The Pursuit of Holiness is Pharasaical Self-Righteous Perfectionism @christianaudio @caReviewers

I recently received a complimentary copy of Jerry Bridges' audiobook version of The Pursuit of Holiness in order to review it (without any expectation of a positive review, as will be obvious here :) ). I had several theological problems with this book that bleed over to the larger issues of some of holiness movements. Let's go through these by way of some of Bridges' central points:


Factual certainty is central to faith. This, I think, is one of the most damaging elements of this book. At the same time, it was one of the most helpful to me, as it elucidated why so many people are obsessed with sin and the purging of sin: It helps certainty of salvation (more on this later).


Bridges states, "Faith must always be based in fact." I'm not sure where he gets this idea, as it's not biblical or humanly defined. Hebrews 10:1 defines faith as being certain, but based on what we hope for and cannot see. As emphasized by the positivist and empiricist movements, fact is really based on what can be observed by humans. That does not meant there is no fact of God. It means that there does not have to be proof in order to have faith. In fact, faith is more powerful without fact.


Secular definitions also define faith as not being based in fact. Wikipedia's first sentence in the article on faith states, "Faith is the confident belief or trust in a person, idea, or thing that is not based on proof." Other definitions of faith have more to do with the general idea of belief or trust, not necessarily rooted in fact.


This blog is devoted to people's struggles with faith, usually based on their reliance on facts that end up being unsupportable or not as they originally thought. Just because the facts disappear does not mean God or our faith have to disappear.


Reason must contain and control desire. Bridges rightly explains that our desires can be impure and lead us down some terrible roads. Therefore, he argues that we must always use our reason to contain our sinful desires. Reason is a very good thing, but it can also lead us astray. As a psychologist, I frequently see the reason-based defense of rationalization used to dissociate someone from their emotions and therefore move them away from truth.


Ransomed Heart Ministries is based on the premise that once we give our lives to Christ, he gives us a new, good heart. Heck, even the more conservative and sinlessness-driven John Piper's ministry is called Desiring God. We must listen to our desires. Yes, they may mislead us, but if we pay good attention to them, we will hear God speaking to us. Frankly, God speaks to us more through our emotions than through our intellect.


Holy is defined by sinlessness. Bridges states that holiness is "separation from impurity and moral evil." This is one of the biggest and most dangerous bad definitions in Christianity. A few months ago, I talked about how holy and sinlessness are not one in the same. Holiness can include sinlessness, but it is not defined by it. Rather, a better definition of holy is sacred, meaning set apart. Avoiding sin is one way to be set apart, but holiness is a lot more than that.


Granted, Bridges later says that holiness is in a broader sense "obedience to the will of God in whatever God directs," but by the content of his book, he clearly focuses on God's will being that we lead sinless lives.


One of the reasons this perspective can be dangerous is that it can lead us to assume that God dislikes us. Jonathan Brinks recently posted an article related to a video by Skye Jethani, exploring how God views us in the midst of sin. The answer: God loves us. When we forget that, our relationship with God becomes strained because we no longer trust him. But usually that's not our fault, but rather the fault of the Church. 


Sinlessness is the evidence of salvation. Bridges states partway through his book, "The only evidence of salvation we have is a holy life." Based on his definition of holy, this would mean sinless. Besides the fact that no person will ever be sinless on earth (Bridges notes this), this idea is simply not biblical. He argues that the Holy Spirit helps us become sinless.


Yet in Galatians 5:22-23, Paul states the fruit of the spirit is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Do these correlate with sinlessness? Some do. But these indicate something much more than the absence of sin. They emphasize the presence of love. Frankly, most of these emphasize desire and emotion and not reason, contrary to Bridges earlier point about reason trumping emotion.

Finally, this brings us back to the idea of the role and motivation of factual certainty. It seems this whole book (and I would argue much of people's obsessions with sin) is focused on the need to be confident in their own salvation. This is definitely an understandable concern: We don't want to wonder if we'll be in Heaven. We want proof. So we look for it in various ways.

One of the ways is emphasizing a "pure," sinless life. Like the Pharisees, we can become self-righteous if we lead sinless lives, being certain of our salvation. But just like the Pharisees, it is at this time that we are the farthest from God, missing the true hope of salvation in a relationship with Christ.

Loving & Judging

Most of the church communities to which I have belonged have had a strong grounding in the holiness movement. Essentially, it's a focus on "right living," sometimes interpreted as avoiding sin. This movement definitely plays a powerful role in my life still, but I've struggled with it and how people approach holiness.


There is this nebulous disagreement I have with some approaches to holiness that have been difficult for me to really define because theologically, I can't fully disagree. Yet something feels off. It was this same sense of some sort of difference from some Christians that Richard Foster's Stream of Living Water helped define. In this book, Foster describes six streams, or traditions of Christian living and belief. They're not opposed to one another, and in fact, all are important and should co-exist. Yet most of us emphasize one over the others, causing theologically subtle, yet practically significant differences.


What I recently realized (this Sunday to be specific) is that it seems like some of the differences occur with how some of us perceive and relate to God, thus affecting how we approach holiness. John Eldredge discusses the varying and ascending metaphors to describe our relationship with God. He argues (well and biblically, in my opinion) that the ultimate relationship God desires is that of lovers. Close intimacy. Even before that, we are friends and children.


Yet what often happens is many times we view God as judge. Is God a judge? Yes. But I don't think that's his primary role. Just as lovers hold one another accountable, God holds us accountable, but that feeling of accountability is different than that of a distant judge.


When we view God as judge, I believe we approach holiness as a way to avoid judgment. As I heard someone say this weekend with reference to the sexual immorality of the US, "If God doesn't judge America soon, he owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah." There are theologically errors in that connection, but regardless, there is this sense of God as Ultimate Judge and not much more. We must live sinless lives in order to avoid God's destructive punishment.


Yet as many people argue and explain, God's primary mission as clearly laid out in the Bible is love. Jonathan Brink wrote a nice reflection on this recently. RELEVANT Magazine also posted an article about love.


In my experience, when we have a close, intimate relationship with God, we want to be holy. It's a way of moving closer to God and becoming like Christ. It's not out of fear, but out of desire. What may look like the same actions are in fact totally different.


Holiness out of love is what I want, not holiness out of fear.

The Sin of Holiness

According to Richard Foster in Streams of Living Water, the holiness stream is a focus on the virtuous life, as in right living and purity from sin. This perspective develops from the Wesleyan holiness movement that focuses on sanctification by avoiding sin and being morally pure.


Is this perspective in the Bible. Absolutely. God wants us to avoid sin. However, being morally pure does not guarantee that we are close with God. Just read the Gospels regarding the Pharisees and Paul's writings.


Being holy is not the same as being morally pure. Sacred is a better synonym with holy.


To be holy or sacred is to be made special for God. We can be set apart by being morally pure. However, God, through Christ, makes us holy. Regardless of our behavior.


As I also discussed in yesterday's post on confession, we often focus too much on sin and not enough on moving closer to God. There, of course, is a balance, as sin and God don't do well together. However, as Christ did many times on earth, he will also come to us in the midst of sin. And frankly, that's when we experience God the most. Christ physically came to those who were sinning. He didn't come to those who were pure.


Of course that doesn't mean we should sin in order to be with God. However, in many attempts to remain pure, we often blind ourselves to experiencing God, as was my experiencing with fasting. As we seek to do things for God, we often forget to be with God. While we do need to combat sin and move toward moral purity, this is something that is impossible in this world. And it's not the primary goal of the Gospel or what God wants, in my opinion. He wants a relationship with us. And battling sin can get in the way of that. If we are always beating ourselves up in order to repent, we are ignoring God's redemption and therefore ignoring God.


So I think in our aim to be holy we may actually lose our holiness by participating in life with God less.

Permission to Speak Freely @speakfreelybook @flowerdust @christianaudio @caReviewers

This last week I had the privilege to listen to an audiobook version of the soon-to-be-released Permission to Speak Freely by Anne Jackson courtesy of a complimentary copy from christianaudio's reviewers program.

The basic idea intrigued me: Jackson asked on her blog, "What is one thing you feel you can't say in church?" The book is an outgrowth of the responses she received from that and her own experiences.

This is definitely one of the absolute best books I have reviewed for christianaudio. It is also one of the best nonfiction Christian books I have ever read (or listened to). It very much coincides with the mission of this blog of encouraging people to be honest and authentic about their struggles and having the permission to speak freely about difficult matters.

Jackson does a beautiful job of describing the problem of restricted dialogue, not only in the institutional church, but also throughout society. It causes more damage than good.

The way she humanizes the struggles is phenomenal. It is the first book in a very long time that has brought tears to my eyes, not only from sadness of the pain we all cause others, but also because of the hope she reminds readers/listeners of.

Through her commentary on the core of problems that take our attention (like addictions to substances and sex), she also helped me remember why I entered the field of psychology and not give into the push to focus on symptom management. It reminded me to take a wider and deeper perspective with myself and others.

She states at the end of the book that she cannot give some nice, easy steps to solve the problems like most self-help books do. While it's true she does not provide a formula (which would have ruined the book), she did provide a solution: Relationships. Honest, authentic relationships where people can engage one another, challenge one another, and grow IS the solution.

It's not easy. And it takes a lot of courage. I loved her recognition of this in discussing giving the gift of going second (if you want to know more, read or listen to the book! :) ). If we can use this courage, though, the results are astounding.

However, we still have work on developing a culture, both inside and outside of the institutional church, where we can give people the permission to speak freely about anything. The church building should be a safe place, a sanctuary, where people can openly struggle. Instead, it's often turned into the exact opposite.

On a final note, I also love the fact that Jackson read the book herself. As I have said before, I prefer books read by the author, even if they are not all that polished. This book is intensely personal on many levels. It would have definitely lost some significant meaning if a professional narrator was hired.

Love in Leviticus

Those who have read the Old Testament know that Leviticus is not the most interesting of all books. It is full of rules and regulations about how to be holy for God. This book is often used from the holiness tradition to tell people what they do wrong and how to live righteously. Honestly, I rarely hear this book used in a positive way, but rather in a legalistic way.

On Sunday night, I was reading through the weekly readings in my Mosaic Bible, which included Leviticus 19:18. I was surprised to see "love your neighbor as yourself" there. For one reason or another, I never remember hearing that this was ever in the Old Testament; it's always quoted in reference to Jesus.

I think it's significant that love is explicitly prescribed in the Old Testament, particularly in a book that is focused on rules. This should remind us that we need to view all rules in the context of love.

Also, since we're on the topic of Leviticus, I think it is often misused to support legalistic holiness. From my studies of it, it seems more appropriate to view the various rules (which are often strict and numerous) as a way of setting the Israelites apart from the rest of the world. The rules themselves are not necessarily holy, but rather the process in what they mean. If we are to live a holy life, that does not necessarily mean living out Leviticus literally, but rather in process: What sets us, as Christians, apart from society, particularly emphasizing love?

Just Don't Read Just Do Something

This review of Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung was made possible through a complimentary copy of the audiobook through christianaudio's reviewer program.

I was looking forward to this book, expecting a bit of an incarnational perspective on finding God's will. That was there, but not in the way I expected. It presented nothing useful and was possibly the worst religion book I've read (or listened to). In fact, I think it can be quite spiritually, relationally, and psychologically damaging.

It seems appropriate to start the review with the title. Compared with other books I've reviewed recently, this title is very appropriate and accurate. In fact, it tells you exactly what the book is about. DeYoung's answer to God's will is don't worry about it; just do something. Anything. As long as it is not morally reprehensible.

This is where I started having problems. DeYoung discusses valid problems in today's society, namely indecision. But his solution is too extreme of just doing something. I do not believe that is the answer, nor is it God's desire for us to just act. I could probably go line-by-line with counterpoints to DeYoung's assertions, but that would make another book, and it's hard to do with an audiobook.

Here's a couple of his main points, though. One is that we do not really need to seek counsel in most any situation. That's what God gave us a brain for. Okay, that's true that we should use our minds, but that's also what the Holy Spirit is for. DeYoung's way of dealing with God's will does not require any real relationship with God; it just requires a knowledge of Scripture. He states that the Spirit speaks to us through Scripture. Fair enough. But he also speaks to us in other ways. True, they're subjective at times, as DeYoung says, but that does not mean they're unhelpful. Frankly, biblical interpretations are subjective, too.

He argues decisions need to be made in alignment with God's goals for our lives. I couldn't find the quote again in the audiobook, but the first two goals are moral purity and theological fidelity. Compassion was in the list, but it almost seemed an afterthought. While moral purity and theological fidelity are nice, Jesus did say the greatest commandment is to love God and love others. I think love is the primary purpose.

DeYoung argues that we do not have to worry about what we do because whatever we do will be what God's will is. Sorry. Completely disagree there. There's many examples everyone could come up with of ways that we act that are not in alignment with God's will.

He also asserts that we should never worry because that is a sign of little or no faith. True, God does not want us to worry, but we do. That's normal and not necessarily a sign of spiritual frailty. I could go on on this topic for hours from my psychology profession...

Then there's the real juicy stuff. It seems one of the primary reasons he wrote this book is because people are waiting to get married. He stated that in most cases, people should be married and own a house by 30. He sees a lot of problems as due to delayed marriage. That may contribute to some social problems, but there may be other, better solutions than just getting married earlier.

He almost argues that everything will be solved by marriage and mentions many "problems" due to and causing delayed marriage. Frankly, many of them seem like no big deal and not problematic. While he states there is nothing wrong with singleness, I just simply do not believe him. He pushes people to get married, saying things like, "Getting married is good for your sanctification."

He tells men that if you like a girl (and she likes you), you're both Christian, and no one has major problems, get married. This is one of the worst pieces of advice I've ever heard. This is the kind of thing that causes needless divorce or horrific marriages.

He goes on to say that women start a career, "which is not necessarily wrong, when they would rather be married and having children." He says, "Men, if you want to be married, find a godly gal, treat her right, talk to her parents, pop the question, tie the knot, and start making babies." I couldn't even believe I heard him say these things.

Not that these aren't important, but marriage and kids don't have to happen immediately. And they definitely do not solve all problems. There's also a lot more to life than that. DeYoung does not think so, arguing that fulfillment is selfish and not in God's plan. He needs to read the psychological literature on it, though, starting with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In a situation, like many of my generation's grandparents grew up in, the focus was on a lower level of needs (like food and shelter), which were not guaranteed. Now for most Americans, those are not a struggle, so we can address higher level needs, including self-esteem and self-actualization. They are critically important.

My wife listened to this section, and she was shocked, also saying this book is awful, damaging, and offensive to women. She adds, "this is exactly the kind of crippling fear that so many single women feel today... that there's something wrong with them because they're not married yet.. this just adds to that feeling of inadequacy! The author is basically saying that we as women are all just waiting around for a man to come along so our lives can finally start. That's sickening." I completely agree.

DeYoung relies too much on his grandfather's perspectives as fact. We need to look to our elders for wisdom, but not all of them did things perfectly nor do they understand everything perfectly. My grandpa would disagree with his. So does that mean I can write a book arrogantly asserting that I know all Truth about God's will based on my grandpa?

The narrator, Adam Verner, was fine. He had good tone and intonation and made the book relatively interesting. Frankly, he was the best part of the book.

Better books dealing with God's will are John Eldredge's Walking with God (DeYoung criticized an unnamed book, but I think it was this one) and Francis Chan's Forgotten God. If you want a contrary opinion to those books or want to explore perspectives on God's will, this could be useful. Otherwise, don't waste your time on this book. I think it's unhelpful at best, spiritually and psychologically damaging at neutral, and possibly borderline heretical at worst.

Symptoms

Yesterday, I talked about my frustrations with the symptom focus of the new hands-free law in California. Today, I want to expand the need to not focus on symptoms.

So one of my struggles in my field (psychology), particularly with the more medicalized aspects, is the over focus on symptomatology rather than the root of the problem (or strengths, gasp). I have found psychiatry (the medical part of the field) tends to focus only on the treatment of symptoms, with little concern for the persistent presence of the actual disorder (slight hyperbole and separating symptoms from disorder is difficult and another discussion). My hyperbolic bias would be to ignore the symptoms and treat the underlying problem. Qualifying this, symptoms must be addressed. Anyone who has had a urinary tract infection would probably be excited that antibacterial pills are treating the underlying problem, but also want something to treat the pain now. The problem is that in the medical field, the symptoms are the primary focus.

The same is true in the Church. We look at people's behaviors and just want them changed. When someone looks holier, then they must have had some powerful influence from the Holy Spirit. And if someone is struggling with some behaviors, then they need to get closer to God. While I would agree there are correlations between relationship with God and behavioral holiness, this is not a 1:1 ratio. We struggle through life and various circumstances, no matter how close we are to God.

We need to qualify the holiness movement with remembering Jesus' words about the inside and outside of the cup. It's a lot more important to have the inside clean than the outside. It's more important to have a sinful-looking person who is close to God than a holy-looking person who doesn't know God from a doorknob.

This is hard to do because a person's relationship with God, the mind, and the existence of a medical problem without symptoms cannot be measured. So we focus on what we can point to, which can be helpful. We have major problems, though, when we reify the symptoms as the problems themselves.