Christianity Ceased Being A Religion... When Exactly?

We've all heard it before, probably hundreds of times:

"Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship!"

OK, honest confession time: that phrase bugs the snot out of me, and I cringe every time I hear it.

Now give me a minute before you chew me out or write me off! Surely many of us have said this ourselves, and you may feel there's an important truth behind those words. So let me say right off that there is. I get that. And I agree with it.

What many Christians are trying to say when they make that statement is that the Gospel of Jesus is not a man-made attempt to earn God's favor by being sufficiently good. And they're saying that when we try to be good enough for God, what we end up with is cold and lifeless legalism, which is not Christianity. And they're right. (image source)

But I don't think substituting "relationship" for "religion" is the right way to communicate that truth. Here's why.

Welcome to Me-World
We're living in the Postmodern era. You know, that worldview that insists that no one has access to truth as it really is, but instead all we have is our own perspective. Since no one can know real truth, all I can know is "truth for me," or what seems to be true from my perspective.

So to many people nowadays, life is a highly individual, customized journey of discovering what will be true and meaningful to them, and them alone. It is a way of seeing life that begins and ends in one place: me.

Relationships in Me-World
And what happens to relationships when life is seen this way? They exist for, well... me! We want the freedom to enter and exit relationships as we see fit. We want to move from relationship to relationship as freely as we move from job to job. That's why increasingly we're just skipping that whole get married thing altogether. After all, what's the point? We'll be with him or her as long as we both choose to be together.

Relationships in Me-World make fewer and fewer demands on us. For example, I once worked with a never-married 40-something lady who had been living with her boyfriend (she referred to him as her "partner") for several years, and insisted that they were quite happy together. I innocently asked her if they had any plans to get married. Ooops. Wrong question. She snorted (literally) with disdain at the thought of marriage and replied, "Why would we? I don't want the state to be able to tell me what to do." She felt the relationship might become less satisfying at some future point. And if it did she wanted to have the freedom to just grab her stuff and move out without having to go through all the legal hassles of a divorce. (image source)

And The Gospel?
Such is the reality of relationships in our beloved Me-World. So what happens when an innocent, well-meaning Christian, who has been involved in church and studying the Bible for years, proudly and emphatically claims that Christianity is really just a relationship? Mr. Christian is probably trying to say that it's not a legalistic, works-driven way to earn favor with God.

But is that what the citizens of Me-World actually hear? Or do they hear an entirely different message? "Christianity isn't a religion..." Well, to Mr. Me-World "religion" usually means someone like God (or in reality the church) telling me what to do and how to live my life. Me-World is allergic to anyone telling us what to do!

But "relationship"? Ah, we know what relationships are! They're those voluntary associations we enter into with others for mutual benefit and pleasure, but over which we still exert final control. And Mr. Christian is telling me that Christianity really just a "relationship" with Jesus? Fantastic! I'll go to church or whatever and Jesus will love me? Sounds great. But let's not have any of this talk of theology, sin, atonement, hell, election, sovereignty, wrath, or anything else that makes it sound like God actually rules the roost here. That's not a relationship.

God Most High
Well, it's not according to Mr. Me-World. But Christianity is exactly that according to the Bible. God is the Lord of Hosts, the Maker of heaven and earth before whom mountains tremble, and in who's presence the prophet Isaiah fell down as one dead and cried out "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips!" (Isaiah 6:5) He is the Ancient of Days, the Lion of Judah who calls all men to repent and demands from his people that we be holy for he is holy.

We are not in a relationship with this God because we chose to enter into a non-binding contract for mutual benefit. We know God only because he broke into human history and revealed himself to us, and has summoned us to be his people by his means, on his terms, and for his glory. The God who by his supremacy and authority commands all men everywhere to repent is the God who loves his people fiercely as a husband. (image source)

Mixed Messages
Do you now see why I cringe? This is Biblical Christianity! But none of this comes across to the ears of Me-World when we use the term "relationship." And when we reject the term "religion" we think we're rejecting dead legalism, but Mr. Me-World probably hears us rejecting any notion of God as One who is above, supreme, over us, and who places legitimate demands on our lives.

