Jesus saw that religious people in his day were, literally, “passing by” loving God in favor of other destinations that brought great harm to others (Lk. 11:42). It’s easy to see the same happening today.
Bob, not his real name, is one of the most spiritual and ethical people I know. He’s written transformative books and served effectively in churches. Recently I asked him if he had found a church home (he’d just moved). His answer surprised me: “Chris, I’ve given up on churches.” He explained that he’d seen too many evangelical Christians prioritize the election of candidates he believed to be dangerous to the disenfranchised. He’d watched too many evangelical churches exclude the very people they were called to embrace.
I thought of that conversation as I read an op-ed by Andre Henry [When Christians won’t acknowledge racism, protest becomes church ]. Henry is program manager for the Racial Justice Institute. He shared how, as he trained for the pastorate, he began to speak out against racial injustice. He was labeled hateful and heretical. One prominent church leader told him, “Racism is not a priority to God.” He heard things like this so often that he walked away from church. Church, he wrote, had become “weaponized.” Protests against the murders of black people like George Floyd have become his church.
Historian Kenneth Davis provides this diagnosis: [American’s True History of Religious Tolerance ]
From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever”—including the “heathen” natives already here.
Religious people wielding faith as a force to be used for their own power and position didn’t just happen in Jesus’ day. It happened and is happening in our day. There are many who, like the Pharisees targeted by Jesus, “pass by” loving God in favor of other purposes for their piety.
John Ortberg, in Eternity is Now in Session, writes about one of those alternative destinations. I’ll summarize in my own words: some believers today overemphasize the paradise of God. Their sole focus is on the paradise awaiting faithful followers in the hereafter. This was the destination portrayed in Paul Bunyan’s 17th century Pilgrim’s Progress. He wrote of Christianity as the journey of a man named “Christian” to “Celestial City” or heaven. That is, the sum of the faith is to make it to heaven. As a result, what matters most are “boundary practices” that confirm our reservation in heaven: baptism, confession, tithing, church attendance, etc. What matters less are practices that equip us for long-term loving here on earth. In “On the Grand Canyon Bus,” Philip Yancey writes that this version of Christianity results in disciples who are tourists taking a bus across the country to see the Grand Canyon. As they pass the golden wheat fields of Kansas and the grand mountains of Colorado, they see none of it, because they’ve lowered the blinds on their windows:
“Intent on the ultimate destination, they never even bother to look outside. As a result, they spend their time arguing over such matters as who has the best seat and who’s taking too much time in the bathroom.”
They become so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. It grows out of a white Western theology which sees personal sin as the sole focus and eternal salvation as the sole goal. In truth, the Bible is just as concerned with social and systemic sin and social and systemic salvation. The here and now matter as much to God as the hereafter.
James K. A. Smith, in You Are What You Love, describes a second alternative destination which drives churches and Christians today. I’ll summarize in my own words: many disciples of Jesus today focus exclusively on the precepts of God. The goal is to fill our minds with the right doctrine, dogma and theology. This produces what Smith calls “brains on sticks”–people who boast the most orthodox creeds but whose hearts are not engaged in devotion to God or compassion for neighbors. Biblical faith, he challenges, is about who you love, not simply about what you believe.
A third alternative destination chosen by many today was described in the 12th century. In his book On the Love of God, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote of “degrees” of love. He noted that there’s “love of God for self’s sake” and “love of God for God’s sake.” The sad truth is that many still love God only for self’s sake. We might call this destination the profit of God. Some love God in a way that profits them. They’ve found ways to use faith to suppress others, dehumanize others, and to legitimize their own pursuit of health and wealth at the expense of others. Jemar Tisby, in his book The Color of Compromise, shows how this very thing has played out around racial injustice. The white church in America has prioritized the profit that comes from a self-serving love of God, practicing a faith that keeps them in power and subjugates people of color.
But the route of our religion is not intended to focus primarily on the profit of God, the precepts of God or even merely the paradise of God. It is, at its best and most faithful, intended to arrive at the person of God. Loving God, with heart, soul, mind and strength is the true terminus of faith. Devotion, dedication, passion and affection for the person of God is what we aim for. The neglect of a faith focused on loving God has contributed massively to the wounding of the world around us. And the recovery of a faith focused on loving God will contribute meaningfully to the healing of the world around us.
