Shaped by bounded group religiosity many people experience behavioral exhortations in Christian settings as life-draining—the weight of “oughtness” pressing down on their being. Fear of the shame of not measuring up fills their being. A fuzzy-church approach responds by toning down the commands or avoiding them altogether. A centered-church, committed to transformation toward Christlikeness, must include exhortation. Yet it must do so in a way that does not lead to what is experienced in a bounded church. Not an easy thing to do—especially if the people listening to the exhortation carry bounded-church ways in their beings. I dedicate almost two hours of class time to working on how to do this. Then I have students write an exhortation. They turn in their best effort; I give feedback; they revise and hand in a final draft. As I wrote a year ago, I have made significant improvements to my teaching about giving imperatives (commands) rooted in indicatives of God’s action. Even so I was sobered and discouraged after reading students’ first drafts a couple weeks ago. Only one student came close to doing well. Their papers reminded me that if one has a lifetime of hearing exhortations given in a bounded context of conditional acceptance and peppered with “shoulds” and “oughts” it is difficult to even imagine another way. Then I had the thought, “what if the way we exhort others reflects our internal conversations—how we tell ourselves what to do and not do?” Perhaps students’ papers reflect not just what they have heard in bounded churches, but how they talk to themselves internally. I invite you to reflect on your internal exhortation language as I share some of what I observed in mine.
The most problematic internal exhortations are voices that explicitly state “You should do X to demonstrate to God and others that you are a good Christian,” and add “If you do not do X you risk rejection by God and your church. How could you call yourself a Christian if you don’t? But, just think how positively people will think of you if you do it!” Yes, let’s work to strip that conditional judgmental language from our internal conversations. It is clearly not of the Spirit of God.
Yet, in these days I have noted that most of my explicit internal exhortations are what I might call naked imperatives. Simple statements like: “Mark, it would be good for you to do X.” Or “Mark, this person needs help, do X.” Today I do not experience these simple naked imperatives as conditional statements that threaten me with guilt and shame if I do follow through. Yet, I remember when they were not so benign, the words have not changed but my experience of them has.
For instance, I think back to 1984. After four years in Honduras I was moving to Syracuse NY to work as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Where to live? Others involved with InterVarsity recommended I look for an apartment near the university. Made sense. But voices within me said, “Mark, it would be good for you to live among the poor on the bad side of town.” I had just spent four years living out a bounded approach, evaluating missionaries by whether they lived with the poor or isolated themselves in nice houses behind large walls in neighborhoods of the wealthy. The internal voice did not make explicit statements about gaining, or losing, acceptance depending on where I lived. Yet I imagined the badge of honor I could wear if I was on the right side of the line drawn by activists—myself included. In the end, I opted to live a few blocks from Syracuse University, but not without some shame.
Why the difference? Why would I experience the same naked imperative so differently today than decades ago? What this says to me is that, once we eliminate explicitly problematic wording, the most important thing in our internal conversations and in our exhortations to others is not the words themselves, but what we bring to the words. In Syracuse in 1984 there was a lot of bounded religiosity in my being and a sense of God’s love being conditional. That influenced how I heard the naked imperative. Therefore, what is needed is what I call “religion undermining indicatives.” As I describe in chapter two of Religious No More, Jacques Ellul portrays religion with an upward arrow ↑ because our natural tendency is to think we must do things to earn God’s acceptance. Ellul uses a downward arrow ↓ to communicate that Christian revelation, the God of the Bible, is the opposite. Any indicative statement that points to the primacy of God’s loving action challenges our religious tendency and reinforces the gospel ↓ arrow.
