(Tim) The problem with Evangelicalism is illustrated by our local Contemporary Christian Music station. Every piece of music ends with a crescendo. Sopranos screech, brass blares, tenors hitch into falsetto, and every word's either 'grace' or 'blessing' or 'peace' or 'Heaven.' Can't stand the stuff. Ain't real.
It's like touring the color house with my art director brother-in-law twenty years ago, back when they still used airbrush technology to remove wrinkles and moles. Peter did a lot of work with the company and they were proud to show us their twenty-thousand dollar drum scanner. Before we saw the scanner, though, they showed us the other work they did.
A lot of the color work for national glossy magazines went through their shop and we were shown each step in the process. It all went well until we hit the airbrush expert. All of a sudden, we were peering over the shoulder of a man removing moles and pimples and wrinkles from a certain well-known woman's naked body. Pop! There it was.
Or rather, there she was. But not really her--someone else. Someone who didn't exist and never had.
Since then, I've seen the puppetmaster behind every ad and picture and movie and I am not fooled.
You see, it's all a lie. There's no woman who looks anything like those women we idolatrously crave and worship. There's no woman like those women Madison Avenue uses to get our wives to do this and that to their hair. Those women The Suits use to get our young mothers to buy this or that version of Scripture for their daily devotions that also had a ruffled curtain pulled back from a clean window as an unchipped teacup and saucer sit within arm's reach on a non-sticky tabletop.
There is no woman like that woman. That unhurried, unfrazzled, peaceful, cheerful, unbothered, calm mother does not, now--nor has she ever--existed. And her unchipped china and unsticky tabletop?
They don't exist, either.
There's no life like that woman's life. Pictures The Suits use to sell our young mother's a new Bible or the latest happy mother's advisory manual are false--as false as the moleless, pimpleless, wrinkleless body I saw on the airbrusher's table.
The problem with a Christian radion station that's all crescendos is that it lies. It leads us to expect the normal Christian life to be from happiness to bliss. And if you're not in bliss, what's wrong with you?
It habituates us to every day in every way our lives getting better and better, and by better it most certainly does not mean "holy" or "sanctified." It means "better" as the world means "better."
So now, I've simply declared my solidarity with all the snobby Reformed Christians who look down on Contemporary Christian Music and Evangelicalism, right?
Wrong. First, our station's selection and habits are not every CCM station's selection and habits. Here in Bloomington, we've taken it a step further. Yesterday, the station's announcer said, "Today is the day we celebrate 9/11."
Yup, that's what he said: "celebrate 9/11." Goes with the music.
Does he celebrate Hell, too?
But what about us good Reformed folks; are we any different?
In my book, not much. We teach folks that being "Reformed" means not having to fear God. Not having to face the Judgment Seat of God. After all, what's the point of believing in salvation by grace through faith alone if it leaves us fearing God's judgment?
Didn't Jesus do it all? What's left for us to do?
So we Reformed Pastors do Three-card Monte with our parishioners, using our shibboleths--grace, sovereignty, and providence--to steal from the naive.
"We're saved by grace. I'm graceful in my preaching. You've noticed, I hope? We're sanctified by grace. Your wife running off on you is under God's sovereignty and comes to you by His providence. Everything you need to know is in this trinity: grace, sovereignty, and providence. When you get those three down, you're Reformed."
But what about the fear of God? The coming judgment?
"Well, perfect love casts out all fear, don't you know? That's what Scripture says. And the coming judgment--what's with your bondage to a performance narrative, anyway? You need to read Luther on Galatians because it's apparent you don't get it."
So, dear brother pastors and elders, tomorrow when you preach, will there be any hint of the fear of God? Will there be any warning to the assembled believers of the coming judgment God's chosen sons will meet?
Or, is our shepherding, our preaching from glory to glory, bliss to bliss, grace to grace, happiness to happiness, crescendo to crescendo?
For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. (1 Corinthians 10:1-14)
Where is Apostolic preaching in the Reformed church in America, today? Show us the man who faithfully repeats these warnings of the Apostle Paul: "These things happened as examples for us; they were written for our instruction."
Brothers, we're the servant getting drunk because his master has been gone a long time. But if the highest praise we desire on That Day is "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," then there surely will be some among us who don't get that praise. So let's get to work, fearing our kind and merciful and graceful Heavenly Father.
After all, the Apostle Paul was talking to himself when he wrote, "Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men." You know, just before that particular statement, he also wrote:
For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (2Corinthians 5:10).
After all, it's in the godly that fear and love embrace.
