dico castimonia

I hope it is obvious that all my talk of the inadequacy of a culture of morality and my blogs last year about being known for what we don’t do, and my talk to the high schoolers called, “escaping the trap of morality” doesn’t mean that I think morality is bad. It’s just that I think it is the number one idol being worshipped in the contemporary church. There are others, but this is the biggie, I think.
Of course we all know and preach that there is no such thing as a salvation by works. That is, nothing you can do to obtain salvation. But what we seem not to realize is that there is nothing that you can “not do” to obtain salvation.

The way in which it becomes an idol is that it becomes the thing we do to feel like we are good, or that we are Christians. This attitude leaves one with no need for the gospel of Christ, and therefore he doesn’t allow it to apply to his life. He becomes like the Jewish converts that tried to teach that circumcision was necessary to be a Jesus follower. It is easy to understand how this happens – it is something tangible, a behavior that distinguishes one from the other. But it is entirely insufficient. Even in the old testament, circumcision wasn’t a means to a relationship with God, it was the sign of a relationship with God.
Jesus didn’t teach us what to do and what not to do, he taught how to be after he had taken care of how bad we are. So striving only not to do bad things denies my need for him and distracts me from being who he wants me to be.
Eugene Peterson differentiates morality from moralism. Of course morality is a good thing, a result of the work of God in our lives. But moralism is an idol, and disallows God’s work in our lives. Oswald Chambers notes that we often confuse ignorance with innocence, and innocence with purity. The confusion of innocence with purity is of the utmost danger. This is what I was most concerned with in my talk to the high schoolers. Purity is what we strive for, but it can’t be obtained by innocence. This is directly contrary to the teaching of scripture. So why do we even indirectly hint that purity is something we have until we mess up? We use word groups like, “stay pure.” One doesn’t become impure from losing his purity, one is impure by not being pure. There is a difference and I don’t think it is subtle. Purity is not something we had and lost. That is innocence. Purity is something we never had and have to become.
We have a short list of things required to stay pure. The one thing that eclipses all others is sexuality. Namely virginity. As if purity is in your pants rather than your heart. Of course lost virginity can never be regained. But one can always strive for purity. But we are raising up a generation of teenagers that equate virginity with salvation. And we perpetuate this heresy with hundreds of “God Product” books aimed at convincing teenagers not to do many things, including even dating, while we are sadly lacking in spiritual growth and relationship teaching. This, no doubt, is because we must be spiritually mature and relational in order to teach our children these things. But we are too busy polishing our lifestyles, thinking that is the way.