Things I Wish the Church Wouldn't Say

Repetition is a necessary and beautiful part of language. Conversation would be uglier (and much more complicated) if we were never allowed to say the same thing twice. But with repetition comes a danger. There comes a time when the same thing can be said so often that people cease to hear it, just as those who live beside a train track eventually cease to hear the train. Certain phrases and ideas are used so often that people cease to think about what they mean. G. K. Chesterton complained that “Half our speech consists of similes that remind us of no similarity; of pictorial phrases that call up no picture; of historical allusions the origin of which we have forgotten.” (“Phonetic Spelling,” in All Things Considered) These overused phrases and ideas are often referred to as clichés.

But there are two problems with clichés, beyond the mere boredom they afford. Sometimes, truly unique and interesting ideas are buried by the repetition. So, it really is a great compliment to tell someone they are worth their weight in gold, but nobody actually thinks about what that means and so it comes to mean nothing. But the other danger is that a cliché can be wrong or illogical without anyone ever thinking about it. So, for instance, I have never understood why a cucumber should be taken as the personification of coolness.

The problem of clichés of speech or idea is always going to be especially prevalent in a subculture that has its own specialized language. And so it is very prevalent in American evangelicalism (using that term in the loosest possible way; the word itself is a cliché, but I have to call it something). Obviously, there are some clichés that hide very great truths, buried under repetition. I think we sometimes underestimate the literary force and theological subtlety of some Christian language. However, there are other times when repetition and familiarity blind us to the problem with the things we say. So in this article, I want to examine certain phrases and ideas often found with various sections of the church which need to be reexamined and removed from our speech.

(1) “Less of me, more of God.” Words like these appear often in testimonies, exhortations, and gospel songs. There is a certain obvious sanity to them. Obviously, Christianity does require a renunciation of egoism and involves the exaltation of God.

However, there is a very basic problem here, and it is the Principle of Displacement. If you place a rock in a bucket of water, the water level will rise. Because the water and the rock cannot occupy the same space, some of the water has to move in order to make room for the rock—it is displaced. The more rocks you have in the bucket, the less water you will have. The more water you have, the fewer rocks you can have. Even with something like sand (which can absorb water), the more sand you have, the less water you can have, and the more water, the less sand. This is the Principle of Displacement.

This is obviously true of physical substances. But I am not certain it is true of non-physical things. And I am certain it is not true of God. God cannot “displace” us and we cannot displace Him, for in Him we live and move and have our being. So far from the existence of our self pushing God away, it is only because of God that our self has any existence at all. We can disobey God; we can rebel against Him; we can grieve Him; the one thing we cannot do is displace Him. Our existence cannot be a threat to His. Without God, there could not be more or less of us. Think of the characters in a play. The more screentime one gets, the less another gets. But none of them would be there at all except for the author. More of Romeo may mean less of Juliet, but more of Romeo does not mean less of Shakespeare.

This idea of self-displacement or minimization does not make sense within a Biblical context. (The words of John the Baptist in John 3:30 could be quoted in refutation of this, but I think these should be interpreted in light of the respective ministries of two men since that is the context and there is no evidence that John recognized Jesus' divinity at this point.) And I realize, this may seem like a trivial point, given that the Bible DOES most definitely speak of self-sacrifice and self-denial.

But I think there is a very real and very serious point involved here. And the point is this. Following God means making a choice. God is the active agent—the one who takes the initiative and makes all things possible—but God's word to us is imperative. God asks, commands, and implores us to make a choice. Even such a command as “Be still, and know” is imperative. The picture is of someone being deliberately alert.

Too often we have this idea that dependence on God means inaction; that trusting God means doing nothing. But the Biblical ideal is always active. G. K. Chesterton commented: “If a man is to be saved from influenza, he may be a patient.  But if he is to be saved from forging, he must be not a patient but an IMPATIENT.  He must be personally impatient with forgery.  All moral reform must start in the active not the passive will.”

