Why Christians need to be cautious with Rachel Held Evans' writings

This lady has gotten attention; for her skepticism, embrace of doubt, for questioning everything about traditional American evangelicalism. Bible interpretation, women's roles, especially the word "biblical", homosexuality, gay marriage and other sexual issues are all areas that she has a voice in.

She strikes a chord with those jaded by evangelicalism. Or the cynics. Or people who have doubts that they just can't conquer. She also strikes a chord with people who are or have been part of a typical evangelical subculture or church, but who do not have the family structure that is usually desired: marriage and/or children.

These issues and viewpoints are personal and, I'm guessing, painful. They definitely cause a lot of friction. Thus when I write this I have absolutely no intention of causing more hurt. I also realize that writing as one with the desired familial structure I may not be well received.

Can the reader set aside any bias against me? I hope so. I'm simply writing as a Christian to anyone who is curious enough to know my two cents.

I've been observing Rachel Held Evans from a distance for two or three years now; reading her stuff, reviews of her stuff, articles about her or by her, etc. She's smart. I love her writing style. I resonate with many of her concerns about American evangelicalism. I too struggle with church.

But there are some things about her trains of thought, her presuppositions, her hermeneutic, her views of authority, that I think can lead to some serious betrayals of orthodox Christianity. Not evangelicalism, but Christianity. Stuff that transcends the littler issues that divided denominations or elected presidents. I'm talking core stuff.

Before I go any further, I want to say that Evans is so good with words and thoughts that I'm sure she would easily refute what I have to say. In fact, it's as if the trap has been laid, and I'll probably step right into it, for refuting anything she writes only confirms what she writes about stereotypical evangelicals. Inherent in her style is an argument that is almost impossible to refute, for she speaks out of both sides of her mouth when using her postmodern hermeneutic on God's word and world.

Nonetheless I'll say what I feel led to say: 

Following her train of thought will lead a Christian down a path that forsakes the inerrancy, authority and sufficiency of Scripture. On this train also rides those who don't truly believe, deep down, that the Holy Spirit is working in evangelical churches, which are part of Christ's body, today. In her view, it seems as if most (or all) authority in America's church is really a fabricated, man-made, and hopelessly corrupt system. Therefore we can't trust these pastors or church leaders, we can only trust ourselves.

The subtle denial of Scripture's inspiration and its implications, embracing and nurturing doubts of Scripture's authority, and lowering the Bible to the status of just another classic novel or good moral book is an age-old practice. What I see that may be new with Evans is that she blurs the line between higher and lower textual criticism, but at the core embraces a higher criticism and doesn't view Scripture as authoritative. This leaves one with a powerless social gospel, devoid of the Holy Spirit and the power of regeneration and sanctification and glorification. Jesus didn't die and physically raise from the dead in order to save us from the penalty of our sins; He just physically rose and we don't know what for.

But I see that God's Spirit is working. Yes, even in silly ol' 'Murica. And a vast majority of the Scriptures are really easy to understand and are much harder to twist than people say it is. In fact, the Bible through and through has some pretty nasty things to say to those who choose to reject God's word. It has some doubly nasty foretellings for those who lead God's children away from the gospel as well. There actually are God-given categories of thought for fear and trembling, and for God's authoritative judgment. He is our Creator.

We should fear to flout what God says in his word. We should fear his judgement for tampering with a Christian's one reliable source of eternal truth. We should also fear that we are trampling on the blood of Christ poured out for us, going back on what we had received; adoption into God's family, wholly undeserved; the inheritance of God's kingdom; the sure promises of God; an essential place to serve in the body of Christ; the gospel of peace on our feet, powerful to save and free to all; the child-like trust in God alone for reconciliation with him! We cannot throw these eternal benefits away to have our ears itched, our doubts confirmed and to feel better about not fitting a temporal man-made mold of the nuclear family! What do we get if we gain the whole world and yet lose our souls?

Dear friends, if you are a fan of RHE I make no claim to know where your heart or hers is when it comes to the Christian faith. I'm only saying what I see in what she writes. I think one should be very cautious to lock themselves into a way of thinking proselytized by a person whose fame has flourished on a platform of creating a vacuum of belief, of denying old ways, and pulling out and tossing aside foundation stones.

I also don't think that questioning things is wrong. The right or wrong is in the answer you settle on. And the standard of right and wrong belongs to God, not people.

