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Some of the theologians I encountered did not seem like anyone I would actually want to be around on purpose. I made the crack that some theologians were to joy in Christ what nutritionists were to enjoying cheesecake. They both took something full of delight and made you feel mostly bad about it.

Yet something is changing in my life. I am really seeing the need for a solid theological basis for what I believe.

All of this came to mind when Sam Cooke’s classic Wonderful World popped up on the iPod. You know the one where Sam builds a strong case for academic slacking actually being a strength.

Don’t know much about history
Don’t know much biology
Don’t know much about a science book
Don’t know much about the french I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be

I wrote an ode (cross off “Bucket List” Item Number 87 –  Write Ode) using that classic tune to describe our lack of theological depth. This classic appears in the new version of When Bad Christians Happen to Good People.

For the music director. A psalm of parody sung to Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World. All rise.

Don’t know much about theology,
Don’t know much Christology.
Don’t know much about Leviticus,
Don’t know why they had the Exodus.
But I do know that God loves you,
And I’m trying hard to be good too.
What a wonderful faith this would be.

Well, I don’t claim to be a good Christian,
But I’m trying to be.
For maybe by bein’ a good person, brother,
I can gain eternity.

(Everyone now…)

Don’t know much about the Pharisees,
Can’t explain the Trinity.
Don’t know much ecclesiology
Don’t know what a good tithe should be.
But I think that God forgives my quirks,
And I figure if I do good works,
What a wonderful faith this would be.

Humorous? I hope so. But the problem is not so funny. What do we believe? And why? I think one of the fundamental problems in many churches is that we do not effectively connect the theological dots. That is why the book Truefaced and the Truefaced Romans CD series has had such a profound impact in my life. The authors (and speakers) connect the dots of justification, imputed righteousness, propitiation, identity in Christ, sanctification and other assorted church words. Remember the connect the dots books you had as a kid? When you connect the theological dots the picture revealed is Jesus.

Now I find myself neck deep in theology. Trying to learn more to be able to make a defense of the Gospel of Jesus. I want to understand church history and doctrine. I want to understand grace and more importantly I want to live it. I have a long, long, long way to go but someday I hope that the scouting report on me will reflect the summary of Jesus written in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus was beautifully described as being “full of grace and truth”. That would be a dramatic shift from what I have been described as being full of at other points in my journey.  I am excited about continuing to refine my theological base but I want to always be mindful that truth preached without grace is not received nearly as well as the reverse approach. Connect the dots. The picture is beautiful.

Those who are honest about this journey know that you are in trouble anytime you announce that you are determined to be more: (choose from the following partial list – patient, loving, obedient, forgiving, prayerful, serving). God smiles and arranges a test. I hate the spiritual pop quizzes as much as I did the academic ones. But they are just as revealing about how I am doing. A recent pop quiz consisted of some personal situations that frustrated me and other people conspiring (I thought) to divert my focus and steal my joy. How did I do? I failed the test miserably. I was grumpy. I was discouraged. My joy meter barely moved. I bombed the test.

Later I regrouped and had a personal conference with the Teacher (He is really good about that). That is when I remembered again what grace means to me. Yes, I failed miserably. Yes, I was disappointed in myself. Yes, I was a little embarrassed that I have written and spoken so boldly and flopped so easily. But here is what poured over my soul from the Holy Spirit.

You are my child.
I love you.

Grace always takes me by surprise. I am not conditioned by this world to expect love and acceptance when I have failed. I am conditioned to expect condemnation, shame, and rejection. But there was the Father God patiently and lovingly dealing with me. Mark McMinn, a professor at Wheaton College,  wrote these words in an article in Christianity Today.

“Seeing our sin occurs over a lifetime of pursuing God. Our vision is seldom restored in a single burst of light but with countless rays streaming into our darkened eyes over many years—and always in the midst of amazing grace.”

That is the power of grace in my life. In His infinite mercy God does not reveal the ugliness of my heart in one gigantic and loveless revelation that would destroy me. He chooses instead to gently chip away at the rough edges of pride, selfishness, and disobedience. The famous artist Michelangelo would often select a block of marble that others thought unsalvageable and then go to work on that ugly hunk of rock.  He once remarked, “I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.” That is what God’s grace means to me. He sees the beauty in the piece of rock that is me. And He sees the beauty that no one else sees. He lovingly and gently carves away the ugliness until a little beauty begins to come through. But He never gets angry and gives up if another strata of ugly crops up.

