Kelly's Blog

There’s nothing like visiting shut-ins to get some perspective on what Christianity is actually about.

Today’s Issues, Etc. included a segment on Ed Young’s new book Sexperiment, and his message series about Christians and sex. Contrasted with a recent shut-in visit I was privileged to attend, it made me angry. (Listen to the segment here.)

Serious trials, difficulties, and doubts afflict many in the church. I don’t mean first-world problems addressed in trendy sermon series that pose handy-dandy principles that were the furthest things in mind from St. Paul as he was writing. I mean staring death in the face, fearing abandonment, not knowing which choices to make, asking “Where is God?” Messages like Young’s, sometimes endless messages lasting weeks or even months, have NOTHING to offer these people. These messages will tell you that if you just make the right life choices, things will be fine and God will be pleased with you. They tell you that the Christian life is about consistent, measurable results and improvement, feeling “blessed” in God’s presence, living a no-regrets life, and winning God’s rewards through obedience to the questionable principles that the pastor has gleaned from a collection of random verses. It sells.

Pithy quotes and this moral or spiritual “upward mobility” is meaningless to one facing the reality of their own mortality. It might be attractive for awhile to the young and gung-ho (or those pretending to be). But it leaves a person empty and cold in the face of death. Where is God when I don’t feel blessed, when I don’t seem to sense his presence, when things get worse and not better and better, when regrets and sins are real, when “just try a little harder on such-and-such this week” is not going to work?

It’s then– and always– that we have to remember that the chief symbol of Christianity is not a smiley-face sunshine or daisies. It’s a man being tortured and dying on a cross. Christianity is about death and resurrection, not about making a good choice and gradually improving yourself as a result. In Christ, Christians know how to live, but we need above all to learn how to die, and to trust another to raise us again. That is ALL that will matter when our final hours draw near. The presence of Jesus is the presence of the cross, his own broken body and blood given for the life of the world. The glory of Jesus is his death for sinners. The reality of the Christian life is comprehended in pain and suffering. Our salvation is accomplished with a cry of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Blessed are those who, in their trials, are driven to Christ crucified instead of to their own hearts.

Thank God that Lent is coming soon…

Recently, Issues Etc. did an interview with Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori. One FB poster commented that her answers to questions reminded him of another interview by Ted Haggard, former head of the National Association of Evangelicals. He said: “When discussing what the whole point of their religion is, they both talked about a social gospel of sorts. One was about conservative social values and personal transformation. The other liberal social values and environmentalism. When asked about the Gospel, they both said that it’s PART of what Christianity is about. But apparently, not that central.”

The poster makes a valid point about the similarities between many American churches that consider themselves “conservative” vs. “progressive” or “liberal.” Some years ago, Don Matzat had an article called “The New Liberals” that discussed the adoption of a liberal theological mindset among today’s conservatives, particularly along the lines of a desperate desire to appear culturally relevant. I think there are a number of “conservative” starting points among various individuals and churches that eventually may easily lend themselves to liberal theology.

1) Law/Gospel confusion. As the aforementioned FB commenter said, a common denominator is the disappearance of the centrality of the Gospel. We used to associate “love is all you need” with a more liberal dismissal of doctrine and objective truth in favor of “love.” But it is just as common to hear Christians of a more conservative type say that the most important teaching of Christianity is “love God and love your neighbor” (notice that the Law has become the most prominent teaching of Christianity). Such emphasis on the Law may result in sermon after sermon on personal betterment and moral transformation, or it may result in an emphasis on social justice issues or environmentalism. It’s ultimately the same message. Evangelicals disillusioned with the navel-gazing of charting their sanctification progress do not have far to go to look to the post-Evangelical “Emergent” emphasis on social and global issues.

2) Pragmatism and “mission” by any means possible. In conservative circles, an emphasis on the church’s mission was necessarily tempered by the desire to remain faithful to the Word. Charles Finney’s 19th-century revivalism and its successor, the Church Growth Movement, began changing that. New measures were employed in the American church with the question, “Is it fit to convert sinners with? Does it work?” The big tents went up, the popular and dynamic speakers were chosen, and sensationalism reigned. Conservative Christians had begun with the idea that the church’s job is to get everyone into heaven and out of hell; over time, such an important mission would be seen as something that the church could try to use any means possible to achieve. Church groups like Bill Hybel’s Willow Creek Association began to question Scripture’s teaching on women’s ordination, eventually rejecting it. After all, pragmatically speaking, if women have certain “gifts” and the goal is to get people out of hell, any means possible is best if it works, right? Conservative evangelicals had come up with spiritual gifts inventories a few decades back; who is anyone to tell ME that I can’t use whatever gifts and talents that I am successful with to serve the greater good?

