The Myth of a Christian Religion
Page 5
Despite the fact that Christians tend to minimize the sin of judging (in fact, many seem to specialize in it), this is a big deal! In fact, not only is judgment a form of idolatry, it’s the most fundamental form of idolatry there is. It’s why the forbidden tree in the garden that brought about the Fall of humanity was called “the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” When we reject God as our sole source of Life, we invariably try to acquire Life by pretending we’re God and judging others. This is the foundational sin in the Bible, because it blocks the foundational command in the Bible, which is to love God, ourselves, and others. 1
Judgment is a big deal!
JUDGMENT AND IDOLATRY
Not only is judging a form of idolatry, it’s involved in all other forms of idolatry. Every idol contains a particular version of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Here’s an illustration.
Throughout history most people have found some element of their core worth, significance, and security in their national identity. They are certain that the things their country values are also the things that “God” (or “the gods”) values. Consequently, most have been naively certain that whatever furthers the interests of their nation is good while whatever hinders or threatens the interests of their nation is evil.
Since the interests and values of nations frequently conflict, human history is largely a macabre river of blood, supplied by people killing and being killed for their nations. And they’ve almost always done so in the name of defending “the good” (their nation, their god) against a threatening “evil” (the opposing nations and gods).
While some wars may be more justified than others, what drives the whole enterprise is that people embrace differing nationalistic idols and thus differing versions of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. People on both sides whose source of Life is wrapped up with their patriotism just know that they happened to be born on the side of the good, while their enemy happened to be born on the side of evil.
In America, for example, most people (including, it seems, most Christians) just know that God is on the side of political freedom and that it is worth killing for—despite Jesus’ command that his followers are to love and do good to all enemies, and despite the fact that neither Jesus nor anyone else in the Bible ever said a word about political freedom.
The same thing can happen with religion for religious people, race for racists, political parties for the politically minded, and sports teams for overzealous sports enthusiasts (hence the occasional bloody riots at soccer matches). Whatever advances and protects our particular idolatrous source of Life is “good” while whatever hinders or threatens our particular idolatrous source of Life is “evil.”
The same thing is true for a million other idols. If a person’s source of Life is sex, whatever affirms, advances, and protects their sexual vibrancy is “good,” while whatever negates, hinders, or threatens it is “evil.” If wealth is a person’s idol, whatever advances or protects their money and possessions is “good,” while whatever hinders or threatens those things is “evil.” So it is with the idols of power, fame, intelligence, achievements, or any other idol you can imagine.
The kid in second grade who stole my show by getting into more trouble than I did was, in that moment, an “evil” to me, for he detracted from my twisted, juvenile, idolatrous source of Life.
Of course, only in certain circumstances do we explicitly think of our competitors in the idolatrous feeding frenzy as technically “evil.” More frequently we identify them merely as bad or stupid or losers or greedy or by some other derogatory term. But however we think of them—and this is the crucial point—we are detracting from their God-given dignity and worth by the way we think, speak, and respond to them. And to this extent, we are not agreeing with God that they have unsurpassable worth as evidenced by the fact that Jesus died for them. We are not self-sacrificially loving them as Jesus called us to. Instead, we are rebelling against God and judging them. We are eating from our particular version of “the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
RECEIVING AND ASCRIBING UNSURPASSABLE WORTH
Judgment is the foundational sin in the Bible because it prevents us from obeying the foundational command in the Bible, which is to love others the way God loves us. To fully appreciate why judgment is so heinous, therefore, we need to explore why love is so important.
People today have a lot of screwy ideas about what love is. Part of the problem is that we use the word love to cover everything from sexual intercourse (“making love”) to pets (“I love my cat”) to hairstyles (“I just love your hair”). No wonder we’re confused.
The Bible gives us a profoundly simple and beautiful definition of love. The Bible uses the word agape—the most important kind of love there is. This is the love God has for us and that we’re supposed to apply to ourselves and extend to others. The Bible defines this kind of love by pointing us to Jesus Christ.
“This is how we know what love is,” John says. “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16).
God expressed his opinion of our worth by becoming a human and laying down his life for us. This, John says, is love. It is about expressing the worth of another by what you’re willing to sacrifice for them. It’s about ascribing worth to another at cost to yourself when necessary. In fact, real love, as defined by Jesus, is about expressing the unsurpassable worth of another by being willing to sacrifice everything for them.
As we saw in the last chapter, God created us with a desperate need to receive and experience this kind of unsurpassable worth. But God also created us to express this kind of perfect love and therefore ascribe to others this kind of unsurpassable worth. Having our innermost hunger satisfied with the unsurpassable love and worth that comes from the one true source of Life, we are to extend this same love and worth to others.
This is why John adds “we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” We are to love all others the way God loves us. As God ascribes unsurpassable worth to us, despite our sin, we are to ascribe unsurpassable worth to others, despite their sin.
This is the central defining mark of the Kingdom. Whatever else is implied in acknowledging God as King, at the very least it implies that we commit to agreeing with God’s opinion about what people are worth. And he expressed this opinion on Calvary.
Our most fundamental job as Kingdom people, therefore, is to express to all people at all times our agreement with God that they have unsurpassable worth. And we are to express this by our willingness to make sacrifices and, if necessary, be sacrificed on their behalf.
Insofar as we do this, and only insofar as we do this, we look like Jesus and manifest the beauty of the domain over which God reigns.
