A Hard Row to Hoe

For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:  “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.  Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.” — Jeremiah 4:3-4

The old-timers had a phrase that puzzled me as they spoke of "heart-felt religion".  On Sundays in church, the preacher would ask, so it seemed to me, if we believed in Jesus.  The historical reality of Jesus as a human is not debatable.  The same kinds of records attesting to the reality of most historical figures confirm that Jesus lived and walked the earth of Galilee and Judea during the first 30 years or so of the First Century.  Both the New Testament and documents from observers of the times such as Josephus agree that Jesus of Nazareth is not some cultish composite but a man with that name, lineage, and reputation.  You either believe that or you don't.  The other issue is whether one believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, as He appears in the Gospels to claim, or if He was merely an enlightened teacher who got caught up in a political struggle.  There are, again, ample reasons to believe that He was the Son of God, for otherwise, based on His claims as recorded, as Lewis has so deftly explained, we are forced to believe He was a mad man or an evil and deceptive charlatan.  It is possible to dispute the New Testament accounts, of course, but one is subsequently left wondering how a dozen ignorant peasants in a backwater province started the Church.

Intellectual belief was not hard for me, but the "heart-felt" part left me baffled.  I believed what was written in Scripture, but the call seemed to be demanding something else, something that would transform me into another person.  Agreeing with a confession of faith is good, but it's just like signing a contract.  Anybody can do that and adhere to the restrictions or requirements.  So I thought.  If I had been brought up in a more orthodox tradition, either Catholicism or Orthodoxy, I would have been baptized into the Church.  Eventually I would have been offered full communion via an initiation — a somewhat more mystical path.  But the Protestant tradition rejects this idea and calls upon those who can be accountable and responsible for themselves to, as individuals, enter into communion by a public confession, of which baptism is a part.  The closest a protestant comes to mysticism is the going under and coming up out of the water a new creation. 

Everyone generally agrees that being a Christian is more than mental acknowledgement of some fact — as James says, "Even the demons believe — and shudder."  Jesus Himself speaks of being born again or born from above then says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 

In another place, explaining the heart of the Law and what is pleasing to God, Jesus replied, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)  One of our favorite quotations is Micah 6:8, He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Love is not a mental assent but, we often say, an emotion, a feeling, or, to use Jonathan Edwards term, an affection.  We are to love the Lord, not merely follow His decrees.  Neither is doing kind or merciful things sufficient, but we are required to "love" mercy.   So, too, humility is not a mental state, but a state of the heart, as we might put it.  Holy affections are as necessary for our walk with God as our adherence to correct doctrine or our obedience.  In fact, obedience without love is nothing.  Does Jesus not say that many who call Him 'Lord' are unknown to Him?  My wife might be happy that I buy her flowers, but if I were to tell her that I only did it because it was the right thing to do and that I really could care less about her one way or the other, she would be much less impressed.

When we talk about feelings, a lot of us think of bodily responses to emotions.  Fear might cause us to sweat profusely.  Embarrassment causes the blood vessels in our faces to dilate.  Anger might cause our muscles to tense up.  Somatic reactions to emotions are not the emotions themselves.  We may cry when we are sad, but sometimes we don't.  We can be so stricken with grief that tears, if they come at all, will appear only after the shock of a sorrow has worn off.  I always said that aside from embarrassment and anger, I didn't have much range in my emotional responses.  It would be unwise, then, to base an assessment of anyone's affections on their emotional response. 

This was the reason Edwards wrote Religious Affections.  During the Great Awakening revivals that began, more or less, as a result of Edwards' preaching, there were often emotional manifestations, not unlike those that used to be seen frequently in "holy roller" meetings.  In the 1990s, in the so-called "Toronto Revival" at the Airport Vineyard Church, people had bizarre experiences, often "laughing in the Spirit".   Similar things occurred in the "Pensacola Revival" and in Steve Gray's church at Smithton, Missouri.  People flocked to these meetings, especially those with Pentecostal and Charismatic backgrounds, many of them ministers, in order "experience" revival.

In my opinion, most of it was and is a form of mass hysteria or pretense.  There are true holy affections that are part of a genuine conversion to Christian faith.  People may tremble.  They may sob.  They may faint.  They might become incoherent or experience glossolalia.  They may even laugh.  They may feel like dancing or running.  But in the end, as Paul says, the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet.   Outbursts that are disruptive or distracting can be held in check.   I went to a few meetings — once intentionally and a few other times inadvertently — where this kind of behavior was exhibited.  I don't know that some people were not positively motivated by this manifestations.  I know a few people that were involved that I trust and respect who seemed to benefit from them.  I still think they were victims of a form of mob psychology, but it didn't hurt them. 

It did hurt me.  What I saw was the pretense, disgraceful displays of fleshly excess, willful stupidity masquerading as piety, arrogance, and foolishness.  I closed myself off to all of it when what I should have done was weep for the idiots and the suckers being pulled into it — even for the fools perpetrating their theater of the absurd.  Prior wounds in churches may have made me more defensive and less understanding.  The whoring after attention and self-promotion sickened me — which would have been fine.  What was not fine was that I hardened my heart against all things related to church and Christianity.  I mocked and ridiculed and unleashed my natural cynic. A hardened heart, like trampled ground, is unfruitful no matter how fertile the underlying soil might be.  My life became barren, and I became indifferent to everything that mattered. 

I cannot by an effort of will turn indifference into love.  I can, however, plow under the hard ground of my heart, through prayer and meditating on Scripture and focusing on the Cross.   A merciful God can then cause me to shed that indifference, to love what He loves and to hate what He hates.  Vulnerability means we get hurt easily, but it also allows us to be sensitive to what God is saying and doing, to be more susceptible to conviction, less hardened to the sinful and the vulgar.  The loss of vulnerability caused me to harbor attitudes and to build strongholds around thoughts that would before have been swept away  by an inflow of the Holy Spirit.  A lot of the time for the last several years, I have been no fun to be around.  I hope that is starting to change. 

I didn't realize I was turning this into a confession, but, since I have, I might as well add one more thing.  I think I started this blog about four years ago, and, over that time, because of those who visit me here, reading and commenting, I have been able open up and to shed some of my cynicism and lower my shields a little.  In the Book of Acts, you will read a lot about a man named Barnabas.  He was a Levite whose given name was Joseph, but he was such an encouragement to the believers that the Apostles called him Barnabas — the son of encouragement.  So consider yourself Barnabas.  Thanks.