The acceptance of women’s ordination is a good example of where “mission at all cost” can lead. Just today, I noticed on a FB page of activists promoting WO that one woman (raised in a conservative church, by all appearances) used Matthew 28 as justification for the idea that all believers are called to be “ministers,” presumably including preaching and baptizing. Conservative evangelical churches are taught this application all the time these days; in fact, it’s one of their most important passages. Historically, Christians have not interpreted this passage this way, but rather as an institution of Jesus’ authority of the forgiveness of sins given to the church through the Office of the Ministry, including the institution of Baptism. Once conservative Christians notice that the passage does not talk about sharing your personal testimony or going on mission trips, but rather involves pastoral teaching and baptizing, it’s not a far shot for them to assume that all believers should therefore be able to be ordained. And if you’re not okay with that, then you obviously don’t care about all those people going to hell– you’re not mission-minded!

3) Privatization of the Bible, in general. If you are sitting alone with your Bible and you think that God is speaking to your heart, and you’ve got no particular confession of faith you’ve subscribed to, then the Bible can become putty in your hands. Whatever you “feel called to do,” validated by positive circumstances around you that seem to affirm whatever it is you’ve decided you want to do, and validated by fellow Christians encouraging you to go ahead with it, is sufficient for knowing truth. Subjective relativism is not far behind. This goes along with…

4) The primacy of the individual. In the past it was called “soul liberty” or “individual freedom,” a casting off of church hierarchy and creedalism. In North America, it found fertile ground and remains an important component of both political and Christian “conservative” values. You forge your own spiritual destiny. You choose your life path, exercise ultimate control over your nature, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and are responsible for how transformed your life becomes and how successful you are. It’s not hard to draw a direct line between this conservative mindset and the liberal mindset that values “choice” above all (as seen in the rallying cry of the pro-abortionists).

A few years ago, I read an article by a liberal Baptist pastor who spoke of his gradual acceptance of homosexuality as a lifestyle. His rationale? The doctrine of the age of accountability. If it can be possibly demonstrated that homosexuals (like infants) don’t really have choice, they can’t be held accountable, right? It just wouldn’t be fair of God to condemn people who can’t make a decision– isn’t that what had always been taught with regard to infants? If this is the case, maybe we’ve been wrong… maybe sin isn’t really sin. Likewise, a trend among conservative Christians, even ones that emphasize “missions,” is that we can’t necessarily assume that those who haven’t heard and received the Gospel in faith are really condemned. They don’t have “choice” so it just wouldn’t be fair, or so the thought goes.

Probably very many other examples could be found of ideas that have been considered “conservative” in many churches, serving as a transition to liberalism. In many cases (such as the desire for cultural relevance), these were largely ideas that were borrowed from liberalism in the first place. Chesterton said that it was the business of Progressives to go on making mistakes, and the business of Conservatives to prevent these mistakes from being corrected. In the church, the common denominator seems to be #1– the confusion of Law and Gospel, and the obfuscation of the Gospel in general. The Law becomes dominant, becoming a celebration of the human will and its accomplishments, and a wagging finger against those who don’t measure up to the list of culturally-accepted do’s and don’ts. The solution is a Law that kills, that exposes our true depravity and helplessness, and a Jesus that does not merely help and inspire but lives, dies, and rises for the forgiveness of sins and our salvation.

Reading Sasse’s This is My Body, particularly the section on the Marburg Colloquy, has greatly clarified the distinctions between the different reformers (i.e., Luther vs. Zwingli) on the efficacy of God’s Word. Luther and Zwingli had many differences. You learn quickly that the topic of the Lord’s Supper is not an isolated subject, but that your concept of justification, the natures of Christ, the role of the Spirit, and any number of issues play into the outcome of your view of the Lord’s Supper.

Any catechized Lutheran should know that the Word was central to Luther’s approach to the Supper. It is said that during the meeting at Marburg, he wrote the words “This is my body” on the table in chalk, and basically dared anyone to prove that God’s Word meant something other than its plain sense. The Words of Institution are the seat of the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper. Zwingli and other reformers disdained this focus on the Institution, preferring to discuss John 6, trying to draw out various rationalizations for their position. One issue that comes up is the very efficacy of the Word. It was unthinkable to the more radical reformers that the Word should be efficacious unless it was combined with faith– or, perhaps, unless the Holy Spirit personally instilled that Word with power, something impossible to predict. But for Luther and the conservative Reformation, the Spirit and the Word went together. When God spoke, it happened! And, for that matter, what he commands, we are to do. In the case of the Supper, if Jesus instituted something (”this do”) and says “This is my body,” then his very Word and institution make it so. The external Word is for our salvation; it does not depend on some internalization on our part in order for it to be true or powerful.

