Please accept my sincerest apologies for the site being down most of the day.

As it turns out, record breaking traffic isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Here’s what happened….

Yesterday afternoon I wrote this post about the Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day. To my complete surprise it took off. Big time. More than anything I’ve ever posted.

I had about 50,000 hits in the first 5 hours. As it turns out, that is too much traffic for the shared server I am on through my web hosting company. So, they “temporarily suspended the site” in order to save their servers. Once they put the site back up, however, the crazy traffic just continued. Not long after that, the post had been viewed over 100,000 times. Sometime around 3am this morning that number shot WAY up to around 650,000 views AN HOUR as the result of what was most likely a “denial of service” attack.

Fortunately, the web hosting company was able/willing to get things back up and running. But, once again, the traffic was too much for their servers and around 1pm on Thursday they once again “temporarily suspended” the site. After talking with one of their systems administrators they recommended finding a new web hosting company that could handle the increase in traffic.

And that’s where the real fun began.

To make a long story short I bounced around a couple of different web hosting companies, but due to technical incompatibilities I couldn’t get the site back up or if I could it was absent all of my photos and my entire subscriber list.

So, after crawling back on my hands and knees and begging my original web host to let be back in with them, I finally, after 10 hours on and off the phone with tech support, have the site back up and running.

The one catch, however, was that I had to delete my old theme, the template that gave the site its particular look. Apparently that particular theme is especially vulnerable to hacks. My site has apparently been hacked several times because of that theme and their condition for re-hosting me was that I deleted the theme immediately.

So, all that to say I’m finally back up and running, but things obviously look a bit different. They will look different once again in the very near future as soon as a find a suitable replacement theme. The one you see now is just a temporary replacement, as I am, frankly, exhausted from dealing with this and am going to bed.

Before I do, I just want to once again express my sincerest apologies for the unintentional disappearing act and I want to especially say thank you to everyone that was kind enough to share the Chick-Fil-A post on Facebook. I genuinely appreciate all of your support and the kind words you have spoken about both me and the post on your Facebook wall and elsewhere. If you have friends that you shared it with, but weren’t able to read it, please let them know what happened and extend my apologies to them as well.

Anyway, that’s about it. I just wanted to let you all know what happened and qualm your fears that I had disappeared forever because we both know you stay up late at night worrying about whether or not The American Jesus is up and running.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

I’m not eating at Chick-Fil-A today.

Ok, to be fair the closest Chick-Fil-A to me is over 75 miles away in New Jersey, so I probably wouldn’t be eating there anyway.

But even if there was a Chick-Fil-A near me I wouldn’t eat there today.

Don’t get me wrong.

I love Chick-Fil-A.

I mean, I really love it and not just because I love their chicken and waffle fries. You see, there’s a bit of a family connection.

My great-grandmother had a neighbor many years ago.

His name was Truett Cathy.

At the time, Mr. Cathy was working on a recipe for a chicken sandwich. My great-grandmother, like many great-grandmothers, was a pretty good cook. So, Mr. Cathy would bring over the various incarnations over to her house for her to taste.

Now, I’m sure that she never gave him much feedback on the sandwich beyond “this tastes good” or “you may want to go back to the drawing board.” She never claimed otherwise. But there was one thing she was pretty vehement about telling Mr. Cathy.

My great-grandmother was a devote Christian woman. So, she took it upon herself to remind Mr. Cathy that being a man of God he better make sure his new restaurant was closed on Sundays. Once again, I’m sure he probably had plans of doing that anyway, but now, every time I drive by a Chick-Fil-A on a Sunday morning and I get a craving for a chicken biscuit only to discover the place closed, I think of my great-grandmother Bonnie and wished she had just kept her mouth shut.

Seriously, though, Chick-Fil-A has always held a special place in my heart.

However, I can’t get behind the so-called “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day.” It’s not because I’m boycotting the restaurant. Honestly, I’m still confused about the response to Dan Cathy’s statements. Regardless of whether or not you agree with them, how are his conservative Christian views news?

Regardless, for me, dedicating a day to shove a chicken sandwich in the face of your “enemies” just doesn’t seem like a very Jesus-like thing to do.

I’m not saying that people don’t have a right to be upset at the outrage over Cathy’s comments. They do, just like their opponents have the right to be outraged by Cathy’s comments and respond accordingly.

But if love for Jesus is at the heart of this “appreciation day”, which I think that is the case, then the church’s response to their perceived persecution should be more like Jesus’ responses when he was persecuted or when he saw others persecuted.

He ate with them, talked peaceably with them, healed them, defended them, and when that didn’t work, he died for them.

For me, “shoving it in their face”just doesn’t seem like the response of the Jesus who said “turn the other cheek.” Even if you disagree vehemently with homosexuality and gay marriage, the response Jesus expects from you towards them and those that would decry your position is clear: love them.

