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.

An irreligious religion.

RELIGION ri'lɪ.dʒən noun. Worship of a superhuman controlling power, whether a personal God or impersonal universe.

2. Particular system of belief and worship, as demonstrated through actions and declarations.

3. A supremely important pursuit or interest, followed as if worship.

[Religious ri'lɪ.dʒəs adjective.]

A significant part of authentic Christianity is religion, the actions we do as part of our worship of God.

Christianity isn’t just an internal belief system. Or at least it’s not meant to be. I’m entirely aware plenty of Christians believe all sorts of things about Jesus, and claim to have a close personal relationship with him… but these folks have a certain disconnect in their lives where you can’t tell they have any personal relationship with Jesus by their actions. Or their words. (Particularly not their words on social media.) Or their attitudes. Or their finances. Or anything; they may as well be pagan for all we can tell.

If you’ve read James, you’re aware when our faith in God doesn’t transform us one iota, what good is it? Such a “faith” is what James called dead. Jm 2.26 It’s surely not alive.

Yet for a lot of Evangelicals in the United States, religion has been a bad word for as long as they can remember. It’s because to Evangelicals, “religous” doesn’t mean any of the things in the definition I gave at the top. It means, instead, traditional. Namely the old-timey church traditions which they consider meaningless, which Christians do to look devout, but it doesn’t bring ’em any closer to God. Like songs and rote prayers they’ll sing or recite, but they never think about the words in ’em, and don’t mean ’em anyway. Like giving charity and tithes and doing good deeds, but they do that stuff because they’ve always done that stuff, and they never even think about God when they do ’em; it’s just habit. It’s “just what we do.”

The proper term for religious activity on autopilot, is dead religion: Actions we don’t actually do in faith or obedience, don’t actually do as worship, and therefore don’t do anything to bring us closer to God. Works without faith.

Now, if we explained what this religous activity is about, and why we do it, might it become living religion? Sometimes! I’ve known people who grew up Catholic, or Lutheran, or Baptist, who just go through the motions and never think about why they do as they do. I’ve also known people who became Catholic, or Lutheran, or Baptist, and they wanted to know why these churches do as they do, and they love that their churches do that. Sometimes they even revive their fellow church members. Sometimes not, ’cause their fellow church members have zero interest in coming to life. But for the newbies, and for any revived fellow Christians, their activities are living religion.

Problem is, Evangelicals assume everything they call “religion” or “religious” is the dead stuff. Dead religion is religion. So they avoid religous practices and rituals and customs and traditions. They don’t do anything. Except maybe attend church, read the bible, and pray. Little more.

And if they do anything more, they might help out their church. Go to bible studies and their church’s small groups. Learn some bible trivia. Learn Christian apologetics so they can argue about Christ with their pagan coworkers. Learn some theology so they can understand God a little bit better (and leap to the false conclusion they now understand God perfectly, but that’s another rant). Read some End Times books so they can understand that a bit better (and again, leap to the false conclusion they totally know what’s coming; again another rant). Memorize bible. Learn some Christian history, but not too much. Learn some ancient Hebrew and Greek words, but not enough to translate anything (and leap to the false conclusion every popular bible translation is wrong, but they’re not; yep, that’s another rant too).

They’ll do all that stuff—some of which would actually, accurately be called religion. Studying bible and learning more about God is legitimate religous activity. So’s pitching in at your church. So’s interacting with fellow Christians. So are good deeds.

But of course these Evangelicals would never call any of this stuff religion… ’cause to them, “religion” only refers to the dead stuff.

That’s what Evangelicals mean whenever they sing Darrell Evans’ 2002 song “Fields of Grace.” Third verse:

🎵 There’s a place where religion finally dies

🎵 There’s a place where I lose my selfish pride

🎵 Dancing with my Father God in fields of grace

🎵 Dancing with my Father God in fields of grace

One of my previous churches used to sing this, and a number of folks would give a big whoop right after we sang, “religion finally dies.” Not because they’re disobedient, uncharitable, irreligious people; again it’s because “religion” to them was dead religion, and they’re so happy to be done with the wasteful hypocrisy. As does Evans, I expect, when he sings this.

