If it Isn't True for Everyone

(More Musings on For the Love book and new musings on the gospel)

I have been blessed for the last several months to be a part of the launch team for Jen Hatmaker's new book, For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards (available now on Amazon).

For the last couple and one more week, I'm taking chapters of the book that meant a lot to me and discussing them. Thus far, we've covered crazy self-imposed expectations of parenting and responding to the millennial generation (without being crappy Christians :) ).

This week another topic dear to my heart and the heartbeat of God's kingdom: what is the gospel really, stripped of our ever-present tendencies to make it what we want it to be? Jen has a great standard from which to start that conversation.

“But then God changed my life, and everything got weird. I discovered the rest of the world! And other cultures! And different Christian traditions! And people who were way, way different from me! And poverty! Then the system in which God operated according to my rules started disintegrating. I started hearing my gospel narrative through the ears of the Other, and a giant whole bunch of it didn’t even make sense. Some values and perspectives and promises I attributed to God’s own heart only worked in my context, and I’m no theologian, but surely that is problematic.

There is a biblical benchmark I now use. We will refer to this criterion for every hard question, big idea, topic, assessment of our own obedience, every “should” or “should not” and “will” or “will not” we ascribe to God, every theological sound bite. Here it is:

If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true.”(Chapter 3, On Calling and Haitian Moms)

I love this. I absolutely, stinkin' love this. It's so simple. Some time ago, I wrote a post on the gospel and what it really is. I asked people to narrow it down to 25 words or fewer. Some of you did, and it was great. (Mine was fourteen. Top that. OK, maybe Jesus would not be quite so . . . competitive.)

If the last year of political posturing and pontificating on how Jesus' gospel relates to this crazy world has taught us anything at all, it's that Christians have wildly different views on that answer. And that we are quite pleased to knock our brothers and sisters out of the kingdom ring like Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots if their interpretation differs from ours.

Ferguson a year ago touched off a hurricane of argument that has rebounded with every touchstone event. Staten Island. McKinney. Supreme Court decisions. Charleston. Perhaps the fact that the list refuses to end should be a clue that we are to take this seriously. There needs to be a gospel response. And it needs to be the real gospel. Not the gospel I carry around in my head and heart because it's near and dear to all I've ever known.

It needs to be a gospel for the Haitian mamas. Because Jesus came for everyone—including me and everyone else. If what I'm saying is Jesus' gospel response to the issues of our day is not true for the Haitian mama, it's not true. If it's not true for the black daughter grieving the loss of her mother in a church basement, it isn't true. If it sin't true for the illegal immigrant mama terrified of returning to a country that will sell her son to drug lords, it isn't true. If it isn't true for the gay person who won't consider any claim of Christ because he's read between the lines of “hate the sin but love the sinner” and knows he's not loved at all, it isn't true. 

Are these tough issues? Yes. Is the gospel capable of handling them? Yes. If we let it be what it is. All it is and not all it isn't.

“Theology is either true everywhere or it isn’t true anywhere. This helps untangle us from the American God Narrative and sets God free to be God instead of the My-God-in-a-Pocket I carried for so long. It lends restraint when declaring what God does or does not think, because sometimes my portrayal of God’s ways sounds suspiciously like the American Dream and I had better check myself. Because of the Haitian single mom. Maybe I should speak less for God.”

Maybe speaking less for God involves first taking a scalpel to my God-in-a-pocket version of the gospel and learning what it truly is. All that it is and, maybe more importantly for today, all it is not.

God created. We broke. God loved. He fixed. 

We love back—we help fix. 

That's the gospel. Winnowed down. All that it is. Not all it isn't.

We messed it up. We all messed it up. We keep messing it up. But every once in a while, we have a chance to look around, see clearly how messed up things really are, and declare, “Not on my watch.” 


Not so long as the gospel means what it really means. That Jesus came to unmess our mess. And once we accept that beautiful, intense, mop-up grace, he wants us to help clean up the mess. He wants us to be restorers and reconcilers. Not restorers of the American God Dream. Restorers of God's creation plan. I think it looks a tad different than we imagine. I think it's beautiful.

To order Jen's book, click here.

Are you interested in a book club discussion of her book? Comment below!

back roads and mini-van lemming think

Someone else likes backroads, too.

I like to take back roads. This may seem unlikely for a person as impatient as I, but something about an unexplored road beckons me. I prefer the road less traveled by. Even when it has stop signs.

In the case of one road I travel, make that multiple stop signs. When I have the misfortune of traveling it between 2:30 and 3:30 (otherwise known as all-heck-breaks-loose because-children-are-being-unleashed-on-the-unsuspecting-world time), it's slow. R-e-a-l-l-y slow.

Funny story here. There is a parallel road to this one with almost no traffic. But no one takes it. Not even I, who know it's there and know it goes to the same place with much less hassle, remember to make a simple left turn and use it. It's a two-block detour, and there we all sit, like mini-van lemmings, in the slow line of cars at multiple stop signs. Why?