So my plea to my fellow believers is, stop distancing the Christian faith from the idea of "religion." If the Bible doesn't (James 1:26-27) then neither should we. If we continue to do so, we'll likely distance Christianity from the very sovereignty and transcendence of God, and his claims to define what is true and authoritative for us.

A New Label?
Now, when I said all this at a recent staff meeting one of my colleagues rightly pointed out that the word "religion" is a loaded term for so many both inside the church and outside, that we shouldn't try to rehabilitate it. I actually agree with her, and I'm not suggesting we use the word "religion." Just that we stop disparaging it.

Perhaps we need a new term. One that adequately captures and honors the "other-ness" of God, that communicates his status as the High King of Heaven, and the one to whom all glory is due. I do not know what this term should be, and I'm accepting suggestions. I'm advertising for a new label! Suggestions are welcome in the comment section. :)

But please, brothers and sisters, let us be sure that the Messiah we are putting before the citizens of Me-World is the Messiah of the Bible: the one sent from the God of the universe, who commands our allegiance, our lives, and our destiny. (image source)

The one who came to earth to die for us, motivated by his unstoppable love, and who now sets the terms by which we rebels must surrender and devote ourselves utterly, completely, and irrevocably to his glorious self.

Lead me to the cross where Your blood poured out,
Bring me to my knees, Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself, I belong to You,
Lead me, lead me to the cross.

--------------------

I'm captured by Your holy calling
Set me apart, I know You're drawing me to Yourself
Lead me Lord I pray

Take me, mold me, use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter's hand
Hold me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter's hand

Worship Giver

I very briefly touched on Judges 21:25 during last Sunday's message, and the significance of the point being made there has really hit me these last few days. The second half of that verse is often quoted: "everyone did what was right in his own eyes." We see a relativistic, God-rejecting, me-centered culture around us and cite this verse as an apt description of our own world. And it is. But more is going on here.

Narcissism's Cause
The first half of the verse tells us why , and the reason is surprising to modern ears: "In those days there was no King in Israel," This is what explains the statement about everyone being their own boss. The people were not faithful to God because there was no king.

There Is No "I" In "Follower"
But this seems strange! It would make more sense to say something like, the people did what was right in their own eyes because:

• they were selfish
• they misunderstood God
• they suffered from inappropriate pride
• etc.
  

But all of these modern-minded explanations have one word in common: "they." The focus of this thinking is on the broken people. But the focus of Scripture is elsewhere - it is on God who promises to fix the brokenness.

The Royal Repairman
The "king" mentioned in Judges is the Messiah - the one whom God said would crush evil, reverse the Curse of Genesis 3, and transform the human heart from rebellion to faithfulness. Humanity's problems began with a "we'll be our own God" mentality, and that mentality can never change itself completely. The solution to the problem isn't inside us. "They" is the wrong place to start looking for a fix.

Enter the King. The Messiah is the one whom the Bible says will repair the "we'll be our own God" mentality. He'll do it for us, from outside of us. He'll give us a "heart of flesh" toward God instead of a "heart of stone," as God puts it in Ezekiel 36:25-27. It is the Messiah who will enable us to follow God rightly, enjoy his benefits, and worship him. He is the Worship Giver.

Not Very Postmodern!
Which brings us back to Judges 21:25. The reason everyone did what was right in his own eyes is because there was not yet a king. Only when The King came could God's people have a new heart that would stay faithful to him. They could not fix this problem themselves. We are completely dependent it seems on God; not only to worship him, but to even want to worship him.

This runs contrary to our current postmodern tendency to think that we are our own best gauges of right and wrong. It also undermines the idea that if I as a Christian detect residual rebellion in my heart, I need to redouble my efforts to eradicate it. As if I could remove the things in myself that impede full worship. Messiah is the Worship Giver.

