A Horizontal Gospel

Observing the merger of culture and religious beliefs and traditions throughout history is a great point of interest for me. The addition of secular traditions and even the traditions of other religions into church practice and belief is the source of a great deal of division of the body of Christ throughout time. It is also the source of much apostasy. The most obvious culprit of this unlawful adoption that springs to my mind is the Catholic Church. Throughout history, it is easy to see where the Roman Catholics adopted aspects of Roman and Druid pagan religions, co-opting art, highjacking festivals, and codifying aspects of nearly every culture the Empire contacted in order to persuade members of those cultures to convert and submit to Catholic rule. This very clearly led to a perverted gospel, a corrupt theocracy, and a religion of worldly aspirations. This concept of “teaching as doctrine the traditions of men” is heavily condemned in Scripture. 

It is easy to look back into history and to point out the mistakes of others. It is a much harder thing to do to recognize the same faults in our modern selves. If we look candidly at the religious landscape around us in America however, our eyes will be opened to more of the same. There is truly “nothing new under the sun”. Churches display American flags, hymnals contain patriotic songs (Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful… etc), the pulpit becomes a political stage, churches may even say the Pledge of Allegiance. American Idol isn’t just the name of a t.v. talent show, it’s a real problem facing the church. 

The Christians of the first century were instructed not to let their national identities cloud their identities as citizens of heaven (I Peter 2:11-12). They were a distinct, peculiar, special people; a chosen race and a holy nation for God’s own possession (I Peter 2:9-10) and they were to behave in such a way that they were recognized as such (I Peter 2:12). It appears as though many Christians did well at this. We can observe from an uninspired ancient letter that Christians in the Roman Empire lived in such a way that “every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers” (Epistle of Mathetes). Even our given examples in the Old Testament lived in such a way that reflected this. Hebrews 11:13-16 speaks of the members of the so-called “Hall of Faith”: “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.” If living as strangers and exiles is a sign of searching for a heavenly country then it is a shame to see self-professing Christians making this broken world their home. Verse 15 says that if they were thinking of their country from which they came, they have the opportunity to return. It pains me to observe that many self-professing Christians never seem to have left their first country, rather trying to bring it with them into the promised land- and the problems therein with it. 

The early Christians were instructed to submit to their civil authorities (Rom. 13:1-3, I Peter 2:13-13-17), a feat that had to be incredibly difficult considering this often meant the patient endurance of heavy persecution. This was commanded for specific reasons: foremost that those leaders were selected by God to serve His purposes, but also to set up Christians to serve as examples of submission to those on the outside (I Pet. 2:15). The reason to submit to these civil authorities is because they were chosen by our Ultimate Authority, and in submitting to those who rule over us (even if we feel as though we are oppressed) we give honor and call attention to the One who rules over all. There are many issues Christians tend to take with these commands. It is difficult for us to submit to those with whom we disagree, but on the other side of this we may give too much credit to our government (or our nation and culture generally) and lift them up rather than our God who allows them to exist. This idolatry of exalting nation over God is what leads to the aforementioned merger of culture with religion. It can no longer be called Christianity, because though some remnant of half-hearted (and therefore vain) lip service is performed, Christ is no longer treated as Lord. If He were, then all doctrine and practice would point to Him. As the Lord told Moses after Nadab and Abihu were killed for approaching God with strange fire: “By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored” (Lev. 10:3).  

This perverted gospel- Amero-christianism let’s call it - is mostly, from my observations, a politicization of the gospel. It’s very easy to see people on the Right Wing of American politics brand themselves as the Christian option and then behave and support unchristian things. It’s also easy to see Christians begin to deify and elevate a Right Wing political agenda alongside Christian duty. On the Left it presents in a different way I think. Within progressive denominations the rhetoric is that the writers of the old testament had an “experience of God”. This *progressed* (and therefore God’s expectations changed) into the New Testaments writers to have an “experience of God” which was different. The experience of the nineteenth century was the abolitionist movement, the twentieth the civil rights movement and the current experience of God includes third wave feminism, gay theology and critical race theory. The point is not whether these things are good or bad (that’s a separate issue), but that they’ve increasingly been viewed as the whole point and main goal, spiritual things taking a far back seat. People on both sides of it tend to have their view fixed on a level plane and can’t be bothered to look up. The belief is in a strengthened physical kingdom and the entire gospel message is passed over or even subverted in order to satisfy the desire for tangible and visible instant (yet temporary) gratification. Sometimes it seems that left leaning Christians focus so much on the second greatest commandment to “love thy neighbor”(using unbiblical love that still leaves people spiritually wanting) that they completely disregard the greatest commandment (Matt. 22:36-39). It seems also, that right leaning Christians may put so high a demand on the greatest commandment (with unbiblical love that doesn’t actually follow all the commandments of God) that they completely disregard the second. You cannot say that you love God and not have love for your brother. I John 4:20 says, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”  Likewise, you cannot say that you love God and not strive to uphold all of His commandments. I John 5:3 says, “this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments”. 

At its simplest, this movement begins with a shift of the mission of the church from “a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices” (I Pet. 2:5) to something else entirely: an earthly charity at best and an authoritarian political machine at worst. Either is an abomination and a perversion of the Lord’s pattern for what His church should be- in fact it is no longer His church (II John 9). (Note: It is important to understand that I am not saying that Christians do not have any physical responsibilities in the world. There is however a distinction between the work of the church and the work of the individual. Perhaps I will address this in a future article.) 

Sometimes idolatry begins with good intentions. Oftentimes, I think that the departure from the true mission of the church comes from a sincere desire to achieve physical good (again, this gets into the separate responsibilities of the church and individual Christians). It is a noble goal to seek justice and mercy for those in and outside the body of Christ. However, perhaps I will never be able to understand why some Christians feel that there is a superior or more imminent need for a justice or mercy that is outside that which Christ’s sacrifice provided. What justice is greater than the price that He paid with His sacrifice? What mercy is greater than the forgiveness that His death provides? Christ’s sacrifice is the epitome of both concepts that were created by God to be absolutely and totally realized in His plan for the redemption of man. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). It is not something that we have inherited, and it is not something that has been imputed upon us without cause. It is something that we have earned and that we have earned the consequences of because of our poor choices- hence the term “wages”. Justice dictates that we die, for “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). Mercy provides a way of escape from that consequence (I John 2:2). These two seemingly contrary characteristics of God find harmony in the death of Jesus. The justice of God demands that there be blood to pay the price for rebellion against Him. The mercy of God necessitates the availability of an opportunity to escape that justice that would otherwise mean an eternal separation from Him. It is in this way that the death of Christ fulfills both of these character traits of God, and also provides us with our spiritual mission to seek justice and mercy. What greater act of justice can we perform than to aid the struggling sinner to rid all presences of evil from their lives? What greater act of mercy than to provide them with the good news that leads to salvation (Rom. 1:16)?  

I truly believe that many of the problems facing the church would be dealt with swiftly if Christians refocused their minds and hearts on the mission of the church of God. One author sums it all up better than I can: “There are those who would make a strong case for making social reform the primary mission of the church. It is true that those who claim a conservative faith, those who have been labeled as fundamentalists and evangelicals, have been sadly lacking in social awareness and involvement. The Lord does not simply overlook the fact that many of us who claim to be His disciples have little or no concern for what He said about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. Surely one in whom dwells the mind of Christ must be concerned about injustice, bigotry, poverty, hunger, sickness, and human need of every sort. But I am more and more convinced that the best cure for these things is found in true conversion, a treatment first of the disease rather than the symptoms. The only lasting social change will be made as we go with the gospel and get people genuinely converted.”  (John Caldwell, Top Priority). As the true cause of Christ is advanced, surely the physical state of the world will also be positively affected as a byproduct, but the focus must remain on the soul. 

Anyone who has known me for very long knows that a lot of these things are things that I have struggled with in the past, and sometimes continue to struggle with. I keep a notepad next to my bed when I sleep at night, just in case I think of something important in the middle of the night. One day last year I awoke to a note from my sleep-dazed self: “I have lost a lot of faith in America recently- enough to make me realize that I placed too much faith in her in the first place. Faith belongs to God alone, not human institutions. When human institutions cease to do justice, love mercy or walk humbly, it becomes quite evident where they stand in relation to God.” It is so incredibly easy to lose focus and to allow the problems of the world to pull our gaze down to a level plane. It is easy for us to get pulled back into that country from whence we came and try to find physical solutions to spiritual problems that will always fail, because the only true solutions can never come from a horizontal gospel- we have to look up! 

Caldwell, J. (1995). Top priority: building an evangelistic church. College Press Pub. Co.