you must read...

the article i'm recommending for you to read today represents "weak on sanctification 101". if you want to know what the title of this blog means, or go deeper into the meaning of simul iustus et peccator, here is a great place to begin.

michael spencer, aka "the internet monk," is a favorite blogger of mine, and every once in awhile, i go beyond the current posts, dive in to some of his archives, and find words that are even more remarkably profound and helpful. tonight i found his piece called, "when i am weak: why we must embrace our brokenness and never be good christians," in which michael lays out the lies we tell ourselves and others about sanctification. here's a sampling:

It's remarkable, considering the tone of so many Christian sermons and messages, that any church has honest people show up at all. I can't imagine that any religion in the history of humanity has made as many clearly false claims and promises as evangelical Christians in their quest to say that Jesus makes us better people right now. With their constant promises of joy, power, contentment, healing, prosperity, purpose, better relationships, successful parenting and freedom from every kind of oppression and affliction, I wonder why more Christians aren't either being sued by the rest of humanity for lying or hauled off to a psych ward to be examined for serious delusions.

Evangelicals love a testimony of how screwed up I USED to be. They aren't interested in how screwed up I am NOW. But the fact is, that we are screwed up. Then. Now. All the time in between and, it's a safe bet to assume, the rest of the time we're alive. But we will pay $400 to go hear a "Bible teacher" tell us how we are only a few verses, prayers and cds away from being a lot better. And we will set quietly, or applaud loudly, when the story is retold. I'm really better now. I'm a good Christian. I'm not a mess anymore. I'm different from other people.

What a crock. Please. Call this off. It's making me sick. I mean that. It's affecting me. I'm seeing, in my life and the lives of others, a commitment to lying about our condition that is absolutely pathological. Evangelicals call Bill Clinton a big-time liar about sex? Come on. How many nodding "good Christians" have so much garbage sitting in the middle of their lives that the odor makes it impossible to breathe without gagging. How many of us are addicted to food, porn and shopping? How many of us are depressed, angry, unforgiving and just plain mean? How many of us are a walking, talking course on basic hypocrisy, because we just can't look at ourselves in the mirror and admit what we a collection of brokenness we've become WHILE we called ourselves "good Christians" who want to "witness" to others. Gack. I'm choking just writing this.

You people with your Bibles. Look something up for me? Isn't almost everyone in that book screwed up? I mean, don't the screwed up people- like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Hosea- outnumber the "good Christians" by about ten to one? And isn't it true that the more we get to look at a Biblical character close up, the more likely it will be that we'll see a whole nasty collection of things that Christians say they no longer have to deal with because, praise God! I'm fixed? Not just a few temper tantrums or ordinary lies, but stuff like violence. Sex addictions. Abuse. Racism. Depression. It's all there, yet we still flop our Bibles open on the pulpit and talk about "Ten Ways To Have Joy That Never Goes Away!" Where is the laugh track?

What was that I heard? "Well....we're getting better. That's sanctification. I've been delivered!" I suppose some of us are getting better. For instance, my psycho scary temper is better than it used to be. Of course, the reason my temper is better, is that in the process of cleaning up the mess I've made of my family with my temper, I've discovered about twenty other major character flaws that were growing, unchecked, in my personality. I've inventoried the havoc I've caused in this short life of mine, and it turns out "temper problem" is way too simple to describe the mess that is me. Sanctification? Yes, I no longer have the arrogant ignorance to believe that I'm always right about everything, and I'm too embarrassed by the general sucktitude of my life to mount an angry fit every time something doesn't go my way. Getting better? Quite true. I'm getting better at knowing what a wretched wreck I really amount to, and it's shut me up and sat me down.

folks, i have been convinced for a long time now that we simply claim too much for "christianity" and know far too little of the actual good news. god displays his mercy in and through broken clay pots, not fine porcelain vases.

read michael's article. clink the link above, read it carefully, and think upon these things.

and may god forgive our triumphalism and pride.

today's van gogh
the novel reader, 1888