Getting the Gospel Right and Then Some

When the Church Goes Her Specious Way

From the late Vaclav Havel (written in 1978): “Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves. It is a very pragmatic but, at the same time, an apparently dignified way of legitimizing what is above, below, and on either side. It is directed toward people and toward God. It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo. It is an excuse that everyone can use, from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interest in staying in power can be cloaked in phrases about service to the working class. The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe. . . ”

This quote, relayed by OPC Pastor Roger Wagner just after Havel’s recent death, stirs. Below, I do not discount the importance of a Christian’s understanding of Havel’s societal and political assessments—his fine assessments and comments I will add, but I pitch a point or two with respect to ideology as a specious way of relating to the church. The church, too, sports herself all things political. The traditionally reformed, confessional church must be aware of how she can situate herself in the grip of the deception per Havel's commentary.

Let’s do some work.

First, church history shows us that ideology is spelled g-n-o-s-t-i-c-i-s-m.

Wrongly, faith and life so often for the church get dignified by what is “above, below and on either side,” as Havel says. Dismiss the body; welcome disciplines of the mind. The church takes her cues about this from the model of many of us reformed preachers, who with a well-intentioned preaching aim, inadvertently reinforce this sad condition. We work at a particular job-well-done-atta boy by tracing out the lines of redemptive history in order to see what points to Christ. When we land the B-2 Stealth Biblical Theology Bomber, we think we can pronounce a hearty benediction and taxi back into the hanger. The mere show of a preacher's technique of the textual weave from Genesis to Revelation to Christ’s person and work reeks with ideology. We imagine the maintenance of a totalitarian reformed status quo. Danger abounds. It’s Christ without Christmas; Christ without skin and community. We legitimize Christianity exactly like those with their political phrases, and we practice veiling earthiness in the clothing of spiritual jargon and a Westminsterian competency. Keep it above and airy. We can preach this way and at the same time reside in the land of deception with respect to the church’s need to stand in the sinner’s place. Illusion “Я” us.

Next, trivialization crickets can chirp around the pulpit. Here’s another supposed power, another ideology; it’s when we preach proof texts as Havel’s “suprapersonal and objective.” Click, click, click—the sound of three-ring binders firing off across the pews where we’re ready to prove, prove, prove our points. We have word study after word study—and more…for note-taking. What can be wrong with proof texting? It’s a “specious way” of preaching. We knock on the door of the enlightenment. As Cal Thomas recently noted, “Evidence, alone, has never moved anyone from unbelief to faith. If proof were enough, all of the unbelieving contemporaries of Jesus (and Moses) would have believed in God because of the miracles they performed…Faith is not based solely on facts. It is a gift from a God…” Congregations do not live by proof texts alone. Proof-texting caters to the supposed supremacy of the intellect. Havel spots us on the dangers of this kind of pulpit ideology—with proof texting we preach categories of thought which makes it “easier… to part with” our identity, dignity and morality. At the corners of Easy Street and Proof-Texting Way, there’s little need for a traffic counter; the streets are bare. No one’s around; there’s no need for person to person accountability. After all, Christianity is largely about getting down gospel facts—getting the gospel right. This is life in Trivialization City.

Last, if the pietistically reformed—I am one of them to the 10th power—do not learn to model the importance and significance of both the Word and the Sacraments by holding proportionately doctrine and life, head and hands, words and water, words and wine, propositions and confessions, then we lead the church into “the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe…” What system? I speak of the attempt to center life alone on reason and abstractions. To do so, leaves us with tending to abstractions without reinforcement for follow-through in daily living. In Havel’s words, the system remains in mid-air ideology. Illusion abounds—believing and speaking one way and living another. Rather than fitting creeds with shoes, we set up ourselves for life in Hypocrisyville. What is it that tethers habits of the mind to earth? Faithful worship. The church, of all institutions, must model earthy, covenantal ritual. Don't we live in a worldview and world-do world? Then let’s work at a greater correspondence between liturgy and life. Worship must be worldly. It must be biblically profane—in your face—consistent with the day to day. Babies are birthed by a woman’s water breaking and by baptismal water. Men praise both pumpkin pie and God’s pardon. Money takes us places in the world and it’s the same for the work of the church. Shepherding a child’s butt happens at home and on that same point of principle, elders express membership care and household discipline in the church. The tool belt of Monday through Saturday spells work, and so does a minister’s garb, sweating with the Book, up-raised hands and his waiting at the Table. Pietism orders off of the heavenly menu of ideology and the body goes starving.

I agree with Havel, ideology has her specious ways. Minding the mind and its maxims never save; when ideology is pulpit-fueled as direction toward people and God, it is fetid. As a preacher I have been rebuked. Lord, deliver me from my trust of the abstractions in this blog post. Amen.

G. Mark Sumpter