Rethink Mission: Inspiring gospel-centered missional churches

Last Thursday I wrote a post called Why Political Conservatism is Dangerous to the Gospel.  Without being disingenuous, I was somewhat surprised by the controversy surrounding this post. Push-back is good, and it’s helped me clarify a few of my thoughts:

1. The post was not an attack on political conservatism, per se.  My goal was not to attack or defend a specific political viewpoint or ideology in any way, simply to show the danger of one specific ideology being equated and confused with the gospel.

2. With that in mind, a more nuanced title would have been helpful. A slight change, like Why Political Conservatism Can Be Dangerous to the Gospel would’ve been more accurate and less contentious.

3. The entire point of the post was about what happens when a political conservative ideology is conflated with the gospel. Certainly other issues, including political liberal ideology, can become idolatrous and even be confused with the gospel.

4. In the “Bible Belt” however, (which is bigger than my town, but not as big as the United States) one of the dominant public idols is political conservative ideology.

5. If we are to preach the gospel in the very heart of an often over-churched evangelical world, then we must help people repent of the things that are more important to them than the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the only pathway to true freedom.

6. In areas that are large conservative voting blocs that also have a high number of professing Christians, political conservatism gets easily associated with the gospel. Meaning, that it grows beyond a simple personal idolatry – it becomes the ultimate litmus test of who is in and who is out, who is wrong and who is right.

7. My hope is that even the most ardent political conservatives would not want conservative ideology to reach the status of “gospel” anywhere at any time.  When that happens, the four things at the bottom of my post take place: false assurance, enemies are made out of people created in God’s image, a stumbling block is created to political liberals hearing & accepting the true gospel, and the wrong gospel is passed to our children.

8. Those four observations were not, once again, four critiques of conservative ideology – they were four natural results of political conservatism being conflated with the gospel. My concern as a pastor is to further the gospel, not any specific political cause – and when one political party or ideology so seizes a group of people (a religious group of people at that) then even a good ideology can become a barrier to the expanse of the gospel.

9. Those four observations do happen. As a pastor, it is my duty to make these types of observations. In a similar way, I may say to a woman who has made an idol out of her own children, “Watch out. When you do that,  you will damage your relationship with them, because they know that they’ll never be able to live up to the expectations you’ve placed on them. You will also damage your soul own soul, because your children will never be successful enough, pretty enough, or popular enough to please you. You are setting a trap for yourself of either great pride or great despondency based on their successes or failures. Repent and believe the gospel.”

10. Lastly – when you repent of making a good thing the ultimate thing, does it mean you abandon that thing all together? In some cases, yes. The alcoholic cannot simply cut back and become a moderationist. In most cases, however, no. When your family becomes your god-substitute, you don’t leave them, or if success in your job is your idol, the best scenario may not be for you to quit your job. As we talk of issues of the heart, repentance for you will look different. (Like the alcoholic, however, some may need to fast from political talk shows of any variety, if you know that this is the medium that feeds and fuels your anger.)

Try this thought experiment.  Think through these indicators that a specific political party or ideology has become your idol, god-substitute, or functional righteousness:

• When your candidate loses, how do you feel? Are you more than disappointed? Are you despondent, on the brink of despair?
• Has your political ideology created a second tier or class of Christianity in your head? There are Christians, and then there are Christians who vote like me.
• Have you experienced outbursts of unexplained anger, specifically concerning political discussions?
• Do you more easily talk about and “evangelize” for your party or ideology than you do the gospel?
• Using the Martyn Lloyd-Jones quote from the last post: do discussions about politics specifically your particular ideology dominate your thoughts and excite and enthuse you more than any other subject or topic?

Please pray for the evangelical church in the Bible Belt, that we may faithfully proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

-JMac

Please read this post the entire way through before you dismiss it.

This post began in my head just a couple of days ago when I read this from my friend John Bryson on Twitter:

I got excited about this “tweet.” I sent it out to others and posted it on my Facebook page.