Frankly, Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day just doesn’t seem very loving to me. It seems a lot more like a battle to prove who’s right and who’s wrong.

If you’re a Christian, then that battle over truth has already been fought and won in the death and resurrection of Jesus. He doesn’t need you to refight that battle. He needs you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

So, while I will eat at Chick-Fil-A again in the future, I won’t eat there today because I don’t want my gay friends to think I’m battling them or shoving anything in their face. I want them to know that I love them, Jesus loves them, and I will be praying for them today as the church yet again forgets what it means to be the Body of Christ.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

Earlier this summer I had the chance to take a group of high school students on a mission trip to England.

While we did many of the “typical” mission trip sorts of things, which were wonderful, the highlight of the trip for me, and many of the students, sort of came out of nowhere.

It happened at a church. Go figure. But not just any church. On our first day of work in Dewsbury, England we had the opportunity to attend mass at the local Church of England minster. This particular church was incredibly old. Christian worship has been held on the site since 627 AD. For those of you counting at home, that’s 1,149 years before the United States was even a country.

That’s old.

While the history of the church was certainly fascinating, what made the service so incredible and the moment so memorable was what happened during communion.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve only ever celebrated the eucharist in one of two ways. Either it was brought to me in the form of those tiny little cups and horrendous cardboard wafers, or I stood in line, waiting my turn to dip the bread, or take a swig from the cup.

In Dewsbury, they did something a little different.

When the time came, rather than having us file up to the front row by row, everyone was invited to circle around the table. From there the priest and his associate took the cup and the bread from person to person while the rest of us in the circle watched and waited for our turn.

Now, I realize this is one of those sorts of things that is hard to convey unless you were there, but the pregnant expectancy and hushed awe of that moment while we were circled around the table was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had a church. For me, it wasn’t just a group of people eating bread and drinking wine. It was young people standing next to the elderly, the abled bodied alongside the handicapped, Anglicans joined together with Methodists, Americans side by side with Britons, all gathered around the same table, eating from the same bread, drinking from the same cup in a place where people had been doing this very same thing for nearly 1,400 years.

For me, it was one of those transcendent moments where we find ourselves caught up in something bigger than ourselves as we have the privilege of bearing witness to the here and now being momentarily pushed aside to allow us a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

In that moment, I was reminded of just how ancient and enormous the Christian faith really is. My experience at my local church in the States is but a drop in the bucket of a faith that as been lived out nearly unchanged in countless different settings for generations.

These past couple of days as I have had the opportunity to hang out with the monks at Glastonbury Abbey, I have once again been reminded of the enduring quality our ancient faith possesses.

Each morning the monks wake up for vigil at 6:30am to sing the psalms and profess “Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.” They continue their worship again at lauds, then at mass, then again at vespers, and finally once more at compline. In these acts of worship, along with their daily routine of work, study, and service they incarnate a life of worship and obedience that has been lived out by countless generations for nearly as long as their has been a Christian faith.

For me, like the service in Dewsbury, it has been a profound reminder of just how ancient and enduring the Christian faith really is. Certainly the church has experienced times of renewal, reformation, and even moments of division. But at its heart, Christianity has remained essentially unchanged for 2,000 years.

Yes, styles of worship have evolved. Yes, new traditions have been stared. Yes, new denominations have arisen. But the basic confession of “Jesus is Lord” hasn’t changed.

In a world where everything is constantly changing, where what is revolutionary today, is passe tomorrow, I find the unwavering consistency of the Christian faith to be remarkable as well as a source of both comfort and strength. That steadfastness reminds me that I am not alone in my journey of faith, but rather I am journeying along a path carved out by countless people before me on which I am surrounded by a whole host of other believers both past and present.

As I try to connect that ancient and enduring reality with a modern church in flux, I am forced to pause and question both the necessity as well as the wisdom of the notion that everything in the church must change, lest she be overcome by the march of progress and rendered irrelevant.

I am less convinced everyday that the proclamation of the church’s imminent demise is true.

For 2,000 years the church has witnessed the clash of cultures, revolutions of all kinds, and the rise and fall of great civilizations. Yet, in the wake of this sea of change, she has steadfastly maintained and defiantly pressed on with the same gospel proclaimed by uneducated 1st century fishermen.

Despite countless proclamations of her imminent demise, she has endured.

As the church faces yet another seismic shift in civilization, perhaps we should look back our shared history and remember that what has allowed the church to endure for two millennia has not been her ability to continually change herself, but her ability to continually change us.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

I admit it.

I like going to church.

I know that’s not the hip or cool thing to say these days, but I actually do enjoy spending my Sunday mornings at church.

That’s not to say that those who struggle with or get frustrated by church don’t have legitimate frustrations. Many of them do and, as I’ve argued before, perhaps sometimes they do need a break from regular church attendance.

I don’t want to diminish the importance of those frustrations or the pain they cause one bit.

But for me, church is somewhere I actually want to be.

