Boldly Yet Humbly Declaring the Truth
Part 1 of an interview with Steve Brown,
Author of Talk the Walk:
How to Be
Right without Being Insufferable
It can be difficult to be a Christian in
today’s culture. Not only is the outside world hostile to Christians and their
faith but the voices that speak loudest don’t always speak for the masses.
There are a lot of assumptions out there about what Christians do and don’t
believe. With all this hostility, speaking up about issues related to faith can
be intimidating. However, in his new book Talk
the Walk: How to Be Right without Being Insufferable (New Growth Press),
Key Life Network founder Steve Brown calls Christians to step out and speak up
about what they know to be true.
This
attitude-altering book invites Christians to cultivate both boldness and
humility in communicating gospel truth. By uncovering self-righteousness and
spiritual arrogance, Talk the Walk
shatters stereotypes and helps believers consider how they present the good
news without watering it down.
Q: When did the culture shift to dismiss what Christians have to say as
nonsense at best and outright lies at worst start, or has it actually always
been this way to an extent?
To some extent, unbelief has always been with
us and is nothing new. However, at least in America, for most of our history,
the Christian faith has been the “favored” religion with money, power and
leverage. Almost without exception, no politician could be elected without at
least nodding in God’s direction. I’m an old guy, and I can remember when major
newspapers often published the sermons of prominent clergy in their city. (Not
only has that changed, those newspapers are now struggling to stay viable.) In
those days, church membership was a prerequisite for achieving “standing” in
the community and, it should be said, making a good living. The place to get social
acceptance was the church. That has obviously changed. My friend David Zahl in
his book Seculosity says religion is
hard to destroy but easy to rebrand. He says hardly anyone in America is “not”
in church . . . just a different kind of church with a different kind
of religion.
Someone once said when people no longer
believe in the real God they don’t then believe in nothing . . . they
believe in anything. That’s true, but it’s also true they are quite dismissive
of the old God and anything to do with the old God. The difference is in a
culture of social media, everybody now has a microphone. Everybody can say
anything, express any view, hurt as many people, and disrespect, disvalue, and
dismiss any belief system held by others they want. Not only that, they can do
it anonymously without paying a price. There’s a lusty, materialistic paganism afoot,
and it’s having a field day.
Then as a part of the obvious culture shift (sometimes
called “postmodernism”), Christians have far less money, power and leverage
than we once had. Add to that the fact that we Christians have given unbelievers
a lot of ammunition. Christians are characterized (not without reason) as
condemning, uptight, and angry judges of those who aren’t Christians. Between
that, social media and pop culture, it’s a perfect storm, one that has profound
implications for the Christian faith.
Q: You write that some of the meanest, most condemning and arrogant people on the face of
the earth are Christians. What truths are we missing out on regarding humility,
love and forgiveness?
There is
something about religion that can make us weird. I’m an expert given I’ve been
(and sometimes continue to be) one of the most arrogant and condemning people I
know, and I’ve so little about which to be arrogant and so much in me that
needs condemning. What’s with that? I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with
self-justification, our human need to be accepted and acceptable and the desire
to be seen as one of the “cool kids.” If you are into self-justification and
self-righteousness (and we all are), there’s probably no better place to go
than to religion—with politics running a close second. Someone has said the
tighter one makes what C. S. Lewis calls the “the inner ring,” the greater
the outer ring. In other words, when it’s an “us/them” paradigm, the natural
manifestation of that is arrogance and condemnation.
There’s
enough teaching in Scripture (misinterpreted with a shallow exegesis) about the
elect and the non-elect, the saved and the lost, the twice born and the once
born, that Christianity can easily become a place where we can say, “I may not
be wonderful and good, but I’m certainly more wonderful and better than they
are.” Add to that the clear moral teaching of Scripture and the fact that religious
people are given to seeing their religion as a “moral improvement society,” and
you have a platform for condemnation and arrogance. And if we have no reason to
be arrogant, it’s a platform where we’re required to fake it.
When we’re
“standing for God” there’s no limit to the damage we’re willing to inflict on
others who aren’t. Only God knows the pain caused by Christians in their
efforts to be on God’s side. God doesn’t need our help, and he was doing fine before
we came along. That doesn’t mean Christians should keep quiet about truth. Truth
is the “coinage” of the kingdom. But it does mean (and Scripture is clear on
the subject) the truth includes and starts with our failure to really believe
it and to live it. If Christians don’t lead with humility (genuine humility
reflecting the truth of our own failure and sin), we will never get a hearing
from those who are already predisposed to reject our truth.
Q: Christians are often accused of self-righteousness, hypocrisy and
“selectivity.” In what ways are these things so destructive?