Arrival Of The Worship Giver
And that makes this forthcoming Christmas season a significant event. As I head toward the holidays this year I find myself reflecting on the bleak picture of Judges 21:25, and knowing that I am in that boat apart from God's promised King. As we approach the celebration of Jesus' birth, I find myself thinking not just about worshiping him for what he's done or even for who he is, but worshiping him for enabling me to worship him.

This year I worship the one who gives me the heart to worship in the first place.

Book Review - The Courage to be Protestant

Sometimes you hear a speaker or read an author who's saying all the things you've always believed, but they're stating things so well that your whole heart just screams "yes!" the whole time. Such was my experience reading this curiously titled book by David Wells. If anyone ever wanted to know how I believe church should be done or gain insight into my philosophy of ministry as a pastor, this book effectively states it all.

In the first part of the book Wells succinctly describes how the evangelical movement began back in the 1930s with a simplified dual commitment to Biblical inerrancy and the cross of Christ. This simple core had advantages, like allowing Christians from different traditions (such as charismatics and non-charismatics) to join the movement. But it had two key weaknesses: the importance of doctrine was diminished, as was the role of the church. This lead to a fracture in evangelicalism - a trend that very quickly became all the rage in the 1980s and 1990s, which Wells calls the Marketing trend.

I've blogged about the Marketing trend before, but in a nutshell it is this: following the lead of the Willow Creeks and Saddlebacks of the world, evangelical leaders began approaching the task of the church the same way a business approaches the sale of a product. The gospel is the product, the unchurched are the target demographic, and the question is "how do you get them to buy?" Employing all the latest know-how from the world of marketing, these churches started looking less and less like churches and more and more like bookstores, coffee shops, concerts, and other successful retail operations. The original weaknesses became glaring: both the role of church as an authentically spiritual and other-worldly community and the prominent role of doctrine in the life of the church became virtually nonexistent.

This Marketing trend gave rise to another major fracture: the Emergent trend (which I also blogged about before). Emergents recognize many of the shallow faults of Marketing evangelicalism, but their corrective measures often fall far short improvement because they're too wed to postmodern thinking. The role of the church as an authoritative community in the life of the believer is lost in the postmodern malaise of "journey" and "conversation." And doctrine? Few things are met with more disdain in postmodern thinking than doctrine, with all its arrogant self-assurance about being right.

In both cases the heart of what the church is, and what it believes, are lost. Marketing churches often put all this is the "back room" so to speak where few find it, whereas Emergent churches dismiss it altogether and replace it with a vague, self-oriented spirituality that's more about journey than destination.

So here we are, with evangelicalism fragmented into three major camps (with lots of nuance and detail in between, of course). Wells proceeds to accurately diagnose and expound why these current trends are missing the core of Biblical Protestant Christianity - information I think every Christian, and especially every church leader, needs to know.

Where do we go from here? Wells wisely recognizes that evangelicalism cannot be "un-fractured." Humpty Dumpty will never be put together again. However, and this is where my heart really resonates with this book, he urges us to move forward with the core of what Biblical Christianity has always been at the forefront of our minds. Whatever the details of church life end up looking like, he urges us to forge them out of the truths that have always defined Biblical Protestantism. He challenges us to have the courage of our convictions, the courage to buck the tides of our surrounding postmodern culture and adhere to Christian orthodoxy as taught in the Bible. In other words, as he puts it in the book's title, The Courage to Be Protestant.

I do not think Wells could be much more right than he is in this book. And I think every Christian will find his descriptions of current church trends eye-opening and extremely helpful. I highly recommend this book, and it's the first book in over a year that I've added to my blog's Bookshelf as a book I think every Christian should read. I'm that high on it. And if you consider Harvest your church home, I'm all the more asking you to make some time soon to read and digest Wells' message, because it's at the heart of where we're going as a church body.

Affluenza hurts

Between teaching a class at George Fox University and kicking off another year of ministry activity at the church, it's been a busy couple weeks for me. Still, this blog needs another post, and since I didn't have a Cal football game today to be embroiled with (the Bears had a bye week after a bad loss last Saturday), today's the day to get the next post up.


In my (precious few) free moments lately I've been doing some thinking about the current economic crisis. Massive government bailouts, wildly swinging stock markets, and even the government takeover of a major insurance company (AIG) have dominated headlines. What's going on? As one might expect both presidential candidates have weighed in with some typically vague explanations. But yesterday John McCain caught my attention when he delivered a speech in which he got more specific, laying the blame for our current economic woes right at the doorstep of mortgage lenders and the investment banking industry. Out of greed, he said, the lenders enabled themselves to offer bad loans to consumers which were then invested in by banks. Now that the bottom is dropping out, we're all paying for their avarice.

While I appreciate hearing something direct and specific from a presidential candidate, I think Sen. McCain missed the real culprit in the current financial crisis: us. He is partially right, in that greed in the financial services industry is part of the problem. But the economy isn't an investment bank or a lender, the economy is you and me. And we're kidding ourselves if we don't think we are largely to blame here.

A lot of the current problem can be traced back to 10-15 years ago when US lenders pressured authorities to relax lending standards so they could do more business. Low documentation and no documentation systems, 100% financing and other "creative financing" options, relaxation of underwriting standards... all of this was designed to allow lenders to make more loans - loans to people they never would have loaned money to a few years before. Now, is this greed? Sure it is. More loans mean more commissions for brokers.

But before we make an easy scapegoat of the entire home lending industry (I'm surprised the press hasn't started popularizing the term "big investing"), let's look in the mirror. After all, mortgages don't just appear out of nowhere - someone has to take out the loan for there be a mortgage in the first place. And just who was it that was entering all those zero-down, double-mortgaged, creatively financed loans? Greedy consumers. Who was taking out 110% of the equity in their houses? Greedy consumers. Who was it that jumped at the chance to buy a house they couldn't have purchased a few years ago, just because a few rules changed? Yep, greedy consumers. Just because some commission-paid broker tells me he can get me into that house I'm lusting after doesn't mean it's a good move on my part. And if I'm foolish enough to do it anyway, can I really put all the blame on the "greedy broker"? It isn't just dastardly Wall Street tycoons or Gollum-like mortgage brokers who are at fault here - there was plenty of greed right in our bathroom mirrors.

The reason I've been bugged about all this is I see a nation screaming for a scapegoat, not facing itself in the mirror. We're pressuring the federal government to fix the problem and "go get the bad guys." Now, the government has a role to play especially where laws were broken. But Nancy Pelosi, George Bush, Barack Obama, and John McCain aren't going to fix the basic moral problem in our nation: we deny absolute values (like the good postmodernists we are) and then things like greed, now unchecked, run amok.

And run amok it has. America has experienced an epidemic outbreak of affluenza. Consider the indicators, which I turned up via some simple web searching of places like the Federal Reserve and US Dept. of Commerce:

• Consumer debt (doesn't include people's houses) was $2.4 trillion in 2006. That's $19,000 of non-mortgage debt per US household.


• Mortgage debt increased 84% (from $7 trillion to $12.8 trillion) between 2000 and 2006. That's almost doubling in just 6 years. This statistic is the result of the relaxed lending standards I noted above, and it's the source of our current financial crisis.


• Credit card debt alone tripled between 1990 and 2000.


• In 2001, the percentage of Americans who filed for bankruptcy exceeded that of Great Depression. That year more Americans filed for bankruptcy than graduated from college.

Americans have an affluenza problem - we gotta' have it all now, and we'll borrow like crazy to get it. This makes us easy targets for unscrupulous lenders (our greed makes us easy prey for their greed) and it leaves us financially incapable of weathering difficult times. Soon housing prices dip or some other reality hits and we find we have more debt than assets. Consumer confidence wanes, investing markets buckle, and voila: you've got a crisis. Until we the people decide the problem is looking at us from the mirror, and until we determine to live differently, these kids of problems won't go away. We need to train ourselves to borrow less, spend less, and save more. Thankfully, programs like Financial Peace University (which we host at Harvest) and Crown Financial Ministries teach people how to do exactly that.