Of course, all spiritual life comes only from God. We cannot will ourselves into salvation or moral growth. And that brings me back to my initial point: our actions and God's actions do not exclude or displace each other. We work—that is, make deliberate moral and spiritual choices—specifically because we know that God is working in us. We have to submit to God and follow God, even when that means going against our natural inclinations and ideas. In that sense, there must be less of us—less of our own self-will. But the will, when submitted to God, does not lessen but increase. The more God does in us, the more we must do. God does not ask people to shrink into a corner and try to take up as little room as possible. He calls them to make a stand and do work; to take up their cross and follow Him.

The whole matter was summarized in a song, which ended in words something like this: “I want more of Jesus,/So I'll give Him more of me.” God calls for more of ourselves, not less. And that leads naturally to our next point:

(2) “Religion is of the heart, not the head.” I realize I have already written substantially on this point of the relation of the intellect and the emotion and I will not retread that ground here. I think the essential point can be stated quite simply: if a man's religion involves a purely intellectual assent to the truths of Christianity with no change in his affections and desires; if his head is bound towards Heaven but his heart is roving through Hell, then that is not Christianity. But, by the same token, if a man's religion involves a purely emotional involvement without any change of his thoughts and mental evaluations, then that also is not Christianity. And if a man's religion involves his intellect and his emotions, his heart and his head, but results in no changes in his actions, then that also is not Christianity.

To say that religion is of the heart and not the head means that the head does not belong to God; it means that there is some region of a man which is autonomous and does not need to be subjected to the law of God; it is saying that there is one part of himself which a man may rightfully hold back when he comes to make an offering. But while this is an attractive doctrine, it goes flatly against Scripture.

It is an open question whether our distinction between heart and head is as absolute as it is often portrayed. It may be (most likely it is) that our thoughts and our feelings are only two different sides of the same reality or at least two roads to the same goal. But the point is that whatever our heart is and whatever our mind is, they belong to God. There may be a baker's dozen of different components rattling around inside our soul, but if we are Christians, then they are truly the Lord's dozen. Certainly, the Bible never draws any sharp distinctions but uses multiple terms to refer to the components of humanity; but the one thing it is clear about them is what we should do with them: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” (Mark 12:30)

(3) “Nobody's perfect.” Of course, this is a statement you will hear outside the church as well as in it. But it is from the context of the church that I want to look at it. And really, in certain segments of the evangelical church, one hears this phrase (or some variation of it) extremely commonly. One would think an acknowledgment of our human limitations would be a matter of lamentation or at least embarrassment, but often this fact of our imperfection is flaunted as if it were a matter of pride.

On a merely verbal level, the problem with the statement is that it is trite—it is an uninterestingly worded statement of a fact which everybody knows without saying it at all. If anybody in the world believes themselves to be perfect (in any absolute sense), then they will probably not be undeceived by a bumper sticker slogan. Aside from that, the word “perfect” is so ambiguous that it is essentially useless for all serious purposes. What constitutes the imperfection of man? Is it is finitude? His weakness? His sinfulness? A little bit of everything? Nobody knows; or at least, if anybody does, they will not communicate it by two trite words on a t-shirt.

But my objection to the phrase is more serious than merely its verbal weakness. Usually, in a religious context, it is used to mean specifically that nobody lives a truly holy or righteous life; that nobody can truly live above sin. I do not have space here to discuss the theological question; and I suppose my own church's stand on this issue is sufficiently well known. But assuming, for the sake of argument, that evangelical consensus is right and that true holiness and spiritual perfection is impossible, this cliché would still be objectionable. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Romans 8 does not exist and that Romans 7 represents the height of Christian experience, I still find it impossible to read Romans 7 and think Paul was advising the Roman church to write “No Perfect People Allowed” on their church sign.

It may be technically true that even in a spiritual sense “nobody's perfect,” but, still, this is not the language of one ravished by moral beauty.  I am a crusty old bachelor and obviously do not know the psychology of marriage from the inside. It may be that no matter how deep and true a husband's love for his wife is, that will not prevent him from feeling attraction from other women. But what kind of man would casually accept the fact and make his unavoidable infatuations a matter of flippant pride? If he did, “then love itself would cry thee shame.”

