.  Wikileaks just leaked 251,287 State Department documents.  It was said back in 1989 that a weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person in 17th-century England was likely to come across in a lifetime (Information Anxiety).  Around 1,000 books are published internationally every day and the total of all printed knowledge doubles every 5 years.  More information is estimated to have been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000 (The Reuters Guide to Good Information).  Information is everywhere.  If we have any question about any historical event, we can just Google it and have the answer.  But allowing the right knowledge to transform us is more important than just knowing some information, being able to wow your friends with trivia, or passing a test.

What Paul wants us to do is really believe in the depths of our being.  To allow our beliefs to wash through our body and come out in the way we live.  For a belief that is kept in the head and not expressed in the hands and feet is not a true belief.  It's just us deceiving ourselves.  And if we won't be the hands and feet of Jesus' head, who will be? 

James wrote:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  James 1:22-27 (ESV).

Let's stop lying.  We have places to go and new clothes to put on to get us there.

Committed to God more than to Ourselves

The author or Total Church shares a story of an incident at his church.

“Matt rang to ask what he should do.  His friend George has asked him to go street preaching.  Matt wasn’t interested but didn’t know how to respond.  So the three of us got together.  As the conversation began, it was clear that George thought we were selling out in some way.  But as we talked about sharing our lives with unbelievers, about evangelism that was 24/7, about opening our homes, George’s tone changed.  At the end of our conversation he admitted, “I’m not sure if I’m up for that kind of commitment.”

We would like an easy out.  Our fallen nature would like to be right with God by going to church every time the doors open, evangelize one night a week, and have the rest of our lives to ourselves.  But this just is not being a Christian.  There are reasons that we come to church and gather together – I think it is extremely important, but I think the most important places to worship God is at our workplaces and in our homes.  Our faith, if it stays in this building, is no faith at all.  And our faith, if it remains only words, is a mockery of the life Jesus intends for us to live. 

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.   James 1:22-27 (ESV)

There is a danger in talking about loving people in that we can talk about it so much that we deceive our hearts and believe that we are doing it.  God is not impressed with us if we just sit around and talk about loving others.  He enjoys us when we actually go out and do something.  It can be small like giving our neighbors a present, it can be significant like giving someone a car, it’s helping out and meeting people’s need however we can.

If we have money as Paul taught in Ephesians 4 when talking about the new self and old self, then we are to use that money - not to fulfill our own dreams of having our dream home, nicer cars, or something for ourselves - to help those in need.  Most churches do not have the resources to significantly help people because we are like the Israelites at the time of Haggai the prophet (Haggai 1).  We spend all of our resources on our homes and our own desires while the work of the church struggles on.  So we, as a church find small things to help people in, but we could do so much more if we were all committed financially to ministering through the church, committed more than we are to our homes, to our cars, our entertainment, or other indulgences of this world.  Are we living our live for things that will last or for things that will pass away?

The church is a great tool to help us be who God intends for us to be.  But if we just talk church, go to classes, listen to sermons, yet do not let Jesus’ life of love shine out from us, then we are guilty of a grave sin.  Pure and undefiled religion is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  We see the pendulum swinging here, a struggle within the faith.  Some like to abstain from sin and think that makes them right with God.  Others like to do loving deeds and think that makes them right with God.  The truth is that it is a combination of the two that is pure and undefiled religion.

In the documentary, Lord Save us From Your Followers, Tony Campolo shares the following illustration:

When I was in high school there was this boy name Roger.  He was outed - a gay kid and his homosexual orientation became known.  West Philadelphia High was a huge and tough inner-city school.  You can imagine what we did fifty years ago when ignorance prevailed on this issue.  We humiliated this kid at every turn.

On Fridays, after phys-ed, when all of the other kids would go into the shower Roger wouldn’t go in with us; he was afraid to.  When he took his turn we waited for him with our wet towels, and when he would come out, we would whip him and sting his little body.

I wasn’t there the day that they took Roger and dragged him into that shower room

and shoved him into the corner.  While he yelled and screamed for mercy, five guys urinated all over him.  I wasn’t there when that happened.