Yesterday, my wife and I began the process of finding a new church home here in Connecticut. The service at the church we chose to visit wasn’t by any means the greatest service I’ve ever attended. But, after having been away from church for a few weeks due to various trips and moving across country, there was a sense of being home again.

Granted, I had never met any of the people at the church before, but there is that wonderful quality about the Body of Christ, particularly when you are in a church within your own tradition, that gives you a sense of being at home with family when you’re at church even when that church is 1,200 miles away from your “actual” home and family. Sure, not all churches are like that, but when you find one that is, at least for me, it’s not something you want to let go of.

Church, for me, is also place of much needed nourishment and encouragement. Being away from the Body for too long left me feeling drained, or at least incomplete, but I didn’t fully realize this until I was there. Sure, the church exists beyond the four walls of the local parish, but the truth is that the physical gathering of people within those walls is a tremendously important thing. The handshakes, the smiles, the kind words, and even the unwanted hugs have a way of physically imparting a much needed inward and spiritual grace.

Of course, church is a rather peculiar place. And I don’t just mean the awkward meet and greet time during service that nobody really likes. Other than karaoke bars, who else gets together regularly to sing songs together? Where else do teenagers regularly mingle with senior citizens? And it’s not often that you find a place where people so willingly (and sometimes without even being asked) share their hope, pain, joys, and struggles with strangers. But it’s this peculiarity that I think, at least in part, helps make church such a wonderful place.

It’s true that this peculiarity also points to the fact that church is an imperfect place as well. There’s always a singer singing off-key. Inevitably the sound system doesn’t work exactly the way it’s supposed to. And the preacher is sometimes a bit, well, boring. But I think there’s a certain kind of beauty in that. That imperfection reminds us of our own flaws, but as the service continues forward despite these flaws and is finally brought to a holy completion, we are reminded, in turn, that despite our own imperfections, we too can be brought to a holy completion as well.

But we should be careful not to pass over the ending of the service too quickly for it is there that one of the unique, but truly incredible moments of the service takes place – the “sending forth”. Most of us may ignore this time, distracted by our lunch plans or so eager to rush home to kick off that we miss the pastor’s words. But if done correctly, this final moment may just be one of the most important moments of the service, for it is here that we are not just sent out with a blessing, but we are sent out with a mission.

Week after week we are commissioned for the days to come with a renewed purpose to spread the good news of the gospel. That may seem routine, but if we take it seriously, and I think we should, then it is an important reminder that we all have been called by God for a purpose. That, at least in my mind, is a pretty incredible thing.

Now, yes the church has her flaws. And yes, she needs to be held accountable when she fails to live up to what it means to be the Body of Christ, particularly when people get hurt. But those necessary changes and corrections don’t happen from without. They happen from within.

Congregations vary greatly from church to church, street to street. Your church may be really screwed up, but that doesn’t mean the church across the street isn’t ready to welcome you with open arms. It’s ok to be angry, but it’s not ok to hold every church everywhere responsible for the actions of a local congregation, because the truth is there’s always a church somewhere in which you will find loving, compassionate people actually embodying Christ to the world.

Yes, it might take some effort to find that church and yes that effort may at times be a painful process, but the church was given to us as a gift, even if sometimes it feels like a curse. Transcendent thought it may be, it’s a gift that can only be fully received amongst the physical gathering of believers. So, if you haven’t been in a while, let me encourage to give church another chance.

You never know. Your visit may just surprise you. If you really make an effort to give it a chance and you pay close attention, then tucked away between the off-key special music and the awkward hugs from strangers, you may just catch a glimpse of the kingdom of God here on earth, just as it is in heaven.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

It used to be that “the devil made me do it.”

Now it appears the devil has lost his job.

God, it seems, is now in the business of making people do some not so wonderful things.

In an interview that aired recently on Fox News accused murder George Zimmerman told Sean Hannity that Treyvon’s tragic death was, in fact, “all God’s plan.” In other words, according to Zimmerman, God wanted Treyvon dead. He just pulled the trigger.

After being called out by Rachel Held Evans, Scot McKnight, and many others, Doug Wilson played the God card in his defense against accusations of misogyny. As he explained, he shouldn’t be blamed for his views because he is simply relaying what God has to say.

And, of course, there are the religious extremists who perform heinous acts of terror, destruction, and death. They do so, as we all know, because they believe themselves to be God’s instruments of wrath and judgment.

So what gives?

Has God suddenly pulled a 180 and started doing evil?

Probably not. At least I sure hope not. I think, more likely, what we are witnessing is a refusal to take responsibility that is spreading in epidemic proportions.

I have no idea why playing the God card has suddenly become so popular. Although, if I had to guess, I would suspect it stems from a combination of things.