Again, nevermind the letter of James.

James 1.26-27 NASB

26If anyone thinks himself to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

The word the NASB translates “religious” and “religion,” θρησκὸς/thriskós, is so obviously translated “religion” that it’s rare you’ll find a bible translation which doesn’t go with “religion.” (I’m also pretty sure bible translators, who usually know the proper definition of “religion” anyway, make a point to use the word so we can point to James and say, “Look, there’s good religion and bad; let’s not dismiss all religion as bad.”)

The Daniel fast.

Every January, the people in my church go on a diet. Most years for three weeks, although individuals might opt to only do this for one. Generally we cut back on the carbohydrates, sugar, meat, and oils; we instead eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Considering all the binging we did between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it makes sense to practice a little more moderation, doesn’t it?

What does this practice have to do with prayer? Well y’see, the people don’t call it a diet. They call it a “Daniel fast.”

It’s an Evangelical practice which has taken off in the past 25 years. It’s loosely based on a few lines from Daniel 10. At the beginning of the year, Daniel went three weeks—that’d be 21 days—depriving himself.

Daniel 10.2-3 KWL

2In those days I, Daniel, went into mourning three weeks.

3I ate none of the bread I coveted.

Meat and wine didn’t enter my mouth.

I didn’t oil my hair for all of three weeks.

So that’s how the Daniel fast works. At the beginning of the year, we likewise go three weeks depriving ourselves. He went without bread, meat, wine, and oil; so do we. True, by ‏ס֣וֹךְ ‏לֹא־‏סָ֑כְתִּי /sokh lo-sakhtí, “I oiled myself no oil,” Daniel was referring to how the ancients cleaned their hair. (Perfumed oil conditions it, and keeps bugs away.) But look at your average Daniel fast diet, and you’ll notice Evangelicals are taking no chances. Nothing fried, no oils, no butter, nothing tasty.

Though the lists aren’t consistent across Christendom. The list below permits quality oils. Including grapeseed… even though Daniel went without wine during his three weeks. Not entirely sure how they came up with their list.

This list permits oils… but no solid fats. ’Cause Daniel denied himself Crisco, y’know. The Daniel Fast

In fact you look at these menus, and you’ve gotta wonder how any of it was extrapolated from Daniel’s experience. I mean, it generally sounds like Daniel was denying himself nice food. And yet there are such things as cookbooks for how to make “Daniel fast” desserts. No I’m not kidding. Cookbooks which say, right on the cover, they’re full of delicious recipes—so even though Daniel kept away from enjoyable food, who says you have to do without?

This is a fast, right?

Read the bible in a month. Yes, seriously. A month.

January’s coming; you’re making resolutions, and one of ’em is to read the bible. As you should! It’s gonna make you more familiar with God. Some people unrealistically expect a new, profound God-experience every day as the Holy Spirit shows ’em stuff, but hopefully you’re more realistic about it. Hopefully you’re realistic about all your resolutions. Not everyone is.

So you need to read through through the entire bible, Genesis to maps. (That’s an old Evangelical joke. ’Cause a lot of study bibles include maps in the back. Okay, it’s less amusing once I explain it.) Every year Christians get on some kind of bible-reading plan to make sure they methodically go through every book, chapter, and verse. ’Cause when we don’t, we wind up only reading the familiar bits, over and over and over again—and miss a lot of the parts we should read. The reason so many Christians misinterpret the New Testament is because they know so very little of its Old Testament context. Every time I quote just a little bit of the Law to explain Jesus’s teachings, way too many people respond, “I’ve never heard that before.” Sadly, I know exactly what they’re talking about.

But part of the reason they “never heard that before” is because they totally forgot they did hear it. Because their bible-in-a-year reading plan had ’em read the Law back in February… and when they finally got to the gospels in September, they’ve clean forgot what they read in February. And by next February when they’re reading the Law again, they’ve clean forgot what they read in September.

So why take a year to read the bible? ’Cause everybody else is doing the bible in a year.

