The Drunk and the Hypocrite

I've played music in churches and bars all my life. In many ways, these two gatherings are very similar. Both sets of “regulars” are looking for meaning, carrying out a ritual of sorts—hoping to find purpose, something that makes sense of the pain.

At first glance, it might seem the Church is a better place to look for hope than the bottom of a bottle. Every day, alcoholism and drug abuse destroy families, ruin careers and wreck communities. On the other hand, theological beliefs and misunderstandings have been blamed for divisions, divorces and wars around the world. The trouble with each institution lies within us. True, alcohol feeds a different fire than pietism, but neither a drunk nor a hypocrite look very good in the daylight.

We carry our problems into the church the same way we carry them into a bar—they just react differently in each location. Unfortunately, the sins that exist within the walls of the Church are harder to spot.

Pride, for example, can hide incredibly well in the religious community. I rarely hear the words “I don’t know” uttered at church. And yet the triune Creator of time and space will always be wrapped in mystery and holiness. Why not start in the seat of humility? Surely all of us have gotten a few things wrong in our attempts at Christianity.

Isn’t it pride that causes divisions among us? When we begin to slander other believers in the name of God, we know we’ve gotten off course. Did our Master’s words fall on deaf ears? “Love each other as I have loved you.” “Let them be one, Father, even as we are one.” These are not optional thoughts on how things could be done, but rather prerequisites for entrance into Kingdom of Heaven life. Unity is serious business. The Church is called to be one even as the triune God is one. The comprehensive salvation of our planet is built on the final unity of the Church and her God: the bride and her Savior.

Unfortunately, unity within the ecclesial community is the exception, not the rule. It’s to our shame many folks looking for hope find more grace at the local bar than the local church. When we speak with a fire and anger that burns differently than the fresh air of the cross, we do the Gospel a disservice. We know deep down something is wrong. So we revolt against those fiery speeches. We say the method needs to change. We call the old model irrelevant. And yes! The fresh winds of the Spirit are ready to blow upon us, let us pray for new tongues of the same eternal flame.

And yet if I speak with the tongues of angels and of men but have not love, it profits me nothing. If I rise up against the cheesy Christian T-shirts but have not love, it helps no one. If I hate the legalistic hatred but have not love, it builds nothing. Has the enemy tricked us into a new form of legalism? Is not our judgment committing the same offense? Ah, we may have found a way, but it is not love.

Walking the line between the clubs and the Church, I’ve been misunderstood by both sides. I’m sure you’ve felt the same thing: people throw rocks at the things they don’t understand. But it hurts worst when it comes from well-intending brothers and sisters, the folks who are purportedly filled with the love of Christ. Our knee-jerk response is to retaliate, to fight back. And the cycle begins again. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. God will take care of the speck in my neighbor’s eye. The more faith I have in Him and His strong voice, the less I have to yell. The more faith I have in Him, the freer my hands become to serve those around me.

Washing feet is not extra credit. We are called to bear each other’s burdens. Unity is a miraculous achievement, but it’s intended for this side of the grave. Unity is the transforming work of the power of the cross in our lives. In the dark, blood-stained shadow of the cross, our boasting is laughable. Our differences are minute. Take another look at the cross. Look at how much He loves you. Look at His surrender, His sacrifice. Unity comes into focus only when we realize the magnificent grace of the Savior.

Let us acknowledge our neediness, our beautiful desperation. Yes, our unanswerable, aching, longing poverty is a prerequisite for the balm of salvation. We, the people—the failures, the losers, the outsiders—we have found our King. Christ, the King of the fools; the Lord of the sick, broken souls like us. Let us remain in continual awe of the love we have been shown. And let us love! Let us celebrate the reckless love of the one who risked all that we might be loved. And let us follow in the path of a God who loves us. The tax collectors and the rabbis. The prostitutes and the Sadducees. In the bars and in the churches. Yes, God even loves Christians.

- Jon Foreman

Jon Foreman is the co-founder and lead singer of the band Switchfoot and lead singer of Fiction Family. You can follow him on Twitter @jonforeman. This article originally appeared in RELEVANT.

Belief Versus Practice

Jeremiah 31:31-34:  

"The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the Lord', for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."

Jesus tells a story about a man who had two sons.  He said to the eldest, "Go into the vineyard and work today," and the son said, "No, I will not," but later he thought better of it and went.  The same father went to his other son and told him to go work in the vineyard and that son said the right thing, he said, "I will do it," but he never did.  In any contest between what you say you will do and what you actually do, all that really matters is what you do.

That's a problem for many religious folk today.  We have, for centuries, had a very profound and strong notion of orthodoxy, of believing the right things.  And we believe those things with such vigor that there are times when Catholics have said that Protestants are not Christians and Protestants often say that Catholics aren't Christians and there are even small, self-congratulatory groups of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Christ, the Church of God, and some Baptists who are convinced that they are, in fact, the only ones who are Christians and that will make it to Heaven.

Gandhi once said that "A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion."  The Christian religion, as it is based on the teachings of Jesus, is a religion of radical compassion, of great personal sacrifice in order to change the world, fighting against injustice and working for peace and mercy.  The religion that has evolved, especially in America, is a religion of beliefs intended to magically get your soul into heaven and is in your head only, it is no religion at all.  You need look no further than those around us that wan't to mandate our laws to mirror their orthodoxy and require everyone to live according to their spiritual morals while they share no religion of sacrifice, compassion, peace, mercy, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or fighting for true justice.

The crucial difference between Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy is the difference between having right Christian beliefs (Orthodoxy) and have a right Christian practice, or life (Orthopraxy).  The Christian religion started out as a religion of orthopraxy, a way of life based on radical compassion, a religion primarily practiced among the poor.

Many religious historians and Theologians, trace the change from orthopraxy to orthodoxy to the time of Emperor Constantine in the 4th century.... Saying that basically, the royal family took over the religion and imposed the creedal form of religion on the entire empire.  In fact, I tend to believe, the teachings of the historical Jesus and the religion of Constantine but the great majority of church folk in our day practice only what looks pretty much like the Constantinian religion.  There is a practice today among the leaders of certain political parties that wrap the flag around the bible then suggest your not a Christian if you do not believe the way they do.  They use this evolved form of Christianity to go to war, justify not helping those that need help the most, discriminate against anyone different, all in the name of God.  This is in total opposition to the message of Christ.

And, to be fair, it isn't like there was one kind of Christianity for 300 years and suddenly there was another kind.  There are things in the letters of Paul and in the gospel of John that push the scale towards orthodoxy and there are lots of things in the synoptic gospels and James that push the scale towards orthopraxy.  However, we know which side of the fence each one of us are on.  But without ever arguing biblical interpretation or the theological debate between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, you don't need a posse and a 30 minute head start to know that the son who went into the vineyard and worked is the one who got it right and the one who said he would but didn't is not the hero of that parable.

The true church, the bride of Christ, the church that will likely survive the next century, is the church that is able to re-strike that balance and become again a church that is relevant because of the way that we live what we say we believe and not because of our set of doctrines, creeds and theology.

There is a passage from the prophet Jeremiah who said that one day we'll stop teaching beliefs because people will actually live their faith.  It isn't a matter of believing the right things, reciting the right creed, repeating the right magical incarnation, following a list of do's and don'ts..... it isn't about saying what you believe it is about being what you believe.

As James said, "Faith without works is dead."