This is tragic and foolish all in one

While it used to be standard fare on my blog I haven’t done a post like this in a while but I read this and was so struck by how tragically erroneous it was. Maybe I am just in a bad mood. At the same time I think this sort of teaching is becoming more and more prevalent as the Gospel is watered down to make “church” as palatable as possible to as many people as possible. This sort of teaching is becoming more commonplace in traditional churches and is so muddled as to be unrecognizable as even a poor representation of the Gospel, instead turning into some sort of “other gospel” that is powerless to save. So anyway, I am about to let loose with both barrels so if that bothers you, please stop reading now.

This morning Albert Mohler pointed to a response to something he twittered. It had to do with an interfaith service at a Baptist church that was a celebration called “Honoring All Sacred Texts” at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville. In response to this event honoring the "sacred texts" of Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism Dr. Mohler tweeted: Here is where ‘interfaith’ means ‘denying the faith’ at a former SBC church. Joe Phelps, pastor of Highland Baptist, responding in a blog post titled “Denying or Defending Christ?" gives his response to Al Mohler and in doing so demonstrates a troubling misunderstanding of the very foundations of the Gospel. From his response to Dr. Mohler:

The intent of Honoring All Sacred Texts was not to deny or dilute the role of Jesus, who is central to our message and mission at Highland.

But which Jesus? The Jesus of inclusion or exclusion?

The Jesus I find in scripture blazes a singular path of self-giving love rather than a path of domination over others, be that others within his band of followers, or the religious leaders, the Roman authorities, or other religions. His way is one of reconciling Love rather than polarizing division. The only ones Jesus excluded were those driven by a spirit of exclusion. And while there are passages that say He is the only way to God-- and He is the way we follow at Highland-- other Bible passages are clear that God's bigness and love extend to all the earth, to all peoples, to all nations who come in reverence before God.

Our intent on 9/11 was to mark the day our country was wounded by the violence of extremists. Honoring All Sacred Texts invited people of all faiths to come together to speak a word of witness against this kind of divisive, hate-filled ideology, found in every nation and religion, by reading what we believe is fundamental and common from our various sacred texts: love, humility, peace, reverence before the Creator.

We invited each to read what they believe best represents their faith's understanding of God, rather than us scouring their texts looking for lines we find threatening or violent. Every sacred text--including the Bible--has passages that extol violence, which can be misunderstood and misapplied by outsiders (and by insiders!). We can no more understand the context of a verse by a cursory reading of another's sacred text than I can understand clearly the dynamics of someone else's family system by simply looking at their front door. While their text is not ours, we can honor the fact that it is their sacred text, their attempt, as is our Bible, to use language to speak of experiences of Holy Mystery being revealed to humanity.

Egad. So you gather people under the pretense of being a Christian church and then invite and welcome unbelievers to stand up and present their views of who God is? When Peter was asked at Pentecost in response to his proclamation of the Gospel “What shall we do?”, his response was not to tell these men to go to their faith traditions to see what it has to say about “God”. He boldly called them to repent.

The Gospel is not about “belief in God” although that amorphous definition is popular in our religious culture. It is about belief and faith in Christ, in His sinless life, substitutionary death and victorious resurrection. One cannot have varying understandings of who God is and be in “good standing” with Him if you deny the Son, which is what sets apart Christianity from all of the other false world faiths. Jesus said this clearly in many places (assuming you actually read and believe the Bible), like in this passage from Luke:

“The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Luke 10:16)

If you reject Christ as who He declares Himself to be; i.e. uniquely God, eternal, uncreated, the only begotten of the Father, then you explicitly are rejecting God the Father ("him who sent me"). Any view of God that denies Christ as God is blasphemy. I know that word is jarring to our ears in 2010 and perhaps considered impolite but there are times when being blunt is necessary. Inviting people to your church to stand up and blaspheme is not being a good Christian, it welcoming something that the Bible calls anathema. As if that was not bad enough, he followed with this doozie:

I can hear the rebuttals that excuse our Bible from this kind of level playing field--that the Bible is the only real sacred text because it is more inspired, infallible, without human influence, having been dictated from the mouth of God, who is a Christian God alone. But how is this different than Joseph Smith’s insistence that his golden tablets appeared from heaven to him alone?

Don’t get me wrong: I love the Bible and believe it inspired by God. I read it devotionally every morning and hear God’s Spirit speak to my heart through it. I study it and preach from it four times a weekend (I suspect Highland reads more Bible in worship than many churches which claim they revere it more than we do). But can we not acknowledge that our faith’s text is a disparate collection of inspirations and understandings which must be allowed to interact and thus inform each other? And that its meaning must be continually explored, in concert with the Spirit, to discern its intent?

So declaring that the claims of inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible is hardly different from Joseph Smith’s claims regarding the Book of Mormon qualifies as “loving” the Bible? Saying I love the Bible on the one hand but then dismissing it on the other is hardly a rational statement.

Jesus is not competing in the marketplace of ideas, He is not one of many more or less equally valid versions of the truth. He IS truth and anything that denies Him is by definition false. Christianity stands apart from all of the false belief systems in the world, whether false religions like Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. or the similarly misguided and false denials of God in atheism and agnosticism. There is nothing to honor in the “sacred texts” of Buddhism or Islam. They fundamentally present a view of God that is contrary to who God reveals Himself to be in the Bible and are not acceptable alternative views.

God through the Scriptures calls all people everywhere to repent (note, He does not beg, plead, request, cajole, etc. He commands) but also demands that all other religions be cast aside as idolatry and blasphemy. There is room in Christianity for anyone, any sinner no matter how serious the sin, who repents and calls upon the name of Christ but there is no mercy for those who deny Jesus Christ in any way, shape or form. Lumping Jesus in with all of the world religions as merely one understanding of God is blasphemy, pure and simple. Standing before the throne and declaring Jesus as the alternative that you preferred because of your cultural preferences is a one way ticket to hell. Period.

Mr. Phelps asks a simple question in the title of his blog post: Denying or Defending Christ? It seems pretty clear from what he wrote that the answer, tragically, is denying. Any view of Christ that denies His exclusivity denies who He is and if He is not who He claims to be then there is no Good News, no Gospel, no redemption and we all are still condemned in our sins. There are many things you can be wrong about and still be a Christian but denying who Christ is doesn’t make that list.