God makes a great scapegoat. There’s nothing good about the devil. If we had allowed him to posses us, forcing us to do evil, then that just makes us look bad. But if it is God who is pulling the strings, then we think ourselves, and whatever subsequent actions we take, to be just, or worse, divinely ordained. In short, we blame God because it allows us to convinces ourselves that, despite what others may say, who we are and what we are doing is right and good.

Likewise, as much as we don’t want to be associated with the devil, we don’t want to be associated with sin. Even if the devil made us do it, we’re still sinning. But if God forced our had, then what we are doing is, in fact, the will of God, which in turn lets us to keep our conscious clean, allowing us to sleep at night no matter how many people we may hurt, offended, or outraged. If God is making us do everything, then sin no longer exists. (And sadly, that means there’s also no more need for Jesus.)

Finally, I think, if we are really honest about it, there is a fundamental lack of courage that goes along with playing the God card. There’s nothing brave about killing unarmed teenagers, suppressing women, or terrorizing innocent people. But if you do those things everyone else despises because God told you to ignore popular criticism, that makes you brave, right?

I think that somewhere inside themselves, those that participate in these sorts of behaviors know this. But rather than admitting their lack of the real courage it takes to do the right thing, or simply not participating in the wrong thing, they instead choose to do things that seem brave, but in reality are not, because those things give them a since of courage without really having to be brave. Then, by employing the God card, they give these cowardly acts, at least in their own minds, a sense of divine nobility.

The truth of the matter is, God or devil, we are ultimately responsible for own actions. This is why there is such a thing as sin. If the devil or God made us do a thing, and we had no control to do otherwise, then we could be not held responsible for our actions. Likewise, if we were not able to choose to do the right thing, there would be no such thing as “good”, but that is a philosophical discussion for another day.

What I want to suggest, is that we all find the courage to stop blaming God, the devil, or anyone else for the decisions we make, the actions we take, and the words that we say.

If you feel God has called you do something, then do it, but do so acknowledging you are doing what you think or believe God has called you do. That way, if in fact you are wrong, God doesn’t get the blame and God’s name isn’t smeared all over the news or across the blogosphere. And, of course, if you’re right, then God’s name will be praised all the more.

All that to say, if we are going to claim to be “real men” or “real women of God” (whatever that means), then let’s act like “real men” and “real women”, stop passing the buck, and take responsibility for the things we believe, we say, and we do.

Otherwise, we should just shut up and keep our opinions to ourselves.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

Gospel Coalition member Jared Wilson has created quite the stir today with this post about male and female roles in human sexuality.

Not surprisingly, and rightfully so, Rachel Held Evans has responded with just outrage and Scott McKnight has called for The Gospel Coalition to pull down the post. (For what it’s worth I second that call.) Wilson, for his part, has spent the better part of the day attempting to wiggle out of what was, at best, a misguided post.

Without going into a lengthy diatribe about how abhorrent and inappropriate I thought Wilson’s choice of words were, and I think think they were incredibly abhorrent and inappropriate, I thought it important to contribute a few words.

For me, Wilson’s post, along with the seemingly never ending stream of controversial posts that come out of The Gospel Coalition and cohorts such as John Piper and Mark Driscoll points to a fundamental and underlying problem they all share: their neo-Reformed theology.

The basic problem with their particular brand of theology and the reason we won’t see an end to ridiculous posts like this anytime soon, is that neo-Reformed theology subscribes to the idea that God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens.

Literally everything.

That includes evil which is written off to God “merely” allowing it in the name of God’s wrath, God’s judgment, God’s justice, or God’s will. Whether it’s rape, a terrorist attack, murder, abuse, a natural disaster, according to neo-Reformed groups like The Gospel Coalition, these things occur as God’s response to our sin.

Though they may attempt mental gymnastics or simply speak out of both sides of their mouths as Wilson does in his follow up post, God as the ordainer of raper, murder, natural disasters, is the ultimate outcome of the neo-Reformed theology of divine sovereignty.

It is because this sovereignty is so fundamental to their theology, that we should not expect this sort of obscene rhetoric to stop anytime soon, no matter how much pleading and peaceful reasoning we might attempt. Like the jihadist, they are in a spiritual war on behalf of God and any inkling of wavering or doubt in their theology will surely condemn them to hell. Therefore, they will continue with zeal in their hateful theology until kingdom come.

The irony I see in all of this is that in their theological paradigm which rests so much on the tenet of divine sovereignty, God is not, in fact, sovereign.

If Jesus has to die to satisfy God’s wrath, then wrath stands above God.

If God must issue such horrendous judments as rape and natural disasters because God’s justice demands it, then justice stands above God.

Herein lies the true, underlying problem of neo-Reformed theology, for in such a theological paradigm the God of the Bible is replaced by Calvinistic ideas of wrath, justice, and judgment. When that happens, and no matter the mental gymnastics, there is no longer space for the Jesus found in the gospels who offers grace where there should be wrath, forgiveness when there should be judgment, and redemption when there should be justice.