That is what grace means to me. Even on the days that I fail miserably I know that I am loved. I am accepted. There  is nothing that I can do to make God love me more and nothing I can do to make Him love me less. This is one place where the spiritual hall monitors are apt to jump in and complain about “cheap grace” in the church. Cheap grace means one thing. You don’t understand grace. Because grace understood would never translate to making such an amazing act of unmerited mercy trivial or unappreciated.

Paul and Barnabas proclaimed to the assembly that,  “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved.” A common acronym for grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Recently I have experienced a new acronym for grace.

God’s
Radical
And
Complete
Embrace

Most of us know the story of slave trader John Newton who repented of his sin and wrote a popular little tune called Amazing Grace. When he said wretch he knew what he was talking about. At the end of his life Newton said to his friends, “My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.”

He is indeed.

Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound. That saves and oh so patiently perfects a wretch like me. Amazing.

(From the weekly devotional at theFish.com)

A new song to the iPod rotation set up today’s iPod Devotional and (full disclosure) a chance to give a sneak preview from a brand new chapter in the new release of  When Bad Christians Happen to Good People.

The song is by a group called Rush of Fools. First of all, their name sounds like a group of guys that a random “bad Christian” might fit in with comfortably. The song “Your Grace Found Me” perfectly reflects my journey over the past decade. I have to be honest and report that I wasn’t looking for grace. I was looking for an exit to get far, far away from most Christians.

The chorus describes my story.

I’m covered over, I’m so wrapped up, it’s all your love it’s all your love,
Your grace found me, when I wasn’t breathing, grace found me

That chorus sets up nicely this excerpt from the book that tells part of the story about how His grace “found” me.

Our culture sets up false images that misrepresent Jesus. I call them Jesus Decoys. Decoys are lifeless imitations of the real thing. Decoys are designed to lure unsuspecting prey into a trap. And I believe that, sadly, we have placed Jesus decoys to lure people into a faith that is not real Christianity.

One of my most difficult decoys was my dogged pursuit of righteousness. Doesn’t seem like such a bad goal to pursue but my approach was deadly. I had replaced dependence with self-effort and confused righteousness with my own determined right behavior. I was failing miserably. I had just about resigned myself to simply hanging on till I got to glory. What I didn’t know is that God had me right where He wanted me.

In the summer of 2007 Joni and I received an invitation to something called Bo’s Café. It was a seminar hosted by a rather unique (okay, weird) group of guys from an organization called Truefaced. What caught my attention was that Bo’s Café was going to be held at a Five-Star resort in San Diego. As long as they didn’t ask us to shave our heads or get hooked up to electronic meters it would be worth the risk to get a little resort time. When I arrived in San Diego my faith was pretty much flat-lined. I was tired of trying so hard with such mixed results. I was sad that it appeared I would have to accept a brand of Christianity that seemed so much less than what I had dreamed about as a new believer. I wondered if the church was still relevant and debated whether a Bible Study with some friends might not be a better use of my time than dragging to church every week.

We went to San Diego to have a relaxing weekend. Now I can’t even remember what the resort looked like. What I remember is what God did in my heart that weekend. I have been a Christian for nearly forty years. I am a little too old and lot too cynical to be swept away by the latest fad in Christendom. I have sat on the sidelines while Jabez prayed, millions were purpose driven and others found their best life. I guess I was just left behind. Others were incredibly excited by one or all of these phenomena.

At the conference speaker John Lynch addressed how we are programmed from childhood to default to performance theology. He calls it the “Santa Clause is Coming to Town theology”. You know the song well.

You better watch out
Better not cry
Better not pout
I am telling you why
Santa Clause is comin’ to town

He’s making a list….checking it twice…three times…every day
Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice
Santa Clause is comin’ to town
He sees you when your sleeping, nows when your awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.

Oh, he’s watching. Waiting for you to screw up so you will get coal instead of a bicycle. You had better please him. And we teach our kids to put on the mask and be something they are not. Because Santa Clause is comin’ to town. This omniscient being who is judging our every deed is coming to town…and we learn to do the dance early. Buck up…be good. Don’t cry. Don’t pout. Santa Clause is coming to town.  (©Copyright 2003, William Thrall, Bruce McNicol, John Lynch. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.)

