Idol Destruction 101 Part 3

There is a way of “[delving] into secret, shadowy regions of the heart” that is helpful.  But there is also a way of “idol mining” that is dangerous and deadly to your soul.  It is this deadly digging that we will look at today.

The Keswick Effect

Keswick (pronounced KEH-zick) theology is a very popular view of Christian sanctification.  If J.I. Packer is correct (and he probably is), unless you belong to a Lutheran or confessionally Reformed fellowship chances are you have been heavily influenced by Keswick theology*. 

Fundamental to Keswick theology is the belief that most believers live their Christian life in defeat.  Keswick desires to turn defeat into victory.  Believers can (indeed should) live Christian lives marked by victory—consecration to the Lord and Spirit-filling.  As a result of this teaching there are two classes of believers: those that are living victoriously and those that are living in defeat. 

What separates victorious believers from defeated believers?  Those who are victorious have surrendered in faith.  They have “Let go, and let God”.  This is what happens when a believer allows Jesus to become Lord in their life.  Previously, he had been Savior but not Lord.  Because the flesh is sinful the only thing for us to do is surrender everything to God.  Our only “effort” is the effort of letting go of our feeble attempts to live the Christian life.  Simultaneous to “giving up” we then trust in the Lord to accomplish our holiness for us. 

Usually all of this takes place at a moment of crisis.  After this moment of crisis (which usually takes place at a weekend or week long renewal) when the believer surrenders and believes then he/she is now has taken a spiritual leap.  He/she now lives the Higher Life (hence the name Higher Life Movement). 

The problem, though, is that we have a tendency to “leak” the Spirit.  And so the Christian life is a constant process of surrendering and believing (letting go and letting God).  Most who adhere to Keswick theology do not believe that you can lose your salvation, but you certainly can slip back into being a carnal Christian.  And as such you surrender your fellowship with God.  If you are not surrendering and believing then you are doing things in the flesh.  As such, you are not living the victorious Christian life in fellowship with God, because as Paul said, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God”. 

When Keswick Meets Idol Mining

What happens, then, when a person who has bought into the Keswick view of sanctification begins idol mining?  Consider these wise words from M. James Sawyer:

Another great problem with Keswick teaching in its various forms is the tendency to morbid introspection. If one’s spiritual relationship to God is dependent upon confession of known sin, and absolute yieldedness, how can one be sure that he has actually confessed all sin. If a sin has been missed somewhere, the individual is still out of fellowship with God and devoid of spiritual power. Thus instead of a relationship with God producing holiness, Keswick demands holiness before communion.

J.I. Packer was rescued out of this muddy mysticism at a young age.  But, according to Packer it almost destroyed him.  Listen to his experience of Keswick theology meeting idol mining:

It didn’t work and that was a deeply frustrating and depressing thing. It made me feel like a pariah, an outsider, and at the age of eighteen that was pretty burdensome. In fact, it was driving me crazy. [p. 169] The reality of its [i.e., Keswick theology’s] passivity program and its announced expectations, plus its insistence that any failure to find complete victory is entirely your fault, makes it very destructive…So all [I] could do was repeatedly reconsecrate [myself], scraping the inside of [my] psyche till it was bruised and sore in order to track down still unyielded things by which the blessing was perhaps being blocked.

Dan Phillips shares a similar experience:

The effect of all this was that I was constantly taking my spiritual pulse, constantly checking within, freezing up, paralyzed, spiraling down into deeper and deeper morbid introspection and depression.  In the name of “looking to Jesus” (revealed in His Word) I was constantly looking to myself, within myself.  (Phillips, The World-Tilting Gospel, 251-52)

The problems with this view of sanctification are multiple and its effects are devastating—especially to believers that may be prone to morbid introspection in the first place.  Another problem is that it hi-jacks an actual helpful and biblical view of sanctification.  What happens when Keswick hijacks idol mining is that the believer is looking for idols to destroy because while they still exist he cannot be in right fellowship with the Lord, he cannot have communion, he cannot have victory.  Idol destruction then becomes a means to a more intimate fellowship with the Lord.  It’s a way to fill in the gaps of our spiritual development.

Idol mining then becomes about me and my quest to surrender more for God, to let God have more control of me, and inevitably to be a better Christian and more acceptable to God.  In essence it hijacks the gospel and the work of Christ.

But who destroys idols in the first place???  That is where we will turn next time.

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*There is more to Keswick than will be dealt with in this brief article.  If you are interested in the topic you are encouraged to check out two helpful articles.  The first is on Wesleyan/Holiness Movement and Keswick Theology from Bible.org.  The next place to look is the work of Andy Naselli.  Andy did his doctoral work on the Keswick movement and he has a good amount of free resources available here: Keswick-Theology, Let Go and Let God?

From the Pen of Newton: Those Other Folks…

Why can’t I seem to get it? 

I look around at other believers and they seem so passionate about Jesus.  They seem to not be marked by my negativity and skepticism.  Holiness seems to come easy to them.  They don’t seem to have the desires that I have or to be privy to the battles like the ones that wage war in my fragile mind.  They seem jovial, cheerful, and together. 

Not me.

I’m broken.  I’m jaded.  My prayer life stinks.  My hope is often dashed.  I constantly proclaim the sufficiency of the gospel but I have a hard time living in it myself.  Even this little tirade is dark, morbid, and skeptical. 

Why can’t I be like those other guys?  Why do I struggle as I do? Why can’t I seem to conquer this junk, this heart that is prone to negativity? 

These other believers are amazing!  They have such a tremendous relationship with the Lord and never seem to struggle as I do.  They always seem to be in a happy and blessed frame.