When, as we see in this latest spat over sex, theological paradigms stand above God it becomes impossible for us to see, let alone admit the abhorrent contradictions in some of the things we say because we can’t fathom how something which fits so neatly into our theological system could somehow be wrong. The possibility of which isn’t even allowed to break the surface because to admit such inconsistency would require an act of humility, something the neo-Reformed movement is greatly lacking.

If but a bit of grace could be shown, a bit of tact in how sensitive subjects are addressed, or a bit of reason allowed to enter into the conversation, then perhaps we could find a middle ground to sit peacefully on with our neo-Reformed brothers and sisters in the faith. But, of course, that would require an act of neo-Reformed heresy – rethinking the sovereignty of God.

Unfortunately, and tragically, until The Gospel Coalition and their cohorts choose to allow God out of the theological box of their own creation, I think we can expect to hear such juvenile, graceless, and arrogant theology for a long time to come.

In the meantime, I hope those of us on the other side of the debate, myself included, can find the grace we appeal to so often and engage them in a way that is faithful to the love of Jesus we proclaim with such conviction.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

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At the end of The Wizard of Oz, Dorthy’s dog Toto pulls back a curtain to reveal that the great and powerful Oz isn’t quite so great and powerful.

After The New York Times article “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?”, it made me wonder if the same thing is happening to so-called “liberal” or “progressive” Christianity.

(Hereafter, and though I hate labels, I will use the word “progressive” rather than “liberal” as I think it more acurractely describes the issue at hand, namely the trajectory of so-called “progressive” churches.)

We have been told for so long that the radical revolution we have witnessed in mainline denominations like the Episcopal and Presbyterian (USA) churches reflects the real heart or opinion of the people in the pews who are either too afraid, too young, or too lacking in ecclesial power to change the status quo.

One would expect, then, to see these churches, like the Wizard of Oz, to be growing in power and prestige as they acquiesce to the purported majority sentiments of the church. But as this article points out, that simply is not the case.

In fact, these churches aren’t just not growing, they’re dying off at a staggering rate.

Now, to be fair churches across the board are, generally speaking, either plateauing or losing member. It’s also important to note that mainline denominations do not encompass the totality of progressive Christianity. However, it is those denominations which have renarrated the faith the most who are experiencing the most precipitous fall in allegiance.

So why hasn’t this large scale effort to acquiesce to popular sentiment been successful?

Aside from the fact that I don’t think the popular sentiment of radical revolution extends as far into the church as these denominations believe it has, I believe the fundamental problem with progressive Christianity is that it fails to understand that Christianity isn’t progressive. Christianity doesn’t continue to exist because of it’s ability to change, but because of it’s resistance to change.

What has enabled Christianity to not only survive, but thrive for 2,000 years (despite constant reports of its immenent demise) is not that it has constantly adjusted to prevailing cultural norms in an effort to stay relevant, but that it steadfastly continues to proclaim the same message it has for 2,000 years.

Christianity has the audacity to claim that it needs no progression because the future has already been realized in Jesus. It is this stability in the midst of an ever changing world, a sense that answers to life’s questions have been found and truth has been revealed which attracts people to faith.

Progressiveness, however, implies a trajectory towards something; in this case towards a more “authentic” Christianity. In this sense, progressive Christianity is no different than “primitive” Christianity. Whereas primitive Christianity seeks to return to a mythical, primitive past, progressive Christianity looks to a mythical future where Christianity will be stripped of all its “superstitious” and “antiquated” distinctives, yet someone continue to be Christian. In both cases the goal is neither attainable nor desirable.

Certainly the Christian faith is moving forward as it moves towards the eschaton, but that movement does not require the fundamental and constant changes called for in progressives Christianity. While it may be en vouge to eschew the slippery slope, the truth is that our decisions do have consequences. They do lead us somewhere and in doing so they often open up unforeseen and unwanted problems. If that wasn’t true, then the myth of Pandora’s box would have died out thousands of year ago.

Yes, the church should respond to shifts in culture and new scientific discoveries. However, if these sorts of things are allowed to shape the faith, then the faith will eventually become so indistinguishable from the prevailing culture that it ceases to exist.

In the end, what I think this article demonstrates well is the fact that the progressive Christianity we are witnessing in mainline denominations is doomed to die mostly because it lacks the backbone to stand for anything. This is exemplified well in the proposal offered at the recent UMC convention to change to Book of Discipline to state that members of UMC “agree to disagree” on the issue of homosexuality. Such weak theology appeals to no one because it inspires no one. It calls people to nothing and asks nothing in return. People want a cause to champion, something they can put their passion behind, invest their lives in, and support, even if only nominally. Consequently, when all a church is willing to offer if an indifferent and ambiguous universalism, it’s doomed to die.