This actually has huge implications for the way that we approach the Word of God in general. We need to ask ourselves: What does God mean to give me or tell me in his Word? What is it that I’m looking here to find? Do I need to be in some special state of mind in order for God’s Word and promises to be real and true for me? Do I need to plead with God to speak to me in order to hear his voice? Am I only blessed by the Word if I sense some special insights or receive wisdom for making my life better?

God’s Word is there to testify to Jesus and deliver him to you (i.e. John 5:39; 20:31). His Law tells you his demands and how you have failed to live up to them; his Gospel gives you the promise of your Savior, and works faith in you to trust that Word for your salvation. This is a living and active Word, a double-edged sword. Certainly, we pray and ask God for faith and for rightly receiving his Word. But the fact is that through his Word, his Spirit is present and he is speaking to us whether we feel particularly spiritual or insightful or not.

This also has implications on Sunday morning as a whole. Some will look at a church that faithfully preaches and confesses the Word of God, but conclude that it is all nothing but “dead orthodoxy” because the people in the pews do not look very exciting or like super-saints. They clearly do not “sense the Spirit.” They aren’t extroverts, they haven’t signed up for any mission trips, they’re not in small groups, their numbers are not too great or are not growing, whatever the current trend may be for evaluating real Christians. For Lutherans, it is unthinkable that a church could be called “dead” out of hand for these kinds of reasons, if the Word of God is taught and confessed. The Word is not dead, but living, as is the Christ who is present in the midst of his church through that Word. You should never have to wonder whether Christ will be present at church on a Sunday in a special way for you and for your salvation. “I hope God shows up” are words of unbelief in the Word and promises of God; not unlike Zwingli’s assertion that Christ is present everywhere and nowhere– and certainly not on the altar by virtue of his Word. Such an undefined God is nigh on impossible to grasp through faith, because faith must cling to an external object. Clinging to thoughts in our hearts or heads cannot be the way to go, and will result only in confusion and uncertainty, a vague “experience” of God through tidbits of wisdom, practical advice, or spiritual-sounding platitudes that we’ve managed to extract from our encounter with the Word.

Some random thoughts as I keep working on this Lord’s Supper Q&A book…

I was listening to an excellent IE interview with Dr. Nagel the other day in which he discusses why God would have us go to church. Included in the discussion were a number of popular reasons why people say that they go to church, and comments on the strengths or deficiencies in each of these ideas. In a nutshell, going to church isn’t so much about having your batteries recharged, or meeting with your like-minded social group, or learning stuff about Jesus (from a distance), or fulfilling your obligation of obedience. It’s about receiving the words and gifts of Jesus himself, given to us for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

There was an interesting call taken during the show from a listener who said that she doesn’t go to church to bother so much about “fellowship”– she’s been burned too much by fellow church members. She said that she goes to church to show God how great and worthy she thinks he is, citing the popular reference of the word “worship” as meaning “worth-ship.” Dr. Nagel dealt gently with this burned-out believer, affirming what she said about the centrality of Jesus in worship. You get the impression that the interviewer was, perhaps, thinking of a different question when he asks Dr. Nagel in response to the caller: “Does God need our worship?”

Here is yet another reason that people say that they go to church: to show God how great they think that he is. Some of this comes from the common explanation of “worship” as “worth-ship,” citing the English development of the word as its definition. As a result of this dictionary definition and etymological approach, many Christians have a general idea that the main point behind going to church is to worship God by showing him how great and worthy they think he is. It is as if God is a spectator in the distant heavens who delights in human compliments, and our weekly job is to put on a little show for him to assure him and each other that we really do think he’s all that. So we try to boost up his “glory count” by aiming our efforts, pious good intentions, promises of love and commitment, and worshipful deeds to the heavens. This conception of Sunday morning worship is primarily sacrificial in character.

As a general rule, beware of using English dictionaries and English etymology as the starting point of your approach to biblical concepts. I know this is a common approach in “populist” preaching or study, but it runs a high risk of inaccuracy. If we want to know what the Bible teaches about “worship” or the point of meeting on Sunday morning, we should go straight to the Scriptures, and look not only for teaching on worship, but on CHRISTIAN worship, the worship of God’s people throughout time. What’s the point of trying to develop a vague, generic definition of worship– one that applies equally to pagan and Christian alike– and use it as the norm for acceptable, biblical worship? I recall (also from an IE broadcast) hearing a pastor who shared a clip from a Justin Bieber concert at his church. He said, “This is worship. Now why can’t the worship of the true God look like as exciting this?” It is as absurd as Elijah looking at the antics of the prophets of Baal and saying, “Look how zealous their worship is. Worshippers of the true God should really be paying attention!”

