With apologies to CS Lewis, The Great Divorce is the separation of conversion from discipleship thus rendering Christianity inept. Bill Hull
Widespread transformation of character through wisely disciplined discipleship to Christ can transform our world. It can disarm the structural evils that have always dominated humankind and now threaten to destroy the world. [1]
I’ve always exegeted the above statement by Dallas Willard with hope and emphasis on the first part of the claim. And quite a claim it is that ordinary men and women of every ilk who commit to being Jesus’ disciple can join him in transforming the world. But recent developments have forced me to highlight the last phrase in the second sentence: “…now threaten to destroy the world.”
The Wall Street Journal on March 27 published an article by Aaron Zitner entitled, “America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It.”[2] Another title could be “America Becomes Post-Christian.” It showed a serious decline in traditional values that once were hallmarks of American greatness. It showed that interest in and belief in patriotism, religion, having children, and community involvement are all down, significantly in decline. It means that America is lost at sea. We are in moral chaos. The only increase was a commitment to make money.
I contend that we have gone beyond Post-Christian. We are moving so fast that we are now past Post-Truth and even beyond Post-Secular. Post-Christian means the age of Religion is over. Post truth means the Age of Truth, as a category, is over and Post-Secular means that the age of confidence in human reason is over. We are now moving into A.I.—Artificial Intelligence—the problem is as the old adage goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Or a more modern version, “Stupid is as stupid does.” And if anything has proven stupid and self-destructive, it is human beings thinking they are God. Yes, we do have a Code Red in our land and it’s not climate change whose scientists are bought and paid for and whose prophets are faulty computer models. If these scientists were living in ancient times they would all have been stoned to death for being repeatedly wrong—garbage in, garbage out.
Recently, in our little corner of conservative Christianity, we have been celebrating victories. There has been nationwide student revival which was stimulated by and started at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. Asbury has documented eight such spiritual uprisings since their 1970 revival. Jane and I lived in Wilmore in the summer of 1969. Apparently, as soon as we left, God moved in and revival erupted. There is now the world-wide success of Dallas Jenkins’ The Chosen series based on the gospels. How about the He (Jesus) Gets Us campaigns on National Television, even during the Super Bowl? The film on the 70s Jesus Movement, The Jesus Revolution, is an unexpected success and has now grossed over 50 million dollars at theaters. Finally, many Christians are thinking, as we take a deep breath, God is coming to save us, our country, our way of life, our children, our grandchildren, from this monstrous wave of insanity that threatens to destroy the world.
When Saint Augustine got word in 410 AD that Rome had fallen, he was deeply saddened. It motivated him to write what we know as The City of God. The City of God would never fail or fall as did the City of Man. The common church history narrative is that Christianity took over the Roman Empire. They went from revolutionaries, resisters, persecuted, and finally, ascended to the palace of Constantine. All true, but at that same time, the spiritual lives of the elites who ran Rome and the decadence they either promoted or permitted didn’t stop.
The truth is Christianity did penetrate Roman culture. It had a salutary effect, helping the family, women’s rights, and the treatment of slaves, but it never changed the power structures. Never changed the structural evils that Willard mentioned in the lead paragraph of this column. In fact, the church penetrated Roman society, and in turn, the societal habits and cultural decay polluted the leaders of the church. Edward Gibbon, in his magisterial eight-volume The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire, blamed the Christians for Rome’s fall because they were pacifists. It should be said Gibbon himself, who was no fan of Christianity, was a bit biased. This is beautifully explained in Leo Damrosch’s The Club, a great read.[3]
But the real issue was that, just like America is now experiencing, they lost their will to fight for the Roman Empire. The decline and corruption of American’s youth have dampened their will to fight for democracy. They have not been taught about it, they have not been trained to treasure it, therefore, the military can’t recruit enough personnel to defend it. Our public school system is such a failure that America’s youth have fallen behind in every way that counts. American society, like Rome, will fail and crumble from within—and like Augustine, we will lament its fall and what it means for future generations.