While I often disagree with him, in this case I think Kevin DeYoung is spot on when he says

“So my plea is for these denominations to make a definitive stand. Make it right, left, or center, but make one and make it clearly. Insist that member churches and pastors hold to this position. And then graciously open a big door for any pastor or church who cannot live in this theological space to exit with their dignity, their time, and their property. Because sometimes the best way to preserve unity is to admit that we don’t have it.”

So is progressive Christianity done progressing? Almost. Progressive denominations still have a few more Christian doctrines to fully dismiss before they simply merge with the Unitarian Universalists.

I just wish they would go ahead, do it, and save everyone the trouble.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

This week I had the privilege of bearing witness as my father-in-law took his second of three sets of vows in order to become a monk at a Benedictine monastery just outside of Boston.

It was an incredible moment that was years in the making. There was a tremendous amount of sacrifice, struggle, contemplation, and devotion that had led him to that decision and it was amazing to be there to watch it all culminate as he took vows of obedience, stability, and conversatio morum.

Of course, when you’re around monks you can’t help but notice their clothes. Their robes let you know immediately that these guys aren’t like the rest of us.

Well, as my wandering mind likes to do, it began to make previously unthought of and unintended connections in my head. While it wasn’t a thought I wanted have at the moment it did make me chuckle a bit as I thought to myself, “Mark Driscoll would really hate this.”

After all, there’s nothing manly about guys in dresses who don’t have sex. Fortunately, for my father-in-law and his monastic brothers, the monastary comes with its own sanctuary because clearly their less than “manly” behavior wouldn’t be good enough for membership at Mars Hill Church.

Of course, that got my brain going off in yet another direction.

You know who else wouldn’t be manly enough for Mark Driscoll?

Jesus.

I mean think about it. For starters, Jesus wore an outfit very similar to what monks and priests wear, an outfit Driscoll calls a “dress.” Obviously, if Jesus had been a real man of God, someone who actually understood the importance of “Biblical manhood” then he clearly would have walked around 1st century Palestine in vintage jeans and cool rocker t-shirt that was 2 sizes too small.

Then, of course, Jesus had an even bigger problem. Real, manly Christian men have sex, a lot of sex. It’s how they prove their Biblical manhood and demonstrate their role as head of the household. Jesus, however, didn’t have sex. At all. Which, for someone like Driscoll is just sad, weird, and pathetic. If Jesus ever wants to be welcomed in good standing at Mars Hill, then he needs to get on with the getting on.

Jesus also didn’t fight, which certainly would have revoked his man card. Real men fight for what they want and when they’re not doing that, they fight for fun in the octagon, which, according to Driscoll, is a prophetic expression of the second coming. If Jesus had only had the chance to be enlightened by Driscoll’s sermons on Biblical manhood, then perhaps he could have avoided putting his foot in his mouth with ridiculous, feminine statements like “turn the other cheek” and “put away your sword.” Silly Jesus, if only he had known better.

Most damning of all, however, was Jesus total disregard of complimentarianism. Had Jesus just had the opportunity to be around in 2011 when that word was made up out of thin air, then perhaps he would have known better than to allow women into his inner circle.

Perhaps if Driscoll had been there to tell Jesus that Paul’s words were more important than his own, then he wouldn’t have had his man card revoked when he committed the unforgivable sin of commissioning a woman to preach the gospel (Matthew 28:1-10). What was he thinking when he chose a woman to be the first person to preach the good news of his resurrection? Surely he didn’t intend for the Christian faith to be founded on a woman’s sermon?

It’s almost as if Jesus thought men and women were, dare I say it, equal! And if that’s true, then this whole notion of “Biblical manhood” and male only leadership in the church falls apart like a house of cards. Say it ain’t so!

In all seriousness, Driscoll and his cohorts in the neo-Reformed movement may be correct that church needs to get back to its roots and “rediscover” the Jesus of the Bible. But that’s just it. We need to rediscover the Jesus who is actually found in the gospels, the one who wasn’t afraid to break cultural stereotypes, who refused to allow both his identity and the identity of his church to be defined by genitals, and who when presented with the greatest chance to display his manly prowess, chose instead to be stripped naked, mocked, beaten, and nailed to a cross in humiliation.

The neo-Reformed movement is right about at least one thing. We do need to make sure that the Bible is our foundation, but in doing so we need to be careful that we don’t simply end up creating a Jesus in our own, “manly” image.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

There is a mega-church down the street from my old house in Memphis.

The church owns a couple of billboards next to Interstate  40 that they use to promote church activities, services, and share the occasional “inspirational message.”

A couple of years ago, the sign read “Jesus loves you just the way you are.”

Now, I am well aware that this one liner has become a core tenant of modern, American evangelicalism. It seems like every time “the altars are opened” at church, you hear the preacher use this line to qualm the fears of any potential converts who might be worried that they are not worthy to approach the altar.

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done,” they say,  ”Jesus loves you just the way you are. So come on down to the alter and give your heart to the Lord!”

