Tag Archives: evangelism

Was Jesus Really “Invisible” in Your Grandmother’s Church?

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I just read Scot McKnight and Tommy Phillips, Invisible Jesus: A Book About Leaving the Church and Looking for Jesus (Zondervan, 2024). I will not do a chapter-by-chapter review, but I want to share my thoughts.

The Argument

I decided to read this book for two reasons. First, one of the authors Scot McKnight wrote a very kind endorsement for my book, God, Freedom & Human Dignity (2013), and he is an insightful author. Second, I am also interested in the subject it addresses. A student in my current (Fall 2024) theology class brought to my attention his own process of “deconstruction” and return to faith. At first, I was confused because to me “deconstruction” refers to the French theory of literary interpretation, which assumes that works of literature never merely tell the truth or a good story but always construct a fictional world designed to preserve the power structures that advantage the author. The job of the interpreter is to sniff out (deconstruct) the ways the text seeks to deceive and dominate the reader. But I learned from the Invisible Jesus that the term “deconstruction” is now being used of people rethinking their Christian faith in critical ways. I suppose the term “deconstruction” fits what this group is doing because much of their critique focuses on exposing narratives that preserve abusive power structures within (mostly) evangelical and fundamentalist churches.

McKnight and Phillips paint a sympathetic picture of the “deconstructors.” They do not portray them as rebels, heretics, and anarchists. Deconstructors ask legitimate questions of their evangelical and fundamentalist churches. They challenge the hypocrisy of church leaders and question legalistic morality. They object to the church’s lack of concern for the poor and silence on racism and sexism. To them, the church seems too focused on money and right-wing politics. It’s too hierarchical, patriarchal, middle-class, and White. The deconstructors question the truth or importance of such doctrines as six-day creationism, male headship, ever-lasting punishment in hell, and the rapture.

McKnight and Phillips see deconstruction as a prophetic movement impelled by the Holy Spirit and in search of a Jesus-centered faith. Deconstruction is the negative side of many believers’ longing for a Jesus-shaped community of intimacy, generosity, equality, and inclusion. Deconstructors cannot see Jesus amid the institutional structures and activities of typical churches; hence the title of the book Invisible Jesus.

Analysis

Agreements

There is much to applaud in Invisible Jesus. Indeed, I made some of the same observations and critiques in my book Rethinking Church. Many churches are too clergy-dominated, stage-centered, and money-driven. We need to focus more on the Table of the Lord and small groups. Let every voice be heard. And let the way of Jesus, not corporate America, set the agenda. Amen! McKnight and Phillips are right to say that we ought to listen carefully and patiently to the deconstructors and learn from them.

Critical Observations

However I do have some concerns. (1) Over the last 5 to 10 years, exposing the evils of evangelicalism has become a cottage industry and a good strategy to get a book published by a major publisher.* I detect in McKnight and Phillips a mood that troubles me. Is it Uncharitableness? I don’t know how to characterize it. But there are many gratuitous barbs directed toward evangelicals. Perhaps this sharpness is related to the negative church experiences of the authors. Readers of the book will discover in the first chapter that both McKnight and Phillips think of themselves as deconstructors. They tell their own stories of deconstruction (pp. 5-10), which strikingly resemble the stories of many other deconstructors told in the book.

(2) In the opposite direction, McKnight and Phillips construct an almost wholly uncritical, even heroic, picture of the deconstructors. I don’t share their view. Do the deconstructors measure the faith of the churches they are leaving by the teachings of Jesus? Did they learn these lessons from Jesus alone? To the contrary, many of the deconstructors I know absorbed the values of progressive secular culture before or simultaneously with their departure from the evangelical church. And the Jesus they admire seems to champion secularized versions of toleration, peace, love, inclusion, equity, and diversity.

(3) It strikes me that the picture of a Jesus-centered church painted by Invisible Jesus is utopian or at least unhelpfully abstract. The real living church has always been imperfect and impure. The weeds always mix with the wheat. There will be disagreements even within a “Jesus-centered” church about what it means to be Jesus-centered! The authors leave the nature of this ideal church underdeveloped. Yes…we must love God and our neighbors, be kind, tolerant, take care of the needs of the hungry, naked, and homeless. But does doctrine, that is, the full range of biblical teaching, matter at all? Are there any rules for making sure that the powerful force of sexual attraction is used for good and not evil? What about marriage and divorce and abortion and LGBTQ+ ways of living? Is there any type of authority in the church?

