Okay, so . . . guilt. "The Guilt Gospel." Let's talk about it for a second, because it's subversive, and it's not biblical. I listened a few weeks ago to "The Reason for God" by Tim Keller and this topic of guilt crept up. I think it was in the last sermon of the series. You can download it here: http://www.thereasonforgod.com/
First let's talk about the problems of using guilt as a means of salvation. These are my own ideas based off Mr. Keller's. I'll probably add to them because . . . it's a potentially never-ending list.
1. The change it affects is never permanent. This is the number one reason why the joke about church camp is that you go there for a week, feel really bad about yourself, throw a stick on the fire, come home, get all excited for five minutes . . . and then go right back to the way you were before you went.
2. People start hating things they were meant to enjoy. People start to hate art, because it's been taken over by "flaming liberals." People start to hate music because it's been taken over by "heathens." People start to hate women who think because they are all "feminists." You can hate anything if you try hard enough.
3. It encourages weak Christians to stay weak. With this mentality, the point is to keep ALL temptations at bay so that you never have to deal with them. If a person listens to a pop song that he used to listen to when he was young and rebellious, then that old rebellion will somehow creep back into his life . . . even though God made a way for this person to enter the glories of Heaven at GREAT expense to Himself--not only living a sinless life, not only being ripped apart by soldiers and hung on a cross, not only suffering for the sins of all humanity, not only reaching down from a Celestial Throne of Perfection to a meager little insect who would reject Him as soon as look at Him were it not for the Holy Spirit. I mean . . . what kind of sadistic pig would let a silly little rock song tear him from this kind of relationship?
4. I just made up a term called "Neo-Neo-Gnosticism." We all know that Gnostics are wrong because their gospels were written in the 300s, right? Mary Magdelene and all that. . . Well one of their main premises is that all matter is evil. Well . . . "Guilt Gospelers" aren't too far from that. Instead of believing that all matter is evil, they believe that some matter is evil and some matter is good. In other words, a rebellious person will increase in his rebellion if he hears an electric guitar; however will decrease in rebellion if he listens to classical piano. This is the mentality that alcohol is wrong and not the abusers of alcohol. It's the mentality that sex is wrong and not the abusers of sex. This is really the origin of the phrase: "the Devil made me do it." We aren't responsible for what we do: the temptations are just too great. Yes, this world is full of temptations, but if "he who is in you" is really "greater than he who is in the world" then . . . either "Guilt Gospelers" are lying or the Bible is.
5. It puts the controls in human hands instead of God's. If I do something wrong, then I feel bad about it and then I apologize. But guess what, I just go back and do something else wrong again. So I have to feel bad about it and then apologize again. This is not to say that we shouldn't apologize--we should. However, we need to be careful that we aren't just feeling bad to feel bad, but are reaching out to God for His guidance. If it's too hard to do that, then read Galatians or something and let God take over. You need a better understanding of grace. Even when Paul is getting all "don't do this" and "don't do that" like in the Corinthians or Timothies, he still makes it blindingly obvious that the reasons motivating all these actions is God's grace, not guilt.
6. It widens the generation gap. It's a fact that older generations have never understood the younger ones. I mean, why would Paul ever tell Timothy not to let older people despise his youth if this weren't the case? Just a little smidgen of guilt is all that it takes to make the older women forget about ever disciplining the younger or the older men never think about listening to the younger men. "I can't disciple them because they are into something modern that I don't understand and would never DREAM of associating myself with."
7. It's really just secular humanism in a stuffy stained glass box. I tip the waitress because I will feel guilty if I don't. I look down on people I don't like because they don't do what I want them to. I can make myself feel good about myself if I do good things. I can get ahead if I have a code of morals. There are good people and bad people. It's simple: I just call the laws of nature that govern my life, "God."
8. It's really just every other religion in a stuffy stained glass box. When they do wrong: the Buddhists beat themselves up; the Catholics meet with a priest; the Scientologists get audited; the Hindus have bad karma; the Atheists strive to do better next time to live cooperatively and maintain the goodness of civilization; the Wiccans do a cleansing; the Satanists buy themselves a nice present . . . Then there are the Christians who go around talking like they have the One Truth, but are really just these guys all over again.