The church didn’t save Rome, and certainly it didn’t save America from the breathtaking decline of the last fifty years. We are now hopeful, but turn on the evening news if you dare, engage the social network, read commentaries from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Daily Wire, Twitter, Facebook, et al, and you will see that the crazies are still coming, they are like the World War Z film I endured some place, sometime ago. I can’t recall the exact conditions, but I think I was trapped and couldn’t leave the showing. It was creepy, it was relentless, it was disturbing. We have an enemy, and it is not flesh and blood. It is extra-terrestrial in the sense that fallen angels are disembodied and invisible and Lucifer and his band of cohorts are out to destroy the world, specifically, to destroy the church. They are the spirits that inhabit school shooters, dangerous murderous criminals, child molesters, and those who teach their poison to the young. Jesus has told us about these beings, either demonic or human: “It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung round your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin.” [4] This sentiment is seen in many a prison when people who do harm to children are killed by the prisoners as they recognize the need to purge such scum from their community. If you get angry when children are abused, don’t feel shame, know that you are normal.
Recently, another school shooting took place in Nashville at a Christian School. Six people lost their lives, and a seventh was tragic as well. The shooter, a young woman who identified as a man, lost her life along with the grief and shame that will plague her family. These people are all victims of our enemy. There are cultural and political institutions that represent this evil. They champion all the evil beliefs that have caused our young to have a non-biblical world view that is well illustrated in the decline of moral restraints and cultural institutions that used to teach values of patriotism, religion, the family, and community involvement. But now these institutions are setting out to sacrifice the culture that has led to greatness—with an empty utopian dream that has already weakened our morals, our discipline, our standards, our performance, and our ability to hold evil around the world at bay.
We can run for cover or we can fight. I must tell you, some days I want to do both. I think, “let the young leaders lead the fight.” I pray they do, because about the time I get fired up, my heart palpitates and I go for a pill. But I am game, I haven’t finished the race yet, and like that radical from Tarsus, I don’t want to be disqualified. I won’t quit, and I like that about me. But let me tell you why the church has failed in the last fifty years to slow down the decadence.
Our gospel has failed to stop the Christian world from crumbling.
The last fifty plus years we have preached a gospel that says, “You can become a Christian and not follow Jesus.” Once this gospel has taken root, Lucifer has won. The words of C.S. Lewis both illuminate and condemn our approach.
“There is no need to despair, hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy’s camp and are now with us. All habits of the patient both mental and bodily are still in our favor.” [5]
It doesn’t matter how many go through the ritual, say the prayer, sing the songs, clap their hands, cross themselves, take communion, because if they opt out of discipleship, then put another notch in Lucifer’s belt. Because their habits of mind and body are still unchanged, Satan’s legions will continue to encourage people to join such churches—they are fully inoculated. People opt out because they think discipleship to Christ is optional. Why? Because they have been taught that is it optional—their gospel separates conversion from discipleship. And they separate conversion from discipleship because their doctrine of grace does, and because they have chopped up salvation into Itty-bitty pieces.
Separation of Conversion from Discipleship
The great mistake American gospelers made, and I am among them, was to make becoming a Christian a transaction. It made salvation a commodity, something I get for agreeing to a religious set of dogma or ritual that assures my entry into heaven after my death. It is a very attractive idea and has proven very popular. It has weakened the church and has proven to produce a disciple that is not effective or convincing. This is because after the initial transaction has taken place, a “sinner’s prayer,” a lifted hand in a meeting, the ritual of baptism, infant or adult, and or a confirmation class, a first communion, regardless—once that is done, discipleship, or doing anything, is optional and not necessary for salvation.
If that is the pool of personnel you depend on to reproduce and make many more disciples, then good luck. Everyone knows the mission will be sporadic at best. That is why the church has largely redefined their mission to filling up sanctuaries with people eager to hear a great speaker and then to return to their normal lives after 90 minutes. Churches aspire to find the great speaker, but there are not enough to go around. Less than 1% of churches find their golden boy, and they exist as an inferior brand because they have misunderstood their purpose and function is to make disciples.
