Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson and What the Gospel Says about Sin

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With the news surrounding Phil Robertson’s dismissal from the TV show “Duck Dynasty” due to his comments regarding homosexuality in an interview with GQ Magazine, what many consider to be hateful and discriminatory Christian beliefs are making national headlines and sparking debate. In reading his interview with GQ, what stood out to me the most wasn’t necessarily his stance on homosexuality (most people probably already knew where he stood on this issue to some degree) but his response to the question,

“What, in your mind, is sinful?”

His response –

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.” (In fairness to Robertson, he later speaks of loving everyone and letting God be the judge.)

Though I trust that Robertson genuinely loves people and has good intentions (even if he might not always communicate that in the polished way many would like him to), let me offer a slightly different take on “sin.”

So, “What, in your mind, is sinful?”

Let’s start with me. I am sinful.

While it doesn’t take a seminary education to come to this realization, the past year and a half has taught me to a greater extent than I had ever previously believed that I am more deeply flawed, messed up, and weak than I’d ever imagined. I am full of envy, violence in my heart, strife, deceit, and malice. I am a gossip and a slanderer. I am insolent, arrogant, boastful, and greedy. I know what it is to disobey my parents, lack understanding and fidelity, and to be void of self-sacrificing love and mercy. And though I have seen the man that God wants me to be, I am disobedient and deserving of death.

No one likes hearing that they’re a bad person or that they’re sinful, but the reality is, we all have our junk – each and every one of us. Yet with the presence of pornography, adultery, school shootings, child abuse, homelessness, sex trafficking, starvation, disease, broken relationships, racism, guilt, and shame, most of us have a keen awareness that there’s something deeply broken in our world and that there’s something deep inside all of us that contributes to this brokenness.

This is the point of Romans 1. We all, in some way or another, have “exchanged the truth about God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” In our idolatry, we all contribute to the brokenness that surrounds us.

In my lust, I contribute to the objectification of women. In my greed, selfishness, and laziness, I contribute to homelessness and poverty. In my isolation and desire to be comfortable, I contribute to racism. In my lying, judging, and comparing, I contribute to broken relationships. In my lack of love and mercy, I contribute to sex trafficking.

I’m not being overly dramatic. I know what’s in my heart, and I know what the Bible has to say about the human condition of every single person on the face of the earth. I know that when Paul says in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” I’m not exempt from that statement.

So you want to know what is sinful? Look at me.

But mercifully, Paul’s letter to the Romans doesn’t end after one chapter.

There is good news. GREAT NEWS!

“For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6) Because of Christ, I have peace with God and have access to his unending grace.

And there is hope, for I am no longer a slave to the evil in me or the wickedness in my heart that, if not for the grace of God, would be the end of me. Instead, I can “present myself to God as one who has been brought from death to life, and my members to God as instruments for good.” (Romans 6:13)

This is the grand narrative of God that we find ourselves in. What God created to be good and to glorify and worship him has been severely broken and tarnished, but he sent a Hero to rescue us from this evil and brokenness so that we might become more fully human as we are restored to the image of God in which we were originally created. And consequently, this is the hope of Christmas – that God has come in the flesh to reconcile all things to himself and that he will come again to renew and restore all of creation once and for all.

So when we identify sin as a grouping of certain sexual behaviors or whatever other hot-button cultural issues the Church has decided to single out, we severely distort this Story and make it about “us and them,” when in fact, we all stand on even ground having all gone astray and are hopeless and helpless without a Savior.

So Mr. Robertson, though you’ll never read this, the next time someone asks you what’s sinful, tell them about me. But more importantly, continue to tell them about the sacrificial, redemptive, rescuing love of Jesus.

-CK

Thoughts on Depression and Christianity

It’s an unfortunate myth that you can’t be a true Christian and still struggle with depression. There’s an underlying notion within the Church that if you have truly internalized the hope of the Gospel and the abundant life that God has provided, you will never have to deal with it. Yet, many incredibly godly men and women throughout the centuries have deeply struggled with depression and a “dark night of the soul.”