(4) Perhaps I find myself somewhat critical of Invisible Jesus because McKnight and Phillips are writing to a different audience and dealing with a different problem than that with which I am most concerned. I do not deny that the evangelical movement is in trouble, and for many of the reasons treated in Invisible Jesus and other recent books. It’s just that I don’t live there. The people I am pastoring (especially my students) are being crushed not by evangelicals but by progressives. Where I live (the West Coast) the dominant culture is secular and hostile to any form of Christianity that takes the Bible seriously. For me, to write a book critiquing evangelicals would be smashing through an open door, jumping on the band wagon, beating a dead horse. I have no desire to take the devil’s side when the devil is already winning!

(5) Invisible Jesus implies but does not construct an alternative vision of faith and life of the people of God. I suppose we will have to wait for the authors’ next book. But if history is a good teacher, when you reject a Bible-based evangelical theology, an almost irresistible logic carries you all the way to Liberalism.

*See my review of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Liveright, 2021) from August 2022.

An Open Letter to a Forgetful Church

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Dear Church:

I’d like to remind you of something. I have no authority to made demands, and I offer no new revelation from on high. I cannot read minds or infallibly discern hearts. My message is more an expression of longing than of prophetic denunciation: I want you to live up to your better self. I want you to remember who you are and why you are in this world. I want you to be free, fearless, and determined. I want you to be clear and confident.

You are God’s People

You are not like other people. You are different. You were chosen by God, assigned a mission, and empowered for a task. You know something other people do not know. Your sense of identity stretches backward before the world began and forward into eternity. The meaning of what you do daily is determined not merely by its immediate causes and effects but by its relationship to God.

When you think of yourself you must not think first of your national, social, or ethnic identity. You are not first male or female, black or white, rich or poor, or educated or uneducated. Like Paul, we must consider all these marks of identity and distinction “garbage” compared to knowing Jesus Christ (Phil 3:8). We are the person God chose us to be in Christ.

Church, please rise above these distinctions. Do not fall into the pattern of contemporary society and politics by giving these distinctions the importance nonbelievers give them and allowing them to cause divisions within God’s people. Nonbelievers, of course, have their identity in the world. That is all they know. But we know of another homeland and another family. I am not speaking here of mere politeness while you are at a church assembly. I am talking about what goes on in the deep recesses of your hearts. Know with the clarity and in depth of your soul that you are a child of God. Let that knowledge free you from the bonds of other identifiers.

Bear Witness to Jesus

Why did God choose, call, and empower you? You have one task, that is, to bear witness to the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. You are obligated to point people to him as Lord and Savior. You are supposed to manifest to everyone the power and quality of life that Jesus lived. Jesus must live in your entire life, in every dimension, in every relationship, for every moment, and into and throughout your soul. Paul again speaks the word we need to hear:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

Bear witness to Jesus in the way you speak. Bless and never curse. It must begin in your heart. Turn away from anger and offense. Do not retaliate for evil done or insults given. Don’t do it on social media, in your car on the freeway, or in your heart of hearts. When nothing good can be said or done, keep silent. Bear witness to Jesus in how you act toward others. Never act unlovingly or unjustly toward anyone. Help those in need. Be faithful, loyal, and truthful. And when someone asks you why you live as you do, tell them how Jesus changed you.

Church, I am worried about you. Please keep your divinely given mission close to your heart: your charge is to witness to Jesus by living as he lived. Do not import worldly agendas into your life. Oh, how tempting it is to adopt contemporary social causes as if they were divine obligations. After all, these causes seem to be working for good ends. Should not the church stand against, injustice, poverty, oppression, abuse of the environment, inequity, and racism? Should not the church call out immorality, irresponsible behavior, and envy? Many contemporary believers find this an unanswerable argument. For the church also considers these things to be sinful and would happily see them removed. Indeed, it would. But not by the world’s methods.

Church, you must never let a part of your moral vision be disengaged from the complete vision of life in Christ and from the call to repent and believe in Jesus. That is what politicians and social activists want you to do. They want to channel the energy of the church into secular political causes, but they care nothing for the gospel and the life of discipleship to Jesus. Don’t be fooled. Do not join their causes—right, left, or center—no matter what evil it fights or what good it proposes. Their solutions to evil are intimidation, law, violence, rudeness, slander, obscenity, persecution, protest, coercion, and police action. Such activities cause strife and division among believers and between believers and nonbelievers. You must follow a different path. You must preach the gospel, do good works in the name of Jesus, and set an example of a comprehensively good life, individually and communally.