John is exactly right. We learn that we get good things and receive love only when we are good and do good things. Santa is pleased (and we later substitute God) when we obey. So we learn early. We had better be good. Or least fool everyone around us to think that we are being good. So we learn to lie and hide and cover-up our sin or doggedly attack sin with only self-effort.

I learned a couple of things early. I learned how hard it is to change behavior by sheer willpower and I learned that I could fool Santa by living a lie. I learned that that he would bring me presents in spite of my failures. I did not learn about grace. That maybe Santa gave me gifts because of who I was and maybe he came to my house because I was lovable instead of rewarding me for what I had done to please him. I figured I had fooled him and to get the good stuff I would have to continue to hide the little boy who broke an ornament and then hid it. Hiddenness worked. Or at least it seemed to work.

Isn’t that too often how we view God? We had better not pout. Better not sin. I’m telling you why. Jesus is coming to town. He’s making a list and He is checking it not once or twice but every moment of every day. God knows if you’ve been bad or good so if you want to be healed or happy or prosperous you had better be good for goodness sake. If I do mess up I am scared to death that I will get a bad life or miss all that God has for me. So I put on the mask and try to be really good for Jesus. If I can fool those around me maybe, just maybe, I can fool God too.

Satan sells the lie so convincingly. And we buy it for months and years and even decades.

But God and Santa are very different in their approach. God does not keep a list. He is not impressed by our hernia inducing straining to control sin. God is honored when we trust Him.

Jesus offers us so many gifts. But the one we seem to have the hardest time unwrapping is the gift of grace. The gift that allows us to become who God desires us to become as we simply trust Him and quit trying to be “good” for goodness sake. We are saved by grace and faith in Christ. We become like Him by the same radical strategy. Faith that He has changed us into a new creation. And understanding the grace that gives us good gifts even when we don’t deserve them.

(Excerpt from When Bad Christians Happen to Good People, Waterbrook Publishing, 2011)

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia and reminded them of these truths.

My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.  (Galatians 2, NLT)

(An excerpt from Chapter One of the new version of When Bad Christians Happen to Good People)

And at the Festivus dinner, you gather your family around, and you tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year!
—Frank Costanza, Seinfeld episode “The Strike”

Most of us chuckle over the invented holiday of Festivus. In the famous Seinfeld episode, Frank Costanza explains how he grew frustrated with the commercialism of Christmas:

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll?
Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that, a new holiday was born: a Festivus for the rest of us!

Part of the “tradition” of Festivus was the airing of grievances to all who came to dinner. Frank Costanza’s frustration with Christmas commercialism mirrors my angst over the odd brand of Christianity that we’ve too often foisted on our culture. I am borrowing Frank’s concept of the airing of grievances. Actually, churchgoers are pretty good at the airing of grievances, even without the Festivus excuse. In the Seinfeld episode, the airing of grievances is followed by the traditional “feats of strength.” The head of the household selects one person at the Festivus celebration and challenges that person to a wrestling match. Festivus is not over until the head of the household is pinned. Wouldn’t that be a fascinating addition to our church bylaws?

Section 7: Resolution of Conflict

The elders shall invite the congregation to an annual church potluck, followed by the airing of grievances. The potluck shall be followed by praise songs and then the feats of strength. The congregational meeting shall not be adjourned until an elder is pinned to the mat by a church member.

Perhaps the sight of a volunteer wrestling with an elder would be silly enough to help us understand that 98 percent of our grievances are pointless in the context of the Great Commission and the Greatest Commandment. But there is a place for the airing of grievances, especially in reference to the way we do Christianity in this culture. But I pray that I will always come around to grace and truth that enable the real feats of strength to be our focus. I hope we will learn how to trust God to demonstrate truly amazing feats of strength, such as forgiveness, selflessness, serving, and unity.

My Personal History with Legalism

My own grievances date back more than four decades (gulp) to a legalistic church in Chillicothe, Ohio. I have to start with my spiritual pedigree, since that figures prominently into my dysfunction. I was raised in a non-church going family. At the age of fifteen, I started going to church for a very spiritual reason: a cute girl I knew attended that church. Unfortunately, my first church experience was with a congregation that was so legalistic it went out of business.