Growing up, especially in high school, I experienced what I would call depression – though likely not clinical depression or anything overly serious – but depression nonetheless as I tried to figure out who I was, what I was created for, and attempted to navigate the murky waters of being a teenager.

When I became a Christian a couple months into my freshman year of college and found answers to those questions, those struggles vanished and my friends in the dorms remarked that “something had happened” to me since I hadn’t stopped smiling in weeks.

Like many others probably have, I hoped and likely thought that with my new-found faith, those feelings of isolation, depression, and pessimism would be gone forever, but almost ten years later, I’ve found that some days those thoughts and ideas come creeping back.

Van Gogh's Sorrowing Old Man 

“What’s the point of working for change? Nothing ever changes anyway…”

“Does anyone outside my immediate family even care about me?”

“Everything is meaningless. What’s the point of all this striving?” (see Ecclesiastes)

I’m not a psychologist, or counselor, or doctor – so take this with a large barrel of salt, but it seems to me that as I read about the lives of other Christians, particularly those who are deeply contemplative or artistic types, some sort of depression is not uncommon. Perhaps for those of us who deeply wrestle with God when something horrific happens, or when we’re discouraged by the human race or by our own sin and shortcomings, moments of pessimism and depression are almost unavoidable. It seems fully natural to despair the depravity of the human race or the fact that things aren’t as they should be, and the entire cosmos have been doing so since Genesis 3.

Based on my own experience, it seems that perhaps, Christianity is not a “cure” for depression. God certainly can cure or eliminate depression in some people and has undoubtedly done so, but life is full of suffering and moments of lament, and it’s as if we’re affirmed that this is okay, even expected and necessary, since the Scriptures are full of prayers of lament, doubt, and even depression.

Yet, many parts of Scripture that begin with lament or apparent descriptions of depression don’t stop there – they lead to trust and hope.

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” (Psalm 43:5)

One of the beautiful things about the Christian faith is that it gives us a worldview through which sin and depression make sense. It affirms that, no, things are not as they should be and that it is natural for us to yearn for Home. It also gives us immense hope that despite our momentary feelings of depression, loneliness, and doubt, the God of the universe has revealed to us through Scripture and the death and resurrection of his Son that these feelings and doubts about ourselves are not true, are only temporary, and need not define us. 

Rather, we are children of a holy, all-powerful, loving, and victorious God.

Though I may feel worthless, God calls me His son. Though I may feel lonely, God reminds me of His presence. And though I may doubt whether things will ever change or whether my striving for redemption will ever have any lasting impact, God reveals through his Word that anything done for the sake of the Kingdom is not done in vain.

If anything, as I grow older and wrestle with this, these feelings have led to greater humility, gentleness, and a desire to love people as fully as possible. Life is hard and suffering is to be expected, but in the midst of the pain and wreckage, we have opportunities to cut through the chaos and offer something that is eternally enduring – “faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

And as we find ourselves in moments of loneliness or feeling like strangers in a crowd, we can be assured that Jesus Christ himself experienced those same things and that He is there to guide us through and remind us of who we are and whose we are.

I’ll close with this beautiful prayer from Henri Nouwen.

A Christmas Prayer – December 23, 1985

“O Lord, how hard it is to accept your way. You come to me as a small powerless child born away from home. You live for me as a stranger in your own land. You die for me as a criminal outside the walls of the city, rejected by your own people, misunderstood by your friends, and feeling abandoned by your God.

As I prepare to celebrate your birth, I am trying to feel loved, accepted, and at home in this world, and I am trying to overcome the feelings of alienation and separation which continue to assail me. But I wonder now if my deep sense of homelessness does not bring me closer to you than my occasional feelings of belonging. Where do I truly celebrate your birth: in a cozy home or in an unfamiliar house, among welcoming friends or among unknown strangers, with feelings of well-being or with feelings of loneliness?