9. It makes a body bitter. A person knows he is a sinner. He knows what his struggles are (at least before he talks himself out of his faults). He knows others are sinners too, though. However, while he is desparately trying to work on his own sins, no one around him is. He is alone in his principles. How dare his unsaved coworkers swear in front of him. How dare they listen to their sensual music on their desk radios. How dare they go out to a bar after work when he is supposed to be able to witness to them at Starbucks--except doesn't Starbucks support "the gays" now? Dirty rotten sinners. What are they thinking?
10. Guilt requires less immediate work. To sit and explain how giving up the world actually gives people "God. . .plus the world thrown in" (C.S. Lewis) to a new Christian is kind of a hard thing to do. It's not an easy concept to grasp right away. The newbie has just recently been made aware that Someone loves them quite a bit and that no sin can keep this freely offered love away. Sometimes, they think that grace sounds too good to be true--especially when there is all this pain in the world. A seasoned veteran Christian has got a lot of 'splainin' to do, so guilt is a way easier subject to discuss. It's way easier to go, "You know what? Nevermind. Let me just tell you all the things you can't do now so that you can work on cleaning yourself up to be all shiny and new for this Sunday." Focusing on guilt makes grace seem like a trap. However, the trap is actually the misplaced focus on guilt. Baby birds never learn to fly if they are made to look down.
11. It distances the "chosen few" from the world-views of the time. If a Christian shuts himself off from pop culture because "it's the right thing to do" then why should a non-believer read the Bible? How do you perform stand-up comedy before an audience that doesn't even speak your language? It's not that the jokes are bad; it's that no one understands what you are saying in the first place. Of course there will be people who reject the message, but we don't have to go around giving them further reason to reject it by completely separating ourselves from the going thought. This is the problem with pastors who are still preaching against the "hippies." People aren't saying "Imagine" anymore (although, they do really like the song). Paul understood the times he lived in, so why don't we? What's so horrible about hearing the current excuses for rejecting God? I'd think that information would be useful. Imagine if there were no Holy Spirit and it were all just up to us. Yeeesh . . . that's a horrid thought.
12. It's really just pride all over again, but even worse this time, because guilt seems right whereas pride is obviously wrong.
13. Guilt is a means for tired parents to get their kids to eat dinner, not for accepting eternal salvation. We all heard about the starving children in China, right? It's the worst possible thing to reject something for yourself that these poor children would totally appreciate, so . . . you eat. (Especially since it's impossible to mail your cooked macaroni and cheese to them.) Guilt is a tactic meant to make you stop arguing for the moment and do something or appreciate something. It's kind of a starting point for Christianity, I guess. I mean, you need to realize your sin. You need to realize how much you don't deserve it. But this is the "milk of the Word" at best. Some will be saved by the fear of hell, yes. But that doesn't mean salvation is really that shallow, otherwise "hell verses" would be the only salvation verses in the Bible.
14. Guilt is a feeling. Feelings change. Feelings are weak. Therefore, a salvation based on guilt is weak.
However, a salvation based on grace is permanent. Why? Because grace has nothing to do with you. "Guilt Gospelers" will argue that focusing on grace too much will result in "Christian Hedonism." Get this: they are afraid that focusing on grace too much will cause a born-again Christian to fall back into the shallow mire-like sin that they'd already acknowledged to be so obviously pointless the second they supposedly allowed the Holy Spirit free reign of their souls. (???!!!) Um . . . would you really go back into the port-o-potty of your former life when you have been offered a mansion? Even if you do go back, you aren't going to look at it the same way that you did before, because the mansion is infinitely greater. So maybe we should spend more time on trying to understand what's in all the rooms of our mansion, what kind of Insane Benefactor would pay our mortgage, and how we can get other people into this sweet sweet deal, instead of talking about why the port-o-potty is so evil.
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