Idolatry of Identity

  • August 29, 2017
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3.21
 So then, no more boasting about human leaders!

Reflection: Idolatry of Identity
By John Tillman

In the Old Testament people reverenced household gods for prosperity, wealth, and identity. Today we reverence household brands. It’s unclear which group is more deceived.

In any market there are brands that appeal to desires for exclusivity and luxury. These brands broadcast signals of success and dominance. There are also brands who go the other direction—mocking luxury and exclusivity in an appeal to simplicity and common goodness. And then there are brands that combine mocking luxury with exclusivity—hipster brands. These brands strive to make their customers feel like they are taste leaders—that they are the smartest people around for discovering, before anyone else, this carefully marketed product.

Virtue signaling through conspicuous consumption of the right brands is an established norm. We have a strong desire to be identified as people who have good taste—even if the way we define good taste is by our distastes. We define our identity by what we support and what we disdain. This is true even among churches and Christian teaching.

In the Corinthian church, individuals were identifying with the “brand” of Christianity they associated with different Christian teachers. Their selfish pride in being a follower of a particular teacher was a shocking mark of immaturity to Paul.

We aren’t that different today. We often treat churches and Christian leaders just like any other brand. We follow them. We compare them. We promote their successes or complain about their failures. We even experience a bit of schadenfreude when those we disapprove of suffer or fall.

Christian leaders show this same weakness when they rely heavily on branding to appeal to followers. When the primary language of our culture is brand marketing, what choice do churches and Christian leaders have?

Paul places the burden to refrain from forming identity around a leader and not around the Gospel firmly on church members. Paul doesn’t condemn himself, or Apollos, or Peter of wrongdoing or theological error. (Apollos was corrected in his theological errors by Priscilla and her husband, Aquila.) The burden placed on leaders is that of building the church with lasting and sustainable teaching—the Gospel.

We desire marketable idols to identify ourselves as theological tastemakers. May we make no more “household gods” of Christian teachers. We are God’s field. May we give thanks for growth to the work of the Holy Spirit while still giving proper honor and support to the workers who help God’s field to thrive and be fruitful.

The Prayer Appointed for the Week
Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all people, to the glory of your Name…

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 21-22 (Listen – 6:35)
1 Corinthians 3 (Listen – 3:05)

Paul’s Anti-Anti-Intellectualism

  • August 28, 2017
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:1-2
I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Reflection: Paul’s Anti-Anti-Intellectualism
By John Tillman

Paul’s words in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians have often been misinterpreted. Some take them to mean that we need not concern ourselves with education, or reading, or study, or aesthetics—that we need not work to make worship or preaching a work of art, that we need not hone our logical mind, or use our analytical intelligence to seek and find God’s truth. It is always tempting for us to use spirituality as an excuse for our own laziness—intellectual or otherwise.

Even the original temptation in the garden was one involving knowledge without work. Just eat, said the snake, and you’ll be as wise as the maker. No need to continue in your boring tasks of Taxonomy or Botany. No need to labor to care for the earth. Just take knowledge you didn’t work for.

Those who disdain intellectualism like to make much of the fact that many of the Apostles were “unschooled men.” But the entire point of mentioning that the leading disciples had little formal training was the surprising fact that they argued well, with intellectually compelling logic and scripturally sound reasoning.

The New Testament is composed primarily by the two leading intellectuals of Jesus’ followers — Paul, the accomplished Pharisee and Luke, the Doctor. Paul was so famously intellectual that Peter said he was difficult to understand, and Festus accused him of going mad from too much reading and study.

Inspiration of the Spirit is not an excuse to neglect one’s homework, but neither does spiritual discipline stop with the intellect. It must have an emotional connection as well. John Piper says, “If a person doesn’t move from intellectual awareness of God and right thinking about God to an emotional embrace of God, he hasn’t loved God with his mind.”

Being without eloquence, wisdom, or knowledge—these aren’t markers of spiritual fervor. Being dry and distant from emotion is not a marker of superior discipleship. Paul did not mean he did not possess intellectual rigor, education, the wisdom of experience, and superior communication skills. He obviously possessed all of these traits.

Paul’s intent was that developing faith should not be dependent on the eloquence of a speaker or the artfulness of argumentative tactics. It is not an apologist who “wins” you to Christ, it is the power of the Gospel itself. We must indeed learn to be wary of worldly philosophies, but we must do so without casting aside spiritual and intellectual disciplines.

The Call to Prayer
Love the Lord, all you who worship him; the Lord protects the faithful, but repays to the full those who act haughtily. — Psalm 31.23

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 20 (Listen – 6:42)
1 Corinthians 2 (Listen – 2:26)

Tempting God

  • August 25, 2017
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  • Park Forum

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1.28
God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

Reflection: Tempting God
The Park Forum

If morality was all that Christ desired for the lives of his followers, the cross would be superfluous. Christ’s response, when tempted in the wilderness, wasn’t “that would be immoral,” but, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Theologian J.P. Lange explains; “To tempt God is to involve oneself in four contradictions: (1) faith without obedience, (2) prayer without self-surrender, (3) action without warrant from on high, and (4) success without comfort or assurance.”

To tempt God is to give the appearance of spiritual vitality, as Lange points out, but still live unfaithfully. Jesus’ success in temptation shows how broken we are. The Christian experience isn’t just about doing the right things—if we cultivate righteousness under our own power, we still miss relationship with God.

“If the truth of being justified by Christ alone—not by our works—is lost, then all Christian truths are lost,” Martin Luther cautioned. The great reformer believed one of the keys to faithfulness was renewing the gospel—the good news of Christ’s work—in our hearts daily. Luther continues:

Now both these things continue while we live here. We are accused, exercised with temptations, oppressed with heaviness and sorrow, and bruised by the law with its demands of active righteousness. These attacks fall upon our flesh—the part of our heart that still seeks to earn our salvation.

There is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works-righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works-righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work. On this truth and only on this truth the church is built and has its being.

This distinction is easy to utter in words, but in use and experience it is very hard. For in times of struggle, the devil will seek to terrify us by using against us our past record, the wrath, and law of God. So learn to speak to one’s heart and to the Law. When the law creeps into your conscience, learn to be a cunning logician—learn to use arguments of the gospel against it.

The Greeting
I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help. — Psalm 13.5

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 17 (Listen – 8:59)
Romans 15 (Listen – 4:32)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Samuel 18 (Listen – 4:30) Romans 16 (Listen – 3:30)
1 Samuel 19 (Listen – 3:43) 1 Corinthians 1 (Listen – 4:03)

Commenting in Community

  • August 24, 2017
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: Romans 14.7
For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.

It is certain that nothing is more threatening, nor more often fatal, to Christian societies, than the contentions and divisions of their members. By these wounds the life and soul of religion expire. — Matthew Henry (1672-1714)

Never read the comments. — Internet Proverb, Anonymous (of course…)

Reflection: Commenting in Community
By John Tillman

When Paul wrote, “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters,” one might imagine that he had a vision of modern Facebook comment squabbles. But in truth, the Holy Spirit was revealing not the future, but a current and eternal, deeply ingrained, sinful, broken need that we have to dominate and control others.

Writing for The New Yorker in 2013, Maria Konnikova discussed Popular Science’s justification for discontinuing comments on its site: “Internet comments…lead to a culture of aggression and mockery that hinders substantive discourse.” Popular Science eliminated comments completely and many sites disabled anonymous comments.

The consensus seemed to be that commenters using their real identities and names would be more civil, less brutal, less confrontational. Boy, were we wrong.

One of Facebook’s uniquenesses from its inception was that you were never anonymous—you used your real name. But Facebook comments through recent elections and conflicts have revealed that we don’t need to be anonymous to be as nasty as we want to be to each other. It seems many people don’t mind attaching their identities to noxious ideas, lies, exaggerations, hurtful and mean-spirited memes, name-calling, and desperate pandering to the powerful.

Whether online or in person, Christians have a greater identity than our own to represent and a greater power to be accountable to than a forum or group moderator. It doesn’t matter how many upvotes or likes we get from comments if we misrepresent the Spirit of Christ.

What is missing in online commenting is precisely what commenting attempts to recreate—community. In community, we have relational equity to push for change without being pushy. Our comments in community may be corrective while still being loving, and supportive without giving license to sin.

We can work together to sort out what we hold as sacred, as long as we remember that our fellow believers are held sacred by Christ through his sacrifice.

The Call to Prayer
Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise — Psalm 51.16

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 16 (Listen – 3:45)
Romans 14 (Listen – 3:28)

God’s Regret and Samuel’s Anger

  • August 23, 2017
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  • John Tillman

Scripture: Romans 13.1
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

Scripture: 1 Samuel 15.11
“I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

Reflection: God’s Regret and Samuel’s Anger
By John Tillman

Today in our reading plan we come across two passages that, read together, show us a wide spectrum of God, government, and the role of spiritual leaders—Romans 13 and 1 Samuel 15.

Romans 13:1 and related passages seem to have become very popular with certain conservative Evangelicals since November. For the previous eight years, however, conservatives were mostly silent on Romans 13 and it was progressive Christians quoting these passages with great frequency. Biblical commands to submit to governing authorities grow and shrink in popularity as Christians are more, or less, satisfied with the governing authorities they must submit to.

The Bible shows us in many places that it is not uncommon for a political leader to be anointed by the religious leaders of the day, and yet that leader may fail to to honor God’s most basic requirements for leadership. It is also not uncommon for these kinds of leaders to ultimately be destroyed and removed from leadership by God. Saul is a great example of this pattern.

Samuel anointed Saul as king, yet nearly from the beginning, Saul was a blundering mess of a ruler. When God informs Samuel of Saul’s latest blunder, Samuel becomes angry and cries out to God all night before going to confront Saul.

Saul deals with Samuel like a modern politician speaking to the press. First, Saul does not obey the command of God. Then he lies, stating confidently that he obeyed completely. Samuel challenges him with facts. (“What is this bleating…”) Then Saul walks back his previous comment and gives an excuse. (“…to sacrifice to the Lord your God.” Emphasis mine.) When Samuel lays out the facts again, Saul then returns to his previous lie, doubling down on it—asserting his obedience and innocence of wrongdoing.

What are Christians to do when the anointed leader, the authority established by God, proves to be unworthy?

Samuel’s mourning for Saul and angry night of prayer helped him share God’s regret and rejection of the man he formerly supported. And, at God’s urging, despite the danger, Samuel began actively seeking out Saul’s replacement.

May we share God’s regret when leaders make poor choices and when governments fail to provide justice. May we not accept half-truths and lies—holding leaders accountable. May we turn away from leaders when directed by God, even if they tear our garments as we go.

The Morning Psalm
A crooked heart shall be far from me; I will not know evil… — Psalm 101:4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 15 (Listen – 5:46)
Romans 13 (Listen – 2:35)