I don't have an answer for this. Other than it's easier to mindlessly follow the lemmings than to turn left and take an alternative route to the same place. To turn left, I'd have to be conscious. Which is always a good thing to be when driving. Nevertheless, many of us are not conscious. While driving or while living  [tweet this].

What if we turned left away from the lemmings in life, too? Took a different road. What if we determined to live some alternatives?

To choose to forgive the unforgivable when no one else does that.

“It's your right to hold a grudge. Staying angry makes you strong.”

Lemming words. Don't follow them. 

No, that is not our jeep. Rental. Which was
good, because some of those backroads
had lakes in the middle of them.

Try instead the road that says “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4.32). And in case we need a primer, “as God in Christ forgave you” covers it all.

To willingly say “I don't know that answer” 

when someone challenges you.

Lemmings fear the the not knowing. They bluster and fall back on repeating the same things without examining their words. Don't follow that road.

Follow the sign that reads, “The truth will set you free” (John 8.32). Free when we admit straight up we don't have all the answers. And we'll work on finding them out.

To refuse the lure of calling names and creating generalizations 

instead of listening to people who don't think like we do.

Instead, consider the road that's marked “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1.19). Way too few folks are on that road. It's wide open.

To live like service is more important than success. 

Not believe it or teach it. Live like it. Like we know “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it” (Matthew 10.39) rather than only vaguely suspect it. That's a signpost people will notice.

To stop controlling every moment of every day and every person in it. 

To admit—no, to embrace, the reality that we were never in control. To absolutely glory in not having the keep everything in place and spinning. Because we feel the truth deeply--”Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5.7). That highway is peacefully devoid of all jams.

To allow someone else credit when we deserve it. Cheerfully. Not because we have no choice.

To give mercy when we could extract vengeance.

There are so many more alternative routes.

The route everyone is on is really, really much more difficult. And slower. Full of uncalculated stops. Once we turn off the main road, we know the freedom of the uncrowded, unblocked passage. We can get through this thing called life easier. 

Oh, but look where those roads can take us.

But it takes consciousness. We can't do it on autopilot. The other road has always been beside us. We just have to make the decision to turn onto it.

the Bible in 14 words

Having someone challenge you to think about something you take for granted is annoying. You know this is true. You get asked something like, “Why do you always have the same drink order at Starbucks?” or “Why do you love your spouse?” (two questions of an admittedly different scope), and you just mumble something about “Because it is what it is, and I just do. Why do you have to be so annoying, especially before I've had that second caffeine boost?”

Recently, our church leadership and staff have been asked to consider the question-- “What is the gospel?” We assume we know. We've listened to Billy Graham. We got the bracelet with the colored beads. We know the Romans Road and can traverse it with the best of them. But think about this. 

What do you know? What would you say? Cut away what you assume and take for granted and answer the question like you've never heard it. Maybe you haven't.

What. Is. The. Gospel?

It's a question I've pondered since seminary days, when I told my theology professor I thought salvation had to be toward something good rather than simply away from something bad. He agreed. 

My fellow students looked at me funny. Wasn't the first or last time. I didn't know I was thinking outside of the box of orthodox evangelicalism. I had no box for reference—I hadn't grown up in one like most of these guys had. I only knew they looked at me funny, which, if you know me, you know felt a little bit like a badge of honor.

Yes, it's broken. My favorite plate. Because people do this.
Break things. We're good at it.

Now, twenty- and thirty-somethings are daring to say those things I said when I was twenty-something, only now people are listening. Story of my life.

But preach it, sisters and brothers, because we need to go back and ask that question. 

Ask it again and again until we know we've left behind our assumptions and boxes and easy three-step answers and are left naked with nothing but the Word of God and open ears.

What is the gospel? Twenty-five words of fewer?(Yeah, “less” is grammatically incorrect. You've been lied to your whole life.)

I'm giving it a shot.

God created. Everything. He had a plan for perfect balance and a relationship with humans—His image-bearers. We messed it up by trying to be more than image-bearers--trying for the image itself. We wanted to run the show. We forgot we didn't create it and didn't know how to run it. Dumb. Fyi—We still do this.

God sent His image again—Jesus—perfect man and God in one piece. I don't quite get how either. But he did. Jesus said “I know your lives are broken, and your relationships are broken, and your everything is pretty much broken because that first relationship that all good things come from is broken. I'll fix it. You didn't keep your agreement with your Creator, but Ill keep it for you; I'll die to keep it.

And when I come back (which will blow away ALL your assumptions), I'll start really shaking things up. I'll start planning for and expecting the Kingdom that God meant to happen here will happen. Here. Now. And I'll start giving you the power to help me make it happen, if you believe me.

OK, that was way more than 25 words. Still, three paragraphs is not too bad, when you consider my theology book i school was about four inches wide. So 25 words? How about:

God created. We broke. God loved. He fixed. We love back—we help fix.

Fourteen words. Boom.

I'd love to know your words. How would you explain the gospel? If you are not a believer, how would you explain it? What have you heard people tell you it is? What do or don't you like of what you've heard? I would really love to have that conversation.