With affection and concern,

Ron Highfield

An Open Letter to the World

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Dear World:

Everyone agrees that you are messed up and need to change, but this is where the agreement ends. Is the problem the disparity between rich and poor? Do we need freer markets or more regulation? Do we need higher taxes and greater government expenditures or lower taxes and a smaller government? Are racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and other prejudices the source of your ills? Or, is the problem moral laxity and cultural decadence? Is the greatest problem faced by humanity climate change? War? Corporate greed? Police brutality? Systemic racism? White privilege? Capitalism? Marxism? Socialism?

I have a message for you. But it’s not from me. I received it, and I simply pass it on to you. It’s the message Jesus Christ proclaimed and that his apostles continued to teach. It’s the only message that the Christian church has been given authority to proclaim to you. Apart from this message, I have no advice to give:  You are indeed messed up, and need to change. But the diagnoses and solutions listed above do not get at your most fundamental problem. The root problem is not economic, social, or political. No solution to the real problem will be found from these quarters. Your problem is theological. You have forgotten that the most important issue is how you stand with God, “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen 18:25). Compared to this question everything else fades into insignificance. And as long as you think that the most important challenges you face are economic, social, and political, you demonstrate that you are not right with God. Indeed you show that whereas the Thessalonians “turned to God from idols” (1 Thess 1:9) you have turned from God to serve idols. For you look to worldly powers and goods rather than to God for your well-being and salvation.

I have a message for you. It’s not a message about how to gain wealth or political power or freedom to do as you please. It’s not a formula for world peace or social justice or psychological health or long life. These things matter only as long as you are alive. And today or tomorrow, sooner or later, you will die. Your nation will die. Your planet will die. Then what? In the end, how you stand with God is all that matters. And if this will be true in the end, it is true now. Your most urgent task is to seek God and make sure you align your life with his will and character.

I have a message for you. It did not originate with me. I received it and embraced it. Now my task is to pass it on to you unchanged: Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:5). If you want to see God and learn how to get right with him, you must look to Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-4). If you want to hear the voice of God, “listen to him” (Mark 9:7). The “rulers of this age” crucified him (1 Cor 2:6), but God raised Jesus from the dead. In the resurrection, God declared Jesus to be lord and Messiah (Rom 1:4; Acts 2:36). You own him your allegiance, and you will give it sooner or later (Phil 2:10-11). Jesus Christ is the only Savior (Acts 4:12). Trust him and you will set yourself on the path to salvation and eternal life. Reject him and you will continue on the path to destruction of both body and soul. Whatever honor, glory, wealth, and power you gain in this life, unless you gain God’s approval, death, obliquity, obscurity, and nothingness await you.

I have a message for you. I have no authority to command you, but I am under authority to warn you. Stop cursing, hating, worrying, fighting, fretting, shouting, and despairing about the state of the world. Do not blame the stars, fate, chance, your ancestors, or the system. Stop talking about the sins of others, and look in the mirror. You are wholly responsible for that person, and you will answer for their sins and theirs alone. So, the message I have for you is the same as Paul and the other apostles had for the world of their day: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20).

Sincerely,

Ron Highfield

Next Time: an open letter the the church.

Social Justice and the American Prophet

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The issue of social justice remains the hottest topic I’ve ever written about on this blog. My essay, “On the Difference between Seeking Justice and Doing Justice,” written two years ago, still receives more hits per week than any other essay. So, I’m going to address the topic again from a new perspective.

American Christianity has a long tradition of producing social reformers, social ethicists, and public theologians. These individuals are often seen as carrying on the tradition of such Old Testament prophets as Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. They speak to the general population and their leaders, that is, to the whole nation, as if America had inherited the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai. They demand justice for the poor, for minorities, for women, for gay people, for transgender people, and for every other oppressed group. And they often root their demands in the biblical vision of justice and community. And this prophetic persona is not limited to left-leaning personalities. Others, right-leaning prophets, take up the mantle of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha and call for repentance from immorality and idolatry. This phenomenon is not limited to high profile preachers, professors, and nonprofit CEOs. With the advent of social media, every Tom, Dick, and Susan can become a prophet to the nation. Of course no one listens to Facebook prophets; no one cares and no one changes.

As venerable and as American as this “prophetic” tradition is, it is based on a false premise. There are no American prophets, and there never have been. And the reason is simple. God has not made a covenant with America or any other nation or nation-state to be his people. The Old Testament prophets were sent by God to challenge God’s covenant people to repent of their unfaithfulness to the covenant. The prophetic ministry presupposes a divine covenant and its binding responsibilities. Apart from a covenant, a prophet is without authority; she or he is just another political advocate. The covenant nation was a failure. The only divine covenant in force today is the New Covenant Jesus sealed with his blood. The new covenant people is not composed of one ethnic group, or of the people living within the borders of one nation state, or even of all humankind. You cannot enter it through birth or the social contract. You enter by faith and baptism into Jesus Christ and in so doing you place yourself under the sole Lordship of Jesus. Prophets have authority only as they speak on the basis of the New Covenant to the New Covenant people, the church. The death and resurrection of Jesus marked the end of divine covenants with nations. There are no state churches or church states! And there are no national prophets!

Does Christianity have a message for the people of America or for the world? Yes. But it must be spoken by a different persona, the evangelist! The message to those outside of God’s covenant people is “Repent and believe the Gospel.” To speak prophetically to people outside the new covenant deceives them into thinking that as long as they believe in whatever social reform is being advocated, they don’t need to repent of idolatry and immorality and become Jesus’ disciples. They are deceived into thinking that political power can accomplish as much good as the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; that they don’t need to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2), that they don’t need to “live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6), that they don’t need the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:38),  that they don’t need to worry that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4), and that they don’t need divine mercy and forgiveness.

If you find yourself wanting to be a prophet to America (or Canada or Germany or any other nation), if the state of things outrages you, be careful lest you substitute a political message for the gospel and a superficial call for social change for radical conversion to Jesus. Don’t mistake anger and personal offence for passion for justice. Don’t mistake insults, judgments, and self-righteousness for prophetic inspiration. Don’t take Amos or Elijah as your model. Their day has come and gone. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel of the crucified and resurrected Jesus. Live it and preach it. If you aim to live as a disciple of Jesus your life will have an inadvertent prophet effect. The light will shine in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.

Is Social Justice Ministry A Substitute Gospel?

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For the past two weeks I have been editing my blog posts of the past 13 months in preparation to publish the third book written in installments on this blog. The title will be A Course in Christianity for an Unchurched Church. As I worked through the chapters I paused at chapter 44 and thought about the state of the churches in the United States and, by extension, in other English-speaking countries. I see so many changes in process and on the horizon. In almost all cases, change is morally and theological ambiguous, that is, it includes some change for better and some for worse. The change this chapter considers is the change in evangelical and theologically conservative churches from emphasis on evangelism and soul saving to social justice works. The criticism of the soul saving model of outreach is that is treats people as disembodied souls rather than as whole persons. Of course, there is some truth to this criticism.

However, in my view, the shift to social justice as the church’s primary outreach to the world also distorts the mission of the church. I see three obvious ways this distortion takes place. (1) The social justice model possesses a strong tendency to play down the need for individual repentance, faith, and conversion. The evil it aims to address is socially systemic injustice rather than personal sin. It views the human problem as rooted in its racist, sexist, colonialist, homophobic, environmentally exploitative, plutocratic, etc., social structures rather than in each person’s idolatry, ignorance, and rebellion against God. Or, it engages in relieving poverty, homelessness, human trafficking, etc. without engaging in evangelism and establishing churches. (2) It tends to blur the line between the kingdom of God and the world. It allows the church to become an adjunct to the world, functioning as a social agency devoted to ameliorating the world’s ills. Christianity, originally understood as the present, supernatural manifestation of the future reign of God, is transformed into an ideology whose value is based on its usefulness in support of social activism. Christians working for social justice are tempted to root their identity more in a cause held in common with nonbelievers than with a cause exclusive to believers. (3) It tends to utopianism, that is, the naive view that we can bring about the kingdom of God on earth by dent of human effort. It seeks to cure human sin by reorganizing social structures or meeting bodily needs.

A Question for Social Justice Ministries

To what degree does the move from evangelism to social justice represent a loss of faith in power and truth of the gospel and abandonment of belief in the necessity of personal faith, repentance, and conversion? How far does it go to subordinate the body of Christ to the body politic of a nation? To what extent does it replace the cause of Christ with the cause of an interest group?

Hence today I want to re-post the edited version of an essay I posted some months ago. It will be published as chapter 44 in A Course in Christianity:

Is “Social Justice” a Christian Concept?