He went home.  He went to bed at about ten o’clock.  They say it was about two o’clock in the morning when Roger went down into the basement of his house and he hung himself.  I knew I wasn’t a Christian because if I was a Christian, I would have been Roger’s friend.  You don’t have to legitimate somebody’s lifestyle in order to love that person, to be brother or sister to that person, and to stand up for that person.

A true faith, one that isn’t just about me being sinless and me getting to heaven, lives itself out through meeting other people’s needs.  It is about befriending the friendless, giving to those who are not able to give back, and loving those around us any opportunity that we get.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.  James 2:18-26 (ESV).

Legalism's Attack on Unity - A Discussion on Essentials (Part Four)

The more legalistic we get, the more divided we become.  Look at the remnants of the Restoration Movement, that’s the movement our churches were birthed out of in the 1800s.  We started as a unity movement trying to be like the early church.  It was our goal to restore that church we see in the New Testament, something we still have a lot of room to work on.  Our movement allowed anyone from any denomination to join around the Lord’s table as brothers and sisters for the Lord’s Supper.  We accepted anyone, no matter what denomination they were part of, as brothers or sisters in Christ if they claimed to be His follower and showed fruit, and we did not expect them to leave the denomination they were part of but to remain part of that group and to help the churches they were involved in to put an emphasis on studying Scripture.

Now, we, a mockery of unity, have three major strands, the Disciples, us as the independent Churches of Christ/Christian Church, and the non-instrumental Church of Christ, as well as many minor strands.  As legalism over certain pet doctrines solidified over the years, sectarianism crept in, and people refused to accept one another as brothers and sisters in Christ over issues such as musical instruments, baptism, supporting missionaries more centrally, local autonomy, drinking, and the list goes on and on to the shame of us and the disgrace of Jesus.  Gandhi as an outside observer of Christianity had it right, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” 

In the more legalistic settings, people seem to fake that they believe certain things or hide their “inappropriate” behaviors because they want to be accepted by the legalistic leader or group.  Once we create an environment where people have to fake and hide things, which a broad list of essentials inevitably fosters, then we cannot have true fellowship with one another.  I once went to a church where the official stance of the church was that people in their church should not drink.  What happened?  Most of the people hid that they drank.  This unscriptural teaching on drinking led to falsehood.  Fellowship - real, authentic community in Christ - becomes impossible in an environment where people are fake, secretive, and deceptive. 

When we stray from being people of love into people of legalism - I’ve seen this with most legalistic churches - we stop loving people, we stop meeting their needs, and we just worry about the truth.  But a truth that does not spur us toward love is not the truth of Jesus.  And legalism causes us to refuse to love others with people who are different than us.  We should never refuse to do loving actions with someone because they believe differently than us.  If we are loving others, then we should look at the opportunity to show God’s love no matter how that opportunity presents itself.  For so long, the church would not love unless the love was done in a way that directly presented a verbal gospel rather than just loving people.  If the reason we are loving others is to get them to believe what we believe, then our love is not sincere and it is just a form of manipulation.  Our heart must be as pure as we can get it to be in order for our love to be genuine, as Scripture states our love should be (Romans 12:9, 2 Corinthians 6:6)

James wrote, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” [James 1:26-27 (ESV)].

I know “religion” has become a dirty word in today’s world.  But if this is religion – visiting orphans and helping orphans while being in the word yet remaining unstained from it, then I want to be religious.  Pure and undefiled religion.  It’s the type of church we need to be.  If we are not people who take care of orphans and widows and remain unstained from the world – if we think that talking about Jesus is enough, then we are deceiving ourselves like James warned and are far from being the people God wants us to be. 

If we believe in a minimal set of essentials in order to foster unity and freedom in Christ, then let us refuse the ensnarement of legalism, the desire to broaden the essentials to exclude others, and our tendency to look down on others to puff ourselves up.  Instead, may we be servants like Jesus was.  May we focus on the essentials of loving God, loving neighbors, loving one another, developing the fruit of the Spirit in our life, and continue to proclaim that Jesus is Lord.  In that we will find unity and freedom in Christ.