In nearly every era of its history, certain Christian individuals and
institutions have compelled an "orthodoxy" from others they refused to
require of themselves. And have perceived that "orthodoxy" to involve primarily the intellectual assent to certain tenets of the Christian faith, without expanding that "orthodoxy" to include our ethical lives, too.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer called that "cheap grace".
The church is one of thousands of independent Baptist churches who have held -- at least over the past forty years -- to a fundamentalist view of the Christian faith. That view assumes that if we merely get the "fundamentals" of the faith right, on an intellectual level, then we have found "the faith once delivered from the apostles". The five points of that fundamentalism (Biblical inerrancy, Christ's virgin birth, his sacrificial atonement, bodily resurrection and premillennial second coming), coupled with personal conversion, names the Christian life in that view.
And underneath it all is a stress on pastoral authority, that leaders in the church are "God's anointed" whose leadership must not be questioned.
That results in a view where the victim is always at fault, and the leaders were simply unable to control themselves at the wiles of the victim's advances.
This sounds strikingly like predatory acts committed against children by Catholic priests, many protected by church hierarchy. The crimes are heinous, made more so because the perpetrators were ministers to be trusted as caring representatives of Christ's gospel -- particularly the care and nurture of the most vulnerable among us.
So what's gone wrong?
Is "Christian ministry" now just a category of defense against those who would prey upon children and youth? How does Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5 play into all this? Is salvation merely now an indulgence with negotiable ethical obligations on behalf of Christian leaders?
And should anyone now be surprised when scores of Americans are leaving churches every year?
Bonhoeffer was right to be adamant:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer called that "cheap grace".
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace ... Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to remission of sins. The Church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, ipso facto, a part in that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.Recent news cycles, though, depict the predatory nature of Christian leaders toward young children and teens. In one recent story that hits entirely too close to home (one mile from our home, to be precise), a family minister admits to statutory rape and sexual exploitation of an adolescent boy. While I cannot confirm whether what I'm about to say is real, it's been reported by several with contacts within the congregation that the boy and his family were asked to leave the church and that the congregation was asked to support the accused by collecting money for her bond.
The church is one of thousands of independent Baptist churches who have held -- at least over the past forty years -- to a fundamentalist view of the Christian faith. That view assumes that if we merely get the "fundamentals" of the faith right, on an intellectual level, then we have found "the faith once delivered from the apostles". The five points of that fundamentalism (Biblical inerrancy, Christ's virgin birth, his sacrificial atonement, bodily resurrection and premillennial second coming), coupled with personal conversion, names the Christian life in that view.
And underneath it all is a stress on pastoral authority, that leaders in the church are "God's anointed" whose leadership must not be questioned.
That results in a view where the victim is always at fault, and the leaders were simply unable to control themselves at the wiles of the victim's advances.
This sounds strikingly like predatory acts committed against children by Catholic priests, many protected by church hierarchy. The crimes are heinous, made more so because the perpetrators were ministers to be trusted as caring representatives of Christ's gospel -- particularly the care and nurture of the most vulnerable among us.
So what's gone wrong?
Is "Christian ministry" now just a category of defense against those who would prey upon children and youth? How does Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5 play into all this? Is salvation merely now an indulgence with negotiable ethical obligations on behalf of Christian leaders?
And should anyone now be surprised when scores of Americans are leaving churches every year?
Bonhoeffer was right to be adamant:
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate ... Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which [we all] must knock.Unflinching orthodoxy in the face of a sinful world simply won't preserve integrity. And the rest of the Church had better begin to take notice. Or God will be within rights to wipe us out and start afresh.