So yes– in English, it is common to use the word “worship” to denote any kind of reverent (?) honor paid to a god, or even an object. But in the Bible, there is true worship and then there is idolatry. So when speaking of Christian worship and going to church, let’s be a little more specific than “worship is showing someone how awesome I think he is.”

Is God the passive spectator on Sunday morning? Does he need a boost of compliments to get him through the week? As the interviewer said, “Does God need our worship?” Our piety, our promises, our good intentions, our pledges to improve morally, our happy and inspired emotions about him? The problem is that focusing primarily on church time as “showing God his worth-ship” is that this means that every single Sunday morning is an utter failure, to say nothing of an impossible burden. God is worth infinitely more than we could ever give, show, or emote. He needs absolutely nothing from us.

This comes back to the point that Dr. Nagel was hammering home in his interview. We are there at church, first and foremost, to receive from God… to receive through his Word the promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation that we have in Christ crucified for us. And we confess that Word back: we confess according to the Law that we are indeed sinners. We confess according to the Gospel the truth of God’s promises, and then we respond to praise and thank him accordingly. We are at church because we subsist on every word that comes from the mouth of God. This difference in the definition of the Sunday morning service is as different as the distinction between pagan religion and Christian religion. We don’t gather to give God an extra boost; we gather to receive his free gift of salvation. God’s glory is in showing mercy to sinners; faith is the highest form of worship. As our Confessions say, “Faith is that worship which receives the benefits that God offers… God wants to be honored by faith so that we receive from him those things that he promises and offers” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV, 49).

You can hear the whole interview here.

The lives of the people of God, as we read them from Scripture, have much to teach us: how to imitate their faith and good works, for example. And primarily, learn a lot about the God of mercy and compassion, who called these people to himself apart from their own merit or worthiness, entered into covenant with them, and forgave their many sins, even as he does with us.

Yet, sometimes the lives of these people, and the various mighty deeds of God, are treated rather curiously by teachers of God’s Word.

You get the impression sometimes, from Bible studies and sermons of various stripes, that the miracles and stories of the people of God that are recounted in various places in the Old and New Testaments are a little embarrassing, or at least hopelessly irrelevant. What, really, does this have to do with us today? It’s a good question, but the answers can be odd in the attempt to make them sufficiently relevant for us very practical modern men and women.

Sometimes, tremendous virtues are attributed to the characters we read about, and the Bible teacher believes it’s their job to take us step-by-step through all of the decisions that said character made which led to his or her success. This, somehow, will guarantee success for us, too. Their flaws are largely overlooked (or even treated as virtues). And if they’re too flawed, then multiple characters are strung together, and one pieces together the image of a super-saint from all the things that different people did right. Want to be a good parent? Well, just do this good thing that Moses did, that good thing that David did, and these two things that ________ did, and voila! Awesome “biblical parenting”!

If God gives a command to an OT prophet, NT preacher, or anyone else, many Bible teachers assume that this command is directed at each one of us, as well. After all, we’re an egalitarian society; those old prophets are no better than we are, right? We’ve got the Holy Spirit; we can and should do everything they can! One problem, of course, comes from the fact that we really don’t hear audible voices from heaven giving us direct revelation. So, we have to “spiritualize” their experience to make it something that we can do. And you end up with just a lame set of rules that are supposed to be somehow spiritually enhancing, but really just exchange a great miracle for a lesser one of our own making– even if we somehow still try to attribute it to God. You can get a pretty anemic reading of God’s Word this way. But it’s done, all in the name of making what looks like an otherwise irrelevant passage seem relevant.

Take the story of Gideon testing God by laying out the fleece. Now, Gideon was a pretty great hero, used mightily by God. We want to emulate him, and be great heroes used mightily by God, too, right? So, some teachers suggest we should be “laying out fleeces” to test God’s will, too. God will miraculously (in some subtle way, probably through feelings of “peace” or whatnot) reveal his will to us as well, and we will go on to conquer our demons and live in victory. Never mind the fact that Gideon’s actions here were signs of weakness, doubt, and unbelief. Never mind that God never told him to ask for a sign, having already revealed himself and his will to him. (Doesn’t Gideon’s angel in Veggie Tales even offer to do a miraculous sign for him? Again, whitewashing the character of Gideon into more of a super-saint than he is.)

