Losing Faith

Beginning sometime around my college years I lost my faith--not in Christ, to be sure, but the form of faith in which I had been raised. This had nothing to do with the pettish atheisms encountered on the university campus, which could be seen-through in a minute, but with the conviction bred by increasing exposure to people of real accomplishment that any religion which encouraged mediocrity--which did not help us to discover the gifts God had placed within and then drive us past our natural sloth to develop them--could not be of God or lead back to him.

At the base of the religion of mediocrity, I came to believe, was our church’s doctrine of “security” in which the admonition, found in numerous forms in the New Testament, to “be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall . . . .” was so heavily discounted. We did not, in fact, believe in striving or zealotry in confirming one’s call or election, for these things were assured once we had prayed to accept Jesus. Along with this came the option of doodling away one’s life in the belief that hard-won accomplishment among Christians was presumptive evidence of infidelity.

We left the striving to the Catholics, who thought their works saved them, or to the stricter sort of Calvinist, who believed in election but had to prove he was among the elect, or to Methodists, who could lose their salvation--although they could get it back, and even secure it permanently if they got sanctified enough. No, we had a firm contract with God, written indelibly in sawdust, so any biblical admonitions that involved “falling” had only to do with the habitual commission of what Catholics called venial sins. While one could “backslide” in his Christian life, this was cause for revival but not alarm. Eternal happiness on some level was assured. The converted were the saved, so that the Parable of the Sower or the tenth chapter of I Corinthans or the sixth of Hebrews contained nothing to drive, discipline, or frighten us. No one, once he had a salvation experience, could fall any sense that involved his eternal security, and striving that had anything to do with the validation of our election--that is, striving of the most profound and serious and world-altering kind, was in fact regarded as sin.

The accidentally accomplished (accidentally among us) were so not because they were laboring to secure an already secure call and election, but because they had talents so large they were insuppressible, or the superadded gift of energy and concentration--or they weren’t really firm believers in salvation by grace alone and, Catholic-like, were trying to “merit” something. This easy attitude toward any kind of spiritual striving--except that generated by guilt for failure to evangelize, which was due a terrible scolding by Christ, but not soul-threatening--I early came to believe, carried over into other areas of life, producing intolerable measures of stupidity, drabness, and isolation, thus generating wholly justified feelings of inferiority, which in turn produced the bitter fruit of envy, strengthening the security doctrine and confirming its holders in their alienation from segments of the Church that took the dominical teaching and its apostolic reiteration seriously.

While it is doubtless true that much human accomplishment in the secular realm results from displacement of energies that might be better spent in upbuilding the spirit, an incarnational faith cannot avoid leaving heavy traces in the dust of the world. Believers who live in the fear of God, and who, according to his command, strive to make their vocations and election sure, will be people of accomplishment--the lack whereof I now regard as presumptive evidence of unbelief. I am not silly enough to think this must mean accomplishment in things for which the world has respect--although frequently enough it will--but it does mean real labor, real striving to confirm and perfect what God has placed in us “so there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Comments

[Josiah A. Roelfsema]

This sounds very similar to what I am going through right now. I need to hear this sort of thing from those with more wisdom and experience than me though. My own striving has only recently begun, having taken visible form within the last two or three years at best.

>> - which did not help us to discover the gifts God had placed within and then drive us past our natural sloth to develop them - <<

This is where I am still too often stuck. Only by the grace of God have I been given a way out.

I needed to hear this, Dr. Hutchens.

[Seth R.]

I completely agree Dr. Hutchens. Refreshing post.

[Doug Drysdale]

Thanks, Dr. Hutchens. I am a Bible believing, evangelical (both by theology and ecclesiology), Arminian Wesleyan fundamentalist (in the original meaning of the term). We don't "do" in order to be saved; we "do" because we are saved. We believe in the dynamic aspect of grace, not only the forensic.

[bonobo]

accomplishment--the lack whereof I now regard as presumptive evidence of unbelief

"Faith without works is dead" (James 2:20).

Believers who live in the fear of God, and who, according to his command, strive to make their vocations and election sure

Isn't that what good Catholics do?

[smh]

Yes. It is what all good Christians do.

[bonobo]

Grand. Just making sure no-one was specifically excluded from orthodoxy! :)

[Mairnéalach]

I regularly plead with the Lord to make me into a two-talent disciple.

I look forward to the day when, having discerned his sure granting of that request, I will be moving on to plead for becoming a ten-talent disciple!

[Wordlover]

A nice articulation of a subtle snare. How do you do that with such seeming ease?

I wonder however if the same dynamic still applies in this generation. With sin being so pervasively redefined in terms of our behaviors toward each other, or the planet, or ourselves -- and not toward God -- then doesn't salvation take on a new face as well? While Christianity still offers a redemption that covers the matter of eternity, this seems to have become rather peripheral to the concerns of the present life. As a consequence, the assurance (or lack thereof) of our heavenly status may not be as pressing a force in the modern church, and thus might bear less influence on our choices.

And then there is the unsettling scene in Matthew 25 which indicates that it is precisely our simple, lived-out ministry to others that will be the drawn line between the sheep and goats. Not doctrine, not methodologies of worship, not the actualization of all our potentialities, not even sinlessness...but simple charity.

I think there's a problem if we ever lose the "fear and trembling" with which we are to work out our own salvation.

Diane

[Beth]

My teen son noted today that on a Christian forum he frequents, a young lady said that "Amazing Grace" was a bad movie because it focused too much on Wilberforce's political career and not enough on his spiritual journey. His comment? Something like it's through the actions of a man that we *see* his spiritual journey.

Steve, thanks for this post -- most encouraging and helpful in articulating something that's been bothering me for a long time now. I see it in my particular venue in students who go faithfully to chapel and sing and cry and raise their hands and then become resentful if I question their walk with the Lord because of their inability to arrive in class on time, prepared, and alert on a reasonably regular basis . . . What has *that* got to do with it? they ask; I read my Bible and pray and go to church . . . how dare you question me because I don't get my work done!

I often fear for the future more from teaching in a Christian college than I ever did when I was teaching in secular universities -- where a fair percentage of unsaved young people seemed to have more purpose than many I teach now (I suppose without Christ one's work may more likely become a defining factor of one's existence?).

God have mercy.

[bonobo]

As a consequence, the assurance (or lack thereof) of our heavenly status...work out our own salvation.

I would be delighted if the only work a Catholic ever did was assure his salvation status by regular use of the sacrament of reconciliation, particularly as and when needed. If the only work outside the Mass his pastor ever did was preach on that, that would also suffice for works.

[labrialumn]

I suspect that the real problem had to do with some sort of divided-life spirituality, whether the neo-platonic, or the Thomistic donum superadditum.

One who is truly regenerate is going to want to imitate Christ, to be like Him, to try to please Him, out of love and gratitude.

But a syncretistic worldview where our many vocations in life are seen as lesser than the 'spiritual' can lead to a mediocrity, where if one isn't called to the ministry or mission work, it is thought that one's life on Earth is of lesser value, only of value in giving money to spread the Gospel, rather than valuable in and of itself in glorifying God.

Our salvation cannot be earned or merited, neither works nor works of the law avail in the forgiveness of our sins, that is a free gift from God, as is our final glorification when we see Christ face to face, and are in an instant, made like Him.

Our Christian life is to 'work out' what has been worked in us, via sanctification, our proper human nature as created in God's Image, doing the things He would have us do, being His image-bearers. We do this out of love and gratitude, not out of terror that we might not do enough works to work off the guilt of our sins, for Christ died for them on the Cross, bearing the covenant curse in our place, and there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.

Those who do not live so, or desire to live so need to face the law and the gospel, for they have failed to understand one or the other - or both.

Bonobo, faith without works is a dead faith indeed, yet we are saved by grace through faith, and not by works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9) but that faith isn't the Roman Catholic view of mere intellectual assent, but a total change of allegiance to Christ. Such faith -does- work in love. If it doesn't, it isn't that faith. But if you try to earn your salvation, you will be at it for all eternity.

Calvinists deny that God the Son died for all, and Romans seem to deny that He died for all guilt of all sins. Two sides of an inadequate (indeed, heretical?) Christology? A Christ who's death is of finite value? That is not God the Son.

[Clifford Simon]

It's a double-edged sword. The culture at my work has the potential to be so inefficient that I feel like running to church! :-)

The fear of God orders everything - our passions and our accomplishments included. I've wondered how to reconcile "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" with "Perfect love casts out all fear." Is it safe to assume these two "fears" are entirely unrelated?

[labrialumn]

Clifford,
I understand it as the difference between terror and reverence. Both called 'fear' in older English.

[bonobo]

that faith isn't the Roman Catholic view of mere intellectual assent, but a total change of allegiance to Christ

And intellectual assent is sufficient for salvation?

No? Good.

How do you express allegiance, then? I take it you mean really, really assenting and not just RC "intellectual assenting"? How do you do that without engaging in the work of repentance? The work of reforming one's life? The work of charity? The work (most importantly) of perseverance?

[bonobo]

Let's be clear about this. The operation (opus, opere: work) that is required of us is cooperation. Without cooperation none can be saved.

[Aaron W. Calhoun]

When it comes down to it, modern Christians often behave more like the Gnostics of old, believing that somehow "Faith" is a matter entirely of the soul and all "Works" must be a secret striving for merit before God. It seems to me that if one of us were to present this dichotomy to Peter, Paul, or, perhaps most pointedly, James, they would likely say ask what we were talking in puzzled tones before wandering off in bewilderment. Faith is not just an internal assent, but rather a transformative grip that holds onto Christ as Savior and Lord and then seeks to make that truth real through the actions of life. There is no "merit" in that kind of work except the honesty to act on what we know. Sometimes I feel that this is what gets glossed over when the sacraments are marginalized (as they often are in the broad evangelical circles that I call my home base). After all, in the first century Baptism was a big burning of the bridges, a statement that I believe in Christ's Resurrection, acknowledge Him as Lord, and am willing to go under water to declare this to the world, bringing my body in line with my heart. Perhaps Rich Mullins addressed this issue best when he sang..

"Faith without works, It's like a song you can't sing. It's about as useless as a screen door on a submarine."

[e4unity]

Dear Friend Steve-

"Believers who live in the fear of God, and who, according to his command, strive to make their vocations and election sure, will be people of accomplishment-"

I see you are still accomplishing what you are so good at- straight talk aimed at the heart of our unbelief; provoking assorted responses from those who recognize the "mind of the Maker" and those who aren't quite sure. Well the word of the Word found its mark in this sinner, and I found one more motive for repentance at this season of "Great Lent". Thank you once more for your covenant faithfulness!

[smh]

Frankly, Beth, It takes all the faith, hope, and charity I can muster to resist notion that God has made the Church a kind of trap designed to attract the people he intends to condemn. The deepest crises of my faith have come not in encounter with the evil outside the Church, but the good without and the evil within. Our faith involves an intimate encounter with the good, the true, and the beautiful, and we like to speak about how it comes to infuse the church and its members, but the other side of this is how unspeakably shabby we look in this Light.

To Wordlover: The ideas upon which I write here arise from the inward parts as germinal wholes. While they are certainly lurking (and developing) in the deeper folds of the mind, I normally don't go looking for them; they simply rise at a certain early stage of ripeness. I then struggle to gestate and deliver them. Because they are my children, I am interested in them, and give what I can of myself. As my mind matures I find this is becoming not necessarily easier, but more natural. I can say more in fewer words, have become more adept at the appositive interplay of words and ideas, and am generally more pleased with the product than I was with earlier work. But as with wines and cheeses and singers, the time comes when what has become richer and more complex with age simply begins to decay. Some of our readers no doubt think I have been at that stage for some time, and like my younger daughter, like me best as a hesychast.

[bonobo]

Romans seem to deny that He died for all guilt of all sins

Omigod. I thought you were making some obscure reference to Paul's Letter. Are you for real?

So one may say: "this sin that I am about to commit cannot be imputed to me, because it has already been absolved?". Praise Jesus!

Why, then, for example, were the apostles commanded that they could retain sin (cf. Jn 20:23)?

[David Gray]

>Calvinists deny that God the Son died for all

Calvin taught that Christ's death was sufficient for all and efficient for the elect...

[labrialumn]

Bonobo, I answered your questions in my original post, before you ever asked them. Go back and read it.

Paul wasn't writing in Latin. "works of the law" is a technical term referring to the 'sacramentals' of 2nd Temple Judaism. Works in the NT ought not to be confused with Platonic, neo-Platonic, or Aristotelian thinking.

Aaron, you have understood what I meant by faith as opposed to what the Roman Catholic Church in Trent thought it meant, and rightly condemned what it -thought- it meant.

Bonobo, you misunderstood me again. Inverse to what I wrote, in fact.

David, Calvin-ists- as I wrote, believe in Limited Atonement - Christ's death was only for the some, not the pantwn anthropwn kai pantwn kosmwn. And very specifically that Christ could not have died for the reprobate or 'passed over' (depending if you are supralapsarian or infralapsarian) because that would have wasted His suffering. I have heard that some think that Calvin was only a 4 point Calvinist, and that seems to fit what you are writing.

[bonobo]

Calvin taught that Christ's death was sufficient for all and efficient for the elect...

I never realized Calvin was that full of crap.

Labrialumn, your waffle about allegiance as opposed to what you mischaracterize as "intellectual assent" is no answer whatsoever. If you can, define your special brand of allegiance(TM) in a way that doesn't make reference to the work of cooperation with grace.

Cooperation with grace implies the work of repentance, charity and perseverance. If you have absolute security of salvation without these things, allegiance is just another empty attempt at doctrinal innovation, just like Calvin's nonsense above.

[David Gray]

>I never realized Calvin was that full of crap.

It just looks that way from where you exist, immersed as you are...

[bonobo]

David, I'm sure that that answer was sufficient for all, but efficient only for those willing to believe such nonsense.

You are thereby relieved, just like Calvin's God, of any requirement to justify such arbitrary behavior. Long live the elect, whoever they are!

[bonobo]

Paul wasn't writing in Latin.

Get away. Really? I guess it was St. Augustine's lack of Greek that enabled him to read St. Paul and still say things like:

"God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us."

Perhaps he was a congenital idiot like you seem to assume your interlocutors are.

Any more useful comments to make on allegiance?

[David Gray]

>Perhaps he was a congenital idiot like you seem to assume your interlocutors are.

I think we can have sympathy for such an assumption in one case...

[bonobo]

David, I'd rather see you disengage from that nonsense of Calvin's than trade insults with you. If I were to trade insults with you, I'd reply (as you have done) to the effect that you are in crap and a congenital idiot.

It's a rather different thing to accuse someone of considering others to be idiots. Is the distinction lost on you? Perhaps only sufficiently lost, rather than efficiently.

I quoted St. Augustine. To reply in kind, you'd have to say Augustine was writing nonsense, not descend to personal abuse of your interlocutor. By all means do so. Many people would maintain the charge of writing nonsense is more appropriate to Calvin.