No man who truly loved his wife would take temptations against love as unimportant or insignificant, whether they were inevitable or no. And no man who truly loves righteousness or who truly loves God will take temptations against that love as unimportant or insignificant, whether they were inevitable or no. Paul wrote some admittedly convoluted and obscure words on this subject. The one thing he didn't say was: “Nobody's perfect. Oh, well.” In fact, in one passage, he practically does say: “Nobody's perfect” (that being Philippians 3:12a), but he immediately follows it by saying: “I follow after... reaching forth unto those things which are before... I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” To Paul, “imperfection” was not an excuse to sit down and rest but a reason for pressing forward.

This pride in our own imperfection is often touted as humility, and on humility, C. K. Chesterton made this comment, that humility was supposed to be “a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on.” A knowledge of our own failure and frailty should knock the conceit out of us but not the ambition. If the church must keep saying “nobody's perfect” (and probably nothing I can do can stop them) then at least let us say it as a challenge and not as an excuse.

(4) “Life isn't fair.” This cliché very much parallels the previous one. Like it, this one is very common in general culture, and not just the church. And like it, there are two objections to it, one from a standpoint of language and one from a standpoint of religion.

The problem with saying “life isn't fair” at its base level is how ambiguous the words are. “Fair” sometimes means just and sometimes means equal and for the most part, these are very different ideas. That some people are bigger than others is unequal. But that those people who are bigger use their superior size to take advantage of others is unjust.

But even more importantly, the word “life” is very ambiguous. Life in the sense of the principle of animation (the thing or spirit which differentiates plants and animals from rocks) has no relation to justice at all. And if by “life” we mean the sum total of events which happen in the process of life, then saying “life isn't fair” is like saying “life isn't purple.” Obviously, there are purple things in life and also things of other colors; and equally obviously both just and unjust things happen in our life. If “life” is only an abstraction drawn from the kaleidoscope of day-to-day actualities, then it is meaningless to call it fair or unfair. The only one who could claim life to be fair or unfair would be someone who knew the entire story of life, the complete fabric of all existence. In short, the only person who could know whether life is fair or not would be God. And if we believe in God, we realize that not only does He know all of life, but the whole fabric of life is under His direction and so the question “Is life fair?” is really only the question “Is God fair?” And if we believe in God, we know the answer to that question. Justice (but also mercy) is more fundamental than life itself. If life is of God, then life must be fair because God is fair.

Of course, there is a sense in which this is an overly subtle caveat. Often by “life” we mean the course of existence in this world, and it is not in this world that all wrongs are made right. Life, in this sense, isn't fair, because this life is only a small part of ultimate reality.

But there is a much more serious objection to the cliché and (as with the case of “nobody's perfect”) it does not lie in the words themselves or even the truth itself, but in the implication which accompanies it. To say, with causal complacency, that life is not fair is to treat the unfairness and injustice of life as normative. But to the Christian, injustice is not normative; for that matter, life is not normative. The way the world is now is not the way the world is supposed to be. We do not take our direction or our values from the present state of affairs. A Christian has no right to say “life isn't fair” as if that observation settled the matter. It may be true that London Bridge is falling down and before we tried to cross it we would want to be aware of that fact, but the mere fact that it is falling down by no means proves that we shouldn't try to build it up, even if we have resort to desperate expediencies such as pins and needles.  

The fact that “nobody's perfect” should drive men to seek after righteousness, but more often it is used as an excuse for negligence. The fact that “life isn't fair” should drive men to seek after justice, but more often is used as an excuse for complacency. As the psychologists tell us, the first step to a solution is admitting that there is a problem. But too often people are satisfied with the problem and never try to find the solution.

Chris Palmer recounts how one of his college teachers would begin every class by saying: “Life isn't fair, but God is good.” But if God is good, then his people should be good. And surely one part of goodness is justice. If the unfairness of life is a rule, we ought to be the exception. If injustice has covered the earth like a blanket of darkness, then we ought to be the light. Indeed, the whole cliché has the perspective backward. We are not called upon to account for life. The question should not be whether life is or is not fair, but whether we are fair, whether we are just. And, at the very least, if we follow the Biblical admonition to think upon, meditate, treasure up “whatsoever things are just” then we should not be willing to repeat a cheap catchphrase and think that discharges our duty to God and to mankind.