I think the ultimate problem here is that we don’t find Bible passages “relevant” unless they contain explicit instructions (or maybe at least warnings) for us in what we should or shouldn’t do. If your brand of Christianity centers itself on Life Change and personal moral transformation, those Bible stories can be especially hard to parse. What can we learn from this, if not to gain success and “victory” in our Christian walk?

Well, we could gain CHRIST. We could gain a good understanding of our own sinful nature, undoubtedly shared by those people of faith that we read about. We could see ourselves in their failings, their brokenness, their half-baked attempts at justifying themselves. We could realize that few, if any, Bible characters had the kind of lives that we hope to achieve through our sweating through spiritual exercises and checklists of good decision-making. God hasn’t promised us easy lives of trackable upward progress. A lot of the “success stories” of the Bible had incredibly hard lives and may have even been martyred. This is not exactly what our consumer culture, which tends to influence these odd Bible studies, appreciates.

At the risk of insulting our old Adam and our quests for “purposeful” lives, we’re not called to be Bible superstars or do every single thing that the great saints of old were called to do. You and I have actually not been instructed to lay out fleeces, get out of the boat and walk on water, do baby dedications, baptize and teach as per Matt. 28 (unless you’re a pastor), strive to have some pleasurable, mystical experience of the thrice-holy God as per Isaiah 6 (Isaiah didn’t), etc. Let’s quit making those great things anemic by allegorizing them to the point of essential meaninglessness, just so we can think we’re part of it all.

If you really want to be part of it all, realize that your place in the Great Story of God’s people is, like most other people’s, pretty mundane. It’s not about you, or even about your somewhat-good intentions to give God glory by humbly pretending to be a Bible super-hero. The Bible is, in fact, all about Jesus. If we make anything else the center of our reading, we exchange the great miracles for our own lesser (even counterfeit) miracles, hoping against hope to make the text relevant (read: consumer-friendly). But the fact that we’re sinners saved by grace is always relevant and always applicable. It sure does make the Bible make a lot more sense.

The crazy NASCAR prayer set me off on this line of thinking the other day. The pastor who prayed it later claimed that he did so because he thought that maybe people would be intrigued by what he said, and would consider going to church the following Sunday.

It’s become clear by now that a lot of strange things fly under the radar these days in the name of “relevance,” and in trying to interest people in Christianity by any means possible. What surprised me almost as much as the inanity of this pastor’s offering were the number of Christians who saw absolutely no problem with it. After all, wasn’t this pastor just giving thanks for everything, like the Bible says we should? Wasn’t he trying to be “relevant” in his surroundings? If you can claim that something was done to reach unbelievers, this is supposed to be a gag order on any detractors who think you might have stepped over the line. “Missions” is a trump card.

You really do not have to go that far back into the church’s history to see that a drastic shift of thought has taken place along these lines. There was a time when the church did not see itself as needing to be as non-churchly as possible in order to have relevance to those who hated it. There was a time when Christians almost universally acknowledged and respected sacred space, the holiness of the sacraments (and even ordinances), and the awe of approaching the presence of God in church, in his Word, in prayer. But as they say in our culture, nothing is sacred. The church, of all institutions, should strive to preserve its integrity in the face of a world that has gone wholeheartedly casual, consumerist, and pleasure-seeking. Somewhere along the line, the church decided that it would be a good idea to follow the flow of culture and let it set the church’s agenda. By giving people what they want, it was thought, the church would be relevant and understandable to its surrounding (hedonistic) culture. And those stuffy Christians who don’t like it, well, they’re just not as cool as we are AND they don’t care about the lost! (Trump card.)

But has it even worked? Has taking all sense of holiness out of the church’s life really converted the unbelievers, or made better Christians out of the Christians? Has making everything incredibly easy, over-simplified, and entertaining promoted real growth? Are Christians growing more and more cool and hip in the eyes of the world, or more and more scorn-worthy?

I suppose that you can try to make faith “relevant” with pop culture parodies while making light out of the awesome privilege of prayer. But more likely than not, even unbelievers will ridicule your lack of reverence and your desperate attempts to be cool. And the people who like it will have imbibed some extremely wrong ideas about Christianity through the means by which you’ve conducted yourself.

There’s an alternative way for faith to be relevant to daily life without all conversations with God sounding like texts to your BFF, or for the administration of the sacraments to resemble Senior Week at the ocean, or for the catechesis of children to look like a trip to Six Flags, etc. etc. In fact, nothing could make faith seem smaller and more irrelevant than this. If the message of Christ crucified and the forgiveness of sins is true, then the message is always relevant and always gloriously good. Attempting a bait-and-switch with the Gospel is to tell people that the candy coating is the truly good stuff, and the Gospel is the bitter pill that you’ve tricked them into accepting along with the candy. In fact, could it be that people might actually find some value in something of transcendence, something counter-cultural, timeless, and stable– something that’s not about advertising and bait-and-switch?

