Part 3 (1/2)
As a result of this rebuke, I repented of my mental gossip and committed to striving only to entertain thoughts that expressed unsurpa.s.sable worth about people. I started thanking G.o.d for each person I saw and privately asking G.o.d to bless them.
And almost immediately it was like I'd removed a cork on the geyser of G.o.d's infinite love. The wellspring of Life that Jesus says abides in us was being unleashed. I began to experience a love and joy that was absolutely incredible. In that moment it seemed I was not only agreeing with G.o.d about each person's unsurpa.s.sable worth; I was being empowered to actually see and experience their unsurpa.s.sable worth. I wasn't simply loving these people out of duty (as good and necessary as that is). I was experiencing love for these people.
It was beautiful. It was the Kingdom.
I knew in that moment that this is what it is to receive and manifest Kingdom Life. This is what it is to love as Christ loved me. This is what it feels like to become free from idols and judgment.
Over the last decade or so I've striven to make blessing people an automatic habit of my thoughts. I still have a long way to go, and I can't claim that I usually experience anything like the depth of love and joy I experienced that day in the mall, though occasionally I do.
But this is as it should be. The purpose of agreeing with G.o.d about every person we encounter isn't for us to experience something. If that happens, wonderful. But the purpose is to simply align our hearts and minds with G.o.d. The purpose is to be, on a moment-by-moment basis, submitted to G.o.d's loving reign. And whether we experience anything or not, in the process of doing this we are manifesting the beauty of the Kingdom revolution and revolting against the ugliness of all judgment.
Viva la revolution!
CHAPTER 5.
THE REVOLT REVOLT.
AGAINST RELIGION RELIGION.
Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prost.i.tutes are entering the kingdom of G.o.d ahead of you.
JESUS (MATTHEW 21:31).
My relations.h.i.+p prevents me from having a religion.
SLOGAN ON A COOL T-s.h.i.+RT I OFTEN WEAR.
I smoked my first joint when i was twelve, dropped my first hit of acid at thirteen, and spent the next four years doing the late '60s and early '70s ”s.e.x, drugs, and rock and roll” thing. I was searching for ”the lost chord” while taking a few too many ”magical mystery tours” to ”the dark side of the moon.”
Then, at the age of seventeen, I ”got religion.”
I mean-I really really got religion. got religion.
I found it in the holiness Pentecostal church my (”backslidden”) girlfriend was raised in. She invited me because she thought I'd find it amusing. Besides, bringing visitors would help her win a Sunday school contest. I was desperately searching for something, and the lively church services and exuberant people kept me coming back week after week. Before too long, I responded to an alter call and surrendered my life to Jesus.
Being ”saved” in this church meant that you didn't go to movies and didn't drink alcohol, use tobacco, or do any drugs. Nor were we supposed to listen to secular music or go to professional sports events (never quite got that one). The women only wore dresses (always extending beneath their knees), the men never wore facial hair, and the women never cut their hair or wore makeup. We thought all people who didn't live according to our holiness standards were going to h.e.l.l. 1 1 This was ”religion” with a vengeance.
This wasn't all bad. I think I may have needed this sort of radical break in my life to put an end to some of the destructive behavioral patterns I'd developed over my first seventeen years. Not only this, but I had genuine encounters with Jesus in the midst of all this religion. I did, in fact, get ”saved,” and I'm forever grateful for my experience in the Pentecostal church.
But I also discovered-very quickly-that I wasn't good at this religion thing. I wasn't good at it as a kid in Catholic school, and I was no better at it when I was seventeen and getting off drugs. As they used to say of backsliders in my church, I ”just couldn't live the life.”
After several years of failure and self-condemnation, I gave up. If religion was what saved people, I concluded, I was destined for h.e.l.l.
I was right. Fortunately, I came to realize that religion doesn't save people. Religion, in fact, may be one of the greatest obstacles obstacles to being saved. To partic.i.p.ate in the fullness of Life that comes from G.o.d, we must revolt against the idolatrous life offered us from religion. to being saved. To partic.i.p.ate in the fullness of Life that comes from G.o.d, we must revolt against the idolatrous life offered us from religion.
IDOLATRY AND RELIGION.
At this point some readers may be getting upset-or at least confused. Isn't Jesus the founder of Christianity, the one true religion? How can a Christian author suggest that Kingdom people are supposed to revolt against religion?
Please hear me out. It is a crucial, though subtle, point.
When I speak of religion, I'm referring to any system of beliefs and behaviors people embrace and engage in as a means of ascribing transcendent worth to themselves. It's a means for people to experience a worth that they believe goes beyond what anything in this world can give them. As I use the term, therefore, religious people feed the hunger of their heart by striving to impress whatever picture of G.o.d or G.o.ds they embrace with the rightness of their beliefs and behaviors-in contrast to the wrongness of others' beliefs and behaviors.
While wealth, power, and s.e.x are the most prevalent idols in Western culture today, religion is historically the most common idol people latch onto. It's also proven to be the most dangerous.
Here's why. While all idols instill a particular version of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil within us, religion often inclines people to give their version of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil divine authority divine authority. And while all idols incline people to act aggressively to protect and advance their ”good” and resist what they judge to be ”evil,” religion often gives this ”good” and ”evil” eternal significance eternal significance. Religion significantly ”ups the ante” on idolatry and judgment. So it's not surprising that religion has often inspired violence throughout history and continues to do so today.
