"You are a sinner but you are saved" undercuts the Gospel

The faith “formula” many of us have heard goes something like this:

1. Everyone is a sinner. We all fall short and we need salvation.

2. The consequence of sin is death and so since we are sinners we all deserve to die.

3. The death of Jesus Christ paid the price of the world’s sin…

4. And so, anyone who confesses Jesus Christ and places their trust in him is saved from eternal death because Jesus died in your place.

It is a tidy formula and there is little here that Christians would call into question. Some quibble about what the death of Jesus really accomplishes, and still others argue about the different atonement theories. Some progressives insert a step before step one above by saying something like, ‘before there was original sin, there was original blessing.”

In the end, most Christians that I encounter (of all sorts of leanings) share the Christian story as moving from sin to salvation, from sinner to justified. You are a sinner but you are saved. The problem is that this story undercuts the power of the Gospel because of the “but'“.

Ask any human you know about what it is like to hear a “but” in a conversation and you will hear a common refrain, “nothing someone says before the word but really counts.” It is why managers and parents are taught to avoid the “compliment sandwich” - giving someone a complement then provide a point of critique. People do not hear the complement and only hear the critique. It does not matter what was said before the ‘but’ because it does not matter in the mind.

And so, back to the common salvation formula: You are a sinner but you are saved. We don’t hear that we are sinners and only hear that we are saved. While this may be good news to our egos, it is not the Good News of Jesus Christ. The Good News of Jesus Christ is more akin to what Luther suggested, “Simul Justus et peccator” - Justified and Sinner.

In this just as simple formula, the but is removed and the two positions are made equal. You and I are justified AND sinners. Secondly, notice that in the common telling, the humans are the first actors - humanity sinned. Being justified and sinner proclaims that it is God who is the first actor. Even before you were aware of it, before you acted, God acts. In the Methodist tradition we say this is prevenient grace - grace that goes before you are aware of it.

But the most potent aspect of being justified and sinner is that it is not good news to the ego but it is Good News in Jesus Christ. This way of seeing God’s grace means that you are justified, you are forgiven, you are made right by God AND still you are a sinner. Name any other relationship in the world like that. Betcha can’t. Humans build our relationships on the premise that we expect each other to become less and less of a sinner, problem, immature jerk. And that the future of the relationship is at stake if you do not “get better”.

The Good News, the Gospel News of Jesus Christ, says that God’s work justifies, redeems and forgives - no matter what! And when we come to see there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God (not even sin), then we interact with the world and with God differently. We no longer look to please out of fear, rather we are pleased to look through fear.

You are a sinner but you are saved is a very human formulation. Any parent will say this to their child. It pleases the ego to hear this.

You are justified and a sinner is revolutionary and only the imagination of the divine could consider this as a way to the death of the ego and the resurrection of a new creation.

What is a Denomination and a Nondenomination?

Do you ever wonder why some churches are called a denomination and others are called non-denomination?

Generally we associate denominations as part of the “mainline” which includes a wide range of protestant churches. I rarely hear anyone describe the Catholic Church a denomination. Usually, we drill down what our Christian faith tradition is in this sequence : Catholic or Protestant? If Protestant which denomination or non-denomination?

So what makes a denomination a denomination? Lets start with what a nomination is.

The word nomination come from the Latin word nominationem meaning "a naming, designation”. When we nominate something we name it or mention someone or something by name. It naming by what it is.

And so to “de-nominate” is to name by what it is not. A denomination in the Christian tradition is less defined by what it is than by what it is not. For instance, United Methodists are a denomination from the Church of England. The Church of England identifies seven sacraments. As a denomination of the Church of England, the United Methodists do not have seven sacrament, but there are two. What makes a denomination a denomination is not what it says, but what it does not say - what it denominates.

Another example is the denomination in the wings from the United Methodist Church - the Global Methodist Church (GMC). The current document that outlines this denomination is called Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline. If you are a United Methodist then you may feel like this document sounds like the current UMC’s guiding book called The Book of Discipline. Much of the Transitional Book and the Book of Discipline are so similar it is sometimes difficult to see how they are different. Again, a denomination is not marked by what it says, but what it does not say. One of the things the Transitional Book of the GMC does not say is what the Book of Discipline calls “Our Theological Task.” The ramifications of this is notable. The UMC affirms so deeply that doctrine and theology must go hand in hand to discern what God is doing in the world today. The GMC suggests that there is no new doctrine to be discovered and that every question already has an answer. To make the point even clearer, the only “restrictive rule” of the GMC reads:

In continuity with our Wesleyan heritage, the governing body of the Global Methodist Church shall not revoke, alter, or change our Articles of Religion or Confession of Faith, or establish any new standards of rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine.

The GMC suggests that all that God has for humanity has already been stated and that theology is in service to doctrine - not a mutual partner. The UMC understands that there are questions that the world is asking that doctrine alone cannot address and doctrine must be in conversation with theology to discern God’s will. And so as a denomination, the GMC does not speak of the denomination’s theological task because doctrine is all that is essential. In this simple way, the GMC is denominating (not speaking) about theology, but is speaking about doctrine.

If a nomination is naming by what is, and a denomination is naming by what it is not, then what do we make of a “nondenomination”? (Que mind explosion.)

A non-denomination lacks a naming by what it is not. Or to put it another way, a nondenomination is doing everything it can to try to name everything. There ideal non-denomination is a place that has an answer for every question, problem, and vexation. That answer may be a bible verse or a statement of faith or a prayer, but the non-denomination works hard to teach that there is no lack, that there is an answer and that answer is found in the named sources of the nondenomination.

And so to recap:

• A nomination is a process of naming something by what it is.

• A denomination is a process of naming something by what it is not.

• A nondenominational rejects the idea of denominating and looks more like a nomination process.

And why does any of this matter? It matters to those of us who believe that doubt, unknowing and lack are not things that can be explained away but realities we must live with. This is the nature and role of theology. Through the art and practice of theology the disciple does not try to eliminate the felt sense of lack in their life, but come to see the lack as a friend. A friend who can teach us. Show me an organization that promises to make you whole and completely without lacking and I will show you an organization that is controlled by fear. Any nondenomination (or denomination for that matter) that suggests that all the questions to life are already solved is a Church that is ill equipped for the complexities of the world we are living in.

How to Wash Your Hands According to the Gospel

It really is a shame that I often miss how clever the biblical writers can be. Sometimes these points of cleverness are sometimes illusions or call backs to other stories. Other times the cleverness shows up in the language. If I were a more avid reader of Greek and Hebrew I would hope I could see these clever moments. One of these clever points came in my studies the other day around Mark 7. Specifically the first three verses:

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;

What is clever about these verses? It is the word pygme which is translated above as “wash their hands”. Pygme is a bit of an obscure word and it could mean a few things. It could mean the part of the body that is from the wrist down. It can also mean the area of the body that extends from fingertip to forearm. The note may be that the Pharisees don’t stop at their wrist when they wash, but they wash all the way up their arm as though they were super hand washers. More generally though the word pygme means “fist”.

Rather than being super hand washers, this note from Mark could suggest that the Pharisees wash their hands with closed fists or with hands clenched together. I don’t know about you, but it is very difficutl to wash ones hands with clenched fists. Sure the outside of the hands may be clean, but the inside is not.

Perhaps the disciples did wash their hands, but they did so in a different manner than what had become the custom of the Pharisees. The disciples washed with open hands.