What we need here is real Law and Gospel. God is holy, and you are a sinner. This isn’t nice-sounding and frankly, there’s no way to sugar-coat it. You are going to die someday. You’re already dying. You’re in no position to try to cozy up to the all-holy God on your own terms for the sake of some watered-down religion of positive life principles and family-friendly biblical advice. What you need is forgiveness, and this is exactly what you have in the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Jesus. There is no greater gift. Receive it, continually, in all the reverent joy that the occasion of worship demands. “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29).

Alex has already given the play-by-play of the Coram Deo conference we went to, so I’ll just add a few words about youth conferences in general, and what I like about Higher Things.

I’ve been to loads of youth events in my life, and followed several others from reports after the fact. Some have been more fluffy, and some have valued more in-depth teaching. One thing that has been fairly ubiquitous at large youth events: a deliberate, calculated use of teenage emotional manipulation. Youth are passionate people, so attempts are made to sway them with heart-wrenching stories, emotional microphone crooning, hyped-up mob mentality and peer pressure, and maybe a dollop of guilt and uncertainty about their faith so they’ll be worried into making a re-commitment to Jesus. The success of the conference is based on how effective these means are in moving people sufficiently into making decisions, or feeling the “Spirit” through the mountaintop experience, and so on. In other words, Revivalism 101, the legacy of Finney.

I like the Higher Things conferences because they think more of youth than all that.

Higher Things is not really interested in impressing teens with a “wow factor.” They don’t assume that teens won’t think Jesus is worth much unless he’s presented as a sexy icon of youth pop culture. And, blessedly, they don’t treat youth like 8-year-olds who cannot survive for 5 minutes without being entertained by their religion.

“It’s been said in America that we worship our work, we work at our play, and we play at our worship. At Higher Things, when we worship we worship, when we work we work, and when we play we play!”

Higher Things keeps everything in their proper realm. Each day, there were three or four times of corporate worship, and it wasn’t what is sometimes deemed “youth worship.” It was counter-cultural, transcultural, universal Christian worship, the same services that are done in the youth’s own home congregations. (Why would anyone want to create a scenario where youth come home from a conference, and are bummed out by the lack of comparative entertainment value in their normal Sunday morning church??) By conducting services this way, the message is sent to youth: “We’re treating you like adults, like the members of the body of Christ that you are. This isn’t a faith that you’re going to grow out of in a year or two, something you’ll look back on and be embarrassed about. It’s a faith that you can grow into for the rest of your life. That thing that happens on Sunday morning at your home church, with babies and little kids and teens and middle-aged adults and old people, all receiving Christ’s gifts together, not separated and segregated? That’s valuable.”

When we worked, we worked: there were a large number of different classes and topics that we could choose from in our schedule. Catechesis and topics were youth-appropriate and included some really fun speakers, but learning was taken seriously. Our plenary speakers took us through the whole book of Romans, and explained the difference between salvation by faith alone versus faith plus works. Holding the conference and the different classes on a college campus reflected the reality that many of these youth would be experiencing shortly themselves in the realm of education. There was also a chance for working on a service project: LWR care kits.

And playtime was playtime. There were many choices for our daily schedule: water park, rock climbing, movies, assorted sports, etc. It wasn’t a preachy kind of entertainment that was loaded with Christianese, but just a chance to let loose, relax, and have fun. And to my knowledge, there were no really silly and childish games more fit for elementary school kids; what Gene Veith once called “stupid youth group tricks.”

The conferences are definitely intense, but they’re also really enjoyable for youth (and adults alike). There was a proper distinction and application of Law and Gospel– you are a damned sinner under the Law, and you are completely and fully forgiven and justified in Jesus. None of this: “Are you really sure you’re completely sold out to Jesus? Are you radical enough? Are you sincere enough? Did you really, really mean it when you decided to follow Jesus? Are you being a ’soul-winner,’ as all real Christians should be? Do you feel God telling you to do something right now, make certain life choices? Maybe you should come up front to pray, just in case…”

You just have to really respect the fact that at the HT conference, no one was trying to impress the youth with anything except JESUS, and the full and free forgiveness we have in his name.

