After discussions with Lisa and Ruthie, I want to issue a retraction. Not a retraction of the substantial claims poorly expressed in my rant against KLOVism, but a retraction of the fact that I expressed them in such a poor way - heavy on frustration and light on charity.
I leave a truncated version of the post below, less most of the sarcasm, yet retaining some of it in order to leave the substance untouched.
If the gentle reader is still offended by what remains - that is, by the substance of it - and wishes to dismiss it as judgmental, I have only to encourage her to join me in a personal conversation about the appropriateness of passing judgment. And, I might add, to reflect on the fact that she has judged me for being judgmental, condemned my condemnation, et cetera.
A preview of the conversation I would like to have: there are two forms of judgment. One is condemned - judged - by Christ and by Christians; the other is not only not condemned, but is essential to the Christian life. The former is a judgmental judgment, issued in order to justify one's own sins in light of the relatively heavier trespasses of another. The latter is completely different: it is a word of rebuke spoken not against another, but on her behalf. This latter is Christ-like judgment, truth spoken in love: Go, and sin no more.
I'm not interested in defending myself in most cases; I prefer to assume that I am guilty. So: I will not argue that my rant falls in the latter category of Christ-like judgment. It probably doesn't. I am a wicked man. But: if I failed to speak the truth in love on this occasion, that doesn't necessarily mean that what I spoke was not the truth, at least in part. Perhaps, in the light of the foregoing, the gentle reader may find some benefit in a second look at a much shorter version of Newman on K-Love & liberal Protestantism.
--
The subtle blog-reader may have picked up on my sarcasm and begun to wonder: 'why is Phil raging against the poor rich folks who are going to go on this "worship experience" in the Bahamas?' To explain this, let me jump ship for a moment and take a different tack at this question, by looking for a moment at American liberal Protestantism.
To be a liberal Protestant is, among other things, to sell out to one's surrounding culture: to retain the form of godliness but to deny its power by trading out the substance of Christianity for a cheap alternative. For the liberal Protestant, "religion" does indeed have a place, maybe even a very exalted place, within the over all scheme of one's life. But that's just the point: it has a place, a nice little compartment labeled "religion." It has a niche. It is a component that exists alongside of the economic, political, social, sexual, etc components that together constitute one's "life." If the other components do not completely rule over it, it certainly does not rule over them. Religion has its "sphere." Jesus - perhaps even his Mother! - has devotional significance. He assures, he blesses, he approves, he validates, he says "yes yes" and "peace peace" and "the way is broad, and easy: eat, drink, be merry! do not be too religious, do not imagine that I might have something to say about your pocket book or your politics or, well, about anything that seems so real to you and to your world - just know that I'm here for you, and I am ready to listen, but if you don't want to talk, well, know that I am not offended, and that the last thing I would ever think of doing is entertaining a judgmental thought about you and the life that you have chosen for yourself to live."
Now as I drove past the cornfields and listened to positive, encouraging K-LOVE, I realized that republican-fundamentalist-contemporary Christianity is the mirror image of liberal Protestantism. Positive! Encouraging! Affirming! Salvation without Judgment! Faith without works! Grace without repentance! Christ without the cross! Christianity without the Christ! Jesus exists to make sure that our lives work smoothly; to make sure that our portfolios will bounce back after all; to make sure that we are comfortable, that we don't have to live in fear of anything, least of all Him, least of all the Day, the Great and Terrible Day, when He will come again in glory to - to what? To say: "well done, good and faithful - cruise goer! You were faithful with that pledge drive! You gave sacrificially to K-LOVE, even if you did get to go on that cruise, and when you sang to me with Chris Tomlin, I just knew that in your hearts of hearts you loved me more than your money, and that your religion wasn't just a ticket out of hell, and that if I had actually called you to pick up your cross and follow me, you would have done it instantly! If I had come to you in person, and said 'sell all your possessions and give to the poor,' you would have jumped off of that cruise ship as quickly as St Peter himself jumped off his fishing boat to meet me on the shore in John chapter 21!
This brings me to a sermon John Henry Newman preached at St Mary the Virgin in Oxford many years ago:
"They are well educated and taught; they have few distresses in life, or are able to get over them by the variety of their occupations, by the spirits which attend good health, or at least by the lapse of time. They go on respectably and happily, with the same general tastes and habits which they would have had if the Gospel had not been given them. They have an eye to what the world thinks of them; are charitable when it is expected. They are polished in their manners, kind from natural disposition or a feeling of propriety. Thus their religion is based upon self and the world, a mere civilization; the same (I say) as it would have been in the main, even supposing Christianity were not the religion of the land. But it is; and let us go on to ask, how do they in consequence feel towards it? They accept it, they add it to what they are , they ingraft it upon the selfish and worldly habits of an unrenewed heart. They have been taught to revere it, and to believe it to come from God; so they admire it, and accept it as a rule of life, so far forth as it agrees with the carnal principles which govern them. So far as it does not agree, they are blind to its excellence and its claims. They overlook or explain away its precepts. They in no sense obey because it commands... commonly they think it enough merely to show some slight regard for the subject of religion; to attend its services on the Lord's day, and then only once, and coldly to express an approbation of it."