I wanted to end the point there, but I cannot shake off one other thought, though I am not sure it is right. I cannot help the thought coming that both this and the previous cliché make a fundamental mistake in wanting to know to the score before the game is played; to know which side will win before we chose a side. The mercenary wants to know if the fight is worth winning; the patriot wants to know if the fight is worth losing. Once, men came to Jesus asking him for statistics about how many people would be saved and how many lost. And Jesus did not satisfy their curiosity. He did not give them a number. Instead, he said: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” And I wonder if we put to Him the questions of these clichés: if we asked Him whether anybody's perfect and whether life is fair, if we asked Him to explain the final outcome of the battles for spiritual progress and justice, He might respond to us simply: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” 

(5) “Life is bad.” This one is not so much a cliché as an idea—the problem isn't in one specific phrase but in a general philosophy. There exists within American evangelicalism a specific subcurrent of thought which treats life or physical existence as a bad thing—there are those who think that, since our ultimate hope lies beyond this life, this life has no real value. I wrote about this more extensively in a previous article—there are preachers who present Lazarus as coming reluctantly out of his tomb as recalled to the burden of life; on several occasions, because of my naturally cheerful and optimistic personality I have been rebuked by fellow Christians who remind me that instead of being happy for life we should be pining for death.

Now, while this strain of thought definitely exists, it is also definitely a minority, much more so than any of the other points I have mentioned. Really, it probably shouldn't be here at all, but the other day I thought of something regarding this point which I wanted to say, but it didn't seem worth dedicating an entire article too, so I'm sticking it in here.

In a previous article, I discussed this topic, as part of a somewhat complicated discussion about transcendence, morality, food, and comic books. But I didn't mention the very simple truth on this matter. To explain why, even to a Christian, death can be considered a bad thing may require a complex argument. But to explain why, even to a Christian, life can be considered a good thing does not.

Life is good because it is a gift of God. If you are alive right now (which you assumably are if you are reading this) then it is solely because of God's mercy and grace; it is God's hand that upholds you in life. Jonathan Edwards reminded sinners that it is “ascribed to nothing else” save God's sovereign power that they were “suffered to awake again in this world after you closed your eyes to sleep” and that is just as true for the saint. Life in this world is just as truly a gift of God as life in the next world will be. And to grumble and complain about the gift God has given you because you wish He had given you some other, better gift is not a subtle theological heresy. It is plain and simple ingratitude. It is looking a divine gift horse in the mouth.

That was why St. Paul, though with no fear of death and knowing that “to die is gain” was equally willing to remain, knowing that even here “to live is Christ” because he had learned “in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.” If we cannot be happy with the life God has given us here, how can we be so certain that we would be happy with the life God is going to give us hereafter? If we have not learned to find Christ in the midst of this world, can we be certain we would find Him in Heaven? One does not learn to appreciate great things by disparaging good things.

Certainly, often this world is a sorrowful and wearying place and it is important to maintain our hope of resurrection. But we must also learn to appreciate God's goodness in the present if we want to reach that hope. If we want better things from God, we should start by recognizing the good things he has given us and even the bad things he has given us. The only wise prayer is that of Caroline Sandell-Berg: “Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,/E'er to take, as from a father's hand,/One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,/Till I reach the promised land.”

(6) “Old-fashioned.” Obviously, this phrase is common in many different contexts, but those who know the church know what I mean. There are certain segments of the church (and especially of the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition) that use this phrase to describe themselves and use it as a badge of—if not pride, exactly, certainly of commendation. There are even songs about it; about how good it is to be old-fashioned. Though the term is ambiguous enough, usually it refers to holding certain standards of belief and practice.

In general, I feel this phrase (like its more technical synonym, “conservative”) is too vague to be of much practical use—anyone can define anything they want as “old-fashioned” and since there is no hard and fast definition, they can never be disproved—but that is not the point I want to make here. (After all, this would also be true of many other words and phrases; imprecision and ambiguity are almost unavoidable in common speech.)

The assumption behind this phrase is that certain good beliefs and practices were accepted in the best but are now (unfortunately) out of vogue.

It is worth pointing out that often things which are referred to as “old-fashioned” are really not all that old at all. I still remember hearing a DJ on a Christian radio station talk about the “grand old hymns of the church” and then play a song from 1958. Things we think of as old and cherished traditions of the church were once (and perhaps more recently than we think) radical and controversial innovations. But this, while ironic, is not necessarily illogical.