1.) It is not enough to be a “Bible-believing” Christian. Camping dissed organized churches and their statements of faith and doctrine, apparently oblivious to the fact that he (like everyone else) had them too. Lots of people claim to be Bible-believing; that doesn’t mean anything unless you can say what it is that you believe. You can be Bible-believing and still be dead wrong.

2.) Pulling lots of different Bible passages from across the Bible to try to prove your point while preaching doesn’t make you right. Camping did that, too, with his eschatology. Jack van Impe also comes to mind; he likes to do it rapid-fire so you’re impressed by how many passages he’s quoting, even if they hardly make sense to his argument in context. You can be a Bible-quoting preacher or layperson and still be dead wrong.

3.) Even talking about Jesus a lot doesn’t mean that you’re giving your hearers what they need to know about salvation. If Jesus is mainly your coach, and the cross and the forgiveness of sins is a mere footnote in your sermon, you’ve missed the point.

4.) “The Changed Life” isn’t the Gospel. Camping’s followers certainly had changed lives. These Christians had sincere zeal for spreading their beliefs; they wanted people to repent and be saved from God’s wrath. Surely, many gave up a lot of vices and earthly riches in order to pursue what they believed God wanted for their lives. “How could such a transformation be anything BUT the Holy Spirit?” Well, that’s easy. People have willpower for basic moral life change. Certainly atheists can be motivated to have a changed life by any number of factors. Mormons and JWs have changed lives, and they’re happy to use that as a proof and focus of their message to you. Christian: don’t preach like an atheist or a Mormon.

5.) Don’t ignore the plain sense of Scripture. Camping claimed to favor a literal interpretation of the Bible, but also held to a “spiritual” sense of the words, leading to bizarre claims about the 153 fish and Noah’s ark that somehow worked into dates for the end of the world. God’s Word is not only for creative math types; it’s for everyone. Don’t be puffed up by your own inventive connect-the-dots, especially if you have to ignore the plain meaning of a passage to do so.

6.) Point six is “1 + 5″ on my list here: Christianity is not you sitting at home alone with your Bible. The orthodox faith is not a private thing. Camping urged listeners to stop going to organized churches altogether in favor of personal Bible reading and listening to his radio program. Bible reading is good, but the Bible itself gives it to us first and foremost as the preached Word of the faith that was once delivered to the saints. “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? … So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10). Likewise, 2 Timothy 3:16 is given by Paul in a discourse to a young pastor on what he needs to preach to his hearers. Read your Bible, but don’t pretend you don’t really need a pastor, a church, or the first 2,000 years of Christianity. New heresies are just old heresies that have been recycled. A crash course in church history could clear up a lot of deception that is floating around within Christendom today.

7.) Because people will fail you, cling to the cross of Christ. Let God be true, and every man a liar. He has called you by name. He has baptized you into his death and resurrection. He is your true Shepherd when the hirelings go into hiding, deserting the sheep, and the wolves come calling. He has already overcome the world.

If you know what someone’s church and theology is, you can sometimes hazard a good guess which parts in any number of different Bible passages will jump out at them. Whatever main theme they see will be the root and center of their pastor’s sermon, the “nugget” that he wants them to take home. It’ll be what gets talked about most in Bible study, if that passage comes up. Here’s an exercise that might help you figure out your hermeneutical key. Look up the following Bible passages. Before reading any further down this post, take a few notes on each passage. What really leaps out at you? If you pastor preached on this passage, what do you think would be the MAIN theme that he’d be hammering home? What might your Bible study group chat about most from this section of Scripture? (This is not to say that there is only one isolated idea that is important in a text, or that there can be no overlap, but this is a highly unprofessional and non-scientific study on first impressions.) Here are your passages:

1.) Isaiah 6
2.) Matthew 4:1-11
3.) Matthew 28:16-20
4.) Luke 10:25-37
5.) Acts 2
6.) Romans 6

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Done? Okay, starting with passage #1, which did your answer look most like? Or if I missed yours entirely, what was yours? (The responses are not all the same 3 theologies each time.)

“Wow, Isaiah must have really enjoyed that awesome and breathtaking vision of God. He probably would have stayed there all day, but God had a job for him. Isaiah’s great example of ‘Here am I, send me’ should be each and every one of our responses when God wants us to go evangelize.”

“Wow, Isaiah must have been terrified in the presence of a holy God. I’d be flat on my face, too, so dramatically faced with the reality of my own sin. Thank God he atones for our sins and takes them away through Jesus, so we can receive his Word and bear our crosses out in the world.”

“Wow, what an image of God’s sovereign majesty. See how he calls and equips Isaiah entirely by his own choosing, and then gives him words of judgment to speak on the unbelieving people, whom he predestined for judgment.”

