False knowledge, and how it’s confused with faith.

There are plenty of people who “just know” things.

And man alive, are they frustrating. Y’see, they can’t tell you why they know what they do. They don’t know where they got their knowledge, nor what it’s based on. Not that it matters where they got it: They believe it. You can’t tell them any different.

But they’re wrong. It’s false knowledge.

I’ll tell people something they’ve not heard before, and they’ll respond—whether in Sunday school, my classrooms, or the workplace—

THEY. “Why, what you’re saying can’t be true, for I know different.”

ME. [patiently] “Well your knowledge is wrong. Relax; we’re all wrong sometimes.”

THEY. “Nope; can’t be. I know this.”

ME. “Okay, maybe I’m wrong. So prove your case. Show me why you’re right.”

THEY. “Don’t need to. I know I’m right.”

Every once in a while they’ll really try to prove their case. Turns out there’s a thousand holes in their reasoning. Easy to see, easy to chip away at. But they can’t see the holes. And don’t really care there are holes; it doesn’t matter if they prove their point; they know they’re right.

It’s not that they actually believe what they do for logical reasons. Humans aren’t logical. We believe what we do because we find it convenient to believe it. Helps when it’s actually true. But even when it’s not, people will push aside all evidence to the contrary, grasp at any evidence they can find in their favor, and believe what they please anyway.

Certain Christian apologists call this behavior “postmodernism.” It’s not. (If anything, postmoderns are frequently the ones demanding, “Prove it.”) Not that postmoderns aren’t just as guilty of this behavior: Everybody does it. Moderns, postmoderns, everyone. It’s not a worldview thing, not a cultural thing, not a political thing, not even a sin thing. It’s a human thing. We’re comfortable with our beliefs, and don’t wanna change ’em, even if there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. Change is too inconvenient.

I had to be trained to not think this way. First journalism school, then seminary: We were taught to question everything. Everything. My first journalism professor was fond of saying, “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out!” Which sounds ridiculous at first… but you do realize there are a lot of dysfunctional mothers out there, who have very distorted definitions of love. Turns out she might not love you; whatever she’s feeling is neither khecéd nor fílos and agápi. Shouldn’t have presumed; now you see why your relationship is so f----d up.

There are naturally skeptical people who automatically question everything. Or so it appears; there are certain beliefs they take for granted, and you’ll find ’em once you drill down far enough. They might be nihilistic about a lot of things, but at their core they’re pretty sure they’re right about a number of things. Cogito ergo sum, at least.

But more often people are comfortable with the knowledge they believe they have, and are willing to trust it. Their minds are made up. Doesn’t matter which way the evidence points: There’s no higher authority than their minds.

It’s why people refuse to believe in climate change, or in an ancient earth, or insist humans are inherently good (regardless of our obvious depravity). Conversely it’s also why people believe in connect-the-dots theories and conspiracies. And it doesn’t matter how much evidence we have of a screw loose in their reasoning: They’re right. They know so. Can’t tell ’em otherwise.

In 2005 Stephen Colbert famously labeled this phenomenon as truthiness—that people believe what they do because they feel it’s true, rather than know it’s true. (And to a large degree it’s also because they feel it’s true; these “facts” are possessions or creations of theirs, so there’s a lot of selfishness bundled with ’em.)

True, false knowledge has a lot of similarities to truthiness. But unlike truthiness, it’s usually borne from apathy. People believe as they do because change and repentance take more effort than they care to spend.

It’s like fact-checking a headstone. My grandfather’s headstone actually has his first and middle names reversed. But nobody bothered to spend the money to fix it. And nobody’s gonna. Cemetery records, and eventually genealogies, are gonna have his names flipped for ages to come, all because nobody cares enough to fix the error. False knowledge has just this kind of effect on real knowledge… and often a much bigger impact.

So yeah: Truthiness has a lot of feelings involved in its practice and propagation. False knowledge has no such feelings. Gets propagated all the same.

God doesn’t owe us anything for fasting.

I’ve pointed out fasting is a great way to focus our attention on God so we can pray better, hear him better, and develop our self-control.

But no, I don’t guarantee you’ll grow in all these ways when you fast.