They’re destructive because they’re all efforts of
self-justification and based in the denial of reality. People who are justified
by God (forgiven, valued, loved and acceptable) don’t have to practice
self-justification. In fact, a part of the “shock value” of the Christian
witness is the public declaration of one’s own sins and failures, authenticity
and a lack of condemnation of others. And speaking of shock value, unbelievers
are rarely shocked by Christians. They already have us figured and expect that
we will be nice . . . and boring. Frankly, they’re right. We hardly
ever create questions.
I remember when President Clinton’s sexual
sins and indiscretions became public. Most Christians had a field day. A lot of
sermons were preached on the importance of character in our leaders and the
shocking moral failure of our president. During those days I would often say from
the pulpit that Clinton had given Christians a great platform for our own
self-righteousness when it should have been a platform for our witness to the
world. What a gift if we had said, “It could have been me. Let me tell you
about Jesus, a great Savior for great sinners like me.” I missed several
opportunities in those days to gain a hearing. I’ll bet you did too.
The reason Christians are often accused of
self-righteousness, hypocrisy and selectivity (making some sins acceptable and
others not) is because the accusations are often accurate. A friend of mine
says you see a lot of fat preachers yelling at gay people, but few gay people
yelling at fat preachers. That, of course, has changed, and those on the
outside do as much yelling as those on the inside. Christians don’t have the
corner on self-righteousness, hypocrisy and selective offense outrage. It’s
part of the human DNA and an unbelievable opportunity for Christians to be
different. We generally aren’t good enough to be better than they are, but we
can be honest about our hypocrisy in thinking we are. Again, that’s a part of
the shock value of our witness.
Q: Being politically/religiously correct is a big issue
today. Can you talk about the problems that arise from political correctness?
Political
correctness is a tool to abolish free speech, and religious correctness is a tool
to sand-down the power of the gospel. My friend Norm Evans (who retired from
the NFL) told me one time about a college lineman who went to his coach during
a game complaining about the opposing lineman pulling his helmet down over his
face. He asked the coach what to do. “Son,” the coach said, “don’t let him do
it.” Political and religious correctness is living, speaking and acting within
a box someone else has created. Sometimes we need to decide we’re simply not going
to let others do that to us. If it offends, it’s time it did.
I believe
Christians have lost the shock value of our witness. We read Christian books,
go to Christian movies, eat Christian cookies and wear Christian underwear. Sometimes
speaking truth, confessing our sins, being human, cutting slack and showing in
places Christians don’t frequent can be the very un-political and un-religious
platform from which we can speak and receive a hearing.
We have let the
pagans and religious people define who we are. Only Jesus can do that.
Q: How are we just like everyone else? Why is identification
so important?
At the very heart
of the Christian faith is identification. In fact, it’s unique in the world of
religions. God identified with his creatures. The Word became flesh. Jesus
wasn’t lonely, afraid and weak so we wouldn’t be lonely, afraid and weak—but
because we are. He didn’t die just to keep us from dying; he died as we must
die. The astounding truth is he was “us,” and it wasn’t a game.
Jesus identifying
with us was a lot harder for him than it is and will be for us. That’s because
we really are like “them.” The power of the Christian witness isn’t in our
purity, faithfulness and goodness. There is probably nothing that hurts our
witness more. I know of few people who came to Christ because of Christians’
righteousness, but I know of so many people who came to Christ because of
Christians’ honesty. When an unbeliever exclaims, “You too?!” he or she isn’t
far from the kingdom.
Q: Why is being the “world’s mother” so bad? Isn’t that
what we’re called to be as Christians?
Good heavens, no!
We’re not that smart, and we’re too screwed up to be playing that role. I love my
church where I’m a member, but I can’t be in leadership. Do you know why?
Because what I do (teaching in a seminary, writing books like this one and doing
religious media, etc.) causes people who don’t know me to think I know more
than I do, and I could cause some real damage. Christians are sometimes like
the actor who plays a doctor on television and then opens a surgery
practice.
But there is more
to it than that. The “mother complex” can degenerate into moralism,
manipulation and an inappropriate use of power. It’s so easy to major in minors
and to become what we’re not called to be as Christians. That would be a social
critic of the world. Again, it’s important we discover the hills on which we
will fight and die. There are very few.
Q: What should we never do? And how do those things get
us into trouble?
In the book I
give as a kind of wrap-up a list of “nevers.” We should never compromise the
truth, shout, hide, duck, manipulate, assume, etc. The list is not exhaustive,
but hopefully it is helpful. Actually, the list is the natural result of
hanging out with Jesus who models very clearly how we should live. It’s a
dangerous way to live, and it got him crucified—but it also got him a strong
and powerful hearing.
We, of course,
probably won’t be crucified, but we will probably get hurt, laughed at and
marginalized in plenty of ways. But then there is the hearing we’ll get too. We
are here for “them,” and it’s worth the effort.
Comments