Willard Wednesdays

The Divine Conspiracy: Chapter 2 Gospels of Sin Management (pp.35-40)

A bumper sticker that reads "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" may hope to convey a message about the undeserving grace of God, but in fact, communicates to many that Christianity is primarily about receiving a forgiveness pass for life after death with no real power or significance for our real, everyday life on earth now.  This idea is backed up by the high percentages of people who identify as Christians but whose lives and actions look no different than those who do not.  

Willard likens this belief system to a bar code scanner.  It doesn't actually matter what product you have in your hands, the scanner will respond only to the bar code on the label.  If there's an ice cream sticker on the dog food, the dog food is ice cream as far as the scanner knows.  Bar code faith means that "being a Christian has nothing to do with the kind of person you are."  "Life now being lived has no necessary connection with being a Christian as long as the 'bar code' does its job."  

Willard asks a list of questions to ponder regarding this kind of belief system...

"Can we seriously believe that God would establish a plan for us that essentially bypasses the awesome needs of present human life and leaves human character untouched?  Would he leave us even temporarily marooned with no help in our kind of world, with our kinds of problems: psychological, emotional, social, and global?  Can we believe that the essence of Christian faith and salvation covers nothing but death and after?  Can we believe that being saved really has nothing whatever to do with the kinds of persons we are?  Have we somehow developed an understanding of 'commitment to Jesus Christ' that does not break through to his living presence in our lives?  Are we to suppose that God gives us nothing that really influences character and spirituality?  Are we to suppose that in fact Jesus has no substantial impact on our 'real lives'?"

"A leading pastor laments, 'Why is today's church so weak?  Why are we able to claim many conversions and enroll many church members but have less and less impact on our culture?  Why are Christians indistinguishable from the world?'  

Should we not at least consider the possibility that this poor result is not in spite of what we teach and how we teach it, but precisely because of it?  Might that not lead to our discerning why the power of Jesus and his gospel has been cut off from ordinary human existence, leaving it adrift from the flow of his eternal kind of life?"