Seriously.

The denomination this church was part of is not even around anymore because they couldn’t round up enough miserable people to keep it functioning. My nickname for our dysfunctional church body was “The First Church of Misery Loves Company…But We Probably Won’t Love You.” We sang “Amazing Grace” but wouldn’t have recognized grace if it had snuck up and bit us on our self-righteous backsides.

This church featured a lengthy altar call every Sunday to target the one or two unsaved folks who might have stumbled in. I was the target one memorable Sunday. They sang fifteen verses of “Just as I Am” and then the preacher told a tragic story about a man who rejected a moment like this and then was flattened by a steamroller on the way home. According to the preacher, the man was now being tormented in hell. Meanwhile, my ADD brain was wondering why a steamroller was out on a Sunday. Then we shifted to singing “Softly and Tenderly” about a dozen times. Apparently, all of this was designed to give me a little taste of what eternity would be like.

One of the pillars of the church was a matronly lady who was—how can I say this kindly?—not underfed. In a scene that would have been hilarious if it hadn’t involved me, this substantial saint tried to drag me to the altar. I was like a Labrador retriever being pulled into the vet’s office with legs splayed out and fighting every inch of the way.

This church wasn’t acquainted with the role of the Holy Spirit in salvation. Getting sinners to the altar was the goal, whether that sinner wanted to be there or not. Their philosophy of ministry was simple: “You will get saved, and you will like it!”

I resisted this church pillar’s gentle headlock to heaven that Sunday in spite of the risk of being flattened by a steamroller on the way home. But a couple of days later I did pray the sinner’s prayer, without being dragged anywhere. And that began a journey of good, bad, and ugly that has lasted for more than forty years so far. While it is true that I heard and accepted the gospel message after attending that church, my early doctrinal exposure would prove to be an ongoing problem.
Hypocrites or Healers?

The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word hyprokrites, meaning one who plays a part, an actor. Probably no word is more destructively used in describing Christians than hypocrite. André Gide once defined a true hypocrite (an oxymoron?) as the “one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.”

Inevitably, my first and natural reaction upon hearing the word is to think of people I consider guilty of hypocrisy. When it was revealed that Reverend Ted Haggard had been engaged in inappropriate relationships, my first reaction was to smite him with my hypocrite hammer. But instead I should have asked God to shine a light in my own dark places to see if a similar lack of integrity lives in my own heart.

One of the most stinging rebukes Jesus ever issued concerned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (see Matthew 6). These religious leaders liked to be seen and heard when praying, recognized when giving money, and pitied when fasting. Had the Jerusalem Broadcasting Network been on the air, you just know that slick-haired Pharisees would have hosted the prime-time programs.

Today, the church condemns those who drink and smoke and live immoral lives, while churchgoers freely engage in gluttony and gossip and selfishness and bigotry. The un-churched stand by in amazed, bemused, cynical, or angry observance of our hypocrisy. And they lose respect for our message.

As a young man, I sat through many sermons in which the preacher condemned tobacco and “devil alcohol.” Immediately following, the congregation would enjoy a potluck dinner where apparently the demon of calories was a welcome guest. It seems to me that morbid obesity is also a desecration of the temple (our body). Is that not also wrong? Overweight churchgoers often explain their extra pounds by citing low metabolism or thyroid disorders. I acknowledge that, for many, there could be a legitimate medical reason behind the weight gain. But if church members can fall back on metabolism as an excuse, shouldn’t we allow for the possibility that someone else’s addiction to nicotine might be similarly genetically predisposed? Or that someone with a weakness for alcohol or drugs could suffer from a brain-chemistry imbalance that exacerbates the problem?

We all are broken people, whether we are gluttons, gossips, smokers, drinkers, or hypocrites. I believe with all of my being in the life-changing power of God. I know He can empower an alcoholic to become and stay dry. I have witnessed that truth. I believe God can give a smoker the strength to snuff out his last cigarette. I am convinced God can enable a person to flush pills and drugs down the drain once and for all.

Church members love to condemn addictions. But not all addictions. The uncomfortable flip side is that Christians too often overlook God’s power to help us overcome certain of the “favored” addictions. Why don’t more Christians acknowledge the truth that God can give us the power to walk away from the buffet table? That He can give me the strength to bridle my tongue when I am privy to gossip that would hurt another person? Should I not recognize that God might want me to keep driving my unsexy old car or keep watching a conventional, low-tech television instead of a giant screen 3-D HDTV in order to free up my resources to help someone in need?