The more pressing point is this: that often the things which we call now old-fashioned were also called old-fashioned in the good old days. Or if they were not called that, they were called something else.  Consistent and thorough-going Christianity is intrinsically counter-cultural. No matter how Christianified a culture is, if somebody actually, coherently, and consistently lives out a Christian worldview, he will be viewed as odd and most likely old-fashioned or whatever the most current insult is. The most suitable word is eccentric because it means off-center, and true Christianity and the world can never share the same center. We might live in a world in which every single person were a Christian, where every institution had been reformed in the light of Christianity, and yet it would still be true that true Christian life would be eccentric and probably old-fashioned. Even in a Christian world, there would be a necessary friction between the world and Christ.

That sounds paradoxical and even cynical, but there is a logical necessity behind it which may be clearer if we think of a parallel. We live in a society that is not conducive to physical fitness.  For the most part, all our institutions and most advertisements (the closest thing to a universal religion in the West) work against it. But if we lived in a society ruled and planned by physical fitness coaches and dietitians, where every institution and tradition was on the side of fitness, none of that would change the fact that it is easier to do nothing than do something and that it is easier to do the bare minimum than to put in true effort. This world being what it is, there will never be a time when exertion is easier than its opposite. And in the same way, no matter what external advancements there are in the church, it will never change the fact that it is easier (in the spiritual realm) to do nothing or to do a bare minimum than to put in a real effort. This world being what it is, there will never be a time when complete spiritual dedication will be easier than compromise. Even God's grace does not exactly change this fact. God's grace puts us on our feet and makes it possible to stand, and yet we must always take heed lest we fall because falling is always going to be easier than standing. At least, with the world as it is. Perhaps during the Millennium (if there is a Millennium), God will so energize the human body so that action comes as easily as inaction and the soul that dedication comes as easily as complacency. In short, perhaps in the Millennium (and almost certainly in the Resurrection), God will abolish Inertia. But as long as Inertia exists, true Christianity, full and total commitment will always be eccentric and more-likely-than-not old-fashioned.

In other words, the tension is not one of time at all. This not an issue of the old versus the new. Christianity can never go out of style because it was never in style; it can never be old-fashioned because it was never new-fashioned. Of course, there is a sense in which it once was. Certainly, it seemed something strange and new to the Jews of the first century, like new wine bursting old wine-skins. The historical parts of Christianity have their proper place in history. But nobody is talking about that when they use the word 'old-fashioned.' Christianity, by its very nature, transcends time. It is a historical religion founded on certain specific events in the past, and yet it cannot be contained by those events any more than its Founder could be contained by His tomb. Like the mercies of God, it is new every morning. The final and fundamental text for the Christian religion is the words of the angel: “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; He is risen.”

That the world would accuse the church of being old-fashioned is only to be expected. It is what they call an “occupational hazard.” But that the church should accept the epitaph and use it as a badge of honor is irritatingly perverse. It is conceding that one of the props of the church is nostalgia—a more noble thing than the moderns give credit, but not a proper pillar for the temple of God. It is true that the “old-fashioned” side of the church has done much to preserve good things from the past—institutions such as public singing and four-part harmony and the musical saw—but that is sociology, not theology. I am all for the church being involved in sociology, but I think we need to be quite clear about the difference. In a world that is going mad through meaningless, a world of storms with no fixed landmark, there is nothing that is needed more than an anchor that goes beyond the moment. But if that anchor is to hold, it must be grounded on the very bedrock of reality—if our only anchor point is 1835, then it will not hold. Being an old-fashioned Christian misses the entire point of being a Christian, which is to have a life that transcends the world—not a life modeled on the world of a hundred years ago.

Or to put the matter more simply, we can say this: there is nothing wrong with being old-fashioned, but a fashion, old or new, cannot answer the needs of man—a fashion, even an old one, cannot be a religion. Moses lived thousands of years ago—his style of beard, his style of dress, his intonation of Hebrew all might seem to us old-fashioned, as they might have seemed fresh and up-to-date at the time. But the God of Moses was not new-fangled then or is He old-fashioned now, for His name is not I-Will-Be or I-Was but I AM.