And we need to stop demanding that Washington remove the symptoms of our affluenza if we're not willing to attack the root of the disease. That only further moves our government toward practical socialism, which is the worst thing we can do to our economy in the long run.

Borrow less, spend less, save more. Too bad that slogan wouldn't win anyone the White House.

Worldview 101 (part 6) - So What?

So, the real question: does all this Worldview 101 stuff really matter in the life of the average Christian? Or is all this talk of esoteric sounding things like "Naturalism" and "Monism" just academic shop talk for self-styled intellectuals? Isn't Christianity simply about loving Jesus with all my heart and trying my best to live for him? How much intellectual, worldview stuff do I really need in order to do that?

Well, a lot actually! As I mentioned before Christiany is much more than just a relationship between myself and God - it's a worldview. The relationship that Jesus enables me to have with God through his death and resurrection becomes the grid through which I learn how the whole world works, and how I fit into it. In other words, Christianity teaches that God doesn't just reconnect me with himself. He goes on to explain all 4 worldview questions: where I came from, what's wrong with the world, what he's doing to fix it, and what the purpose of my life is in relation to all that.

But many Christians today haven't realized that their own faith is a worldview. For various reasons depending on faith tradition, Christians of all stripes tend to see their faith as a purely personal and private matter. The Faith is understood to be dealing with the individual and God, having little or no relationship with the world around us. Instead, American Christians increasingly adopt a secular framework for understanding life, and trying to make their sacred beliefs fit in to that framework. And the results are beginning to show.

Here's a current example: we evangelicals are typically the most theologically conservative group in the nation, holding the Bible to be the innerant message from God which is the final authority on all matters of life. Yet a recent survey from the Pew Research Center indicated that 57% of American evangelicals now say they don't believe Jesus is the only way to God, despite clear Biblical statements to the contrary. 57%!! That's more than half! Shocking, isn't it!?! Actually, such news shouldn't be shocking. For several years now, respected pollsters at The Barna Group have been telling us that less than 10% of Christians (and less than half of all Protestant pastors!) have a biblical worldview.

But how do we explain so obvious a contradiction amongst evangelicals? How can so many Americans simultaneously claim the Bible is absolutely true and life's final authority, yet deny some of it's clear teachings? Personally, I think explaining the contradiction is pretty straightfoward. First, very few Christians understand biblical theology at all. And no wonder - apparently most of their pastors don't either! One wonders how the sheep are supposed to get fed if the shepherds don't even know where the grass is.

But there's another reason that I think is even more responsible: we American Christians have largely accepted the mental framework of our secular culture, and we then filter what Bible doctrine we learn through that framework. In other words, rather than adopting a Biblical worldview we've unwittingly accepted a secular worldview and then tried to understand our faith through that grid. And it's not working.

The Pew survey above is a great example. As mentioned previously, the prevailing worldview in America today is Postmodernism, with its concept of Tolerance. Many American Christians base their worldview on Tolerance. So when the Bible seems to say something that goes against Tolerance, the more deeply held idea will win out. Put another way, I can choose to look at Tolerance through the lens of the Bible, or I can look at the Bible through the lens of Tolerance. Apparently, 57% of American evangelicals choose the latter approach.

And that is why worldviews matter. If I'm not aware of the ideas prevalent around me I will absorb some of them uncritically into my own personal worldview. And some of these ideas are contrary to Scripture. The Christian life is a call to serve truth in a truth-denying world (as Jesus did before Pilate), to serve people in a self-absorbed world (as Jesus did in the Upper Room), and to live for God in a hyper-individualistic world (as Jesus did in Gethsemane). But we can't live Jesus' life apart from Jesus' teachings.

Worldviews matter because we'll never be able to live like Jesus until we learn to think like Jesus. And we'll never learn to think like Jesus until we learn to identify our own individual worldview, and then allow Jesus to begin supplanting it with his own. Only then we will experience what the apostle Paul described as putting off the old man and putting on the new man, with the result that the whole man looks more and more like Jesus every day.