I marvel at Christ’s approach to sinners. Obviously He could not have condoned the lifestyles and actions of many who surrounded Him. Yet He was drawn to the spiritually needy and they to Him. Prostitutes, lepers, and tax collectors all felt the need to hear what Jesus had to say. (Note to my IRS friends: In first-century culture, tax collectors were turncoats who unfairly extorted their own people for personal gain. Nothing at all like the honorable members of our fine government tax organization evaluating my home-office deductions on this year’s tax return.)

It seems the people who were the most uncomfortable around Jesus were the ones known to be the most religious—the churchgoers, as it were. Those who are most ill need the physician’s time, and Jesus gravitated to the ER cases. I have friends who are physicians, and probably no patient annoys them more than a hypochondriac. These unfortunate people drain the resources and time of medical personnel that could be far better used healing the truly sick. It seems to me that Jesus dealt with the hypochondriacs of His day (the Pharisees and other religious people) with that same attitude. Jesus had little patience with those who failed to recognize their true spiritual symptoms. But He was always willing to see the spiritually ill.

The church should be in the business of addressing spiritual illness. When you are deathly ill, you don’t start thinking of going to the health club: “Well, this will be a lovely time to get in shape. I feel horrible, and I think I’m going to die, but at least I’ll be a trim corpse.” Yet many churches have communicated that only the spiritually healthy are welcome there. The result is that the spiritually needy think their lives are too far gone to be accepted at church, when in fact their brokenness makes them ready to receive God’s amazing grace. But too many avoid the ER, thinking that going to church would make them uncomfortable or heighten their guilt. They sense they would be judged and treated with condescension.

Yes, some of these feelings are self-inflicted wounds. But many are not. We must face the possibility that we are doing things that make hurting people stay away from the church. Do you ever think your health is too messed up for you to go to the hospital? Does a hospital ever communicate that you are just a little too sick to come in? When did the church step away from its responsibility to heal emotional pain and meet physical, emotional, and spiritual needs? Steve Martin used to say, “Comedy isn’t pretty.” Sometimes ministry isn’t either. Sometimes it requires us to pay a price.

Most of us don’t much like to be around the truly spiritually ill because it makes us uncomfortable. Treating the spiritually ill is draining, and it comes with no guarantee of success. We would rather hire someone to clean up the mess and report back to us at a praise service. Yet how can we preach Christ’s love and not care about those with HIV/AIDS? How can we talk about God’s grace but ignore other people’s physical needs? How can we talk about the importance of giving and then spend money on things we don’t need, often to curry the approval of people we don’t really care about? How can we minister to others when we don’t first meet the spiritual needs of our own families? How can we win the respect of the world when we cruise around in luxury vehicles and turn our faces away from hurting people?

Do we think that if we ignore the problems, perhaps God will not hold us accountable?

My family had a wonderful golden retriever for fourteen adventure filled years. If Marley (of book and movie fame) was the “world’s worst dog,” then our dog, Charlie, would have been an honored runner-up. Charlie was an aficionado of used Kleenex and paper towels. He knew I disapproved of him running off with tissues, so each time he nabbed one, Charlie would dash to the family room and stick his head and front quarters under a Queen Anne chair. He didn’t realize that 75 percent of his body was sticking out, with his tail wagging wildly. He thought he was safe from retribution because his face was hidden.

Is it any less ridiculous to think that we Christians can avoid our responsibilities as Christ’s representatives on earth? Are Christians any smarter than Charlie when we avert our gaze from the needs of others and convince ourselves that God won’t notice? Somehow I don’t think

God smiles and says, “Oh, that Dave, he was just too busy to notice his friend was in pain. But that’s okay.” No. Instead, my selfishness sticks out just as noticeably as Charlie’s rear end. (There is a certain symmetry in that comparison.) Adam’s first impulse was to hide when God held him accountable in the Garden of Eden, and not much has changed since then in people’s hearts. It was just as futile for Adam as it was for Charlie and me to try to hide from our sin.

(More from Chapter One coming up. You can check out the book at Amazon.com)