I do not have to run away from those experiences that are closest to yours. Just as you do not belong to this world, so I do not belong to this world. Every time I feel this way I have an occasion to be grateful and to embrace you better and taste more fully your joy and peace.

Come, Lord Jesus, and be with me where I feel poorest. I trust that this is the place where you will find your manger and bring your light. Come, Lord Jesus, come.”

-CK

Why Seminary

Within the last month, a very popular author “tweeted,”

“If you have any questions about God, ask a white male twenty-something who is in seminary. They know everything.”

While I recognize that this person wrote this careless comment at least partially in fun, anti-seminary sentiments like this one are unfortunately not all that uncommon. I personally experienced church planters, college ministry staff, and friends who tried to convince me not to go to seminary because in their minds, and for various reasons, theological education is at best unnecessary and harmful, and at worst, both.

I’m a nobody, and I recognize that approximately 12 people are probably going to even look at this blog let alone read the whole thing, but if it helps even a single person who is considering vocational ministry and theological education get a more balanced viewpoint about what the next step might be for them, this will have been a success.

Before we get started, let me clarify that I am writing this with deep humility and an even greater sense of the power of God to use people for his purposes, and I in no way believe that taking 2-4 years to go to seminary school is the right decision for everyone – nor is it necessary to preaching the Gospel, teaching the Word, or being involved in ministry. God can use anyone regardless of their background or training. What is absolutely necessary, however, is that all Christians who are trying to multiply their faith (this is everyone) be life-long learners, whether through books, conferences, commentaries, mentors, or professional schooling.

With that out of the way, let’s deal with a couple misconceptions about theological education. Our author’s aforementioned tweet is a good place to start.

Misconception #1 – “Seminary students/graduates think that they have all of the answers”

This certainly CAN be true, but take most twenty-somethings studying at a graduate school in ANY discipline and this will be the same across the board. Unfortunately, it is sometimes true of Christians as well. I confess that as a seminary student, I love opportunities to get to share with people what I’m learning about God, and it’s probable that I’ve communicated this in an arrogant way at times, but in no way do I pretend that I have all the answers or have it all together. If anything, the more that I learn about God and the Bible, the more questions I have and the more I realize my depravity and inadequacy. Most of the seminary students and graduates that I have met fall into the same category, yet I have certainly met people who embody our author’s caricature of what seminary students are like. But it seems to me that these are the same people who were prideful, arrogant, and full of answers before they ever stepped foot on a seminary campus. To that author and to anyone else who has had a similar unfortunate experience, I am deeply sorry and pray that you would not allow that experience to lead to bitterness or to lead you to paint all students of the Bible with the same brush.

Misconception #2 – “Seminary is where Christians go to die”

Again, this is possible, but as one pastor and author has said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Seminary is a difficult place to thrive spiritually, but not any more difficult than any other place.” Many of my own friends expect seminary students to have lifeless relationships with the Lord and to be dispassionate, but this is again far from my experience. Just because seminary schools tend to attract people that are more intellectually-driven than emotional doesn’t mean that their faith is lifeless. Quite the opposite, I have been deeply influenced by the passion that my professors and fellow classmates have for the Gospel and have come to love Christ and care about people more deeply because of them. What is more, most sane people don’t choose to go to seminary and to live a modest life (and future life) of debt and barely making ends meet because they don’t love Jesus and are dispassionate about the Mission of God.

So finally, why seminary?

      1) Get equipped – Most people wouldn’t trust someone off the street who has never gone to medical school to do open-heart surgery on them, and most wouldn’t allow someone without training to make decisions about their financial investments, so why do we prefer that our pastors and ministers of the Gospel be uneducated? The Apostle Paul had extensive education and was a brilliant apologist and communicator and the disciples spent hours upon hours learning from God in the flesh. After two years of full-time ministry, another as a volunteer, and a couple years in the workplace, it was obvious to me that for me to be the most effective minister of the Gospel and shepherd of God’s people, I needed to be further equipped. Again, God certainly has used and continues to use people without formal theological education, but most of us would benefit personally and professionally from further education.