Lastly I think this all just boils down to who you put your faith in and how you perceive the role of postmodern thought in biblical interpretation or the illumination of Scripture. If red flags don't come up in your mind when someone makes weighty claims that question millenia-old teachings of Christianity, then I fear for you.

"How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same."

The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. (Deuteronomy 12:29-31 NIV)

I don't know about you, but I can see a lot of similarities between the wandering and/or exiled Israelites and us Christians today. We never belong or fit in with this world or culture. The world may even hate us as it hated Jesus and killed him on his day a couple millennia ago.

The culture wars of this week are a powerful reminder of this fact for me. Our core beliefs found in Scripture are of God, our Creator and Designer, and our call to submit to Him our entire beings! Also, that God our Creator and Savior desires our sanctification from the many forms of sexual immorality that we are tempted to! (1 Thess. 4)

In my reading today in Deuteronomy the above passage stuck out to me because I think it reveals the true motives of many Christians who compromise God's desires for family and sexuality so that they can worship our culture's idols the same way that they do.

As God's people it's a shameful thing that we look to our culture for cues on how to live and what it means to be a 'good person'. Lots of TV shows that I watch will have these 'good people' sleeping around and/or with someone they aren't married to, breaking vows and promises, lashing out in anger, withholding forgiveness, nursing grudges, abusing drugs and alcohol, wasting thousands of dollars on shopping sprees... All in the name of being a 'victim' and still a 'good person'. And then we go do the same!

Part of our call to renew our minds (Romans 12) is to forsake our culture's categories of what is good and beautiful, especially when it goes against God's word. Let's be aware of when and how we seek examples from non-believing individuals, wondering how they treat their family or spend their money.

This passage of Moses' preaching to the people of Israel was such a powerful reminder to me this morning! There is no requirement to imitate everything about our culture, even in the midst of this culture war. It's a sign of making ourselves vulnerable to the wrong person if we do! So I'll go to God with my weakness and my questions.

Enjoying Instagram

Here are some recent adventures :)

Butterfield's book, homosexuality, etc.

I haven't written in a while! I think it's been 11 days, which is a record. I'm sure the internet missed another person's opinions.... anyway...

I've been taking this time to let Rosaria Champagne Butterfield's testimonial book just sink into my soul. Like I said, I'm in the process of reading 3 different books giving autobiographical testimony of conversions, all of which come from some sort of sexual brokenness. This is in an effort to understand where people come from to Christ, and how better to relate to them, befriend them and love them.

And Carson starts fussing now... this is the other reason why writing blog posts is hard! Having a crazy, adventurous toddler! That being said, I don't really have time to write any kind of comprehensive review of her book. I'm glad that's not my job. So I want to write about how her book changed my life!

Rosaria went from being a feminist, lesbian English professor studying Queer Theory in New York to being now a wife, pastor's wife and adoptive parent. She describes her conversion as a trainwreck, traumatizing and just really hard! She says that as she read through the Bible to refute it, and met with her new friend, a Reformed Presbyterian minister, the Word of God got bigger in her than herself. She had a lot of ups and downs along the way, but I'll save those for your own reading.

Two things powerfully struck my in the beginning of reading this book. 1) Her critiques of American evangelicals, and 2) the role of pastor Ken Smith as a friend and advocate in her search through the Bible (before she left her lesbian lifestyle).

1) When I first read her critiques of evangelicals I was offended. I felt my face get hot as I read it. I didn't like reading all the things that people like me are doing wrong toward the gay community. I knew she was right though! When I read through this part of the book a second time, having read the story of her conversion, it was easier to read. 

Examples:

"Here is one of the deepest way Christians scared me: the lesbian community was home and home felt safe and secure; the people that I knew the best and cared about were in that community; and finally, the lesbian community was accepting and welcoming while the Christian community appeared (and too often is) exclusive, judgmental, scornful and afraid of diversity..." pg 5 (italics mine).

"[Christians] appeared to use the Bible... in order to bring the Bible into a conversation to stop the conversation, not deepen it" pg 4.

"I'm grateful that the Lord brought me to a church that was as strong on teaching as it is on compassion... My lesbian friends had to learn that not all Christians are bigots. My Christian friends had to learn that Christians have a lot to learn from gay and lesbian folks about mercy work... I didn't know how to bridge the two groups..." pgs 23-24.

