J.S. Park

Question: Does Everything Have To Glorify God? — A Mega-Post On When Idolatry Is Not Idolatry

Three anons (edited for length):

- My friends always say that everything we do should glorify the Lord. Because of that, we don’t go to the movies or read different books. If they see me watching Hunger Games or something, they tell me it’s all the Devil’s work. I feel ashamed because they say they are closer to God. What do I do? It’s hard to stay away from sin…

- Should all hobbies and interests SOLELY be for the Kingdom, or is it fine to sit down and write a horror story …? Even if you felt it was fun and maybe even cathartic to do so? I mean to say if we only wrote Theology 24/7/365/a lifetime, that Sherlock Holmes and Guy Montag might never have existed in our imaginations and that would be selling God-given gifts short. Is this right to think this?

- Hello! My mother tends to collect Asian statues from a junk store for me, my favorite things being Foo Dogs and the Mankei Nekos. However when some of the more strict Christians come to my apartment I can see them side-eyeing the animals and the smiling Budai as though they’re sources of evil. Is there any particular reason for this? My mother raised me to believe you can appreciate another culture’s lore and art without falling into the idolatry but the side-eye makes me a little nervous.

Well dang.  Please allow me the grace to write an open letter for the people who want to “glorify God” in dang near everything.

Dear serious brothers and sisters:

I know that some of you are very, very serious about your faith.  It kills you when an unbaptized heathen slips a bad word, you cringe at those “worldly” TV commercials, you scoff at pool halls and karaoke bars, and you think that old hymns and unleavened bread will save the American church. 

I understand.  You are sincere.  It’s great that you take this seriously — but if you’re squeezing undue pressure on rules about rules over other people’s external behavior, you will inadvertently turn a relationship with God into a moral-boundary-pushing competition.  This is just straight unhealthy.

You’ll forget the original reason why you had these rules, and perhaps ironically, your good intention of glorifying God will turn into idolizing these moral fences, and you’ll be so far removed from Jesus that you’ll make fundamentalists look like easygoing liberals.

I really do sympathize with all this: because maybe you had a friend who started off enjoying a slice of cheesecake after each meal and then he went up to black tar heroin.  You had another friend who listened to an Eminem album and now he’s racing cops and punching babies.  You knew a church that started singing contemporary praise and now they’re playing Highway To Hell on Sundays.

I’m poking a little fun, but I get it.  You’re afraid of the slippery slope into idolatry.  You’re worried for your children and your church and this world.  I bet that this is very real concern, and I do love you for that.

But can I just make a simple gracious suggestion? 

Please, please, please hear me in all humility on this, but maybe we could just relax about some stuff.  Perhaps many of these boundaries, which began with a noble heart, are actually causing some brothers and sisters to imprison themselves with a paranoia about being able to enjoy anything. This desperate race to “glorify God” can easily become a masochistic slavery that focuses on arbitrary self-imposed standards which do not bring us any closer to Jesus, but only breeds superiority or despair. 

This is simply legalism, and it kills us slowly.  The second you begin to idolize anti-idolatry, you enter into a very clenched, restrictive, airtight faith that sucks the life out of our joy. 

Certainly there are many things with which we should exercise discernment and caution — but shopping does not instantly mean materialism, and secular music doesn’t mean satan-worship, and enjoying the arts doesn’t mean we are witches and warlocks. 

I know this will make some of you cringe.  You are already yelling 1 John 4.  But can we balance this?  Apostle Paul writes to Timothy —

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons … They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

And also to to the church in Colossae —

Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

According to Romans 14, if something causes you or someone else to stumble: then don’t do it.  It’s that simple.  But please don’t hold those secondary rules over other fellow Christians.  Some can handle certain things, some cannot, and while we must graciously rebuke one another when we have a blind spot, we cannot legislate someone’s behavior to claim someone is “not glorifying God.” 

So yes, you can enjoy the cheesecake.  You can buy the dress and the video game and the brand name jeans. Go write your fanfic and draw your anime.  You can cry when the fictional wizard kills the other fake wizard.  You can feel good when you get a ton of likes and reblogs.  You can enjoy Mumford & Sons, even when they sing the f-word.  These are not sins unless you force them into sins, which is still pretty tough to do.  I trust you will be reasonable about these things and you will not wave them like a banner.  I trust you will keep Jesus at the center.  God is not a cosmic parole officer, and He wants you to have fun too.

Let’s also please be considerate towards other cultures, upbringings, and backgrounds.  What you think is sin is actually a preference, and your traditions are not written in stone.  None of us have the power to turn our claims into “Thus saith the Lord,” unless he really did saith that, and even then, do not lord it over others.

We can only exemplify Christ and pray that others will be convicted by the Spirit.  We pursue Christ first in all these things, and he alone will change hearts and grow our faith and keep our eyes focused on the essentials.

Keep the main thing the main thing, and go have fun please. 

When I was growing up, I was not allowed to go to the local pool halls. As I look back, I’m sure my parents did not want me to come under the influence of the unsavory characters who frequented those halls. So they built a fence to keep that from happening: “Don’t go into those pool halls.” The problem was I didn’t understand why, so I grew up thinking it was a sin to play pool (don’t laugh, I really did). Imagine my consternation when I moved to a Christian conference center and saw a beautiful antique pool table in the recreation room and godly men playing pool.

That is the way a lot of manmade “dos and don’ts” originate. They begin as a sincere effort to deal with real sin issues. But very often we begin to focus on the fence we’ve built instead of the sin it was designed to guard against. We fight our battles in the wrong places; we deal with externals instead of the heart.

— Jerry Bridges

 

“You can always see who’s a legalist because he can’t laugh at himself. He’s the one going around saying, “That’s not funny.”

— Timothy Keller

- Here’s a sermon I gave recently about how to glorify God and what that actually means, preached at a wonderful lively church that knows how to have fun and get serious too.

— J.S.

Skipping The Hard Stuff Jesus Said

I pretty up Jesus to make him more convincing because I don’t think he’s enough on his own. 

I do this because I’m scared, I’m nervous what you’ll think about him — and I have this other idea of God that will go down smoother to answer all your doubts and concerns.

Doesn’t this make me a liar?  Or disingenuous?  Or a magician?  Or a bad movie trailer?

I end up saying, “Jesus is actually saying —” and then going into a detailed explanation of the Greek to gloss over the really hard things he said.

We don’t like to wince.  We cringe at the tough stuff that doesn’t mesh with our modern Western sensibilities. We are sure that Jesus meant something else.  So we dress him up, decorate his words, and exegete the edge off him.

In Matthew 13, when Jesus says what he’ll do to evil people — he’ll “throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” — I fail to see how this is gentle generous by-golly Jesus who gives free hugs and high fives.

In Luke 12, when Jesus says what the master will do to the wicked servant — “He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers” — I can’t turn this around by saying, “Jesus is really saying, ‘I will never stop loving you.’”

In John 6, Jesus preaches a sermon so hardcore that every single follower except the appointed twelve end up leaving him.  Jesus asks the remaining dozen: “Do you want to leave too?”  I don’t see this in any church growth books or discipleship workshops.

In Matthew 10, Jesus says plainly with zero disclaimers: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”  I don’t see a hidden meaning in this passage.  He said what he meant; he meant what he said.

Can we let Jesus speak for himself?

I know that Jesus was absolutely loving to the outcast, the poor, the children, the foreigners, the women, the demon-possessed, the disabled — but are we really skipping all these other parts?  He had some hard words for the Pharisees, the teachers, the rich young ruler, and that guy who wanted to bury his dad at a funeral.

I’m not sure if I can keep neutering Jesus like this and still be called a “follower of Christ.” 

What I’m following then is God in my own image.  I’m doing both a disservice to Him and to you.

There are certainly many things that Jesus said which I don’t understand, which I find unpleasant, which tickle my teeth and turn my guts upside-down. 

But if he really does love us: he’s going to say the hard truth.  Part of love is being truthful, or you’re not being loving.  At some point, Jesus pushed up against a human sensitivity and ran right through our polite, politically correct paradigms. 

Truth is never easy to hear.  That’s why it’s called truth.  And that’s why it sets us free. 

If I were the Son of God and I knew there was really a place called hell, then I’d be like one of those scientists in a disaster movie who warns everyone about the impending doom.  I wouldn’t hesitate to mention the terrible tragedy that is heading for us — and Jesus did the same. 

If I were a disciple recording the events of Jesus’ life, I wouldn’t spare time trying to make the truth-pill go down easy.  If Jesus died and rose again for us but never said a nice thing, he has still proven he loves us by going to a cross and inviting us to eternal life. 

If someone died for me while saying a few tough words: I’m not going to whine about the tough words.

I just don’t want to chop up the words of my Friend and King for the sake of making him look consumer-friendly.  I’m not saying we need to be offensive or shocking or colorful about this — but I just don’t want to water down my Savior into someone who can’t save.

He does love us.  So much that he didn’t hold back, not once.

Please let Jesus speak.  He is better at it than we are.

“I want God, not my idea of God.”

— C.S. Lewis

— J.S.

Reactionary Culture: I’m Not Like Those Other Christians

As he cursed up a storm and lit his next cigar, he says to me, “I’m not like those other Christians. I actually get it.”

Suddenly I’m nervous. I didn’t get what he was getting. He must be talking about me: I’m one of those stupid Christians who is missing it and doing it wrong. How did I not get it all this time? This cigar-smoking man had the truth. Thank God! Tell me more.

The man went on about megachurches, how doctrine is not that important, how most sermons suck, how pastors don’t have a clue, how he wanted to teach churches how to be a good church.

I wanted to take notes, but then I thought he would say, “Only those stupid Christians do that.” I started playing with a napkin. He noticed, so I stopped.

He continued. I looked up for a second and this huge cloud had opened up. Right then, I thought of Jesus listening in on us — and I became pretty sad about the whole thing. Like you know, Jesus went through that cloud and became one of us and died for us, and all we could really say was, “I’m not like this other guy.”

I told the cigar-smoking man I had to go home. I felt sick. Some from the cigar, but mostly because of my heart.

Matrix, Methods, McChurch

There’s a pattern. A group of Christians is really flaming mad at Christianity, so they form their own version of Christianity by doing the opposite of these other Christians, and everyone lives happily ever after.

That’s until a group of Christians inside these Better Christians get mad again, so they reboot like the Matrix and mix some from Column A and some from Exhibit B, and it should totally work out this time.

We’re doing a really great job of standing on the anti-ground of what we stand against. Over and over.

We form these isolated camps of My Right Methodology, and then presume this must be the only way, and I got it, and you don’t, and you megachurches are evil, and my non-megachurch is really what Jesus had in mind.

I’ve seen pastors who try to blanket-bomb their ideology onto other ministries — but if every church was a carbon-copy of your ministry, without a care for context or people, then that’s a mindless Orwellian dictatorship. Sort of a McDonald church world. God has grace for you too: but no one wants that.

Jesus (Didn’t) Say, “Follow The Opposite of Everyone”

Underneath all this counter-cultural rightness, there’s a smug superiority that destroys any hope of unity. Even saying, “I’m above all these divisions” is still division. You go left, I go right, you go black, I go white — which lands us in suffocating circles of theology about theology.

We forget that Jesus celebrated uniqueness, that he welcomed a wild diversity of personalities, that he worked with every individual in their contextual corner of the universe.

Jesus did not limit his imagination. He didn’t just react to provocation. He somehow managed to originate action while embracing the existing culture without having to brand himself in diametric categories.

Most of us today are overreacting. We react solely from our deepest hurts: which is not wrong, but not sustainable. Our theology is I’m not like those other Christians — and we forgot: we are called to be like Christ.

Chronological Prison: You’re a Product of Your Times

When I first attended church, the Seeker Movement was the next big thing. Little talk of sin, secular songs in service, and lots of welcoming teams. But soon, Christians got tired of watered-down doctrine so they went all Young-Restless-Reformed, with a bunch of Calvinist bloggers demanding tight expository sermons and Gospel Centrality. Then you got a pushback against the Calvinism from the New Perspective on Paul with a Trinitarian focus of — well, you get it.

I’m wondering what’s next: but then I feel sick again.

Historically, humans tend to react sharply to whatever happened before. Especially Christians. We’re not very original. If someone writes a book saying “There’s no hell” — then guaranteed, you’ll get fifty people declaring, “The liberals are winning!”

Of course we should respond. Of course there is room for back-and-forth discussion. But I really want to see thoughtful conversation that does not condemn the other.

I’m tired of saying “them” and “us.”

I’m exhausted of xenophobic classist politically-driven doctrine.

I’m sick of using others camps as a moral standard for my rightness.

I’m not impressed when people bash megachurches or house churches or emergent churches.

I get nauseous over the Calvinist-Arminian beef.

I hate alienating people based on a few points of doctrine that won’t matter when we stand in the face-melting glory of God.

I’m so jaded with hip evangelicals who satirize the Christian culture to appear relevant.

I pray not to be like the Pharisee who compared himself to the tax collector — and that God would have grace for us both.

I know I could be doing the same thing I’m calling out others on — I am reacting to reaction — but my heart hurts to reach across the divide, to understand the other.

Yes, I love them too, with a broken heart that wants to unite all these people under the roof of Heaven to praise a glorious God who loves us all the same. I love them so much I can’t stop weeping over our divisiveness. I grieve for unity.

Theology is Jesus

Where we start is how we finish.

If you think electric guitar in a full band is too loud and you decide to only do acoustic guitar with a cajon, then cool. But I hope you talk this out with Jesus and you’re motivated by a heart that looks to him first. I hope it’s not to be rebellious against big bands and big stages and subwoofers — because no one cares about your statement of rebellion, including you.

If you despise megachurches that spend too much money on fancy coffee bars and jumbo projection screens and laser light shows, then why don’t you build a relationship with them and inspire them to invest in your social justice and homeless ministry and community service. Maybe this church is dying to do something more, and maybe you’re the guy to help them with that. You could be the bridge.

We can’t establish ourselves on a counter-theology. It will collapse. It always does. These movements fade. We can embrace them and be aware of culture: but it’s not your altar. Don’t idolize anti-idolatry. It never works.

It is not the Way of Christ to dismantle others because you think you’re doing it better. If you actually are doing it better: show us how.

And if no one listens, then please don’t be so hyper-critical to look down your nose on Christian culture. No one really cares what you think about it. People only care if you care about them — and you can only care about them if you are within the love of Christ.

Start with Jesus, finish with Jesus.

— J.S.

Question: How Should A Woman Dress?

living-loved asked:

Hey! So I was talking to some of my sisters about this topic and wanted to ask a brother about this too. I know guys struggle with lust more than woman (however, contrary to popular belief in the Church, we struggle with it too) but I don’t think we (as in the girls) realize how big of a struggle this is for guys. The topic we were discussing was tight clothing, specifically yoga pants and leggings. Do these really cause guys to lust? And what else does that doesn’t seem obvious? Thank you!

Hello! I wanted to say first: Thank you for following me here and for trusting me to answer this question.  I’m always humbled, and that goes for all of Planet Tumblr.

I know this is quite a sensitive topic.  I totally understand that men and women should be mindful of how they dress, and I also understand that women have the complete right to exercise their freedom — but I believe the important thing is the motives that determine these decisions. 

I wrote a semi-angry post on this a while ago here.

The thing is: If a woman only dresses based on, “I don’t want a dude to stumble” — that’s usually NOT a good primary motivation. 

I know you’re not saying it is, but the first thing really is to dress for yourself in light of who God has made you.  If you worry mainly about being a “stumbling block,” this can only be a self-enslaving mentality which turns into legalism. 

For guys: Even if all the women in church decide to dress appropriately, there are still MANY women in the world who choose not to.  So all us guys need to learn how to bounce our eyes and have some self-control.  It’s cool if a sister helps with this, but again: a woman’s main motive can’t be only to help a brother out.  Dudes need to learn how to discipline themselves.  No dude should ever blame a woman for their own lust issues — which is exactly how we ended up in a rape-culture.

I say all that to say: While we should absolutely humble ourselves for one another and be gracious about our sensitivities, the number-one issue of the heart in any action has to be between you and the Lord.  Otherwise it’s not sustainable.  When it’s worked out with God, that’s also how you’re empowered to carry out your conviction at all. 

After that, then you can begin to see how your actions, whether it’s clothing or speech or social media, is affecting your brother or sister.  And you’ll be changing not to please people, but because you’ve already worked it out with God, and you want to for His sake.

— J.S.

Christians: You’re Allowed To Fail, But Don’t Be Mediocre

An open letter to Christian artists and creative minds.

The Christian subculture tends to celebrate mediocrity because we think it’s Christian to be “nice” even when something sucks.

I mean like, hey man, that’s my kid playing Noah up there in the annual performance of “The Loving Wrath of Jehovah.”  Never mind the boat is a rusty shopping cart.

Suburban churches have an extremely high tolerance for bad sermons, bad Christmas plays, bad drama skits, bad music, and all-around poor production values.

We lower our standards with an almost forceful resentment, as if having approval in God gives us permission to be cheap and shoddy.

Most Christianized media is a safe, sanitized, bubble-fringe ghetto that appeals to certain mindless demographics which will eat up anything labeled “for the Kingdom.”

But as the great DC Talk once said, “If it’s Christian, it ought to be better.”

I’m totally not against safe Christian media: some of it’s not bad.  But I’m more Switchfoot than Jeremy Camp.  I’m more Brooke Fraser than Hillsong.  More Terry Crews than Kirk Cameron.  More Les Miserables than Fireproof.  I’m slightly more Lord of the Rings than Chronicles of Narnia.  Heck, I’m more Tangled than Veggie Tales. 

When we so obviously pander to the weird, isolated, overly political, socially awkward, neo-conservative Bible belt, we really do a disservice to the beauty of the Gospel. We end up looking like a deleted scene from The Village.

We downplay the fact that the Bible outright celebrates artistic diversity and painstaking detail, from the microscopic measurements of the Temple to the huge praise band of King David to the striving of Daniel to the oft-neglected attention of Martha, who wasn’t doing a bad thing in the midst of doing the best thing.

We sort of mock the excellence that we could be striving for in light of a creative, creating God who meticulously handcrafted every nuance of the universe.  A God so in love with His people that He became one of them: that He wrote Himself into His story.

I believe our Christian influence should be penetrating the very heart of modern culture instead of latching on like a cyst with its own rules.  To really love our way in. 

Sort of like the way Jesus became present and never withdrew from the worst of us.

He changed the world from the inside-out.

He loved with excellence.  What he was called to do: he did well. 

You are a creative force for God who has gifted you in a particular way to unleash something awesome upon the world.  Do that with love, with relevance, without compromising, and do it with excellence.  Do it well.

You might fail, but Jesus has that covered.  Keep going.

— J

Question: 10 Thoughts About God and Homosexuality

Anonymous asked:

What’s your opinion on gay people? I believe in God. Everyone says that homosexuality is wrong and it says so in the Bible, but they’re people too, and I think God loves them. I don’t think someone chooses to be gay, and I don’t think gays are going to “burn in hell” as some people say. I just wanted to know what you think..? I just need a real answer from someone.

Thank you for this question.  You know: I had written this overly long, detailed, theological blog post in reply, but I’m going to forgo all that to offer a few thoughts to reflect on.  Do as you will with them.

1) God loves you, end of story.  If you say, “God loves you, BUT —” then we’re not talking about God, the Gospel, or grace. 

2) It is not your job to convert someone to anything, ever.  Don’t even.  God never says, “Change first.”  God loves first.

3) Your sexual identity is NOT the only thing about you. So that secular news anchor or that angry preacher-man who keeps bringing up this issue are both being narrow-minded sensationalists.  And let’s stop using the words “bigot” or “liberal” or “homophobia” if you don’t understand the subtlety of rational conversation and the nuances of human thought.

4) I want to apologize on behalf of morons like Fred Phelps, the Westboro gang, preachers who tough-talk the pulpit to “stand up for what’s right,” and for the entire modern church that has diminished the humanity of real living breathing human beings who have homosexual feelings.

5) The church likes to stand on what we’re against instead of what we’re for. You can tell me what I’m doing wrong all day, but unless you show me something else: then we’re still at square one, ground zero.

6) When I’ve talked with gay friends, I’ve realized the church has never offered another option besides, “Stop it.”  And even when we try to hold up traditional marriage as the bastion of righteousness, most Christian marriages are so screwed up that we’ve revoked our own right to speak.

7) When Apostle Paul wrote about marriage, I bet he was thinking that Christians would show the best marriages ever — because up to this point, women were treated as cattle and men were given free reign with no rules. 

Paul called for a revolutionary love-based marriage: for husbands to give their lives for their wives like Jesus and for wives to serve their husbands like Jesus.  But the church has fragmented this beyond comprehension.

8) I wish I could share the awesome joy of Christian marriage with the whole world and to be able to say, “See how cool this can be?” — but that’s a failed dream now.  It’s no wonder that more and more people are not seeing “traditional marriage” as an option: because it’s not looking that much different than the ruined home they grew up in.

9) This is a global issue — because before the church can really present their case, they need to freaking have one first.  No, we’re not called to be perfect, but I think saying “I’m not perfect” becomes an excuse to be lukewarm.  No one wants perfection: they just want real.  That starts with you and me, dear Christians.

10) One day, your homosexual friend might come around to the beauty of a biblical marriage between one man and one woman.  One day, your friend might understand that you respect him or her no matter what.  One day, your friend might look at your marriage and want something like that, if there is something worth showing (oh church, if you’d only see yourselves).  One day, your friend might be hit with the true heart of the Gospel and experience the total grace of Jesus — one day.

But whether or not that happens, you keep loving on your friend.  Damn it, you better love this world like crazy.  No one is a project.  You are not “superior” to them.  You are not the harbinger of justice or Advice-Robot 2000 or the fixer of all things wrong.  You are one flawed human being who is called to love another flawed human being.  You love them.  Jesus died for you and for them too.