Imagine a boss or supervisor at work who simply cannot be satisfied with anything you do. Each time you discover a new way to fulfill his wishes, you discover ten new things that you’re not even coming close to getting right. When you finally rectify those things, you discover ten more you’re missing completely. This is the law.

No matter how much you seek to follow it, satisfying it will always be out of reach. The law is intended for one main purpose: to drive us to repentance by showing us the destitution of our plight.

That is why Paul writes in Romans 3:20:

“For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

We cannot be justified by something that is endlessly revealing how short we’re falling of success. The concept of being justified, heck, even having any hope for this life, by our works—by the things we say and do and feel—is simply unreasonable. What human being can say with honesty that they’ve even been honest their whole life? No one. And before a righteous God, that has rendered their works null.

Even quantum traces of logic and reason will say that if there is a just and righteous God, grace is our only hope.

This is something I’ve been thinking about over the past few days. Ephesians 1:19:

“… and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power to ward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.”

This verse is talking about the power exercised for believers in the death and resurrection of Christ. However, it’s a vast under-appreciation of the gravity of the situation to see God’s power primarily or mostly in the death and resurrection.

What I mean by that is there is a collision of facts flowing from that one act of power and sacrifice that should embolden just about anyone who truly appreciates them.

Only a few verses earlier, Paul describes believers as ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit. Elsewhere God’s Holy Spirit is described as a ‘deposit’ ensuring our eternal salvation. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every believer is what I mean to make mention of.

Now, let that truth meld with the reality of God’s immeasurably great power. Let it blend with the truth of God’s ultimate victory over the enemy and sin. Set it with his eternal quality, his omniscience, his sovereignty. Remember that work that Jesus did on the cross—his proven commitment to our joy and satisfaction in him. Now, remember that all of that is literally in you.

Okay, now let out a relieved sigh and go get a drink of water.

The idea of faith is kind of ambiguous. Sometimes we mean belief. Sometimes we mean ambition. Sometimes we mean almost nothing and it’s really just a Christian buzzword. To sum up ‘faith’ isn’t an easy undertaking and I’m not going to try it here. But what did occur to me during a conversation with a friend the other day was this concept that faith may not be something we can really measure. Well, not with any real confidence.

The two weeks leading up to the beginning of my Christian walk were strange. Looking back now, I feel confident in saying that my Christian walk actually began before I sat down to pray ‘that prayer’. When I sat down to pray, I believe it was merely my own mind catching up with my heart, so to speak. Yet, in that time period, had you asked me if I had faith, I would most likely have said, ‘no’.

Whether or not people’s ‘salvation’ can happen at some time other than when they sit down to confess their faith for the first time is a matter of discord. Regardless, I think the concept extends much farther than that.

We’re told in scripture that even the faith of a mustard seed will move mountains. Curiously, we see no mountains moving. We hear the man crying that Jesus help his unbelief—for faith. My question is this: how presumptuous are we to think that the totality of our faith is not only something we can quantify, but something that we must support ourselves.

Within every believer dwells the Holy Spirit. A counselor, a prayer warrior, a comforter, a seal. How can we think, “I have X amount of faith”, while in us dwells the creator of the universe? We are in no position to claim how much or how little faith we have.

Our faith sometimes surprises us, I believe that is because we often do not know the true extent of our faith, but God does and luckily he treats us accordingly. Well, that’s what I think any way.

In an article on CNN’s Belief Blog, Jonathan Acuff (author at stuffchristianslike.net) details why, he believes, Christians are often times jerks on the internet. He gives two major reasons, the first being the powerful sense of anonymity that the internet provides. He calls it “business traveler” Christians. But this, I think, is the reason that almost everyone is a jerk online.

The other reason, however, I found really poignant. “Room Cleaning Christianity”, he calls it. I’ve included the excerpt, but you can find the full article here:

Why do Christians argue about drinking beer or why the tankini is the least slutty of all bathing garments? I think it’s because we sometimes practice "Room Cleaning Christianity." Think of it like college. When you’ve got a final paper due Monday, you will be amazed at how energetic your desire is to clean your room. You will scrub tile with a slow toothbrush if it means avoiding the bigger, more difficult work of writing your paper. The same thing happens with Christianity. Loving your neighbor might be simple, but it’s not easy. Maybe my neighbor is a jerk too. Maybe they hate God. Maybe they are actively and violently opposed to everything I believe. And showing them grace feels impossible. So instead of dealing with that, we get online and police people. We find small things to focus on that will distract us. I think God wants us to discuss the little stuff, but we make it an idol when we practice room cleaning Christianity at the exclusion of love. And we tend to become jerks.

I couldn’t help but find this well observed. But not just online. Everywhere.

Christians love to debate trivial parts of our faith. Not to imply any part of our faith is truly ‘trivial’ in its absolute sense, per se, but that there are clearly issues that fall on the outskirts. I can attest to this when looking at many past situations in my own life.

Plenty of times after just meeting someone, perhaps we’re sitting around a fire or smoking hookah, the conversation inevitably turns to things of spiritual significance. But the topics are almost universally fringe. Is using swear words okay, how do you feel about Christians and mind altering substances, what about attending a local church. I could go on. But rarely, if ever, do those conversations ascend to things like the awe inspiring power of Jesus on the Cross, the joy of undeserved grace, or God-forbid, what we’re learning in our private study times.

Acuff has made an excellent point. We may meet with someone who shares with us the most important connection in the universe—the mutual redemption of our souls—but all we want to discuss is whether you should be baptized as an infant or an adult.