But the problem persists, lots of programs and celebrations, but little transformation. This is the high cost of non-discipleship—when we separate conversion from discipleship. When we are fueled by a non-discipleship gospel, we have a church populated with disciples who don’t believe in discipleship. Therefore, the majority do opt out, keep salvation in their back pocket until they need it, and give their lives to other causes. This is the reason we are failing over and over again.
We have turned a Gospel culture into a Plan of Salvation Culture.
The simple way to explain it is that churches have replaced the gospel with the plan of salvation. Think of the entire message of the Bible as the gospel, creation, fall, redemption, resurrection, repentance, regeneration, Christ’s return, judgment, and restoration. Picture a Bible laying on a table, next to the Bible is a booklet, a ten-page booklet that contains the plan of salvation. The plan of salvation has its place as it is a valid summary and can be useful. But life is much more complex—what it means to follow Christ is not contained in such a small space.
For a definition of what the gospel is please see The Discipleship Gospel by Bill Hull and Ben Sobels. [6]
Moral decline and categories are collapsing so fast that the church can’t stop to put its hands on its knees and catch its collective breath. Because of advances in technology and the social network, the gospel is spreading at a record pace, but so is the poison of self-indulgence and decadence. The church has produced a disciple that is the antithesis of what Christ instructed. He told us if we wanted to follow him:
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang onto your life you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” [7]
We have been trained to dedicate ourselves to branding, to developing, even displaying our selfish ways to the watching world. We have demonstrated a passion to be loved, accepted, and affirmed by the values of a Post-Christian society. This is because Christians largely have not been called upon or trained to take up a cross and follow Jesus, instead, have been discipled to hang on to their life. We have become experts on trying to hang on to our lives. We sing the songs and attend church, hoping that we can slip in and out without confronting weakness, but more importantly, without confronting God. We can just keep slathering on that anti-wrinkle cream, getting those eye lid lifts, wearing Tommy Copper undershorts, and pretending age is just a number. Until that number is a blood pressure that won’t sustain life.
A Final Word [8]
Widespread transformation of character through wisely disciplined discipleship to Christ can transform our world. It can disarm the structural evils that have always dominated humankind and now threaten to destroy the world.
Can we realistically hope to reach the splendorous heights promised by Dallas Willard in the above statement? Our hopes are flagging and our ark seems to be sinking if one believes polls. But eventually the dove will return with an olive leaf in its beak. The waters will have abated, the rainbow will appear, and hope will be in the air. As you may have heard, you never get a rainbow on a sunny day. It is always where the storm meets the sun. There is a promise here: “wisely disciplined discipleship to Christ can transform our world. It can disarm the structural evils that always dominated mankind.” But first, Conversion and discipleship must be reunited in a discipleship gospel where discipleship and obedience are a natural part of grace, salvation, and what it means to be saved.
Bill Hull
April 2023
[1] Dallas Willard The Spirit of the Disciplines, San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1998, page xi
[2] American Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It. Aaron Zitner, Wall Street Journal March 27, 2023.
[3] The Club, Leo Damrosch, A story of a group of extraordinary eighteenth-century writers, artists, and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London Tavern.
[4] Luke 17:2 New Living Translation
[5] C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters , New York, Macmillan, 1962. P. 11
[6] Bill Hull, Ben Sobels, The Discipleship Gospel Him Publication, www.himpublications.com 2018 The book presents the Gospel has three dimensions 1. Gospel Declaration, 2. Gospel Response, 3. Gospel Benefits
[7] Luke 9:23,24 New Living Translation
[8] For further reading Conversion & Discipleship Bill Hull 2016, Zondervan Publishing, Nashville, Particularly Chapter 1&2…….. Available in print, in digital, and audio via Amazon.
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