Worldview 101 (part 5) - Postmodernism and the New Tolerance

In the process of writing the wrap-up post for Worldview 101 it occurred to me that one other perspective deserves a brief mention due to its prevalence in America today: Postmodernism. This isn't a really coherent view of life like some of the other worldviews I've written about. Nevertheless the collection of basic ideas we call Postmodernism is extremely popular in America today, particularly among younger and college educated people, and it's becoming more widespread every year.


Postmodernism is really the grandchild of Naturalism rather than a totally unique worldview. Some thinkers took the ideas of Naturalism to their logical ends, such as the belief that there is no higher reality beyond matter and energy and thus there is no meaning or truth (a belief called "Nihilism"). Postmodernism rejects Naturalism's confident assertions about the nature of reality, and questions whether we can truly know anything so certainly.

As a worldview, Postmodernism can be described using the 4 worldview questions:

1. Origin - where did we come from and thus what are we?
The true nature of reality is hidden. Exactly how we got here and what we are is not knowable with any certainty. In fact, if any absolute truth is out there at all we can't know it for sure. Consequently, the "truths" we think we know aren't really true. One of the main goals of Postmodern thinking is to jolt your sense of what is real. This can be seen in the "Postmodern architecture" photo above, wherein the building doesn't appear to be a basic rectangle sitting straight up and down as we all "know" buildings must. And the bizarre goldfish picture (right) is trying to do the same thing by blending categories that we all think of as separate (a bedroom and a goldfish bowl).

Where did the "truths" we think we know come from? They're just social constructs. That is, people we respect (our parents, religious leaders, historical figures, etc.) have created their own stories that give meaning to human events, but they're just stories. (Was the European settling of of America the dawn of a new age of freedom or the death of freedom? Depends on who's story you listen to: the European's or the Apache's...)

2. Problem - what's wrong with the world?
In a word: metanarratives. That's a fancy way of referring to any over-arching story or idea that ascribes meaning to human existence. For example, "America is a shining city on a hill, a beacon of liberty" is a metanarrative. It's a story Americans utilize to give our nation meaning. But of course, the Postmodernist will point out that that the Sioux and Choctaw didn't see it that way when they were rounded up into refugee camps.

You see, to Postmodern thinkers, all such metanarratives come from people and people alone. They're not actually true, they're just someone's opinion; one group's made-up beliefs that are used to dominate and subjugate another group. These metanarratives are only power trips: heavy clubs used by people to beat others into submission. And when two different overarching stories collide, bloodshed results; whether it's white America vs. Native America, or the Palestinain Arabs vs. the Jews, or even "the Hatfields vs. the McCoys."

Incidentally, as with all worldviews, the Bible lays out a metanarrative: Christianity's compelling picture of God's plan to redeem the earth. But Postmodernists are more likely to see that story as the source of Old Testament era genocide and the modern-day Arab/Israeli conflict than the life-giving, meaning-producing explanation of history we Christians understand it to be.

3. Solution - how is the problem fixed?
End metanarratives. Give everyone the ability to construct their own individual story which will give them their own "meaning," but do not allow anyone to apply a metanarrative to the rest of the world. (Interesting how Postmodernism reacts against much of Naturalism, yet ends up sounding a lot like it...) Humanity is simply here, and as long as we are, we should stop trying to force our preferred meaning-stories onto other people. Only then will we enjoy some kind of peaceful existence.

4. Purpose - why am I here?
Stop asking stupid questions. Since there is no truth or meaning that we can really know, there is no real "purpose" for humanity. You construct your own story to make whatever you want of your life, I'll construct mine, and let's just agree to leave it at that.

--------------------------------

An important connection exists between postmodernism and the modern-day concept of "Tolerance." Classical tolerance is a good thing: it's basically the idea that in a pluralistic society wherein people disagree, we should all choose to disagree agreeably. In other words, we respect other people's right to hold different views, and we hold respectful (even if sometimes passionate) debates about truth. This classical tolerance is what the American political system was built around.