To such a heart Newton replied:

I must say it is well that they do not live here; if they did, they would not know how to pity us, and we should not know how to understand them.  We have an enemy in Olney that fights against our peace, and I know not one amongst us but often groans under the warfare.  I advise you not to be troubled by what you hear of other folks experience, but keep close to the written word, where you will meet with much to encourage you, though you often feel yourself weary and heavy laden.  For my own part, I like that path best which is well beaten by footsteps of the flock, though it is not always pleasant and strewed with flowers. 

In other words, the way of believers isn’t an unhindered and constantly blessed frame.  The way of believers is marked by war, struggle, defeat, and bewilderment.  But it is a path that is trodden by many faithful believers and one that plods through the valleys with eyes to follow the Master’s sandal prints.

Idol Destruction 101 Part 2

Idol worship is a form of suicide. 

It is knowingly* drinking from a contaminated spring that only promises fleeting pleasures but can never ultimately satiate.  Not only is it drinking from a well of poison, idolatry drinks from that contaminated stream at the expense of the only well that flows with living water.  Idolatry, neglects the only Fountain that can give us life. 

Those that have been made alive by the all-powerful Lord of the universe have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.  We no longer desire to drink from a contaminated stream.  We want the Lord and all His fullness.  Yet, old ways of living die hard.  Some days we crave the putrid.  Yet even while our lips are still wet from a drink of the forbidden our hearts ache for healing and rescue:   namely, rescue from the foolish desire of the murky, stale, and deadly waters. 

Our hearts grow discontent.  This is good.  We know the emptiness of idols and we want them gone. 

Mostly. 

Truth be told something in our heart still likes to cling to them.  Or create them.  Even while we smash one idol down our remaining rebellion draws up a blueprint for its next life-altering invention. 

Calvin said the heart is an idol-factory.  I want to know how to shut down it’s production.  Or at least change it.  Rather than producing idols I want my heart to produce righteousness and God-honoring fruit.  So, how does that happen? 

The path of introspection

In his book Jesus + Nothing = Everything, Tullian Tchividjian encourages the reader to “delve into secret, shadowy regions of the heart” and to “risk a plunge into soul depths”.  While I will fundamentally agree with Pastor Tchividjian such statements consumed by those reading with the wrong lens will find such counsel deadly. 

Tchividjian is not alone in his counsel.  Others, such as Tim Keller, advise believers that the “secret to change is to identify and dismantle the counterfeit gods of your heart”. 

When some hear this advice they immediately go on an idol searching quest.  They do as Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned against and “cross the line from self-examination to introspection” because now “they do nothing but examine [themselves]”.  Lloyd-Jones notes that what happens in this case is that “self-examination becomes the main and chief end in our life”. 

Inevitably this often leads to despair, morbidity, and depression.  The eyes were never meant to be fixated on self.  Worse yet, the heart was never meant to do battle with idolatry by continuing to pay it homage.  When we continue to make the issue the idol we are still bowing a knee to its power.  It is still defining our identity and relationship with the Lord. 

“I am an idolater”.  No, you are not. 

“Such were some of you”…

You are bought with the blood of Jesus Christ, you are His.  You are a Jesus-follower who happens to be involved in the battle against idolatry and suicidal self-worship.  But your fundamental identity is not as an idolater.  You’ve been changed.

You don’t do battle with idolatry by morbidly bowing a knee to its power over your life.  The self-examination and idol searching that Tchividjian, Keller, and Lloyd-Jones are referring to is different than morbid introspection.  Their advice has been hi-jacked by a deadly philosophy. 

And it is to this deadly philosophy that we turn next time…

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*see Romans 1

Quotes from
Jesus + Nothing = Everything
Counterfeit Gods
Spiritual Depression

Idol Destruction 101 (Part 1)

Why do we lie, or fail to love, or break our promises, or live selfishly? Of course, the general answer is “Because we are weak and sinful,” but the specific answer is that there is something besides Jesus Christ that we feel we must have to be happy, something that is more important to our heart than God, something that is enslaving our heart through inordinate desires. The key to change (and even to self-understanding) is therefore to identify the idols of the heart.” 

-Tim Keller

In other words, the root of your rebellion, brokenness, and failures is idolatry.  If we want to push back against our rebellion, be healed of brokenness, and grow in holiness the answer is to identify and then destroy idols of the heart.  But this begs a question.  How?  How do I identify idols, how do I go about uprooting them, and how do I replace them with a deeper love and affection for Christ?

Do I place on my idol miner’s hat, fully equipped with a my idol exposing flash light?  Do I gather my gospel gear, complete with my idol smashing pick axe?  And when I’ve uprooted this dastardly idol what tools and weapons do I use to supplant the idol with deeper affections for Christ?  Or do I simply put down my mining equipment and do something entirely different to see idols of the heart destroyed and supplanted? 

I hope to provide an answer to these questions in the upcoming days…

Topple They Must

To say that the gods are work of human hands is to prick human hubris and to invite fierce repudiation…For if it is indeed true that the gods we exalt so highly are resplendent products of our creativity, then it is not surprising that we defend them so belligerently.  And in our jealous protectiveness of the gods we created for ourselves, we display a parody of the true jealousy that is the prerogative of the only true God whom we did not create.  We invest so much of ourselves in our gods, spend so much on them and blend our identity and significance with theirs that it simply will not do for us to have them unmasked, mocked or toppled.  And yet, of course, topple they must before the living God.  For that is the destiny of all human effort that is not for the glory of God or offered to be redeemed by him.  (Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, 160 emphasis mine)