Apologetics: Debunking Deconstruction – When Christians Don’t Act Like Christians.

It seems that this year so far has been a bad one for the church, as we’ve had not one, but three major scandals come to light. First were the allegations that came out against Todd White back in April that basically confirmed what we already know that he’s a pathological liar. Then came the Michael Tait scandal where he was drugging and sexually assaulting guys (and apparently a few women as well). And now, we’ve recently discovered that Dr. Michael Brown, who is probably best known for his defense of the hyper-charismatic/NAR movement, was also having inappropriate relationships with multiple women (which Mike Winger also covered).

This is not a good look for the church, especially when the church refuses to hold these people accountable and starts trying to cover up or minimize the impact of these abuses. And it’s absolutely understandable for people to doubt the validity of the Gospel because of it. I think this blog post pretty much sums up the feelings of a lot of people whenever this type of thing happens and Mr. Duritz raises a good point with his closing questions. How do we know if someone takes their faith seriously and thus, we should, too? Does God have any power or is He just there to serve as behavior modification?

To answer these questions, I think we first need to understand sin and the nature of salvation, since this is where a lot of people are getting stuck. Now, I’ve done an entire post about what sin is, so I suggest you guys read that, but to summarize, sin is any transgression against the rules that God set up. Humanity first sinned when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Good and Evil, transgressing God’s command to not eat from it. From there, humanity became sinful and kept transgressing God’s laws, damning us for hell.

This is where Jesus comes in and where there can be confusion. While it is true that Jesus came to save us from our sins, that doesn’t mean that He came to make us completely sinless in this life. He came to save us from the wrath of God that is the punishment for our transgressions.

However, that doesn’t mean that we get to keep sinning with Jesus as our get-out-of-jail-free card. As Paul wrote in Romans:

⁵ But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) ⁶ Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? ⁷ Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” ⁸ Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!

What it does mean is that as followers and ambassadors of Christ, we will strive to live like Christ, which means striving to live a sinless life. Will we perfectly achieve this? No. But that doesn’t mean that we should just give up trying. In fact, this is one of the fruits of the spirit: self-control.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can now answer the question of “How do we know if someone takes their faith seriously?” To know if they take their faith seriously, we should closely examine their life – both their public and private lives – for the fruits of the Spirit. Those are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If someone cannot exercise those things (especially self-control), then I would say that we should be wary of trusting them, regardless of who they are. In all three cases mentioned in the intro, it seems none of these men could practice these things. It seems that faced with the temptation that power, money, and fame bring, they didn’t have the fruits that would’ve prevented them from doing these heinous things, leading them to represent the church horribly.

[Author’s note: I would also say that their actions call their salvation into question. Were they in the church because they truly loved Christ but later fell to temptation or were they in it for money, fame, and power? I think that it was the later, especially since the circles they’re in bring in lots of money, publicity, and have a good dose of cover-up culture.]

This then leads to the question of “Does God have any power or is He there for superficial behavior modification?” The answer to this is yes, God has power. If He wants to change something drastic in your life to make you a completely new person, He will. However, for most of us, the change is more gradual, and we will still struggle. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes struggling – though it sucks – can lead to greater conviction that could eventually bring you out of the cycle and increase your faith in God as your actions change to be more aligned with His commands. It also can give you a choice in which direction you want to take. Do you want to trust God through it, or do you want to try to keep going in your own power?

Ultimately, this none of this is a new problem. Religious figures have been doing this type of stuff forever (Jeremiah 23:9-14 is a good example of this) and there will be more in the future. So how do we deal these impulses ourselves? How do we keep from representing the church badly by falling into the same sins as Michael Tait and Michael Brown?

I would say that the first step is to actually take your faith seriously. If you’re in church just for the feel-good message, you might want to reconsider your motivations for following Jesus. However, if you’re there to be taught about the Bible and you’re sincere in your commitment to follow Christ, then you’re on the right track.

The second step would also be to have someone to hold you accountable. So many issues within the church could be solved if discipleship and accountability were actually encouraged and practiced instead of allowing things to be swept under the rug in the name of unity. Having a more spiritually mature mentor or friend to help you with that can be extremely helpful.

The third step is to recognize that while sinning against God is a problem first and foremost, when you sin against your fellow man, it can cause a massive snowball effect, hurting not just you, but also hurting others to varying degrees. In the cases of White, Tait, and Brown, though they thought they would get away with it and no one would know or care, they ended up hurting countless people both directly and indirectly. Don’t do that. And if you do sin against someone, apologize immediately instead of waiting for them to expose you to everyone and hold yourself accountable.

Until next time,

M.J.