A man once said that pure religion consists of this: “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27). As it happens, just as there are many ways to skin a cat, Christians over the years have come up with various different approaches to ‘keeping oneself unstained from the world’, in a word; Holiness.
One solution that was prominent in the Middle Ages, back when leeches and jousting were a thing, was the monastic attitude of separation. This super-religious class of society, the monks and clergy, would go off and live separate from society in Monasteries. This often included taking vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience, amongst other things. We sympathise with this option, to an extent. What seems more common-sense for avoiding worldly temptations than to move away from the ‘world’? However, there were always going to be problems with that model. Jesus didn’t pray for his people to be taken out of the world (whether to heaven or some isolation, see John 17), and he also taught that the very source of the immorality they were trying to escape actually came from their own hearts (Mark 7:20-23). Sure, they avoided the temptation of engaging with prostitutes and getting sloshed at the local drinking den, and perhaps the quiet seclusion gave them some peace and time to reflect on Scripture, but effectively they were removing from public life the one class of people who were (supposedly) best equipped to be a sanctifying influence on public life. Where we do give them credit is that you can’t say they weren’t committed to their ideals. These men were prepared to cut off the normal pleasures of life, and we do believe that at least some of these men were doing so from a genuine love of God and holiness.
Another solution, one more common in our time, is the integration approach. This is the attitude that says, ‘I will live like a Christian, but I will still walk alongside my non-Christian friends, and participate in their lives, so that I can show them a better way.’ Sounds noble, doesn’t it? It genuinely does sound like a good idea, but it fails to properly accommodate for the slipperiest fiend in the equation: the deceitfulness of the human heart and fleshly desires. Watching the same worldly TV shows as the non-Christians and just ‘not really thinking about the blasphemy and nudity’ or what have you, and then expecting that exposure to have no impact on your personal devotion and holiness, is like walking around a haystack dashing a flint against steel, and then being shocked to see the whole thing going up in flames. “But, I was aware that the flint could be dangerous sometimes, and the one time I saw a spark come out of it I quickly stamped it out. Well, I looked at it for a minute and enjoyed the glow but then I stamped it out. Come to think of it, did I stamp it out?” Can you hear those words? Do they reflect your own experiences of enticing sin, and then being surprised to have it pounce on you and know you? This author has been there, these are his sins, but don’t be surprised if the shoe fits. It just so happens that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, and ‘all’ includes you.
Let us humbly offer a suggestion: If there is sin that you know you are going to expose yourself to, and your response is that you ‘can handle it’, then you are not where you need to be. As it happens, this author isn’t either. The two of us are hanging off the bottom rung of the ladder together. Sin is like a cancer, or a raging fire, or a pestilence. Dear reader, if you are trusting in Christ and therefore indwelt by God’s Spirit, you will know that there is no lasting joy or fulfilment in sin. Rather than seeing how close to the edge you can get before you fall, your attitude should be to take 10 paces back, and probably build a fence too. Or, as a man once put it, cut off your hand, if it should cause you to sin. Or did he say ‘just put that hand in your pocket, you can handle the temptation, I think’.
The attitude of immersion into the non-Christian lifestyle for the sake of being relatable or on top of cultural trends or ‘so that you don’t seem out of touch’ is dangerous and ultimately foolish. If you think you are pretty good at enduring sin and coming out unscathed, we challenge you on two fronts: firstly, that you are not treating sin as a truly deadly thing; secondly, you are grossly overestimating your own creaturely will. Thinking you are in effective control of all your desires and passions and actions, and that you can order them how you want, and make things happen exactly as you desire, is the deceptive fruit of a sin called Pride. So, this second approach to holiness is anything but. It is a slippery slope, and one that many have fallen down, like English people chasing a wheel of cheese down a big hill (Yeah, they do that. They must have too much free time on that damp island.)