Interesting points. Next time, I’d like to put off cleaning the room.

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.”

- Daniel Boorstin

I feel that in Christian culture, the concept of faith is taught in such a broad spectrum that the way we are really to interact with it is made somewhat ambiguous.

Many Christians assume faith must be totally blind. As children, or new Christians, we’re taught a set of Christian dogmatics and facts. They simmer for a long time. Then, most of us as (seemingly) mature Christians feel, on some level, that we have the answers that we need for our faith. But it doesn’t really add up quite right.

A near infant can learn that when he sees the symbols “F I R E T R U C K” arranged in the right way, he says the word “fire truck!” But this doesn’t mean he can read. What if that’s all we did? We simply memorized the arrangement of letters for thousands of words, but never learned the rules that built those words out of letters? We might conclude that we could read. Even though we couldn’t.

In some ways, this is how I think Christians often see their faith. A series of facts they’ve memorized and therefore concluded that their education in those areas is complete. As many ex-Christians know, it takes very little to shatter that faith.

I think for Christians to grow secure and strong, we need to fully realize that, even of the things we know about our faith, we know very little.

Before I go on, I would like to say outright that I don’t intend to cast judgment on anyone, but I will share my opinions on this matter. If you are one of the people I know involved in this, then please don’t take offense. If your conscience allows you to do it, then I don’t mean to criticize you in particular.

So, continuing on this little miniseries of thoughts on things that have been ‘stupidly Christianized’, I come today to this growing little doozy of Christiany weirdness.

Relationship Marketing

If that term doesn’t ring a bell for you, the companies that it classifies probably will. Companies like Mary Kay, Pampered Chef and others like them are known for using an ‘relationship’ model of marketing. No billboards, no Google ads. Just one person talking to another person they trust and being convinced to buy a product or service. In the case of Mary Kay or Pampered Chef, it often comes in the way of home show parties.

But growing are a few companies using a similar marketing model that also (albeit unofficially) represent themselves as Christian companies. Or Christian run companies, as I believe they describe themselves.

The most popular of these seems to be Quickstar. The gist of Quickstar is that people are to start buying their regular, day-to-day items (i.e., soap, dish detergent, toilet paper, shaving cream, etc etc) directly from Quickstar. When they agree to do this, they become a ‘business owner’ who can then either just use to service, or get other people to sign up ‘under’ them. A small commission is earned on all of their purchases, and likewise whoever signed up the business owner gets some commission on their purchases too.

It’s more complicated than that, but for the sake of time, that’s probably a sufficient description.

The point is though, that when I sign up I make money for someone else. And when I sign someone else up, they make money for me. Although it sounds like a pyramid scheme, technically it’s not.

In order to help support all the business owners in their endeavors, regular local meetings are held. Usually with a speaker or something to help motivate and inspire. A friend shared a story from one of these meetings with me just tonight. He described the speaker as persuading his audience that for any great thing to succeed sacrifices would have to be made. After going through a list of examples where sacrifice was necessary for big success, he landed on Jesus. Likening Jesus’ sacrifice and bearing of all of his Father’s wrath to the sacrifice these ‘business owners’ would have to make in selling their product.

My friend said that up until that moment he was just about ready to join, then threw up a little in his mouth and had to leave. It was obviously a cheap exploit aimed at his primarily Christian audience.

But besides isolated incidents like that, you might be asking, what’s so bad about this being a Christian thing? Well, I’ll tell you what I see from my perspective.

Relationship marketing takes two almost opposing concepts and pits them against each other. For the Christian, human relationships are where we have received one of our most profound charges from God: to preach and spread the Gospel; to make disciples of all the nations.

While on the other hand, we have this concept of marketing. Which when broken down is basically the commercial practice of convincing someone they need or want your product or service in order that they would buy it and generate income for you.

When relationships and marketing are connected in such an inorganic fashion, there’s an impossible tension there. Let me give you an example.

A few years ago when one of these Christian companies started to grow in local popularity, it spread pretty rapidly through the few local churches that I was involved with. I had ties with lots of people through various ministries. All of a sudden, I started getting really friendly sounding phone calls from brothers and sisters in Christ who I’d not spoken to in months. Or, didn’t have a close enough relationship with to really make sense of these phone calls.

Yet here they were, calling me. Inviting me to have coffee, or lunch. I must have gotten half a dozen or more of these phone calls. Every one of them turned out to be an attempt to sign me up for this service.

What was their motivation in those phone calls? It wasn’t to connect in a meaningful way over our mutual love for God. It was over the prospect of income and professional success in the context of this relationship marketing model.

This seems to me to be an impossible combination. All of a sudden, money has taken over the Gospel in relationships between brothers and sisters and non-Christians as well. Where before Christians may be motivated to engage in relationship to see God work in the hearts and minds of fellow believers and unbelievers, it’s been convoluted with engaging the person so that they might join the company. Ultimately paying their salary.

in Conclusion 

Although I am sure there are people who can handle this with grace and wisdom, it seems that the majority cannot and instead it could be a massive stumbling block to the Church. Dare I say even a dangerous infection. With some people as carriers unaffected by the disease, but the majority suffering deeply from it.

For Christians, it seems like it should be a pretty big logical problem. Further than that, it seems like something our churches should be taking concerned notice of.

Apparently, Scientology (popularized most recently by Tom Cruz), has commercials… real commercials on real TV. Apparently they’ve been on for some time now. I don’t watch TV, so they’re new to me. Either way, there’s something bizarre about it. Anyway, I thought it warranted posting.