      2)   Love the Lord with all your mind – To love God with “all our minds” rounds out the Great Commandment of Matthew 22:37. Twenty-first century Christianity tends to emphasize emotion and the experience of God over the intellectual pursuit of God, but as A.W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

      3)   American culture and many specific sub-cultures demand that we be educated about our faith – Let’s face it, America is no longer a Christian nation and we can’t simply assume that people believe in God as we jump into presentations of the Gospel that begin and end with sin and Jesus’ death on the Cross. Effective evangelism requires us to meet people where they’re at, to give evidence for the existence of God, and to help people wrestle with their questions at a deeper level. Spend any amount of time doing ministry at most public academic institutions and this becomes blatantly obvious.

      4)   Practical experience alongside theological training – My theology and what I believe about who God is and how he operates in the world will affect and inform every aspect of my life and ministry. Seminary is a great time to work out what I believe about suffering, sin, salvation, and other important doctrines of the faith while simultaneously being involved in ministry and working with real-life people who are questioning those issues themselves. If I haven’t worked out for myself why suffering exists or why I think the resurrection is true, how can I even begin to minister to and reassure people working through those same issues?

      5)   The Church needs people who are theologically and biblically trained – If Martin Luther had never stressed salvation through “faith alone” in the 16^th century, our Christianity would look drastically different, many of our churches might not be “in the truth” and religious doctrine might even do more harm than good. Or what if modern evangelical scholars and pastors weren’t around to defend the authenticity of the Bible and the ministry of Jesus? Who would do so? What if people didn’t continue to teach and learn the biblical languages in order to more accurately exegete and interpret the Bible? As Father Richard Rohr says, “there is a symbiosis between immature groups and immature leaders.” Without proper training, we risk shallowness and heresy in teaching the Word of God. I for one shudder at the thought of being responsible to God for what I write and teach without having at least taken steps to learn from the mistakes of others and to be informed about my methods of interpretation.

      6)   Grow in spiritual maturity – In having the opportunity to learn how to read the Scriptures in their original languages and through studying church history and philosophy, I have become even more in awe of who God is and how He is at work in the world. I also have the opportunity to study with people from all different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures and to have their passions and biblical perspectives rub off on me. Taking a season of life to attend seminary offers focused time to spend with the Lord and the opportunity to refine one’s life and fall more in love with Jesus by being immersed in the Word and in community.

I write this not to persuade anyone to go to seminary or to insinuate that all Christians should receive formal theological training but to perhaps offer a balanced view of an institution that has been attacked in recent years by many inside the Church. My hope is that if you are considering what God might have for you in the future, that you would follow where He is leading and do what seems to be best for your family, your own relationship with God, and your future ministry. And if you’re simply someone who has unfairly criticized the role of theological education or professors or students themselves, I hope this helps you to see seminaries in a different light. As someone in the midst of this kind of training and as a future pastor, we need encouragement and support, not negative tweets and judgmental attacks. We, your brothers and sisters in Christ - with all of our shortcomings and weaknesses - simply long to love and serve God and His church more fully.

-CK

After the Easter Bunny leaves

*Reposted from May 11, 2011

When I was a kid, Easter was exciting because I got to search for a basket, usually full of Peeps and chocolate eggs, eat a good meal, and of course, participate in our church's annual Easter Egg Joust! Usually the only thing from Easter that carried over into the rest of the year was a chocolate egg or two that I would find months later at the bottom of a dresser drawer.

Easter has come and gone, but it's left me thinking about what Jesus' resurrection and the power of the Cross means in my own life the other 364 days of the year. If God did not spare his own Son and if Jesus is truly risen from the dead, what might God want to do in my life? How might the same power that raised Christ from the dead manifest itself in every breath that I take?

I sometimes go through seasons of feeling overwhelming amounts of brokenness about my sin and depravity, and it feels like I'm in the middle of one of those seasons. But lately, God's been constantly reminding me that He's not given up on me.