So, we’ve seen a legalistic approach that doesn’t treat the heart of the matter, we’ve seen a licentious approach that grossly underestimates the matter of the heart, so now like any good sermon outline, we need a third point. Let’s take heart, and give an answer for the matter at hand.
Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Spirit had been given to the people. Their instructions, after that had taken place, were to preach the gospel in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then to the ends of the Earth. They needed to wait until the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, was personally present and active in the work of the believers to transform the world around them with the gospel, and conform the people around them to the image of the Son of God. That is what the gospel does. It takes wretched dead people and makes them justified saints, who stumble forwards in sanctification towards Holiness. Just as the gospel and the work of the Spirit is deeply redemptive, so should be the presence and influence of the church in the Kingdom of God in everyday life.
Keeping the gospel stacked on a shelf in a monastery is like hoarding dishwashing liquid in a sterile home kitchen while a city’s worth of commercial kitchens go without any soap at all, and just trudge in their filth with no way of purification. It is like hoarding fertiliser in a storehouse and leaving farmers to their barren farms. It is depriving the world of the one truly transformative truth and power that could be its saviour. On the other hand, letting the gospel have some effect on your personal thoughts and maybe your music tastes and maybe what movies you watch, but mostly limiting the application of the gospel to just your personal devotional life, and then leaving the gospel in your back pocket when you go enjoy the culture of the world, is like planting a vine and then squeezing it tightly with both hands so that it doesn’t get the opportunity to produce fruit. It is like privately taking classes in Realist art quietly at home, and then spending all your time adoring and studying Dadaist art with your friends. Ok ok, enough metaphors.
Here’s what we’re getting to. Gospel culture is the best way. You don’t want to run away from a society that needs the gospel, but you don’t want to walk in the way of sinners. The answer is to bring the gospel to bear on every sphere of life. The good news is that in Christ, we have the authority (Matt 28:18-20) to bring the gospel to shape every area of life on earth, and armed with the gospel we have the power to see the Kingdom of God spread throughout the whole world (Matt 13:31) like a mustard seed, like leaven in the dough, and so on.
So what does that look like? It means redeeming marriage and skateboarding. It means turning latte art into worship of the most high God. It means creating businesses that obey God, and pay their employees properly, and which shut on Sunday so that men and women can be with their families, worshipping God in Christian community. We will conquer the world with grace. We have the Spirit within us, and he will do the work. In time, Christians will make art in every medium that isn’t just doctrinally pretty accurate, except for that one bit. They will make movies that aren’t cringe. We’re already seeing this, with The Chosen. Good Art exists because there is a Good Artist.
At the end of the day, we don’t want Christian knock-offs of inherently worldly options. We don’t want to have to ‘settle for the Christian alternative’. It should be the other way, and it one day will be. The world will see our art, our architecture, our businesses that operate with integrity and without fraud, our Producers who are faithful to their wives and who make films that don’t require women to strip nude and in doing so defraud their current or future husbands. They will see the world we redeemed, and it will be our prayer that in seeing that they will be intrigued by the One who redeemed it.
Does this sound outlandish to you? Does this author seem like he has taken a left off Reason Highway and sped headlong into Fantasy Boulevard? This attitude is the result of believing that the work of the gospel will be successful in the world (in a word, Postmillennialism) and the conviction that we need more strong men and women who are prepared to pave the way towards a redeemed future (like our wonderful brother in the Lord, Andrew Torba).
This approach to holiness is not just the best, it also happens to be the most fun. That should be no surprise. Obeying the law of God and walking in righteousness is a truly joyful pursuit. Honouring God above all of his gifts incidentally helps you to enjoy said gifts. We get to win the world with words, water, bread and wine. The battle is won. So, let’s live set-apart lives. Let’s preach the gospel, live the gospel, and invite our friends to come and share in Jesus Christ. Let them taste, and see. And oh, once they have tasted and seen… There’s just nothing better.
Image Credit: https://www.instagram.com/groundedbutfree/
Distilled Orthopraxy 