Penitent Disciple

I somewhat recently discovered Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981), a Welsh physician-turned-preacher. For nearly 30 years he was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London. In this clip from December 1970, Lloyd-Jones is sharp, clear-eyed, gracious, and unapologetic about (small-“o”) orthodox Christian belief.

The images and footage of the rioters who stormed the capital this past week were incontrovertible evidence that politics, including loyalties to political figures and unquestioning belief in conspiracy theories, is a full-on religion for people on the political right as well as the political left. Human beings are wired to believe in something bigger than themselves, and in the wake of an increasingly ineffective church for the past few decades, things that are less true, less eternal, and less honorable will inevitably fill the void. It should especially trouble evangelical leaders that many of those taken in by the latest conspiracy theories have been self-described evangelicals. Something is amiss in the American church.

Many American evangelicals will see the final election outcomes – the loss of all three branches of government to the Democratic party – as God’s judgment on America. I think they’re at least partially wrong.

I wrote two years ago that I believe there’s a judgment coming upon the church. (You can read that post here). I believe this is the beginning of that judgment.

Though this problem had been brewing for quite a while, American evangelicals mostly fell into two basic camps over the past four years: those who vocally supported and defended a mean-spirited, narcissistic, unrepentant serial adulterer as their champion, and those who quietly – almost silently – said they didn’t approve of his character, though they liked his policies. But their refusal to publicly call out his clearly (almost daily) unbiblical behavior betrayed their belief – clearly visible to an unbelieving world – that temporary, worldly political power was far more important to them than eternal biblical truth. The biblical term for this is “idolatry”. Really, at its core, it’s essentially an updated version of indulgences: You give us something we want, and we’ll look the other way and stay silent about your clear and obvious sin.

And the bad news is – which is actually good news from a biblical perspective – God is not the idiot that many evangelicals clearly believe Him to be. While they’ve engaged in a great deal of rationalization within and amongst themselves, they can’t rationalize their way out of their fickle allegiances and idolatry before the Almighty, who sees and knows all things.

What American evangelicals need to do now is don whatever the 2021 version of sackcloth and ashes is, and publicly repent. While I believe we will not escape judgment, we may yet find that judgment shortened.

Unfortunately, the least likely thing American evangelicals will do is publicly repent, because much like the people of God throughout biblical history, they’ve become an arrogant and stiff-necked people. And much in the spirit of their adulterous champion for the past four years (who’s said repeatedly that he’s never needed to ask forgiveness for anything), they actually believe they have nothing to repent of as a church.

I pray for humility and repentance among God’s people. God is righteous and just, but also merciful for those who seek his mercy. May His church do so, quickly.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.  (Psalm 1, NIV)

I’m starting 2021 revisiting Tim Keller’s devotional based on the Psalms. This book covers the text of all 150 Psalms through the course of the calendar year. I used this devotional in 2019, while deep in the midst of a seemingly endless desert, and I gained a new appreciation for the Psalms. (I used a different devotional book in 2020 – one published back in the 80s which was the first such book I ever purchased after starting to take my faith more seriously). I’ll confess that in 2019 I did the readings from Keller’s book in a more or less perfunctory manner – read the passage, read the reflection, pray the printed prayer, done.

I felt like I should revisit the Psalms now that the desert is off in the distance behind me (but still visible). For 2021 I’m going to attempt to engage with the Word a bit more deeply, keeping a notebook handy and following Keller’s recommended reflection questions for the day’s passage:

Adore — What did you learn about God for which you could praise or thank him?
Admit — What did you learn about yourself for which you could repent?
Aspire — What did you learn about life that you could aspire to, ask for, and act on?

The Psalms often fly in the face of modern, “progressive” Christianity, which is more interested in a God that conforms to our image and our sensibilities. But, as Keller states in the introduction:

The psalms also help us see God—God not as we wish or hope him to be but as he actually reveals himself. The descriptions of God in the Psalter are rich beyond human invention. He is more holy, more wise, more fearsome, more tender and loving than we would ever imagine him to be. The psalms fire our imaginations into new realms yet guide them toward the God who actually exists. This brings a reality to our prayer lives that nothing else can. “Left to ourselves, we will pray to some god who speaks what we like hearing, or to the part of God we manage to understand. But what is critical is that we speak to the God who speaks to us, and to everything that he speaks to us…. What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn to answer God.” (Eugene Peterson)

So here’s to a new year of deeper learning, deeper humility, deeper submission, and a deeper capacity to reflect God’s love and truth to a world that desperately needs both.

Hope for the hopeless.
Light in the darkness.
Destruction of the proud, and exaltation of the humble.
An invitation to bow down.
Worship.
Surrender.
Truly live.

Merry Christmas.

This quote seems a good explainer of the theology animating an ever-increasing number of folks, now including most of the mainline denominations:

“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”

(H. Richard Niebuhr, ‘The Kingdom of God in America’)