There’s a problem with that line of thinking, however.

It’s simply not true.

In fact, I couldn’t think of a more un-Christian thing to say.

If Jesus loves us just the way we are, then why bother with all that crucifixion mess? After all, if Jesus loves us just the way we are, then dying for our sins was just a terrible waste of time.

Ironically, if Jesus loves us just the way we are, then the church that put up that billboard has no reason to exist. Things like discipleship and spiritual growth are irrelevant if the way we are now is a-okay with Jesus.

And if Jesus loves us just the way we are, then there is no need for grace or forgiveness since those gifts are given because the status quo is not okay.

In other words, if Jesus loves us just the way we are, then there is no point to the Christian faith because there would be no need for the gospel.

Such a declaration stems, I think, from the combination of our own attempts to convince ourselves that we’re really not that bad and our embarrassment about talking about the most unpopular subject in the church today: sin.

On the surface, it may seem like the right thing to tell people, after all wasn’t Jesus all loving and accepting of everyone regardless of how terrible a life they had led? That is certainly true, but if we tell people that Jesus loves them just the way they are, then we actually end up making Jesus himself irrelevant and the Christian faith a complete waste of time.

Why?

Because Jesus is about transformation, about finding us just the way we are, but not leaving us that way.

When the sick come to Jesus, they leave healed. After the lame meet Jesus, they walk home. The blind can see after he touches them. Even the dead come back to life when Jesus calls them out of their tomb.

Jesus certainly wraps his arms around us while we are still sinners, but then he sends us on our way telling us to “go and sin no more”. Without this transformation there is neither a need, nor space for such grace and forgiveness as both of these great gifts only exist in order to transform us into something better.

Simply put, to declare that Jesus loves us just the way we are is to reject the gospel, for in doing so we reject the good news that how things are is not how they should be or how they soon will be, that God has come to offer us grace and forgiveness so that we can be the people God created us to be.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus doesn’t loves us just the way we are, he loves us in spite of who we are.

That is the beauty of grace.

If he loved the way we are already, then there never would have been a need for Jesus, let alone his death and resurrection. Instead, the cross and resurrection stand as the ultimate declaration that the way things are is not the way they should or will be. It is exactly because Jesus doesn’t love the way we are, that these things were necessary.

It is here that we see the very heart of grace, that though we were still sinners Christ died for us. Or, to put it another way, in spite of who we were Jesus died for us anyway.

Grace is grace because it is offered in spite of our imperfections and failings. Forgiveness is forgiveness because it forgives the way we are. And salvation is salvation because it saves us from the way we are and allows us to become the people of God we were created to be.

If Jesus loves the sinful people that we are, then grace, forgiveness, and salvation are not good news, they are irrelevant news. But if Jesus sees us for who we truly are, people ravaged by sin and consumed by selfish desires, yet chooses to not only love us, but to die for us anyway, then his grace, forgiveness, and salvation truly become good news and Jesus truly becomes one worthy of our love and worship.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

This is the continuation of a post started yesterday on the necessity of relying on hell to preach the gospel.

The devil made me do it.

Ever notice how we never say “God made me do it”? It’s almost as if the devil is more powerful than God sometimes.

As Tripp York demonstrated so well in his book The Devil Wears Nada, as evangelicals we give the devil a whole lot of power. Satan, it would seem, is behind every bad thing that happens from a CD skipping in church, to the fender bender we got into on the way to the grocery store, to the great evils in the world like the Holocaust.

This demonic troublemaking is, we believe, part of a larger effort to disrupt our lives, cause us to doubt God’s ability and/or willingness to intervene on our behalf, force us into sin, and ultimately capture our souls for an eternity in hell.

In this narrative, Satan, as the antithesis of God, is essentially God’s equal. Like God, Satan wields tremendous power and like God, Satan has his own eternal domain. Therefore, Satan must be defeated in order for us to be saved from an eternity in hell.

But is that true?

Well, at the very least, it’s not very Biblical.

Despite common perception, the devil doesn’t have a major role to play in the Bible. In fact, outside of the apocalyptic language of Revelation and Jesus’ tempting in the gospels, the devil is barely a blip on the radar in the New Testament and in the Old Testament the devil one appears in two places: the book of Job and David’s counting of Israel in Chronicles.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what about the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit?

If you go back and actually read the account of the fall in Genesis you will notice that the devil is never mentioned anywhere. There is a serpent, and certainly popular church tradition has tended to interpret that serpent as being the devil, but the writer of Genesis never felt it necessary to actually include the devil in that story. Since Satan does appear in the book of Job, which was written before Genesis, and the writer of Genesis certainly would have been aware of the figure of Satan and could very easily have named him in the story of the fall, what does it say that there is no devil in that story?

I think it says a lot.

In fact, I think our entire understanding of salvation turns on the absence of the devil in the origin of sin.