THIS IS WHAT THE KINGDOM IS ALL ABOUT
Nothing is more central to the Kingdom than agreeing with God about every person’s unsurpassable worth and reflecting this in how we act toward them. Nothing is more important than living in Christlike love for all people at all times. In fact, compared to love, nothing else really matters in the Kingdom.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says that all the most impressive religious and humanitarian activity in the world is completely worthless, except insofar as it expresses love.
A person may speak in tongues—even the glorious tongues of angels—but if his speaking isn’t motivated by love, it’s just religious noise.
A person may have the gift of prophecy and be able to proclaim the word of God in ways that dazzle audiences and build incredible megachurches. But if the use of these gifts isn’t motivated by love, they are, from a Kingdom perspective, utterly worthless.
It doesn’t make the least bit of difference that a person has breathtaking insight into all mysteries or that they possess all knowledge. This would undoubtedly impress crowds and maybe even get them on the cover of Christianity Today, but if their activity isn’t motivated by a desire to ascribe unsurpassable worth to all people at all
times, it’s meaningless.
Nor does it matter that a person has faith such that they can command mountains to be relocated and the mountains actually obey. This sort of miracle-working ability would certainly land them a nice spot on Christian television and would undoubtedly make them an excellent fund-raiser. But, according to Paul, it’s completely devoid of value unless it’s fueled by an agreement with God that every person alive was worth God himself dying for.
Finally, and perhaps most surprising, even if a person gives every single thing they own to the poor and endures great hardships in the course of their ministry, if their actions aren’t motivated by a love that looks like Jesus dying on the cross, it accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Love, clearly, is the all-or-nothing of Kingdom living. The “only thing that counts,” Paul says, “is faith expressing itself through love.” We are to “do everything in love,” he says. Love is the primary expression of Kingdom Life. Where God truly reigns in an individual or community, they will look like Jesus, sacrificially ascribing unsurpassable worth to all people, no ifs, ands, or buts.
REVOLTING AGAINST JUDGMENT
Judgment and life in the Kingdom are antithetical to each other. It’s impossible to ascribe unsurpassable worth to another while we’re detracting worth from another.
Every single judgmental thought I had toward others as I sat in the mall that day prevented me from doing the one thing I was supposed to be doing as a Kingdom person. Instead of getting my whole worth from God, I was trying to get worth from the idol of my judgment. And instead of submitting to God and agreeing with him that every person I saw had unsurpassable worth, I was rebelliously disagreeing with him and detracting worth from others to idolatrously ascribe worth to myself.
Jesus came to free us from idols and restore us to the Life God intends for us. He thus came to free us from judgment and restore our capacity to love the way God loves us.
To help us get free, Jesus and the rest of the New Testament emphasize the importance of revolting against judgment. In one crucial passage, Jesus says: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2).
This is a truly remarkable teaching. Jesus is teaching us that we can either play the judgment game or the grace game. If you don’t want to be judged, he says, don’t judge others. Extend to them the same gracious love that God has extended to you. But if you insist on playing the judgment game, then know that the judgment you give is the judgment you’ll get.
We simply can’t eat from the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil at the same time. We can’t love like God loves while trying to judge like only God can judge.
This teaching becomes even more remarkable when Jesus goes on to say, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye” (Matthew 7:3 – 4)?
Now, Jesus wasn’t talking to people who just happened to have much greater sins than others. In fact, by the social and religious standards of the first century, the people Jesus was talking to were probably considered better than average. So what is Jesus getting at?
Jesus was helping them, and us, get free from our addiction to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And he was doing it by telling them how to revolt against it. He was in essence instructing them to think the opposite of the way the fruit of the forbidden tree inclines them to think.
When we try to ascribe worth to ourselves at the expense of others—when we judge—we always minimize our own sins and faults and maximize the sins and faults of others. As I was doing in the mall, we feed off of the idolatrous illusion that, however imperfect we may be, at least we are not like that person.
As a revolt against this, Jesus says we’re to regard our own sins—whatever they happen to be—as plank-sins while regarding other people’s sins—whatever they happen to be—as speck-sins. In our own eyes, we are to maximize our sins and faults and minimize the sins and faults of others. Whatever faults we think we see in another, we’re to regard our sin as worse. With the apostle Paul, we’re to see ourselves as “the worst of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15 – 16).
UNLEASHING KINGDOM LIFE
When we revolt against judgment and return to getting all our Life from God, it unleashes the Life of the Kingdom within us. Let me return to my mall experience.
Soon after I woke up to the mental gossip going on in my mind, I could almost hear the Lord gently rebuking me. In effect, he said, “I don’t recall appointing you to be judge and jury over people, Mr. Boyd. The job I’ve given to you is to simply agree with me that each and every person you see is worth me dying for. So I want you to reflect that agreement in your thoughts about them.”
It was a much-needed rebuke.
The Lord was really just repeating what Paul taught us when he said we are to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Everything we do is to be done in love, and this obviously includes thinking. Every judgmental thought we entertain is like a cork that blocks the flow of Kingdom Life through us.
As a result of this rebuke, I repented of my mental gossip and committed to striving only to entertain thoughts that expressed unsurpassable worth about people. I started thanking God for each person I saw and privately asking God to bless them.
And almost immediately it was like I’d removed a cork on the geyser of God’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 God about each person’s unsurpassable worth; I was being empowered to actually see and experience their unsurpassable 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 God 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 God. The purpose is to be, on a moment-by-moment basis, submitted to God’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
AGAINST RELIGION
Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes
are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
JESUS (MATTHEW 21:31)
My relationship prevents me from having a religion.
SLOGAN ON A COOL T-SHIRT 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 “sex, 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 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 hell. 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 hell.