In a time of increasing emphasis on social justice in evangelical churches, colleges, and seminaries, perhaps we ought to reflect on the difference between seeking justice and doing justice. On almost every occasion in which the Old Testament uses the expression “seek justice” it  refers to seeking justice for others, for “the fatherless,” “the widow,” and the “poor” (Isaiah 1:17 and Jeremiah 5:28). Quite often these instructions are given to people in authority or with social status enough to advocate for others. A king, for example, should “seek justice” for all the people (Isaiah 16:5). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Micah informs us of what the Lord requires: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8). But neither the Old nor New Testament tells us to “seek justice” for ourselves. Advocating for the legitimate rights of others is counted a virtuous act. But seeking it for yourself is at best ambiguous; it is not condemned but neither is it praised.

Oversimplifying matters a bit, I see three different modes of enacting justice in the Bible: (1) seeking justice for the powerless against unjust powers; (2) seeking justice for yourself in matters where you believe you have been treated unfairly; and (3) acting justly in all your own relationships with others. Let’s discuss them one at a time.

 

Seeking Justice for Others

To engage in this mode of justice you must possess some qualities the oppressed do not possess. You cannot be powerless and oppressed yourself. You have to possess power or you cannot help those without it. And you cannot be a member of the oppressed group or you would not be seeking justice for others but for yourself. You cannot seek justice for the poor if you are poor or the vulnerable fatherless if you are vulnerable and fatherless. This distinction between those who have status to seek justice for others and those for whom they seek it makes the activity of seeking justice morally ambiguous. True, all good deeds are morally ambiguous because the moment we recognize the goodness of our actions we become proud of our goodness. And pride is wrong. But seeking justice for others adds another dimension. We must distinguish ourselves from those we aim to help. We have power, wealth, and status, and they don’t. Hence our compassion for the victim can easily transform into relief that we are not victims, not poor, not powerless. A root of disdain springs to life.

Additionally, it is easy to forget the people we are trying to help and get caught up in the noble, heroic cause of justice and the feelings of self-importance it engenders. It is often said these days that giving “charity” to the needy offends against their dignity but seeking justice for them affirms that dignity. But as you can see from the analysis above, seeking justice also distinguishes between those who have power, wealth, and status and those who do not. Seeking justice makes plenty of room for a condescending attitude on the part of the justice seeker. It would be ironic indeed if in seeking justice we grow to despise the very ones for whom we seek it.

One more irony: justice seekers often attempt to awaken and mobilize the oppressed to resent and hate their oppressors. We make seeking justice for oneself a holy task, a moral obligation, and a virtuous act. In so doing, justice seekers remake the oppressed in the image of their oppressors. It is an infallible rule that we become like what we hate.

 

Seeking Justice for Yourself

Seeking justice for yourself is not a noble or virtuous act. It’s normal and spontaneous for sure, but we have no duty to make sure other people treat us fairly. We enjoy a highly developed and finely nuanced power for detecting injustice when it is done to us. But we are notoriously bad at judging our own cause. Who feels that life treats them with perfect fairness? Does anyone feel like they get enough recognition or are paid enough for their work? Who is happy with a B+ when you know you deserve an A? Every 6-year old child says, “No fair” at least 5 times a day. Indeed, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seems to discourage or even condemn seeking justice for yourself. It’s too easy to clothe envy and selfishness in the purple cloak of justice. No one is qualified to be their own judge. We need an objective standard and an impartial judge.

 

Doing Justice

Doing justice is at the heart of the issue. Seeming to seek justice for others does not require that you give up your supposed rights and privileges. You can seek justice for others for less than noble reasons and you can remain deeply self-centered while doing it. But doing justice is an altogether different matter. I do justice when I submit all my actions in relation to God and others to the test of the right. Doing justice requires that I renounce all self-judgment and reject all actions that privilege my desires, my supposed rights, over others. We do justice when we do the right thing whether it is in harmony with our interests or not. The foundation for doing justice is loving justice more than you love yourself; and the foundation for loving justice more than yourself is loving your neighbor as you love yourself. How can we claim to seek justice for others when we don’t act justly in all our relationships? And how can we seek true justice for ourselves when we turn a blind eye to the injustice we do to others? Perhaps, if we will concentrate our hearts on doing justice in all our acts, we will be better able to seek justice for others. And if we focus on doing justice we might not be so insistent on seeking justice for ourselves.