As Christ-followers, I think we often tend to think about the areas of sin that God is "working on" in a pretty shallow manner. Our perception of our own sin and depravity is extremely lacking. C.S. Lewis suggests we might look at it differently.

"But unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one."

While seeing change in our lives and in our character won't always occur in leaps and bounds, I think we sometimes settle for allowing God access to clean up the "easy" things in our lives, or at least I do, while the deepest, darkest areas of our sin remain closed off due to a lack of faith that He can do anything about it.

But check this out:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him."

Paul goes on to say in Ephesians that we are God's own "workmanship," and he prays that the Ephesians might comprehend "the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places."

God is often described as a potter, an artist, and Jesus was a carpenter. The mark of a good artist or carpenter is the pride that they take in their work. A builder or artist with any amount of integrity and pride would never settle for making simple cosmetic fixes if the very foundation of their work was deeply flawed.

I am deeply flawed.

But I have a renewed sense of hope and faith that my God, who is powerful enough to conquer death in raising Jesus from the grave, is not content to leave the darkest parts of me embedded in who I am because He's incapable of doing anything about it.

Its removal may, more likely, will be painful, but I'm confident that God can and will redeem each and every fiber of my being.

And while I realize that there is a spiritual reality that is true of me as a child of God that hasn't completely come to fruition yet in the flesh, gone are the days of just assuming that certain parts of my character will always be there until the day I die.

Because this is the God I know:

"...Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself IN SPLENDOR, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

-CK

The Worst Saturday Ever

There's a mournful heaviness that hangs in the air at a funeral for a loved one who has left us "way too soon." Not the kind of mourning that mixes tears of joy for a life well-lived with tears of sadness because that person is gone, but a soul-wrenching kind of mourning that laments unfulfilled expectations, is filled with regret, and wonders what to do next.

I would imagine that's kind of what Good Friday felt like for Jesus' followers - watching a young man in whom all of their hopes for freedom, political power, and the earthly reign of God hinged, be hung on a tree to die. Everything that they had devoted their lives to for the last few years was suddenly destroyed and the future that they had placed all of their chips on would never come to fruition.

And then came Saturday, perhaps the longest day of their lives. They'd had a chance to sleep on the fact that their "messiah" was dead, if they managed to sleep at all, and they had a full day to mourn, wrestle with God, and re-think the past three years. What could they have done differently? Where did they misread the signs? Now what?

I wonder if perhaps, as Peter and some of the disciples do at the end of the Gospel of John, each of the disciples went back to their previous ways of life that Saturday. Perhaps in an effort to get away for awhile and have some time to himself, Peter again took to fishing as he processed through what had happened and considered what his "back-up" plan for the future might be.

We know the end of the story, that at the end of this weekend, we celebrate Easter and Christ's resurrection from the dead. But I wonder if most of us don't live as if it's Saturday - living in the in-between of Christ's death and resurrection. We know the story of the Gospel, that Christ has died for our sins and that He has promised to return someday, but we hedge our bets as if the resurrection isn't actually going to happen.

We've all experienced placing our hope so fully on a potential job, our financial situation, getting into the school of our choice, having kids, a relationship, or something else, that when our expectations don't become reality, we're left identity-less and hopeless. As fishing was for Peter, these are our back-up plans, intended to give us meaning, purpose, and happiness in case this whole Jesus thing doesn't turn out to be what we expected.

But the Good News of the Gospel is that Christ is risen, He will come again, and our hope in Him is not in vain. We don't need "back-up plans" because God is faithful and His promises are true. We can confidently place all of our chips on Him, knowing that our hope is secure in Him and that because of the Cross, His love will never fail.

And though we will continue to experience the deeply painful loss of loved ones, of broken relationships, and unfulfilled expectations, there is hope - because though it is Saturday, and the time in-between Friday and Sunday will often be immensely difficult and painful, Easter is coming.

Happy Saturday.

-CK

"Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken." -Isaiah 54:10