For the same reason, religious idolatry is particularly resistant to the Kingdom of G.o.d. It's no coincidence that the main opposition Jesus faced in establis.h.i.+ng the Kingdom came from the guardians of the religious status quo-the Pharisees, religious scribes, and the like. So it should not surprise us that the main opposition to advancing the Kingdom in our own day comes from contemporary guardians of the religious status quo.
To establish and manifest the beautiful Kingdom in his day, Jesus had to revolt against religion. To advance and manifest the beautiful Kingdom today, we must do the same.
THE KINGDOM AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
But isn't the Christian religion an exception, you might ask? After all, in contrast to all other religions, this religion professes the truth.
I don't dispute that Christianity professes important truths. Nor am I suggesting that faithfulness to the Kingdom requires followers of Jesus to revolt against any particular Christian doctrines (or even reject true things they find in other religions, for that matter).
The Kingdom's revolt against religion, including the Christian religion, is on a totally different level. It is a revolt against all attempts to get Life from particular beliefs-including true ones. For where G.o.d truly reigns over an individual or a community, their only source of Life is G.o.d, not not the rightness of their beliefs. the rightness of their beliefs.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT CRITERION.
If you're still puzzled, try thinking about it this way.
In the last chapter we saw that the New Testament teaches that expressing Christlike love is the most important aspect of the Kingdom, compared to which nothing else really matters. In this light, what are we to think of the Christian church when, in the name of Christ and for the glory of G.o.d, it engages in violence against its enemies? 2 2 The Church that tortured and murdered heretics, Muslims, witches, and Jews was certainly orthodox in its core beliefs. Yet-call me crazy if you will-it seems to me this barbaric activity wasn't expressing Christlike love. And since the New Testament teaches that anything that doesn't express Christlike love is devoid of Kingdom value-no matter how true and impressive it might otherwise be-we can only conclude that the Church that engaged in this anti-Christ activity was not the Kingdom. The Church that tortured and murdered heretics, Muslims, witches, and Jews was certainly orthodox in its core beliefs. Yet-call me crazy if you will-it seems to me this barbaric activity wasn't expressing Christlike love. And since the New Testament teaches that anything that doesn't express Christlike love is devoid of Kingdom value-no matter how true and impressive it might otherwise be-we can only conclude that the Church that engaged in this anti-Christ activity was not the Kingdom.
Jesus never tortured or murdered his enemies. He gave his life for them. Insofar as Christianity motivated people to torture or murder enemies rather than die for them, it wasn't following Jesus. It wasn't part of the Kingdom.
It really is that simple.
WHO'S THE REAL HERETIC?
If love is above every other consideration, and if everything without love is devoid of Kingdom value, as the New Testament teaches, then it seems we should regard the command to love to be the ultimate test of orthodoxy. To fail to love like Jesus is the worst form of heresy, regardless of how true one's beliefs are. Demons believe true things, James tells us, but their true beliefs are worthless because they are not accompanied with works that reflect G.o.d's love.
In the sixteenth century John Calvin had Michael Servetus burned at the stake for denying that Jesus was the eternal Son of G.o.d and for rejecting infant baptism. 3 3 Servetus' denial of Jesus' deity was indeed unorthodox, but in light of the all-or-nothing emphasis of the New Testament on manifesting Christlike love, how can we avoid concluding that Calvin was himself guilty of a far worse heresy? Servetus' denial of Jesus' deity was indeed unorthodox, but in light of the all-or-nothing emphasis of the New Testament on manifesting Christlike love, how can we avoid concluding that Calvin was himself guilty of a far worse heresy?
Church history is full of people being tortured and put to death for such heresies as not acknowledging the authority of the Church, baptizing wrongly, and denying the Trinity. Yet we don't have any record of anyone so much as having their hand slapped for embracing the worst heresy imaginable-namely, failing to love and do good to one's enemies, as Jesus commanded. That leaves me speechless!
Defenders of the tradition sometimes argue that we can't hold ancient Christians to modern humanitarian standards. Life in the ancient world was just more violent, they claim.
This argument, however, is not very compelling. Jesus and the early church lived in eras that were at least as violent as any in Church history, yet they managed to love their enemies rather than engage in violence against them. The same could be said of a number of individuals and groups throughout Church history. For example, when Calvinists, Lutherans, and Anglicans tortured and killed Anabaptists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the victims followed the example of Jesus and refused to fight back. Their faithfulness to the Kingdom bears witness against the faithlessness of those professing Christians who persecuted them. 4 4 This is not to suggest that we can pa.s.s judgment on Calvin or anyone else in Church history. We are ourselves sinners who have planks sticking out of our eyes, so we must leave all judgment up to the One who alone knows the innermost hearts of people. But this doesn't mean we can't discern what is and is not the Kingdom. We can't place ourselves above others-not even those who murdered ”in Jesus' name.” But we can and must clearly separate torturing and killing in Jesus' name (or for any other reason) from the beautiful, Christlike Kingdom. Insofar as the Church engaged in activities like this, it was involved in the most heinous form of heresy imaginable-its orthodox beliefs notwithstanding.
Whenever we get our worth, significance, and security from the rightness of our personal or national religion rather than from G.o.d, we will inevitably fall into the heresy of failing to love. We can only manifest the beautiful Life of the Kingdom if we receive this beautiful Life from the King.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF HOLINESS.