All things being equal, you probably will. But as you know, there are lots of ways people can bollix our own growth. If we’re fasting, yet the rest of our lives are just as sinful as ever, why should we expect anything to change whatsoever? And yet Christians do: “I’m fasting! That should count for something.”

The Hebrews did it too, y’know. They’d fast, then make prayer requests ’cause they believed fasting would show the LORD they were serious, and it’d move him a little faster. It’s why Jehoshaphat told Jerusalem to fast so God might rescue them from invaders, 2Ch 20.3 and why Esther asked the Persian Jews to fast before she petitioned the king. Es 4.16 But because God acted on the petitioners’ behalf in these stories, Christians get the idea fasting always makes God move. They’ll claim this is “the biblical principle of fasting”: If you fast, God’ll answer prayer, and give you revelations.

But no it’s not a “biblical principle.” The idea that fasting always makes God move, is based on works righteousness, the idea God we can earn God’s favor through good deeds and acts of devotion. So if we’re good, God supposedly owes us one; if we’re super good God owes us a lot. And supposedly religious acts and rituals can cancel out any evil deeds: If I’m stealing from my workplace’s cash drawer, saying a few hundred Hail Marys oughta work it off, right? What’s the going exchange rate, a buck per hail?

In reality there is no biblical principle of fasting. Because in the bible, the LORD never commanded anyone to fast. Ever. The bible contains no teachings about what fasting does, why it’s important, and how often we oughta do it. The one teaching it does have on fasting is when Jesus tells us to not be hypocrites about it, and do it privately instead of publicly. Mt 6.16-18 The rest of Christianity’s teachings on fasting come from tradition: From fellow Christians’ experiences with fasting, and how it benefited them; and how it personally benefited us when we tried it.

But anyone who claims fasting unlocks God’s promises, and now he owes us stuff: They didn’t get that from bible. They got it from a corrupt Christian tradition, if anything. It’s not so. God owes us nothing. His kingdom runs on grace, not quid pro quo. He grants us grace and prayer requests and revelations because he loves us, not because we racked up enough heavenly frequent flyer miles to get a trip to Belize.

He tends to grant these things to active followers, not because we’re actively following, but because what good would they be in the hands of people who aren’t actively following? Such people will just squander his gifts, and be of little to no help to his kingdom. It’s not merit; it’s pragmatism.

So when we fast, is God obligated to do more for us than usual? Not at all. He tends to, but that’s only because Christians who fast, tend to love Jesus and follow him otherwise.

The Holy Spirit sent Jesus to be tempted.

Matthew 4.1, Luke 4.1-2A.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us to pray that God not lead us to temptation. Mt 6.13, Lk 11.4 I don’t know whether he included that because God led him to temptation—and he didn’t wanna repeat the experience, and he didn’t wish that on his followers either. But you do realize that particular part of the Lord’s Prayer was answered with “No” in this particular instance: The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. God—’cause the Holy Spirit is God, remember—led him into temptation.

Matthew 4.1 KWL

Then Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit,

to be tested by the devil.

Luke 4.1-2 KWL

1Full of the Holy Spirit,

Jesus comes back from the Jordan.

He’s being led by the Spirit into the wilderness

2Ato be tested by the devil 40 days.

When we pray this particular part of the Lord’s Prayer, we need to keep Jesus’s temptation in mind. Because sometimes God will put us into circumstances where the devil’s gonna try to derail us. If we’re seriously following Jesus, and in so doing seriously mucking up the devil’s plans, of course Satan’s gonna try to put a stop to us. And the fastest way is to get us to stop following the Spirit and start following our selfish human nature.

Happens all the time. Christians create million-dollar ministries, then start thinking, “I’m a CEO; shouldn’t I get paid like a CEO; shouldn’t I get to live like a CEO?” and start feathering their nests and living luxuriously, instead of putting all that money into God’s kingdom and living reasonably. And plenty of mammonists, plenty of Christians who covet wealth and the things of this world, will come up with plenty of godless reasons why they not only can live like that, but should. Nevermind the fact it’s undermining their character, their witness, their ministry, their ability to hear the Spirit, their relationship with Jesus; that this money could help needy people, and these “CEOs” are nowhere close to needy. Nevermind that they’re robbing the poor, and in so doing, they’re robbing God. But I digress.

Appealing to our selfish human nature is Satan’s favorite tactic. Heck, it’s not just Satan who uses it; everybody tries it. Everybody wants to know what we covet, so they can sell it to us, or manipulate us by it. Why do you think social media companies are trying so hard to keep us on their sites—and when we’re off their sites, track our every movement on the internet? They wanna sell us stuff. Their plans are more benign than malevolent, although the more guardrails they remove, the more malevolence is gonna happen. But that’s what we see throughout Jesus’s temptations: The devil tries three times to appeal to Jesus’s selfish human nature.

And Jesus resisted. Kinda easily. Because he doesn’t have a selfish human nature. He’s got the original human nature; the one Adam and Eve had before they sinned. Plus he has something Adam and Eve coulda gained, but never did, because they sinned long before they could develop it: He’s got God’s nature. And God’s not selfish. Thanks to that divine nature, Jesus immediately identifies those appeals to his flesh, dismisses them as stupid and wrong—and punctuates his dismissals with Deuteronomy quotes. Jesus knows the Law, and never ever broke it.

When the Spirit led Jesus into temptation, Jesus was totally ready for it. Arguably he’s always been ready for it. Yes, he fasted for 40 days once he got there, to try to steel himself against temptation even further. I’ll write about that another time. But there’s nothing at all wrong with over-preparing yourself for spiritual battle. You don’t just wanna win by the skin of your teeth; you wanna win decisively. You want that devil reluctant to challenge you again, ’cause losing so bad to a lowly human embarrasses it in front of all the other devils on the playground.

Universalism: Isn’t God gonna save everybody?

UNIVERSALIST ju.nə'vər.səl.əst adjective. Believing all humanity will (eventually) be saved.

Generally, pagans believe good people go to heaven, and bad people to hell. There’s a minority among them who believe there is no hell—not even for genocidal maniacs; everybody goes to the same afterlife, and if you’re a westerner that’d be heaven. There might be some karmic consequences to the afterlife, like you might find yourself in the suckier part of heaven; but it’s all heaven, so it’s not that bad.

The reason many pagans believe this, is because they believe the universe is benevolent, or believe God is love. Which he is! 1Jn 4.8 And he does love everyone; “for God so loved the world” Jn 3.16 and all that. So they figure a loving God would never throw people into hell, especially for something so minor as not believing in him—which is an honest mistake, most of the time. Hardly sound loving of God to toss someone into hell simply because they were born in a part of the world where they were never taught God properly, be it North Korea, Nepal, Mali, or Mississippi.

Now I agree God’s unlikely to smite people for honest mistakes. But I also seriously doubt the bulk of humanity’s mistakes are honest ones. Face it: Lots of us embrace our God-beliefs purely out of convenience, pragmatism, or selfishness. That Iranian who’s never gonna hear the gospel: He already wouldn’t listen to it if offered. If he honestly wanted to hear the gospel, it doesn’t matter what filters his nation puts on the internet; he’d track down Christians (there actually are some in Iran) and ask questions. Or Jesus might personally appear to him, as he does throughout Christian history, beginning with Paul. (No, that wasn’t just a one-time deal.)

Or that American whose parents raised her a militant atheist: No matter how skeptical and free-thinking she claims to be, she honestly doesn’t wanna challenge her parents’ claims, and examine whether there’s anything to this God stuff. If she did, the first miracle she experienced would shatter her atheism like a cinderblock through safety glass.

Honest mistakes are like Calvinism: People try to defend God’s sovereignty, go overboard, and wind up teaching God’s secretly evil. But if they’re honest mistakes, these people are nonetheless pursuing God despite their errors. And the Holy Spirit’s still producing love and patience and kindness in them, and still letting ’em into his kingdom. (Unless they’re only pursuing clever arguments, producing no fruit, and wind up some of those poor souls who’re mighty shocked Jesus doesn’t recognize ’em. Mt 7.23) The whole “honest mistakes” cop-out is a convenient excuse to ignore God, avoid obeying him, and dodge religion, church, and Christians.

It’s a risky little game they’re playing, for Christ Jesus says not everyone’s getting saved.

Matthew 7.21-23 GNT

21“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. 22On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ 23But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’”

That’s the people who really thought they were Christian. How much chance does the “honestly mistaken” nontheist have? Well, God is gracious, so we’ll see.

Though God absolutely does wants everyone saved, 1Ti 2.4 he knows full well many people want nothing to do with him. Nor his kingdom. They don’t want saving. Since God did create ’em with free will, he permits them to tell him no. He won’t force ’em into his kingdom. They don’t have to enter. But man alive are they gonna hate the alternative.

Trying to tempt Christ Jesus.

Mark 1.12-13.

I’ve lost count of the sermons and articles I’ve read about Jesus’s temptations by Satan in the wilderness… and how this was supposedly a cosmic struggle for the ages. And I find every single one of ’em ridiculous. Because seriously: Do any of you—does anyone—imagine there was any chance whatsoever of Jesus giving in to the devil’s temptations? Does anyone think Satan had a chance? Had the smallest of chances?

Okay granted, if you don’t know Jesus, or if you’ve never read about him in the gospels and Revelation, I could understand thinking his temptations might’ve been a threat. Popular culture has this idea in its collective head that Satan is a mighty demon, big as a kaiju, capable of all sorts of elder-god world-destroying activities. It’s all rubbish; Satan’s been padding its resume ever since humanity found out it exists. Unwitting Christians have been helping it along, ’cause if Satan’s a big deal, but Jesus can effortlessly defeat it, doesn’t that make Jesus an even bigger deal? As if our Lord creating the universe Jn 1.3 isn’t impressive enough.

Look, Jesus has the sort of iron willpower it took to suffer torture and crucifixion—even though at any instant he could’ve called upon more than 60,000 angels, Mt 26.53 put a stop to everything, and skipped forward to his second coming. He’s got a divine nature, and an unfallen human nature. Meaning it’s not in his nature, at all, to sin. When presented with a tricky situation, humans get tempted to sin, and no doubt Jesus did too—but Jesus immediately dismisses any such sins as ridiculous. Sin is simply not him. He doesn’t do sin. Has no hold on him. Never gonna happen.

So were Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness anything remotely like a cosmic battle? Nah. Satan pitched some ideas, and Jesus easily dismissed them. Like spitballs bouncing off the hull of a battleship.

Some preachers get annoyed when I say this. Partly because they’re big fans of the cosmic battle idea. Partly because we get tempted, and it’s kind of a cosmic battle to us!—and how in the world can we claim that Jesus understands what we’re going through, because he was tempted too, He 2.18 if those temptations barely tempted him at all?

Simple: If Jesus can easily dismiss the devil’s temptations as silly and irrelevant, so can we. We can learn to resist temptation like he did. He’s given us the ability—if we take advantage of it.

The idea Jesus’s temptations were a cosmic battle, gives us the false idea that resisting temptation is impossible, and the only reason Jesus could dismiss Satan so easily is because Jesus is almighty. Certainly we’re not almighty, so when Satan tempts us, we’re boned. But like I said, that’s a false idea. We don’t have to be almighty to resist the devil. We only have to follow the Holy Spirit. And resist the temptation to blame our weak wills on everything but our unwillingness to resist.

So let’s look at how Jesus resisted the devil, and then let us resist.

The body, soul, and spirit.

When I was a kid, my church taught me that God’s a trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; three persons, yet one God.

And they taught me we humans are kind of a trinity. That is, humans have a body, a soul, and a spirit. God made us in his image; Ge 1.27 therefore just as he is a trinity, so we are trinities.

Except… well that’s entirely wrong, isn’t it? God is three persons, but we humans aren’t three persons. Even those of us with dissociative identity disorder aren’t three persons. I have a body; that’s not a different person than my soul nor my spirit. I’m one person, not three.

If anything, my body, soul, and spirit are three parts of me. For now, anyway; when I die, my body will be dead, and either decay, or (I hope) be immolated in an awesome Viking funeral. My spirit will go to paradise. And my soul, my lifeforce, will cease to exist until God resurrects me… in a new immortal body.

One can say, and many Christians have, that my spirit is the core of who I am. ’Cause unless Jesus returns before I die, at some point my body and soul will be gone. Dead. Will cease to be. But my spirit will continue to exist; there will still be a me in the universe.

I digress though; this article isn’t really about the afterlife. It’s about the three bodyparts I have—which all humans have—which lead Christians to claim we’re all mini-trinities, all inferior trinities (inferior because we’re not actually trinities), all trichotomies—or as my pastor likes to put it, “tripartite beings.” One being, one person, three parts.

Trichotomy is a really popular Christian view, largely because God is a trinity, and Christians love to imagine we have three parts because God has three parts. Even though God’s three parts are three whole persons… and since Jesus is human, that’d make him a trichotomy too, with his own body, soul, and spirit. (The other persons don’t have bodies. Mormons claim the Father does so have a body, but ignore them. But that’d mean the Father and Spirit are bipartite, with souls and spirits, right? Complicated.)

Now, if you’ve never been taught this trichotomy idea, you’ll likely fall into a view that’s more of bichotomy, to coin a word: We humans are both physical and spiritual. We have bodies and spirits. Yes we have souls, and depending on which Christian you’re speaking to, a soul is either part of our body (’cause it is our lifeforce), or part of our spirit. Various Christians claim “soul” and “spirit” are interchangeable, and don’t see any difference between them.

Me, I do recognize there’s a difference between soul and spirit… yet I lean towards bichotomy. The soul’s what makes us a living being, Ge 2.7 and without it we’re a dead being; a dead body. So it’s a part of my body. Same as my nose, my arm, my liver, my brain. It’s as mortal as my body, which decays to dust, or is burnt to ashes. Whereas the spirit returns to God who created it, Ec 12.7 who determines what’ll happen next to me. Jesus said resurrection, Jn 11.25-26 so I’m going with that.

Prayer for spiritual maturity.

The fastest way to grow in spiritual fruit and spiritual maturity, is prayer.

I know; there are a number of works on fruit and maturity, and all of ’em recommend we grow that stuff by practicing it. You wanna be more loving, love people. You wanna be more gracious, work on your kindness. You wanna develop more self-control, practice self-control; start with small things and work your way up. Learn by doing. And that’s not bad advice, but it only gets us so far. If we wanna get farther, we gotta talk to the Holy Spirit who grants us the power to grow fruit. We gotta pray.

What do we tell the Spirit? The obvious: Grant me good fruit. Remind me to practice good fruit instead of my usual knee-jerk reactions. Show me where the opportunities lie to practice it. Show me where I’m missing those opportunities—places in my life where I should obviously recognize I can be more loving, gentle, peaceful, but for whatever reason I’m overlooking those things. Rebuke me if you gotta; snap me out of it.

Yep, we gotta pray for our own spiritual growth. Because we’re showing the Spirit we’re onboard. We want to grow. (And if we kinda don’t wanna grow—because we’re immature, of course—we need to ask him to change our attitudes about that.)

We can’t just presume the fruit will grow on its own, just because we’re Christian, just because we have the Holy Spirit. It can, but if we never take the initiative, it’ll either grow slowly… or, if we’re resistant to what the Spirit’s trying to do, we’ll stifle it from even growing at all. We gotta do more than simply permit the Spirit to do his thing, or generically tell him, “Lord, have your way in me,” like we sing in popular worship songs. He doesn’t want passive followers anyway. He wants us to tell him, “Lord, let’s do this! Make me more like you.”

And telling him is, of course, prayer. Telling him often, is a good basis for a prayer life. Asking for his help regularly, is a good basis for a life dependent on the Spirit’s leading. If you were ever wondering how certain Christians always seem to have something to pray about, this is how: They’re actually doing the work, and they’re naturally asking for help. Join them!

Epiphany: When Jesus was revealed to the world.

6 January is Epiphany, the day which celebrates how Jesus was revealed to the world.

True, the Christmas stories depict that taking place on Christmas Day. With angels and sheep-herders, and frequently magi; with Jesus’s dad fully dressed as if he’s about to travel, either ’cause they’re gonna flee to Egypt really soon, or because he and Mary only arrived minutes ago, ’cause they didn’t know better than to travel when you’re heavily pregnant.

Well technically he was revealed to the world at his circumcision, and when those two prophets identified him as important. But really he was revealed at the beginning of his ministry—at his baptism, where John the baptist identified him as God’s son.

John 1.29-36 The Message

29 The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out, 30 “Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I’ve been talking about, ‘the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.’ 31 I knew nothing about who he was—only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God.”

32 John clinched his witness with this: “I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. 33 I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, ‘The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 That’s exactly what I saw happen, and I’m telling you, there’s no question about it: This is the Son of God.”

35 The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching. 36 He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, “Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb.”

In eastern churches which still follow the Julian calendar, Epiphany’s gonna wind up on 19 January, and sometimes it’ll be called Theophany.

The third-century Christians began to celebrate Jesus’s baptism in January. Why January? Two theories. One is Jesus’s baptism had to take place when the Jordan was in flood, otherwise there wouldn’t’ve been enough water to immerse him. January’s a good bet.

The other theory is the early churches divided up the gospels into a year’s worth of readings—and if you begin with Mark, you get to the baptism story in the second week of January. So since that’s when they always read the baptism story, stands to reason that’s when they’d celebrate Jesus’s baptism. This theory’s much less plausible: The ancient civic year began on 25 March, not 1 January… and why start with Mark when historically Christians start the gospels with Matthew?

Regardless of why, ancient Christians picked 6 January to celebrate Jesus’s baptism. And since Jesus was also sorta revealed as God incarnate at his annunciation, Epiphany celebrations began to include all his birth stories. Till the early Christians realized Jesus’s birth needed its own celebration. Thus the 12 days before Epiphany evolved into a separate celebration of Christmas.

Yep, that’s how it happened. I know; pagans like to claim we Christians took over all the pagan winter solstice festivals, and shoehorned Jesus’s birthday into that. Didn’t work like that. Any Christian can tell you: We didn’t swipe pagan holidays. We swipe Jewish ones. If they happen to line up with pagan ones (as Jewish equinox and harvest festivals naturally would) it still doesn’t mean we swiped pagan holidays.

Nope, we still don’t know when Jesus was born, or baptized. Does it even matter? We just need a day or two to celebrate. Or 12. And for the longest time Epiphany also lasted several days. Usually eight.

Epiphany also marks the end of Christmastime. Bummer.

Awful people who are privately Christian.

I originally wrote this piece in 2017, and titled it “Christians in private, but reprobate in public.” I had to update it a bunch ’cause I have some new thoughts on the matter.

Back when I first wrote on the topic, a few correspondents were surprised by the very idea of people who were publicly jerks, but nonetheless identify as Christian. Since then, they’ve finally recognized plenty of examples of the phenomenon. Celebrities who act like divas and brats and unholy rage monsters, but if anyone dares to say anything they consider blasphemous, they instantly object ’cause they’re Christian all of a sudden. Or if you ask them about religion, they’ll claim they love Jesus. Or when they’re accepting Grammy awards for singing about promiscuous nooky, first they wanna give a shout-out to their “Lord and savior Jesus Christ,” whom you’d never imagine they follow, considering their lifestyles. They don’t publicly follow him any, but they’re huge fans. Huge.

Particular stand-outs are those politicians who love to argue, and slander their counterparts in the opposition party, and say vicious things to anyone who gives them pushback. And sometimes they have vile things to say about immigrants, minorities, people of other states, fans of other football teams, or anyone who just rubs ’em the wrong way. And considering how often you see ’em on the Sunday morning chat shows, it’s unlikely they’re ever at church. But whenever they gotta claim Jesus to score some political points, and maybe get some Christian votes, they’ll loudly and proudly claim they’re Christian. Still, you’d never have guessed so by their fleshly behavior.

I have coworkers who are this way. They’ll talk about all the drinking and smoking and fornicating they plan to do over the weekend. They’re unethical. They’re filled with fear, hatred, and anger. They get envious, jealous, and partisan. Try to pick fights; try to cause division; try to create enemies. Y’know, stuff which indicates they’re not gonna inherit God’s kingdom. Ga 5.19-21 But if one of our athiest coworkers dares to condemn Christianity, suddenly they wanna fight ’em on behalf of the Jesus they never actually follow.

That, I will regularly point out to people, is the world we live in today. People who clearly don’t know and don’t follow Jesus, yet think they’re one of his.

I could blame it on decades of Evangelicals insisting they’re not religious, ’cause Christianity is a relationship not a religion. They’re entirely right about not being religious, but entirely wrong about Christianity not being a religion. As I’ve often said, if we don’t get religious about our relationships with Jesus, that relationship’s gonna suck.

I could blame it on the fact that, because they’re not religious, they rarely pray, they never go to church, never read their bibles, and have no idea what Jesus teaches. Or that they even need to follow him. They figure they said the sinner’s prayer as children, and once saved always saved, so actually obeying God might imply they don’t trust their faith to save them. Hence their utter lack of good works and good fruit.

If we call them on this, half the time they’ll object to us even judging them; the one bit of bible they do know is “Judge not,” even though they don’t truly know what Jesus means by it. The rest of the time they’ll shrug: Why are we so worried about their sins? They said the sinner’s prayer; they go to confession; they’re forgiven, so they’re good! Piss off.

They think they belong to Jesus. Do they? Maybe; maybe not. God is way more gracious than I am, and he might let ’em into his kingdom regardless. But the apostles do say those who produce fleshly works like they do are not getting into God’s kingdom, and Jesus himself says plenty will claim to be his at the End, but he doesn’t know ’em. Seems we’ve met these people.

Taking God’s amazing grace for granted.

CHEAP GRACE tʃip greɪs noun. Treatment of God’s forgiveness, generosity, and loving attitude, as if it’s nothing special; as if it cost him little; taking it and God for granted.

Whenever I bring up the subject of cheap grace, some ignorant Christian invariably objects: “Grace is not cheap.” Even if I’ve fully explained in advance what I mean by “cheap grace”; even if I’ve written an entire essay like this one, defining the idea.

Every. Single. Time.

It’s a knee-jerk response. They were taught all their lives how grace isn’t cheap at all; how it cost Jesus his life. So whenever someone brings up the subject of cheap grace, they’re offended, therefore emotional, therefore irrational, about it: “Grace isn’t cheap!” Someone tweets a comment about cheap grace, and they tweet right back, “Grace isn’t cheap!” Someone uses “cheap grace” in a sentence, and they wait for the very first chance to interrupt: “Grace isn’t cheap!”

YES. I KNOW. I’M TRYING TO MAKE THAT POINT. I WOULD IF YOU’D LISTEN. So can you please practice some self-control just this once, and give me a minute? Okay? (Betcha I’m still gonna get these comments regardless. You just watch. Ugh.)

Adam Clayton Powell Sr. gets credited with coining this term, and if you think it came from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it’s only because Bonhoeffer went to Powell’s church and got it from him, then popularized the heck out of it in his The Cost of Discipleship. It’s used to describe “grace” whenever this grace is misdefined and malpracticed by irreligious Christians. As Bonhoeffer put it,

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. “All for sin could not atone.” The world goes on in the same old way, and we are still sinners “even in the best life” as Luther said. Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin. […] Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Bonhoeffer 44-45

That’s cheap grace: Taking expensive, valuable, amazing grace, and demeaning it by using it as a free pass to sin. Taking God’s safety net, and bouncing on it for fun like a trampoline.

Part of the reason people object to the term “cheap grace” is they don’t like to see God’s generosity taken so casually like that. Well, me neither.

Part of it’s ’cause they don’t believe God’s grace actually can be cheapened. No matter what we do with grace, it’s still awesome, still worthy, still priceless. It’s like when you accidentally drop your phone down a porta-potty: Doesn’t matter how foul that commode is; they’re making some really expensive payments on that phone, so they’re going in up to their armpits to fish it out. (Although yeah, some people would never. Because they’re rich, and buy $1000 phones as stocking stuffers, and would casually pay $1000 to avoid touching poo-poo. The rest of us have real jobs. But I digress.) Grace is far more valuable than any phone, and has inherent worth, so nothing could cheapen it.

If that’s the way you imagine grace, I get why you’d balk at the concept of “cheap grace.” But I’m not describing the grace itself, nor devaluing it. I’m describing the crappy attitude people have towards it. When they treat it like it has no value, that’s cheap grace. If you wanna call it something different, go right ahead. “Cheap grace” has already caught on, which is why I’m using that term.