Here is a long one, but this one powerfully struck me:

"Shortly after becoming a Christian, I counseled a woman who was in a closeted lesbian relationship and a member of a Bible-believing church. No one in her church knew. Therefore, no one in her church was praying for her. Therefore, she sought and received no counsel. There was no "bearing one with the other" for her. No confession. No repentance. No healing. No joy in Christ. Just isolation. And shame. And pretense. Someone had sold her the pack of lies that said that God can heal your lying tongue or your broken heart, even cure your cancer if he chooses, but he can't transform your sexuality... She said: 'Rosaria, if people in my church really believed that gay people could be transformed by Christ, they wouldn't talk about us and pray about us in the hateful way that they do.'

"Christian reader, is this what people say about you when they hear you talk and pray? Do your prayers rise no higher than your prejudice? 

"I think that churches would be places of greater intimacy and growth in Christ if people stopped lying about what we need, what we fear, where we fail, and how we sin... And I suspect that instead of seeking counsel and direction from those stronger in the Lord, we retreat into our isolation and shame and let the sin wash over us, defeating us again" pg. 25.

Wow. 

2) The friendship that this Reformed Presbyterian minister and his wife, Ken and Floy, formed with this nonChristian, Christian-hating lesbian activist was truly loving and authentic. And to be loving and authentic he did not have to approve of the homosexual lifestyle. But he did have to go against what most Christians do today, which is to separate themselves from close friendship with anyone in the LGBT community. 

There were some notable components of their friendship... the fact that he didn't just invite her to church and quote a ton of Scriptures at her, that they didn't treat her like a project, scapegoat, blank slate for them to write on, or example of warning to Christians. He didn't humiliate her. He didn't just talk about sexual issues all the time. It seems like to me they talked mostly about the Bible and Jesus and Christianity. Mainly because she was writing something against the Christian Right and needed to study the Smiths. 

She says, 

"Before I ever set foot in a church, I spent two years meeting with Ken and Floy and on and off "studying" scripture and my heart. If Ken and Floy had invited me to church at that first meal I would have careened like a skateboard on a cliff, and would have never come back. Ken, of course, knows the power of the word preached but it seemed to me he also knew at that time that I couldn't come to church - it would have been too threatening, too weird, too much. So, Ken was willing to bring the church to me. This gave me the room and the safety that I need to match Ken and Floy's vulnerability and transparency. And so I opened up to them. I let them know who I was and what I valued. I invited them into my home and into my world. They met my friends, came to my dinner parties, saw me function in my real life. They made themselves safe enough for me to do this" pgs 11-12.

After I read the whole book, one big theme concerning sin and repentance struck me: the true cost of the Christian life in denying oneself and taking up one's cross. In Rosaria's life this can be summed in this sentence: "One doesn't repent for a sin of identity in one session" pg 23. 

We all have to repent of our identities and give our whole selves to Him. We all are depraved and lost without him. And as Christians we should see ourselves on an equal plain with the rest of the condemned, non-believing world, were it not for Christ in us. 

I came away from this book wanting to make more non-believing friends and friends from the gay community. I hate that they have a hard time and many times don't have anyone to share the truth about Christ's love and sacrifice to them. 

I know that Rosaria's case is unique - she sought out this pastor after receiving a letter in response to an article she wrote. He sought her out too, but she had to initiate. She had to study the bible for herself, and she did so because of her academic goals, not because the pastor told her to. Ultimately, it was God who saved Rosaria. He only used the Smiths for a time. I pray that more Christians can do that, especially with what's going on in the U.S. today. I think next week there is some legislation on gay marriage that's getting voted on. Instead of hating the gay community and seeing them as the enemy, we should remember that our battle is not with flesh and blood, but evil spirits and Satan himself.

Recent stuff

Not much exciting has been going on around here! I recently finished he second of the 3 books I mentioned: the one by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. It was beyond words and God used it in a mighty way in my life. I highly recommend it!

Things continue as normal around here! David is busy with work and school and I am busy at home. Our house is never clean. Just part of life and parenthood.

Perseverance

Paul's letter to the church in Corinth, a part of chapter 3:

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

 For most of my Christian life (which started this month in 2001!) I've been surrounded by a large group of like-minded believers, but now I'm in a phase where all of that is being "revealed with fire". It's been kind of hard to see people getting confused about who Jesus is, or what authority they are willing to give (or not give) to the Bible in their lives, or wanting to be more like the culture than anything else, etc. when just years earlier, we had been worshiping Christ in the same throng, raising our hands in praise or talking about Jesus together in a Bible study, or serving together in some sort of ministry.

God's word is clear that this kind of apostasy happens. He says that there are four kinds of ways that seeds grow. They are either snatched up before they get into the soil (Satan takes away God's word), they make shallow root and dry up in the sun (they receive God's word, but forsake it when testing or adversity comes), they grow but are choked up by thorns (love of the world takes precedence) or they grow and yield tons of fruit (a healthy growing Christian). I guess some of these things are happening to these people I've known. Instead of letting their betrayal discourage me or make me doubt if I'm doing the right thing, I need to keep seeking God. I've been trying to do that.

The hard part is, lately it just seems like the betrayal of faith is increasing, or just all being shown to me at once. Or maybe it's just that people who leave Christ can easily boast about what they do, whereas Christian "boasts" sound so self-righteous. So many people aren't sure what they believe anymore, or don't know Jesus or want to have anything to do with him, and some are people that I love dearly!!! I won't give up on my faith in Christ. 

More than ever, I know that my faith does not depend on any other person or family member or preacher or establishment (even my husband, though he believes in Jesus). People love to blame Christians and their establishments for horrible things, but God is above all reproach. Let them try and accuse him of wrong, but he will only laugh at them.

Someday all will be revealed and all will be made right. But for now I wait for
"the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" Titus 2:13. And I walk by faith, not by sight.

Undaunted, the story of Josh McDowell

I just finished the book Undaunted by Josh McDowell and Cristobal Krusen (there's also a movie). It tells the story of Josh's life from childhood through his early 20's. The main theme of Undaunted is that despite the hardships and sins in Josh's early life (a drunken father, being sexually abused by their farm hand for years), and Josh's choice to be an agnostic, God redeemed him and has used him for a great purpose: evangelism. 

Not only Josh but members of his family are also saved. This book serves to show God's power to redeem lives and use them for glory. God calls those who are foolish to shame the wise, and the weak to shame the strong. God calls Josh to forgive his father, his brother and his abuser. He shares Christ's love with them by both words and actions. 

A few other things were evident to me: First, God definitely gave this man a bold, extroverted and daring personality. Second, the fact that this book was co-written does not diminish Josh's life story but does it a service. And like any movie or TV show, there are skips in time to show highlights in his life. Lastly, this story of both abuse and redemption is only one of many. I'm sure there are thousands upon thousands of stories like this that never go written. That was obvious to me when working for a time with a children's ministry in Cabrini Green. Most obviously, God's Spirit is working all over the world to bring people to the knowledge of Christ. No one can stop Him. 


I don't want to give away too much of what happens, so I'll stop here! 

3 books of redemption stories

Hello! I am starting to read 3 different books that are written by Christians testifying of how they came to know Christ.

Interestingly, all three authors came from a background of sexual brokenness or abuse. I guess I have a hunger to understand better what it's like to be in and come out of that.

The books are:

Undaunted: one man's real-life journey from unspeakable memories to unbelievable grace... By Josh McDowell with Cristobal Krusen. (Tyndale, 2012)

Out of a Far Country: a gay son's journey to God, a broken mother's search for hope by Christopher Yuan and Angela Yuan. (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2011)

And (I haven't gotten this one in the mail yet)
The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield.

I'm super excited to read these and might write some stuff here about them! Also, I heard about these people and their books through radio interviews, and Christopher Yuan is a professor at my alma mater.

Lastly, though I frequently read and listen to things that are nonChristian, there can be only edification in reading books by Christians about the things of Christ. I don't live in a bubble, but I do long for the better things. Just a thought.

Profound quote on Christian persuasiveness

This morning I was reading a blog by Peter Leithart reporting on a debate between Douglas Wilson and Paul Sullivan on gay marriage. We Christians pretty much 'lose' all debates in this arena. And concerning that the author writes,

"In the end, these dilemmas may not matter. Perhaps Christians are called to do no more than speak the truth without worrying about persuasiveness. Perhaps we have entered a phase in which God has closed ears, so that whatever we say sounds like so much gibberish. We can depend on the Spirit to give ears as He pleases."

True that.