What do these statements of God’s grace and loving initiative do? They clothe the naked imperatives with loving acceptance and warm invitation. The truth is that we do not actually experience commands as naked. I called them naked in the sense that they neither have explicit words of conditional religion nor explicit words of God’s love. It is just the imperative, like: “Mark, write a letter to that inmate.” Or “Mark, take a break and go talk to your neighbor.” We clothe the commands. In 1984 I wrapped that naked command in robes of bounded religiosity and a God of conditional love. Even though just months earlier I had read Jacques Ellul, confessed my religious ways, and experienced God’s grace in new and profound ways, the reality was that there was still a lot of bounded-church religion in my being. Those were the clothes I most naturally put on the naked imperatives. Today I clothe them differently. How did the wardrobe change happen?
Through reading Ellul I had discovered toxin in my system. Two things combined to make the clothes I put on those imperatives toxic—a religious concept of God and a bounded-group approach to Christianity. I later realized that it is one thing to discover you have toxins in your system, another thing to flush them from your system. I decided to pour into my being sermons that countered a religious concept of God and repeatedly emphasized God’s loving initiative. I read and re-read books of sermons by Karl Barth.[1] I listened to Earl Palmer and Robert Hill sermons. I kept at it, for a few years, until I sensed the level of toxins had diminished significantly. My default way of hearing internal exhortation had changed because my concept of God had changed. I urge you to do a flush of toxins as well. Today I would add to the list of sermons to listen to: Debbie Blue[2] and Grace Spencer.
Pouring in the good news of the God revealed by Jesus Christ will aid in diluting our internal religious tendencies. Think of it as a general shower. Yet, there will remain parts within us especially entrenched in their view of God as a judgmental, religious God of conditional love. What I think was most effective in changing the clothing I put on naked imperatives was intentionality in bringing those parts into Jesus’ presence. When I felt fear arising in my being; when I felt the threat of being found on the wrong side of a line; I would invite those shamed parts to rest in Jesus’ embrace. Not just a general cleansing, but a very directed injection of religion undermining indicatives.
This is ongoing work. I continue to need to hear the good news of God’s loving initiative, in general and directed ways. I end this blog with words that served as a toxic cleanse for me in recent days. As I read them, in the first case, and sang them, in the second, it really did feel like something cleansing and life-giving poured into my being. May it be the same for you. Read them slowly, let them sink in. Especially invite resistant or doubtful parts to trust that this is true.
This is the last paragraph from the revised version of current student John Drotos’s ethical exhortation:
See this is the beauty of the gospel; that God did not choose to stay distant and far but choose because of his great love for us to come near as the 12 and 72 spoke of. Do you know that you have access to the world’s greatest gift? The unfailing, intimate, reconciling love of God. Can I urge us now to lean into this love today? Give this love a chance. A love that doesn’t keep a record of wrongs but is always present, close, and ready for us to turn to it. A love that can heal our greatest hurts and pain. A love that if allowed in will transform us and never leave us the same. Can we then as a response to this love become a people who live transformed by it? Sharing it with all those we know, near and far. Can we then because of this love reveal Jesus to a hurting and broken world? Revealing Jesus through our actions and words. I believe the answer to this and more is yes, because of the great love that is at work within us. Now as we leave would we be empowered by this love to share the good news with others that the kingdom of God has come.
Former student Rebekah Townsend led worship at an event I attended. The songs she chose overflowed with religion undermining indicatives. Again, let the words of two of the stanzas sink in.
In my Father's house
There's a place for me
I'm a child of God
Yes I am
I am chosen not forsaken
I am who You say I am
You are for me not against me
I am who You say I am
(Oh) (Yes) I am who You say I am[3]
Next Month, part II of this blog. What I have observed as I set out to apply internally what I teach students to do externally in their exhortations, to link commands to words of God’s action, like: having been loved by God, love others.
[1] Karl Barth, Deliverance to the Captives, Reprint edition (Wipf and Stock, 2010); Karl Barth, Call for God: New Sermons from Basel Prison, Revised ed. edition (Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd, 2012).
[2] A book of sermons: Debbie Blue, Sensual Orthodoxy (Saint Paul, Minn: Cathedral Hill Press, 2003).
[3] “Who You Say I Am,” by Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan.