Almost Christian: Living by the Wrong Creed

Bartholomew JoJo “Bart” Simpson is a fictional character from the animated TV series “The Simpsons.”   Time magazine actually named Bart one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.  At ten years old, Bart is the eldest child of Homer and Marge Simpson.  Bart’s most prominent character traits are his mischievousness, rebelliousness and disrespect for authority.  In fact Bart’s name is an anagram of the word brat.  Bart Simpson is the ultimate ten year old brat.  He was created by cartoonist Matt Groening.  Groening received complaints from parents whose children watched The Simpsons and then acted like Bart. The parents said that Bart was a terrible role model.  Groening once responded in this way: “I now have a 7-year-old boy and a 9-year-old boy, so all I can say is, I apologize. Now I know what you guys were talking about.”

There are some people we just do not want to be like.  Bart Simpson is one of them.  Parents complained because they didn’t want their kids to become like Bart.  He’s just one of those rebellious and disrespectful people you don’t want to be like.

But Bart is not alone.  There are even religious people we do not want to be like.  Todd Hertz reviews films for Christianity Today, a popular evangelical magazine.  Hertz recently looked at how preachers are portrayed in films.  He found five portraits of clergy in the movies.[1] Only one was positive.  The other four were negative.  Here they are:

1. “Lapsed” Preachers.  These are former ministers whose faith has lapsed.  They include the ministers in “The Apostle,” “Signs” and “Contact.”
2. “Corrupt” Preachers.  These include predatory priests like Father Flynn in “Doubt”; huckster profiteers like those in “Leap of Faith”; and those too self-interested to do the right thing such as the minister in “The Da Vinci Code.”
3. “Likable, but…” Preachers.  These are ministers who are nice but seem to stand for nothing. They include Robin Williams in “License to Wed,” Rev. Lovejoy in “The Simpsons,” and Father Mulkahy from “M*A*S*H.”
4. “Stuck-in-the-Mud” Preachers.  These are right-wing preachers opposed to change.  They include John Lithgow in “Footloose” and Hugh Grant in “Sirens.”

The movies are filled with religious people we don’t want to be like.

We find a similar group of people in 2 Timothy 3.  Paul describes people who are lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. (2 Tim. 3:2-5 ESV).  Paul is writing to a young apprentice named Timothy.  And here he warns Timothy that there are certain people, even within Christianity, whom you do not want to be like.  They may have the appearance of godliness, but they are lovers of self, arrogant, and ungrateful.  Paul warns Timothy about these people.  He does not want Timothy to become like them.

But a few verses later Paul points Timothy towards a different kind of person, the kind he should become like: ¹⁰ You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, ¹¹my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. ¹²Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted… (2 Tim. 3:10-12 ESV).  What a contrast!  Paul describes people who are lovers of self, arrogant, and ungrateful.  Then he describes someone who is faithful, patient, loving, and steadfast.  Paul holds himself up as someone Timothy can emulate.^[2] Paul points to several elements in his life worthy of imitating: his conduct, his aim in life, and the way he stood for what was right in spite of persecution.  There are some people we do want to be like. And Paul was one of them.  In chapter 3 of 2 Timothy Paul is contrasting two kinds of people: those we want to be like and those we do not want to be like.

We find a comparable contrast in a recent study.  The National Study of Youth and Religion (conducted from 2002 to 2005) was the most ambitious study of American teenagers and religion ever conducted.  It involved extensive interviews of more than 3,300 teenagers.[3] Here are three important findings from the study:

1. Most American teenagers have a positive view of religion but otherwise don’t give it much thought.[4]
2. A minority of American teenagers say religious faith is important, and that it makes a difference in their lives.[5] One in twelve (8%) can be described as “highly devoted.”[6] These highly devoted teenagers are much more compassionate, significantly more likely to say they care about things like racial equality and justice, far less likely to be moral relativists, to lie, cheat, or do things “they hoped their parents would never find out about.”[7]
3. Many teenagers espouse a religious outlook that is distinct from the traditional teachings of most world religions—an outlook called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.[8]

I want to focus on this second finding.  This study found that there are many young people we don’t want to be like.  Faith isn’t very important to them and it doesn’t play a significant role in their lives.  But there are a handful of young people we would like to imitate.  They are the 8% called “highly devoted.”  These teens are compassionate.  They care about racial equality and justice.  And they are far less likely to lie, cheat, or do things they wouldn’t want their parents to know about.  They have a faith that makes a difference in their daily lives.  This national study found that 8% of teenagers have a faith and a life that most of us would probably like to have.

But the question is, How do we get what those teens have?  Researchers behind the National Study of Youth and Religion asked this very question.  Specifically, they asked “What made it possible for some teens to be part of that 8%?  What empowered those teens to have a faith that mattered?  Researchers found that there were four things that set these teens apart.  In her book Almost Christian researcher Kenda Creasy Dean writes about them.  In this Sunday morning series we’re going to explore these four things.  Kenda Dean will give us the sociology.  Paul and I will give us the theology from 2 Timothy.  These four critical issues can be summarized in four words: creed, calling, community, and confidence.  There is a certain group of teenagers in this country with a faith worth imitating.  How do we become like them?  The researchers say it comes down to these four things: creed, calling, community and confidence.  This morning, we look at creed.

One of the primary things researchers found in these teenagers is summarized by the word “creed.”  By creed, the researchers mean that highly devoted teenagers believed deeply and strongly in the story of God found in Scripture.[9] To these teenagers, Scripture was not something they could take or leave.  Scripture, and what it said about God and life, was fundamental to their identity.  Scripture provided the narrative for their life. These teens found in the Bible a story worth living and dying for.

That simple element is what Paul points Timothy to in 2 Timothy 3 and 4.  In these chapters, Paul describes people we do not want to be like and people we do want to be like.  What made the difference between the two?  Paul says it has everything to do with creed.

Do you remember the first group of people Paul pointed to in chapter 3: those who loved themselves and were arrogant and ungrateful?  Here’s how Paul describes them in chapter 4:

³ For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, ⁴and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Tim. 4:3-4 ESV).  What led these people to become lovers of self and arrogant and ungrateful?  It had to do with their creed.  They were the kind of people for whom Scripture meant nothing.  The phrase “itching ears” literally means “having their ears tickled,” as if what they heard merely scratched their eardrums without penetrating further.^[10] Paul is describing people who were listening to Scripture but it never went any farther than their eardrums.  Eventually, Paul writes, they “turn away from listening to the truth.”  The implication is that by turning away from Scripture, these people transform into the kind of people we do not want to be like.  These people became the horrible people they were because they did not value and embrace the story of God in Scripture.

Paul, by contrast, became worthy of imitation because of his stance toward Scripture:

¹⁰ You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, ¹¹my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. ¹²Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted… (2 Tim. 3:10-12 ESV).  The first thing Paul mentions about his life is his teaching—meaning his teaching of Scripture.  He puts it first in this list because everything else flowed from it.^[11] He was patient, loving, steadfast and willing to endure suffering because of his commitment to the story of Scripture, a commitment he expressed in his teaching.^[12] Paul became the wonderful person he was because he embraced the story of God in Scripture.

Paul makes this clear later:

¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it ¹⁵and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:14-17 ESV).  Paul reminds Timothy that he was brought up on Scripture.  Timothy was raised on the story of the Bible.  Paul urges him to continue to live out what he’s learned from Scripture.  Paul then reminds Timothy that Scripture is “breathed out by God.”  That phrase stresses the divine origin of Scripture.^[13] And because Scripture comes from God, it is profitable: profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.  Scripture, Paul writes, will thoroughly equip Timothy, and any person, for every good work.

All this emphasis on Scripture is tied back to the contrast Paul paints between people like him and people like those at the beginning of our text.  What makes the difference between the two is their attitude toward Scripture.  What makes the difference between the person we’d like to be and the person we’d like not to be is radical commitment to the creed of Scripture.

That’s one of four things which led those 8% of teens to experience a life-changing faith.  They became compassionate, interested in justice, and full of integrity because they embraced the story of God found in Scripture.  They loved Scripture.  They ate and drank Scripture.

And if we want to experience that same kind of life-changing and real faith, it begins with a love of Scripture.  But there are some wrong ways of dealing with Scripture that will not lead to a life-changing faith.  In his book The Blue Parakeet Scot McKnight writes about the ineffective ways that Christians often approach Scripture.[14] Many readers of Scripture, rather than reading the Bible as story, take one of five shortcuts:

• First, some read the Bible as a collection of “morsels of law.”  We are only interested in the rules, commands, and directions for living which are found in Scripture.
• Second, some read the Bible as a collection of “morsels of blessings and promises.”  We only pay attention to the comforting blessings found in the Bible or the inspiring promises spoken in the Bible.
• Third, some read the Bible as “mirrors and inkblots.”  We only see in the Bible what we want to see.  Rather than being swept up into the Bible’s story, we sweep the Bible into our story.  Jesus looks just like us.  Paul’s writings support our political views.  And so on.
• Fourth, some read the Bible as “pieces to map God’s mind.”  The Bible is a big puzzle.  We decide what the puzzle looks like and we fit all the pieces to that image.  When we come upon a piece that doesn’t seem to fit our puzzle pattern, we force the piece in or we throw it away.
• Fifth, some read the Bible through the eyes of their favorite “maestro.”  That is, we tend to only read what Paul said or only read what Jesus said.  And we don’t take in the whole story of the Bible and listen to every author in the Bible.

What’s needed is an appreciation of the whole grand story of the Bible.  What’s needed is an approach to the Bible that treats it as one adventurous and epic tale about God and us.  When we immerse ourselves into that story, that’s when our lives are transformed and we find a faith that matters.

“Walk the Line” is a movie about country music legend Johnny Cash.[15] It begins with his days on an Arkansas cotton farm.  Early in the movie, a young Johnny lies in bed next to his older brother, Jack.  Jack is reading the Bible.  “Jack,” says Johnny. “Why are you so good?”  “I ain’t,” Jack replies.  “You pick five times more [cotton] than me,” says Johnny.  “Well, I’m bigger than you are,” replies Jack. “You know every story in Scripture,” says Johnny.  “Look J.R.,” answers Jack, “if I’m gonna be a preacher one day, I’ve gotta know the Bible from front to back. I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell ’em the right story.”  If you want to help others, and yourself, you’ve got to know the right story.  That’s what Paul is saying.  That’s what this research is saying.  If you want to become a good person, if you want to live life at its best, you’ve got to know, internalize, and live out the story of Scripture.

Speaking at a conference in London in 2008, Desmond Tutu made this remark:[16] “There’s nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible. If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible.”  In other words, if you want a better world, if you want better people, if you want a better you, it starts by placing a Bible in your hand.  That’s part of what led 8% of teenagers in this country to become highly devoted.  That’s what made Paul the man he was.  That’s what would transform Timothy into a godly young man.  It begins by being completely sold out to the freeing story found in the Bible.

Ruth Ann Hume recently presented this monologue about the Bible at her congregation:[17]There exists a story that predates your first breath.  A story so vast that it does not even cease with your death.  A story that withstands the greatest of days and the darkest of nights.  A story without parameters, without measure, of breadth or width or height.  A story, a word, the Word, who painted out the diamond flecked heavens, and the luscious earth, with nothing but words.  Who formed the breathing, bleeding, walking, talking, feeling, dreaming human race with nothing but breath.  And he called them to take his story, to take his words, and run fast and strong…And to the next generation pass the baton on.  From Abel to Noah to Moses to Abraham, Joseph, and Isaiah, to David and Samuel and Hosea, to Daniel, Joshua, and Jeremiah, to John the Baptist, Peter, James, to Mary and John, all passing on the baton.  Declaring one story.  All for one.  And one for all.  And the baton is now passed to you.  With pens dripping fresh ink and pages new.  Your voice matters.  Your steps count.  Whether you are 14 or 74.  So write like it’s your very last page.  Run like you’ve never run before.  Because the earth is groaning, the world is plunging into a darkness as black as night.  With recession and terrorism and natural disaster and endless successions of tragedy and plight.  But another way is possible.  One way of life, of hope and peace.  And we run to pass that baton on.  We run to finish that race.  And you may feel like a drop in the ocean of the Billy Grahams, the Mother Teresas, the Moodys, the Spurgeons, the Luther Kings, but to one parched tongue, your drop is an oasis, to one unquenched thirst, your drop is a spring.  That’s the story of God and of us in Scripture.  Learning, loving, and living that story is the key to everything else in life.  Check out the recommendations in the Link today for help in doing just that.

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[1] http://ht.ly/4S8Rs.

^[2] Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (2341). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

[3] Kenda Creasy Dean Almost Christian (Oxford, 2010), Kindle edition: 317.

[4] Dean, 330.

[5] Dean, 371.

[6] Dean, 374.

[7] Dean, 785.

[8] Dean, 398.

[9] Dean, 411, 748.

^[10] Guthrie, D. (1990). Vol. 14: Pastoral Epistles: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (186). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

^[11] Guthrie, D. (1990). Vol. 14: Pastoral Epistles: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (178–179). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

^[12] Guthrie, D. (1990). Vol. 14: Pastoral Epistles: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (179). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

^[13] Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (2342). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

[14] Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet (Zondervan, 2008).

[15] Walk The Line (20th Century Fox, 2005), directed by James Mangold.

[16] Desmond Tutu, speaking at London’s Jesus House for All Nations Church, in the “Who Is My Neighbor” conference, (9-6-08).

[17] http://www.gpastures.co.uk/browse-media/the-baton.html