Seriously. It’s a big market. Publishers sell one-year bibles, which chop the scriptures into short daily readings. Sometimes really short daily readings, ’cause they’ll give you three readings: A chapter of the Old Testament, half a chapter of the New Testament, and half a psalm or some other poetry for dessert. If you don’t buy their specially sliced-up bible, there are websites which do it for you, or modules to add to your bible software, or you can just get a list of somebody’s bible-in-a-year plan and follow it yourself. Stick to it and in a year—a year!—you’ll have read the bible.

Yes the bible is a big thick book collection. But come on. It’s not so thick it takes a year to go through.

The year-long program makes the bible sound like this huge, insurmountable mountain to climb. It’s no such thing. Why, you can read it in a month. And no, I’m not kidding. A month. I’ve read it several Januarys in a row. Takes me three weeks.

Yes, there are bible-reading programs which read the bible in three months. That’s a little more reasonable. In fact if you wanna really get familiar with your bible, and quickly, it’s a great idea to do this three-month plan and read the bible four times in a year. (Ideally in four different translations.) Read it every time the seasons change—in December, March, June, and September. Get a bible-in-three-months plan and go with their schedule, or get a bible-in-a-year plan and read four times as much.

If you struggle with reading, or reading comprehension, fine; there are six-month bible-reading plans. But when we’re talking a whole year to read the bible, this pace has serious drawbacks. And not just ’cause it makes the bible sound impossibly massive.

Resolutions: Our little stabs at self-control.

Speaking for myself, I’m not into new year’s resolutions.

Because I make resolutions the year round. Whenever I recognize changes I need to make in my life, I get to work on ’em right away. I don’t procrastinate till 1 January. (Though I admit I may procrastinate just the same. But not ’cause I’m saving up new changes for the new year.)

Here’s the problem with stockpiling all our lifestyle changes till the new year: Come 1 January, we wind up with a pile of changes to make. It’s hard enough to make one change; now you have five. Or 50, depending on how great of a trainwreck you are. Multiplying your resolutions, multiplies your difficulty level.

But hey, it’s an American custom. So at the year’s end a lot of folks, Christians included, begin to think about what we’d like to change about our lives.

Not that we want to change. Some of us don’t! But it’s New Year’s resolution time, and everyone’s asking what our resolutions are, and some of us might grudgingly try to come up with something. What should we change? Too many carbohydrates? Not enough exercise? Sloppy finances? Non-productive hobbies? Too many bucket list items not checked off?

Since our culture doesn’t really do self-control, you might notice a lot of Americans’ resolutions aren’t really about breaking bad habits, but adding new habits—good or bad. We’re not gonna eat less, but we are gonna work out more often. We’re not gonna cut back on video games at all, yet somehow find the time to pray more often. You know—unrealistic expectations.

True, a lot of us vow to diet and exercise. Just as many of us will choose to learn gourmet cooking, or resolve to eat at fancier restaurants more often. (Well, so long that the fancier restaurants provide American-size portions. If I only wanted a six-ounce piece of meat I’d go to In-N-Out Burger.)

True, a lot of us will vow to cut back on our screen time—whether on computers, tablets, phones, or televisions. Just as many will decide time isn’t the issue; quality is. They’ll vow to watch better movies and TV shows. Time to binge-watch the shows the critics rave about. Time to watch classic movies instead of whatever Adam Sandler’s production company farts out. (I used to say “poops out,” but that implies they’re making an effort.) Sometimes it’s a clever attempt to avoid cutting back on screen time—’cause they already know they won’t. And sometimes they honestly never think about it; screens are a fact of life.

As Christians, a lot of us will resolve to be better Christians. We’ll pray more. Meditate more. Go to church more consistently; maybe join one of the small groups. Perhaps read more bible—even all the way through. Put more into the collection plate. Share Jesus more often with strangers and acquaintances. Maybe do some missions work.

All good intentions. Yet here’s the problem: It takes self-control to make any resolution stick. It’s why, by mid-March, all these resolutions are likely abandoned. So if we’re ever gonna stick to them, we gotta begin by developing everybody’s least-favorite fruit of the Spirit: Self-control.