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Passage #2…

“Following Jesus’ example, we need to memorize more Bible verses so that we, too, can master temptation. By the way, knowing Bible verses off by heart is also very effective when you go out to evangelize in your own personal ‘wilderness’ in life.”

“Following Jesus’ example, we can put Satan in his place and claim the power of God in our lives to give us the victory. No earthy trouble, sickness, or problem can stand against us!”

“Jesus is giving the devil a total smack-down. Rock on! Even there in the wilderness, he was overcoming the lies and deceit of the devil and redeeming us from the curse of sin, the screw-ups of Adam, the unbelief and unfaithfulness that hounds us. If that Jesus is for me, the devil has nothing on me.”

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Passage #3…

“The Great Commission, of course! Just one of the most important sections of the whole Bible, being about missions. Every one of us needs to GO and evangelize people, not only getting them to make their decisions for Jesus but authenticating that decision by helping them to be true Christ-followers (wholeheartedly obeying everything Jesus told us to do). Then we will be acting in obedience, too.”

“It’s amazing and comforting that Jesus is willing to use weak, believing-but-doubting men to carry out the apostolic and pastoral ministry of making disciples through Baptism and catechesis. As a church, we’re full of weak and sinful people, yet Jesus has promised to be in the midst of his church- and not just a “spiritual” Jesus or a memory of him, but his real, whole, body-and-soul self!”

“God clearly loves everyone and does not discriminate among people. We should exercise sensitivity as we go out among the different nations, making sure that we know that we do not condemn them, but speak of a God of love and inclusiveness.”

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Passage #4…

“What a stunning picture of how Jesus saves the helpless sinner who even despises him. He revives and cares for him, and entrusts the man to his church, providing for his continual care, until he comes again. We can’t justify ourselves by our deeds, the best of which are full of sin. But Jesus, who justifies us, also gives us a heart of mercy so that we can care for each other, fellow sinners saved by the same merciful God.”

“This parable is a clear picture of the application of one of the most important commandments: love your neighbor as yourself. You can’t be an uptight, religious person to do this; you’ve got to get down in the trenches and think outside of the box that you’ve put God into.”

“In the Good Samaritan, Jesus is giving us an example of going the extra mile to help someone who needs it. We should all be good Samaritans, even if it costs us our reputations, our finances, etc. In so doing, we show our obedience to the command: ‘Go and do likewise.’”

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Passage #5…

“Tongues! The church’s proof that the Holy Spirit is really in its midst. If the church would just recover the importance of tongues, and go back to being that on-fire, first-century church, we’d have people lining up and falling over themselves to join our ranks.”

“It’s cool how Peter demonstrates that the events of Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost are all there in the Old Testament, showing that the Scriptures are actually all about Jesus. When the Word of God convicts the crowd of their sin, Peter gives them the Gospel solution: repent (that is, turn away from sin and unbelief, and cling to Christ in faith) and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, for the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Thus the incredible birthday of the church, which continues to gather for the apostles’ teaching, the Supper, and prayer.”

“First, you see an incredible miracle to get the crowd’s attention. Then Peter delivers a hard-hitting sermon, and tells them to repent (that is, turn away from sin, make their decision for Jesus, and start doing good works instead), and they too will be saved and receive the Holy Spirit. I think God still expects the church to have the kind of experience it had on that day. If only we would apply these biblical principles today, we’d have thousands joining the church every day. Our problem is that we’re disobedient, we don’t dream big enough, we don’t have enough small groups or house churches, and the laypeople aren’t doing enough evangelism.”

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Passage #6…

“We can’t take God’s grace as a free-for-all. God always expects personal responsibility from people. We’re supposed to be dead to our sin and living a new life, just like we promised God we’d do when we were baptized. That event symbolized being buried with Jesus and rising to a new life of good deeds. Paul expects the Christian to be in full control of his passions so that sin doesn’t gain the upper hand; this passage is a command to obedience.”

“God’s grace in Jesus is so profound, and we sinners are so inclined to misunderstand it. He buries us with Jesus through Baptism and raises us with him to eternal life, also guaranteeing our final resurrection. He gives us all these precious promises through his death and resurrection, a free gift which also produces the fruits of sanctification in us. With each new day, we die to sin and rise anew with Christ in a life of continual repentance. Why wallow in the muck when eternal life is ours?”

“We must use the grace that God has placed in us and exercise it in order to progress in holiness. How have you been doing in your pursuit of holiness? Think of an area of your life that you can improve on during this coming week. We may not be perfect until after death, but we can at least be a lot closer to Jesus’ perfect righteousness than we are right now.”

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Well?