Now understand that this was on the day that Americans on both sides of the political spectrum were in a flutter about a speech that the President was scheduled to give to public school children.  On this day, on both sides of the political spectrum, many were filled with passion of the political variety. Naturally, calling someone’s passion an idol is controversial.

Political passion is good, but JB called it “the idol of the day.” So, what makes an idol an idol?

A good definition of an idol comes in the language of “god-substitute” from Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

“A man’s god is that for which he lives, for which he is prepared to give his time, his energy, his money, that which stimulates him and rouses him, excites, and enthuses him.”

Passion is necessary for life. A passion even for politics is good. But your political ideology can easily become your god-substitute if it is what most easily rouses, excites, and enthuses you.

It’s often not the bad things that we have to guard our hearts from. Often it is the very best things – our children, our work, our politics – that are in danger of becoming god-substitutes for us.

And how will you know if political ideology – whether conservative or liberal – has become your idol? Measure it by the amount of self-righteousness in your rhetoric.

Here’s the deal: self-righteousness sells. Haughty, self-righteous indignation that sets up everyone who shares your viewpoint as the arbiter of what is good in the world and vilifies everyone who disagrees with you, draws a crowd. Partisan talk shows with lots of yelling will get loyal viewers. Fire off an angry missive or angsty blog post and you will get readers.

But back to my point. Political obsession & idolatry of any kind worries me, but political obsession & idolatry of the conservative variety worries me more, and not because I am a liberal (I’m not) or have a political agenda to promote (I don’t).

Political conservatism is dangerous to the gospel, because in these parts, political conservatism so easily masquerades itself as the gospel.

I know a lot of people on both sides of the political fence who have given in to the idolatry of political ideology. To generalize for a minute: a lot of those (and I would say most) that I know that are politically liberal don’t claim to be Christians. A lot of those (and I again would say most) that are politically conservative, however, do claim to be Christians, and many of these confuse their political conservatism for Christianity.

When political conservatism is confused for Christianity:
1. It creates false assurance: many who are not Christians wrongly assume that they are simply because of their conservative vote.

2. It makes enemies out of friends: Christians forget that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood” and make enemies out of anyone who disagrees with their political ideology.

3. It becomes a barrier to mission: political liberals who are not Christians are given the idea that to embrace the gospel of Jesus means to become a conservative. Naturally they pass on this.  But the wrong “gospel” has been presented to them – thus many haven’t even rejected the gospel at all, only a highly politicized version of it.

4. The wrong gospel is passed to the next generation: In training our children to be good conservatives instead of grace-filled believers, we help harden their hearts to the gospel.  I grew up in a church that did a better job teaching me to be a political conservative than a lover of Jesus Christ. That was a church that was easy to leave.

Get involved in the political sphere. Have well thought-out opinions.  But watch out – the best things in life can have the greatest sway on our hearts.

Has your political ideology become your god-substitute? Is it, as JB says, the thing that gives you meaning, purpose, and passion? Repent and believe the gospel. Turn to the only thing that can satisfy you and the only thing that has authentic power to change the world around us.
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Update: See also Clarification on The Gospel & Political Conservatism

Recently I got to sit down in the video studio with Jared Wilson and talk with him about his new book, Your Jesus is Too Safe and why young pastors need to be aware of a new kind of legalism creeping into the church. I love Jared’s transparency and his passion for churches to live & preach the gospel.

For me, the most compelling part of our time together was Jared’s description of what it looks like when pastors and ministry leaders experience what he calls a “gospel renaissance” in their lives.  Doing ministry out of that place is the hope and prayer of my life and my deep desire for all the pastors I know.

Take a look and be sure check out Jared’s book.
Of course, I’d love to hear about your own gospel renaissance, as well.

-JMac

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For further reading, see What is a gospel-centered church?
Jared writes regularly at The Gospel-Driven Church.