Thoughts prompted by Tim Keller’s EMA conference talk

Darryl Dash has posted an excellent synopsis on his blog here of a talk given by Tim Keller at the 2007 Evangelical Ministry Assembly Conference in London. As always, Keller hits on some vital issues, recognizing the need that contemporary evangelicalism has for rehabilitative training with regard to the relationship that evangelicals have with the wider culture. Until I can get the audio from the conference, available at the conference link, Daryl’s notes give the key insights that Keller brought forth in his talk.

Rather than rehashing Darryl’s fine notes, what I’d like to do in this post and perhaps the next couple are to interact with a couple of the points Keller made. One of the reasons Keller is a prophetic voice for the church in our time is that he recognizes the need to reform the way the church engages culture - quite rightly he points out that the liberal/evangelical divide is basically one that regards the relationship of the church to theology and to culture. Liberals engage culture strongly and effectively, but are no longer theologically engaged with Christian doctrine. Fundamentalists are strongly engaged with Christian doctrine, but tend to be antagonistic toward culture. Evangelicals tried to stake out a middle ground, but evangelical voices with a conservative social and political agenda have come to represent the evangelical identity.

The result has been the rise of a stereotype of evangelicalism as strident, polemical, sectarian, moralistic, anti-intellectual, and obscurantist. As with all stereotypes, this one broad brushes, but each component of the stereotype is based on the far too common example of evangelicals who let their passions or polemical hobby horses get the better of them and put them on garish public display. Those who are held up as evangelical spokespersons or examples often express propositions that express doctrinal or moral truth, ideas with which a majority of evangelicals would agree, but expressed in a way that makes many of us blush.

I recall a mild example this past summer at the Memphis barbecue fest, an annual event which attracts thousands to the banks of the Mississippi. A local evangelist was at the entrance gate with a large wooden sign with a rather tawdry depiction of a crucified Christ surrounded by texts in King James English warning readers that they were doomed to hell unless they repented and trusted Jesus for salvation. A bullhorn mounted in the sign projected the words of the evangelist, intoned in a strong twangy accent, to the crowd. I remarked to a friend that I probably agree with every factual statement made by the evangelist, but I shrink in horror at the way his message is presented.

Keller understands with the rest of us that this sort of presentation of the gospel is not helpful to the kingdom of God. The evangelist in the example shouts his message of judgment to the world like an Old Testament prophet. Certainly our culture is in need of prophetic words, but there is little hope that words spoken like a kitschy carnival barker from another age will have the effect the speaker intends. What is lacking?

The answer, says Keller, is the biblical doctrine and practice of repentance. The barking evangelist thunders judgment out to the world from a position of spiritual pride and superiority that fails to acknowledge that he, too, is a sinner in need of God’s grace. His religiosity has become an obstacle to the gospel, an affront to Christ, a failure to practice the character and humility of the savior.

True repentance results in two factors that are absolutely vital if evangelicals are to have any hope of speaking to the culture (these points are not mine, but I can’t find the reference for them. I think they might belong to Jerram Barrs. I hope that I avoid plagiarism by at least attempting to attribute properly):

• Intimacy with the Father: True repentance, like that of the prodigal son, does not demand rights or even dignity, but acknowledges unworthiness, falling at the father’s feet. All barriers to restored relationship are gone.
• Compassion for fellow sinners: Pride of place, assumption of privilege, satisfaction in one’s own accomplishments is eviscerated. Instead of looking down at sinners, like the prodigal’s prideful older brother looked down at his younger sibling, compassion looks at others as fellow sinners.

Religious pride is the sin that keeps on dragging us down in our relationship with the Father, and which keeps us from being compassionate toward people who aren’t Christians or even other Christians who don’t embrace the distinctives of our own tradition. When we are religiously proud, we become the scornful older brother who despises the prodigal.

In Jesus’s parable of the lost sons, at the end, the younger brother who had sinned so badly and repented was restored in relationship with his father. But the older brother was lost - separated from both the Father and his younger brother by his religious, moralistic pride. The younger brother needed to repent of his sin, and did; the older brother needed to repent of his righteousness - and didn’t.

That was where Jesus ended his parable. But he himself was the continuation of the story. He was the example of what the older brother should have been - rather than despising his younger brother, the older brother, had he been like Jesus, would have said to his father, “Dad, I don’t care what it takes, even if it means giving up my inheritance, I’m going to go and find my younger brother and bring him home. I love him that much, and I know you love him, too.” This is what Jesus actually did, and this is what Jesus calls us to do. Even if it means giving up our own inheritance, our comfort, our security, our investment portfolio, our bright future in the corporate world, the father calls us to go and find our younger brothers and sisters, and with compassion, humility, grace, and love, to invite them to come home to the father.

That’s easy enough to talk about in the abstract, but much harder to actually put into action. In coming posts I want to explore how this affects the way we view church, what it is and ought to be. One of the reasons it is so hard in contemporary culture is that we as Christians have made a mess of the opportunities God has given us in the past. We have become our own worst enemies, the biggest obstacle in our own way.

The way of repentance and humility is the only way back. We can substitute best practices and methodologies that may enable us to build flashy, impressive megachurches, but all we’ll be doing is attracting church-hopping consumers. Please don’t misunderstand me as saying that organization and methodology are without value - they are vital components in church planting and revitalization of existing churches. But they are only useful as tools in the hands of a church that is made up of repentant sinners transformed and empowered by the spirit of Christ manifesting compassion and humility.