In a comment on my previous post, p. softly asked, "What don't you like about the 4 spiritual laws, besides that they are not the whole story and are very individualistic?"
Fair enough.
Paul writes in his letter to the Phillipians, "What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice."
So, I'm on dangerous ground here. Apparently the Four Spiritual Laws "work" for a lot of people. They're certainly not as bad as some of the nonsense that goes on in the name of Christianity. But I take issue with them.
The statement of the laws below is from http://www.greatcom.org/laws/ and the emphasized words below are emphasized the same way there.
1. God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life.
This is probably the one I take the most issue with. The problem is that it really only makes any sense for people living in a nice, comfortable middle/upper class lifestyle, and even for them only when things are going relatively well.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg has proposed the following principle for God talk after the Holocaust: "No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made which would not be credible in the presence of burning children." Clearly, the "first spiritual law" fails this test.
This might seem like a pretty harsh standard to apply to people who are just trying to share the love of Christ with people they meet, and I wouldn't apply it if this statement were not so front and center in their evangelistic methodology. But as I indicated in my previous post, the issue is maintaining Chrisianity as a credible worldview. If "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life" is the foundation of "the Christian worldview" it will crumble when the rains fall, the floods come and the winds beat on the house of faith.
Half the people in the world live on less than two dollars a day. I'm not going to tell them that God has a wonderful plan for their life.
2. Man is SINFUL and SEPARATED from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.
This is a carefully crafted statement which dances around the question of whether or not God actually does love and extend grace to the "sinful and separated" people. In clumsy hands it can (and does) easily become "You're a bad person, and that's why you don't know God."
3. Jesus Christ is God's ONLY provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.
This is a nasty, backhanded presentation of the Gospel. It means to say that through Christ you can know God, but it actually begins by saying, if you aren't a Christian you're one of those bad people that God doesn't love.
Instead of saying, "The love of God is extended to all people in Christ," it says, "The love of God is ONLY extended to Christians."
4. We must individually RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.
I might have been wrong when I said that the first law is the one that I take most issue with. This is at least a close second.
The first thing I take issue with here is the word "individually." You're on your own. Nobody can do this for you. I've told you how to say the prayer, but now the ball's in your court.
But, Lutheran that I am, I don't believe the ball is ever out of God's court.
The thing that troubles me about this is that it presents a picture where God made salvation possible and then stepped back and waited to see who would take the offer. This is nothing less than a misrepresentation of God.
The God I worship is active in the world, constantly working in and through people's lives, whether they've received him or not, to accomplish the salvation, not just of individuals, but of the world. As the Orthodox say, no one is saved alone.
20 comments:
Thanks for taking the time to answer. I haven't read the post yet; I am printing it. Bloglines informed me of your post, but then I couldn't get your blog to work for quite awhile. When I finally got it, I got it four times at once, maybe once for each spiritual law. ? I thought I'd better printi it before it goes into cyber never land again.
Thank you so much for a post like this. It makes me glad to be a Christian and glad to be a Lutheran! Well said.
I’m glad I asked the question, “What don’t you like about the 4 spiritual laws…?” As a Lutheran, the method/language is outside my usual domain, which doesn’t make it wrong, but I couldn’t really articulate what made me uncomfortable.
I feel as though I live in Luther-Land, yet our pastor stated that half the people in our county are unbaptized. This means that we aren’t doing our job. And if there are ways to express Christianity that can catch people’s initial interest, then we should look into using them. Any Lutheran church which is situated in an area where there are great numbers of unchurched people which doesn’t have at least some adult baptisms needs to take a second look at its mission statement, in my opinion. We’ve had a number of adult baptisms, but nowhere near what there could be, given the mission field right here.
1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
Well, this is really true, if the word plan means salvation. And if the word wonderful pertains to heaven. Or take out the word wonderful; again, the statement is true. God does, at least, know our future, if that is what a plan means.
However, it is too easy to equate the words ‘wonderful plan’ with the health/wealth/success theology. Are we to assume that the drought in eastern Africa affects no Christians? Or the tsunami struck only non-Christian islands? Or that there were no Christians where Katrina came ashore? Perhaps there was reverse Rapture.
Three generations of our family use Psalm 145: 15 & 16 with the words changed from statements of fact to petitions, asking God to feed and satisfy.
Scripture indicates that we may be called upon to give up everything and follow. Maybe the plan for a certain person is to go and help and suffer with the people needing comfort in a home for people with AIDS in Nigeria. I know a Lutheran woman who is doing this. I correspond with a Christian young man in Uganda who has given up the usual dreams a young man might have because he founded a school for AIDS orphans.
I suppose this is too heavy to lay on a new Christian. But I agree with you. Let’s not sugarcoat the Gospel.
2. Well, yes. But if a Christian is not “knowing” i.e. “feeling” God’s love, then what?
3. Ditto. And I believe that God’s love IS shown around the world, yet men muck it up constantly.
4. The problem is that there are those people who look at their “membership” in a faith group as something they inherit, such as their ethnicity. Or baptism as fire insurance. Who is the actor when someone is “saved?” I believe it is God. But what about those people who have been surrounded with Christianity but have never bothered to even think about how it applies to them? I am satisfied to leave this up to God and to not condemn.
Yet some of what you and I don’t like about these statements is culture/language. I think of a person dear to me that was raised Lutheran and deliberately drifted away from faith, yet, as a thoughtful person, was eventually questioning, seeking. When he eventually had a “faith experience” which involved some prayer and some form of just letting God have God’s way, he said, “God gave me my faith back.” That is statement true to his Lutheran background. I think that someone from a different Christian tradition would have said that he asked Jesus to come into his heart and was saved. At least the words ‘was saved’ is in the passive voice.
Is there anything in Lutheranism that provides a concise exposition for a person new to the ideas of faith and the saving grace of Jesus? One of the reasons the new Walking the Midway Blog Carnival topic on Lutheran Spirituality intrigues me is that the expression of faith in the Lutheran church of my childhood and in a Lutheran college was pretty dry or even non-existent, unless we were reading something out loud out the hymnal. It was never an outward expression of faith experiences.
Hi Melissa. Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you liked it.
p,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. It's good to have someone call me to reflect seriously on things like this and not just bash them.
I think you're right. Lutheranism could definitely benefit from a good, concise statement of the Gospel. One of the problems with that is that most of the good, concise language of the Bible has been co-opted by conservative Baptist types and now carries a lot of baggage in the culture that we wouldn't necessarily intend. Even so, that doesn't excuse us from doing better.
There is a children's song that goes "Hide it under a bushel, NO!. I'm going to let it shine..."
How do we shine? We, meaning me, you, singular. We, meaning Lutheran.
Speaking from my personal experience:
We've been a pretty closed mouth bunch, at least in some circles. And some of "us" get pretty defensive when somebody questions our "witnessing." Yes, actions do speak louder than words, but sometimes actions can lead to an opening, a time and a place to speak about what our motivation is for our good works. I Peter 3:15.
I have quite literally heard it said, "Well, there are some Christians in the Lutheran Church and the Catholic Church." My friend has heard this same statement made at a mixed age group couples Bible study she attends.
The speakers of these words attend a Baptist Church that is well known for visiting the sick, helping new mothers, seeing a spiritual need and starting a Bible study specifically for that need, etc.
We sometimes tell our children, do what I say, not as I do. These Baptist neighbors of ours could easily say, "do as I say, do as I do, just don't be as judgemental as I am."
I really enjoyed reading this post, as well as the ensuing discussion. Mel, I fully share your criticisms of "The Four Spiritual Laws". To my ears, they sound like a simplistic sales-pitch for faith - "Come on in, and we'll tell you about God's wonderful plan for your life. But first, you have to believe what we believe." This four-step scheme for salvation is certainly not the Gospel, as the use of the word "Laws" clearly indicates.
I’m also quite wary of the “purpose–driven” theology contained in Law #1, since it seems more geared towards human fulfillment than the ways of God. Christians should never claim that faith is “useful”, at least not in a direct sense. We affirm Christianity because we believe it to be the Truth, not because we think it will yield benefits for us in this life or the afterlife. Thus, as you nicely point-out at the end of your post, the best approach is to stress the objectivity of God’s actions, and not our subjective responses. As Lutherans, we need to find a way of proclaiming that “God has acted for your salvation, whether you recognize it or not. He’s not waiting on you; instead, he has already pronounced you righteous by his free grace.” I’m not sure if that message will bring in many adult converts, but it’s worth a try. I agree with p-softly that we Lutherans are far too “curved in on ourselves”, and we should become more aggressive in sharing our radical Gospel with the outside world.
Don't get me started on the whole "purpose driven" thing. I'll rant 'til I'm senseless.
So, do you believe everyone will be saved or something different? I wasn't quite clear from reading your post.
Hi Travis,
I hope that everyone will be saved, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I think so. I'm not even sure what it would mean to not be saved, except that it sounds like a very bad thing.
What I would say is that I don't focus much on who's "going to heaven" and who isn't. I don't think the Gospel is about how to get saved. It's much better new than that. The good news is that God is doing something about the mess the world is in.
Well, I certainly agree that God is doing something about the mess the world is in... but wouldn't you agree that what God is doing is carrying out His plan of redemption? Isn't that what the great commission was about when Jesus commanded the disciples to carry the message to the ends of the earth... so that sinners might be saved?
Yes, Travis, I agree that what God is doing is carrying out His plan of redemption. But I think you and I would fill that statement with different content.
You mentioned on the other thread that the Gospel, as you presented it there ("even though we are born dead in our sins, separated from God, and objects of His wrath... the good news is that God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us"), is so simple that children can understand and believe. I would raise an objection here. I don't think children can understand why they would be objects of God's wrath. I don't understand it.
And if you don't make room for a certain amount of mystery here ("strange is his deed! —— alien is his work!"), you get something really ugly.
I'm trying to point to the difference between God not exercising wrath on a number of sinners (but letting loose on everyone and everything else) and God redeeming the world. Do you understand what I mean?
No, not really.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't understand why we are born objects of God's wrath?
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I don't comprehend it. I can recite the logical argument for it, but I can't grasp it.
And I don't comprehend it precisely because "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." If God is wrathful, even that is for our salvation.
But we've got a tradition in Lutheranism that advises us not to try to pry into the secret will of God. Instead, we focus on God clothed in his promises. The intentions of God for the world are revealed in the Crucified Christ.
What it comes down to is this: Who or what is God redeeming? It is in this regard that I cited Revelation 21:5, "See, I am making all things new."
Mel, your post gave me very unpleasant flashbacks of my college-era encounters with aggressively proselytizing Navigators. (They never got me, a fact for which they should be profoundly greateful.)
I'm reading Marva Dawn's Unfettered Hope, where she talks about the diminishment of the stuff of life into device -- something you use to get something else -- and to me the "Four Spiritual Laws" are exactly that. For me Christianity is about, metaphorically speaking, taking off my shoes and falling on my face, because I've just entered onto holy ground and encountered the Holy Mystery. It's not about "Four easy steps to salvation!"
Mel, in reference to your related question on my carnival blog -- since you're addressing an idea, not a particular church body or organization holding it, I'm going to make the executive decision that it's acceptable.
Oh good.
You have a great point, lc, about "device". Even if the 4SL were theologically sound, the way they're used, to what end, could be called into question.
hi, ran across your blog after googling about antioch and got sidetracked with your other posts. interesting stuff.
wanted to leave some comments. to the point of creating a blog id after some self-debate.
i dont completely agree with 1st law either, but the part about a wonderful plan, you seem to read "offer" as "has."
i imagine the plan is wonderful from Gods point of view (this could make the phrasing a bit spurious though). i say this cause i think much of our societys broken philosophy about evil and suffering would be better answered by defining "good" (or wonderful) more adequately. as for credibility, i think many things that are theologically valid would not serve well in the presence of the suffering (children or otherwise). you mention rain storms and falling houses, but i think these so-called "laws" are better evangelistic discussion points than theological foundations. and meant to be merely that. i value (formal) theology, but i dont think it/s usually the best means to evangelize.
law #2 could indeed be misconstrued as "youre a bad person...", but then many valid statements could be and often are misconstrued. if youre looking for better wording, i think youre right about the carefully craftedness of it. perhaps to appease the calvinists and arminians.
i totally lost you on #3. nasty? i missed that. and didnt see a fair connection between "Jesus Christ is Gods only provision" and "you're one of those bad people..." (unless youre saying there are other roads to salvation; maybe i need to go back and read your other posts).
i see your issues with #4, though at this point you deliberately seem to be setting yourself up against these laws. then again, that/s not fair since i dont know youre theology.
sorry if this sounds critical. i enjoyed your post; i just took issue with some of your points. but then, that may just be a result of not knowing youre theology.
and sorry if anythings superfluous, i skimmed the comments. hope you dont mind the post
ps. im not baptist. but i find "language of the bible has been co-opted by conservative baptist types and now carries a lot of baggage" a little harsh.
anon,
I'm not sure how long ago you posted these comments as Blogger for reasons known only to them gives me times but no dates. As this is an old topic, my response may be long delayed.
First, you're absolutely right. I have always read "offer" as "has". I even had to go back and check to be convinced that it didn't say "has". Funny how the mind works. I'll have to think more about what the intended implications of the "offer" are. Initially, it still doesn't seem to take reality as seriously as I would like.
With regard to the third law, my reasoning is that if your presentation says "Jesus Christ is God's ONLY provision" and you make "ONLY" bold and all caps like that then it is the "ONLY" that is being emphasized, not Jesus Christ. And to those who are not Christians you are saying, God has made no other provisions for you. As you stand now, God is against you.
This is, of course, implied or stated outright by much Christian theology, but in my view it's complete nonsense. Was it while we were already Christians that Christ died for us? Clearly, God loves me whether I am a Christian or not.
Now my personal belief with regard to other religions is that they see God, even if through a darker glass than us, and receive God's grace. More particularly, and more to the point, I don't believe that any of us come to Christ apart from God's grace, which means that God's grace must be active in our life before we come to Christ. The "ONLY" from the third spiritual law would seem to deny this.
Finally, you're right that my comment regarding the Biblical language having been co-opted by Baptists was a little harsh. It implies more than I meant to. I don't think that the Baptists are trying to "steal" the Biblical language. What I meant was simply that when many people here phrases like "Christ died for our sins" they understand it to mean only what conservative evangelical Christians (not limited to Baptists) say it means, and I claim that the original language meant something other than that.
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