However, Postmodernism swept in and, like a parasite, latched onto classical tolerance and morphed it into something new and more sinister. The New Tolerance essentially means no one can disagree. Because truth isn't there in Postmodern thought everyone's view is just "their take," and thus no more valid than anyone else's view. In other words, no one's ideas are any better than anyone else's ideas because there is no standard by which to measure "better," there is only opinion. Consequently debate (even respectful debate) is meaningless, since the point of making arguments is to persuade people that your view is more "right." The Postmodern world is a value-free and truth-free world of nothing but individual opinion - utterly meaningless.

And the only "sin" one can commit in this amoral world is to disagree with someone else, because disagreement is seen as a form of coercion: forcing your own metanarrative on someone else. Thus the "Tolerance police" take zealous offense at anyone's claims of truth, seeing such claims as "oppression" and hostility. Thus "Tolerance" has gone from the concept of respectful debate to the concept of no debate allowed.


In a nutshell, I think postmodernism has identified a real problem but has come up with a terrible solution. It is true that various "metanarratives" have been used throughout history in horrible ways. But it does not follow that all metanarratives are equally horrible. Nor do I see any reason to believe that the amoral, value-free world of postmodernism, with it's chilling effect on honest debate, can protect the principles and values that make human life worth living.

Nonetheless, Postmodern-fueled Tolerance is a potent force in America today, even affecting huge numbers of Christians, as we'll see in the next and final post of this series.

Belated Thoughts on the Pope's Visit

Pope Benedict left the United States on April 20, concluding a 6-day tour in our nation, and I for one am impressed. I should say that since I’m a Protestant the pope doesn’t hold a unique place in my faith, nor do I have any religious allegiance to him. Yet having said that, I love this guy!

I remember some hugh and cry when Benedict was elected to the papacy in 2005 because some felt he’s too conservative. Apparently many thought that the Catholic Church would be better served by a pope who’s more willing to “get with the times,” and start thinking more like a 20th century postmodernist and less like a heir of the 1st century Apostles.

Trouble is, the pope is precisely the latter. In fact (regardless of one’s convictions on apostolic succession), a Christian by definition is one who has embraced Christianity: the worldview laid down by Jesus and the Apostles. All Christians are thus heirs of the Apostles, and the pope is the single most visible and influential Christian in the world. I’m delighted to see that this pope evidently views his role in these terms. Consider some of his objectives while Stateside:

• Re-energizing Catholicism the United States – in other words, if you’re going to call yourself a Catholic, it’s going to mean something. One example is his reiteration of the church’s stance against abortion to Catholic US politicians. Benedict seems more intent on contending for Catholic theology than winning popularity contests.


• Declaring that moral relativism is dangerous, and that there is absolute right and wrong. He spent some time combating secular assumptions in Catholic universities, urging the schools to stay true to their mission.


• Confronting the necessary but uncomfortable. I appreciated his remarks on the well-publicized priest sex scandals of recent years. Again, the fact that he addressed this subject when he didn’t “have to,” meaning it wasn’t dominating the 24-hour news cycle at the time, show an inclination to do what’s right, vs. what’s expedient.

Now I’m no expert on Pope Benedict, or even Catholicism in general. Nor do I make light of differences between Christian faith traditions. However, a heavily postmodern, secular age such as ours strikes me as precisely the time when dedicated Christians of all stripes (what C.S. Lewis would call “mere Christians”) should unite around the essentials of our faith, and winsomely live that faith among our fellow men. I think a Catholic church full of energized people who know what they believe and why they believe it, and who are committed to proclaiming the gospel in word and deed, is a good thing.

And I think a pope who applies his heart and mind to the task of advancing biblical truth in a relativistic world is to be commended. To the extent that Benedict pursues an agenda like the one above, you can add this one, lowly, non-Catholic’s voice to his chorus of supporters.