Simply put, the writer of Genesis doesn’t include the devil in the origin story of sin because the devil wasn’t necessary. We didn’t need the devil to sin. The devil didn’t make us do it. We decided to sin on our own and are, therefore, entirely responsible for its creation, our own fall, and the horrendous evils we would prefer to pass off on the devil.

If that’s true, then we don’t really need to appeal to the devil or even the threat of hell when we talk about salvation, for it is not the devil and hell that we are saved from, but ourselves.

Here’s why…

In the Garden of Eden, the sin of Adam and Eve wasn’t simply theft. It was idolatry. In stealing and eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve were attempting to place themselves, mere creatures, in the place of their Creator. This is why the serpent says “you will be like God.”

In trying to become like God, Adam and Eve were trying to take control of creation, placing themselves as the source of all life, power, and glory, and therefore the object of worship in all of creation.

But they were not the source of life, power, and glory which is why upon being banished from the privileged life of the Garden, Adam and Eve suffer the curse of death. God is the source of life. When we try to wrestle control from God and place ourselves on the heavenly throne as Adam and Eve attempted to do, we remove our source of life. Without that source of life, there is, naturally, only death.

As the heirs of Adam and Eve we continue to suffer the effects of sin, not because two people ate from a tree eons ago, but because we continue to eat from that same tree. We continue to try to snatch divinity away from God and place ourselves on the heavenly throne. Whenever we decide that we know better than God how to live our lives, whenever we decide that our knowledge of good and evil surpasses God’s, then we commit idolatry which is the foundation for all sin and the cause of our own death.

This, of course, puts Jesus’ mission in a different light than most of us have traditionally come to understand it. In his life, death, and resurrection Jesus isn’t defeating the devil, paying the devil off, or satisfying the Father’s blood lust. As Paul describes in Romans 5, by living a life of perfect obedience to God and love for others rather than himself, the very opposite of Adam, Jesus, who Paul calls “the new Adam”, reorders creation and puts humanity back into right relationship with their Creator by putting himself, in the place of humanity, at the feet of God in a posture of perfect worship.

The old Adam sought life on his own terms. The new Adam sought to follow the will of God. The old Adam served himself. The new Adam served others. The old Adam quite literally sought to snatch divinity from God. The new Adam, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,  he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death– even death on a cross.”

It is this act of worship that reverses humanity’s idolatry in the garden. It is this act of worship that saves us from the death that comes from our self-worship. And it is this act of worship that allows for the possibility of resurrection and eternal life.

In short, Jesus saves us, not from Satan or even from hell, but from ourselves and from the inevitable death that comes from self-worship and life apart from God.

This is why the New Testament appeals so much to resurrection. Jesus’ invitation in the gospels, like Paul’s challenge in the epistles, is not a get out of hell free card as if the eternal destination options are life in heaven or life in hell. Rather, Jesus beckons us to accept his offer of life and reject our pursuit of death.

For Jesus, just like they were for the old Adam in the garden, the options are only life or death. Through Jesus’ doxological life, death, and resurrection a life of worship leads to eternal life, just as it would have for Adam and Eve had they not tried to usurp the heavenly throne. Apart from that new source of life, there is only death. In just the same way that without being able to continue to eat from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve faced death, if we choose not to eat the bread and drink the cup we are offered from our Lord we too will suffer death.

And therein lies the problem with our “need” for hell in our evangelical salvation pitch.

We face death apart from God, not life in eternal torment. If hell is separation from God, and that certainly seems to be how it is described both in the gospels and even in Revelation, then hell is death because there is no life apart from God.

As Paul says in Romans, the consequence of sin is death – not eternal torture in hell. This is exactly in keeping with the Old Adam vs. New Adam motif that Paul uses 2 chapters later in Romans while simultaneously maintaing the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” language Jesus uses to describe the final judgment. For certainly there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when one discovers they face death.

In other words, there are not 2 different resurrections: a resurrection to eternal life in heaven and a resurrection to eternal life in hell. There is only one resurrection unto everlasting life or there is death. And if that is true, then we need not appeal to eternal torment for we are not saved from the grip of the devil or eternal torture, but from the death that comes from our own delusion of self-worship.

The good news of the gospel, then, is not a get out of hell free card, but the gift of God that is eternal life.

This is a much richer, a much more hopeful, and a much more Biblically faithful gospel message than the turn or burn gospel we have for so long proclaimed.

The God we should be proclaiming is a God who’s love drives out fear, not drives it to another level through the threat of hell. It is this sort of God who’s fundamental nature of love, not wrath, compels God to incarnate that love in the form of Jesus, so that creation, though it sought death through it’s own self-worship, might have the chance to live forever with the very Creator who stands ready to welcome humanity back with open arms despite our never-ending attempts to usurp the heavenly throne.

That is love.

That is grace.

That is forgiveness.

That is salvation.

And that is the good news of the gospel.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt