R.W. Glenn on Reducing the Christian Faith to a Lifestyle

Crucifying Morality: The Gospel of the Beatitudes by R.W. GlennR.W. Glenn packs his small book on the Beatitudes full of grace-filled, gospel-centered wisdom. I posted my brief review of Crucifying Morality: The Gospel of the Beatitudes (Shepherd Press, 2013) earlier this week. Today I want to provide an excerpt where Glenn confronts a problem that is prevalent among conservative evangelical Christians.

“Reducing the Christian faith to a lifestyle” — Independent Fundamentalist Baptists are perhaps most famous for this trait, but a number of other evangelical groups have this tendency as well. In our zeal for protecting children from the evils of this world, and in our desire to live holy lives we sometimes turn faith into a religion, and the gospel into a sub-culture replete with its own rules and customs. Nostalgia for the good old days when sinful lifestyles weren’t on full display in public, and a fondness for large families and wholesome fun — these can be good things, but they can also define us. The problem comes when our familiar way of life, holy as it may be, becomes what we live for and what is most important to us. It takes the place of the gospel and the role of Christian doctrine, and this lifestyle-orientation can keep our kids from true Christianity. But don’t hear just my word for it. Listen to R.W. Glenn as he bemoans this same tendency, which we all should be on guard against.

In a post-Christian culture like ours where many regard moderate religiosity as a good thing, the danger for the church is to reduce the Christian faith to a lifestyle — a subculture complete with its own music and literature and fashions and jargon. This is especially dangerous for those who grow up in the church. Christian parents sometimes worry about their kids being influenced by worldly evils in our oversexed, violent, materialistic culture. They worry that their kids will be negatively influenced by the literature they read, the movies and television shows they watch, the video games they play, and the music they listen to.

Although these things are certainly not benign and do have the capacity to negatively influence children, they are not half as dangerous as reducing Christianity to moralistic religion. These kinds of Christian parents focus on relatively small matters and ignore the possibility of a much more terrible reality. Because it seems so likely that our churched children and teens would remain loyal to the church all their days and live very moral lives, we tend not to worry about them, but their very religiosity makes them even more susceptible to get crushed by the hurricanes of their own sin and the schemes of Satan than a bare house in the path of a Category 5 hurricane….

…if churched children remain unaffected by and inoculated to the gospel — wholesale consumers of just enough gospel lingo and institutional Christianity to look the part — they will completely miss the heart of Christianity. They will miss out on purity of heart. (Kindle Loc. 1359-1372)

I’m interested to hear what you think. Is this tendency a problem? Can you see how it subtly leads us from a gospel-centered Christianity?

Learn more about R.W. Glenn’s new book by reading my review or perusing the product page at Amazon.com or Shepherd Press.

Book Briefs: “Crucifying Morality: The Gospel of the Beatitudes” by R. W. Glenn

Crucifying Morality: The Gospel of the Beatitudes by R.W. GlennThe Beatitudes are perhaps the most memorable section of Jesus’ most famous sermon — the Sermon on the Mount. But understanding what the Beatitudes are is not as easy as memorizing these short, poignant declarations. Is Jesus calling us to obey the Beatitudes — to live the life described as blessed? Or is this description of unparalleled righteousness meant to bring us to the end of ourselves? Another way of looking at the problem is asking whether the Beatitudes are intended to guide us into a do-able ethic, or if they are meant to stop us from any pursuit of self-righteousness?

If you are looking for your Bible so you can review the Beatitudes anew, R.W. Glenn would be happy. He is the author of a new book which explores these very questions. Crucifying Morality: The Gospel of the Beatitudes (Shepherd Press, 2013) is a provocative look at the Beatitudes in a new light. And what Glenn gives us in this book is a gospel-centered, grace-filled romp through this most familiar portion of Scripture.

Glenn’s book is a devotional exploration of each of the eight Beatitudes. He finds the gospel on full display behind and through each of them. Ultimately, he concludes that Jesus ultimately embodies the Beatitudes – and since we are united by faith to Jesus, we are blessed through his perfect obedience.

Glenn writes with an eye for grace over and against moralism but doesn’t speak down to the unenlightened. He aims to inspire and instill hope rather than merely complain about how others are interpreting the Beatitudes. His writing is lucid and clear, even if the truths he drives home are often convicting. But Glenn brings us to Jesus over and over again, and for that he is to be thanked.

Glenn’s writing style and focus on Christ shine through in this brief quote:

If you come to Christ’s table having already stuffed yourself with your own righteousness, you will starve yourself and never know the satisfaction of the gospel. But if you come to this table with an appetite for Christ’s righteousness, it is yours. Bring your appetite and feast at the table of the comprehensively perfect righteousness of Christ, and you will be satisfied. (Kindle Location 1007)

This book is suited well for small groups and Sunday School classes, and includes a variety of application questions at the end of each chapter. Plus, it is not an overly long book and leaves much that can be fleshed out in group discussion. I encourage you to pick up a copy of this book and spend some time working out the gospel implications of the Beatitudes for yourself.

Pick up a copy of this book at any of the following online retailers: Amazon, Westminster Bookstore, or direct from Shepherd Press.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher for review. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.

Fundamentalism: Separation-Centered rather than Gospel-Centered

President Matt Olson at Northland International University is stirring up his fair share of criticism as he enacts reforms and quietly changes the ethos of what was Northland Baptist Bible College. From afar, I applaud his efforts and his bravery. He is taking shots from all sides of the ring!

My blogging friend Will Dudding at The Reforming Baptist, recently explained the pickle that Olson is in a post intriguingly titled “Northland, CCM, Fundamentalism & the Separation Nazis.”

One particular comment from his post really resonated with me. I believe it is spot on and covers almost the entire gamut of fundamentalism. I have bolded the phrase in the except below.

The gospel as the central unifying factor and the matter of first importance is often scoffed at on their blogs. They regularly deride movements like T4G and TGC that are propelling the gospel forward more than Fundamentalism has been doing. Being Separation-centered is more important to them than being Gospel-centered. Fundamentalism as a movement has done nothing in my generation and is going nowhere except to the trash heap of history. Christianity will survive well enough without it. Matt Olsen would do well to eject, but it may cost him his school.

I believe this is the problem, fundamentalists as a whole eschew a gospel-centered unity in favor of a separation-centric modus operandi. I have shared similar thoughts on this idea before in my post “Minimizing the Gospel through Excessive Separation.”

What’s your thought on this? Is it unfair to say fundamentalism is separation-centered?

Tim Keller on a Gospel View of Work

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Tim KellerLiving out the Christian life on Monday morning is just about the hardest thing there is to do. Everything can seem so great on Sunday. The worship music is great, the time spent in the Bible so precious, and the pastor’s message equal parts (hopefully) convicting and inspiring. But when the alarm goes off on Monday morning, many of us have a problem bringing Sunday with us throughout the week.

Tim Keller’s new book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (Dutton, 2012), goes a long way toward helping out those of us who find ourselves immersed in the work-a-day world. I can’t launch off into a full review of this excellent work at the moment, but I wanted to excerpt some of Keller’s thoughts on how a gospel worldview can help us look at our work in a different way.

To be a Christian in business, then, means much more than just being honest or not sleeping with your coworkers. It even means more than personal evangelism or holding a Bible study at the office. Rather, it means thinking out the implications of the gospel worldview and God’s purposes for your whole work life — and for the whole of the organization under your influence. (168-169)

So when we say that Christians work from a gospel worldview, it does not mean that they are constantly speaking about Christian teaching in their work. Some people think of the gospel as something we are principally to “look at” in our work. This would mean that Christian musicians should play Christian music, Christian writers should write stories about conversion, and Christian businessmen and -women should work for companies that make Christian-themed products and services for Christian customers. Yes, some Christians in those fields would sometimes do well to do those things, but it is a mistake to think that the Christian worldview is operating only when we are doing such overtly Christian activities. Instead, think of the gospel as a set of glasses through which you “look” at everything else in the world. Christian artists, when they do this faithfully, will not be completely beholden either to profit or to naked self-expression; and they will tell the widest variety of stories. Christians in business will see profit as only one of several bottom lines; and they will work passionately for any kind of enterprise that serves the common good. The Christian writer can constantly be showing the destructiveness of making something besides God into the central thing, even without mentioning God directly. (179-180)

Of all the ways the Christian faith affects work, the realm of the worldview is the most searching and yet also the hardest to put into practice. All Christians live in cultures and work in vocational fields that operate by powerful master narratives that are sharply different from the gospel’s account of things. But these narratives work at such a deep level that their effects on us are hard to discern. An American who first moves to a foreign country is shocked to discover how many of her institutions and practices that she considered common sense and universal are actually particularly American ones — and are ridiculous to many other people. By living in another culture she gets a new vantage point from which she can be critical of herself, and as a result she will slowly change, dropping some attitudes and adopting others.

Becoming a Christian is a lot like moving to a new country; only it is more profound, because it gives us a new perspective on every culture, every worldview, and every field of work. In the long run, the gospel helps us see everything in a new light, but it takes time to grasp and incorporate this new information into how we live and pursue our vocations. And we can be sure that this ultimate learning experience will never truly end; we are told the angels themselves never tire of looking into the gospel to see new wonders (1 Peter 1:10-12). (181-182)

You can pick up a copy of this book at any of the following online retailers: Westminster Bookstore, Christianbook.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or direct from Dutton (Penguin).

Sermon Download: David, Our Champion

This past Sunday I was called on to fill the pulpit. I had been wanting to preach a Christ-centered sermon from the Old Testament for quite some time, and was happy to have the opportunity. I used the well-known story of David and Goliath and was amazed by all the wonder there in the text.

If you don’t have time to listen to the entire sermon (57 minutes), please do look over my notes. If you haven’t heard a sermon about Jesus from the David and Goliath story, you’ll want to take note. Understanding Scripture in this way has the potential to be truly life-changing. May God bless this sermon to all who hear it, for His glory and by His grace.

          Place: Beacon of Hope Church, St. Paul
          Date: March 10, 2013
          Title: David, Our Champion
          Text: 1 Sam. 17
          Notes: Download PDF
          Audio Link: Listen online or download