Evan Hansen, Calvinism, and Holiness

I love musicals.

I love how musical themes that are present in songs at the beginning of musicals come to a head again and again throughout the entirety of the show (the Bible is much the same way. If you study Biblical theology you will see themes that repeat over and over in the one big story of Scripture). I love how powerfully you can tell a story via music.

I get hooked on a musical and listen to it lots.

On my way to an orthodontist appointment this week in Dallas, I discovered Dear Evan Hansen (now, there is a bit of language. So hearers discretion advised).

Dear Evan Hansen is a powerfully provocative dark comedy about teenage loneliness, suicide, broken families and the desire to be loved.

Evan Hansen is a loner, struggling to find community, wrestling with the lack of a father in his life. Another student named Connor takes his own life, and Evan finds himself propagating a big lie, that he and Connor were best friends. He back-logs e-mails, continuing to lie to Connor’s family for quite some time before the truth comes to the forefront. (That is a really poor synopsis, but oh well).

I found myself driving down 287 with tears filling my eyes. As a Family Discipleship pastor I see the pain and brokenness that teens are facing. I know how real this story the musical is telling is. There is great loneliness. There is pain. I see it. I counsel it. I cry over it. I pray over it.

All of these emotions came pouring out as soon as I got home. Jamie was my unsuspecting target. I half-yelled via excitement through the entire plot of the musical. I found it so powerful and so stirring that I didn’t even stop to take a breath when I shared it all with Jamie.

We tend to rant about things that excite us, that stir up emotions in is.

The apostle Paul was much the same way. In his letter to the church in Ephesus, he is so stirred by the beauty of the gospel story that he doesn’t even stop to properly punctuate his sentence.

Ephesians 1:3-14 is in fact just one long sentence in the original Greek.

Paul is so pumped and stoked about the beauty of our salvation in Christ that he just lets it all out in what comma-infused rant that any modern English teacher would be frustrated by.

I’ve been giving this passage some thought.

Recently I’ve been absolutely blown away by the reality that our sanctification, not just our salvation, is brought about by God’s work in us (See Philippians 3:9 for instance. Or if you’re interested in books on the topic read Possessed by God or Rethinking Holiness or How Does Sanctification Work? – if you’re a Vernonite come to my office at the church). God does the work in us. We are passive participants in the work of the Spirit. We rely on Him wholly and completely for our growth in godliness.

The start of this long run-on by Paul is yet another example of this fact.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. - Ephesians 1:3-4a

Now, most people can’t read this passage (or the rest of it for that matter) without their first thought being about the ol’ classic Calvinism or Arminianism debate. Let me give you my two cents on that matter. This might be the first time I’ve blogged about this.

1. God is higher than us. Romans 11 and 1 Corinthians 2 make this abundantly apparent. As finite humans, we can never fully comprehend God. Does that mean we don’t even try to comprehend Him or His Word? Absolutely not. I mean, you’re reading a blog from a guy who reads commentaries for fun at night. But we will never fully understand the acts of God. So I think it’s foolish of me to think that I can fully understand how God chooses to save. And I think we’re missing the point when we bicker over this matter. Do I believe that God is sovereign over every thing in the universe? Yes. Do I believe that God has given man free will? Also yes. Does that make sense? No. But maybe that’s where faith comes in. This is likely an unsatisfactory answer for many people, but it’s all I know for sure. The Christian faith is absolutely full of paradoxes that make no logical sense. I read a ton of reformed theology that touts the sovereignty of God but what I consider myself doesn’t fit the two-sided debate:
2. Three point Roachist. Back when I was in college, the debate around Calvinism was raging. I was told by some that I wasn’t reading the Bible well if I wasn’t a Calvinist. I was told by others that Calvinists were arrogant jerks. I got so tired of all the needless debate that I said “I’m a three point Roachist. I love Jesus. I love pizza. I want to get married one day. That’s all I know for sure.” That always brought laughter and the end of arguments, even if people were annoyed with my answer. After years of reading and studying I still don’t have firm beliefs in every single secondary or tertiary matter.
3. Missing the Heart for the Head. Lastly, I believe that maybe, just maybe, when we take this passage and rip it into theological debates about salvation, we’re drastically missing the point. Paul is pumped. Excited. Overflowing with joy and praise. Why? Because of all the spiritual blessings that we’ve received in Christ. If our response to this passage (or any passage in Scripture for that matter) is merely to get ready to defend our beliefs, we’ve missed the point. This passage should cause us to worship.

Praise God for choosing me. How? I don’t know. I just know it’s been done.

Praise God for making me blameless and holy. When He chose me, He made me blameless and holy. Did you see that? This passage doesn’t say that God chose me in Christ so that I could work hard to be holy and blameless. It says that God choosing me makes me holy and blameless.

How does that work?

Faith. Paradox. Belief.

I have sinned a lot today in thought, word, and deed. Yet God the Father sees me as holy and blameless because of my Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s worth worshipping about.

That’s worth sharing about.

Praise God.

In His Name,

Nathan Roach

Boys Will Be Boys

When I arrived at OBU, I was a fairly terrible man when it came to my interactions with women. I fell headlong into jokes that were saturated in a sexist view of life and the roles of men and women. My interactions with girls were full of flirtatiousness and selfishness as I saw the affection of a young woman as a way to feel better about myself. I approached almost every relationship or friendship with girls with this jaded and honestly vile mindset, whether intentionally and consciously or not.

Thankfully, by God’s grace, God drew me out of this sinful view of women. The abhorrent ‘stay in the kitchen’ jokes and the like dissipated and my interactions with women slowly became one of mutual respect. That being said, I am way too honest with myself to pretend like I still don’t have room to grow.

What has saddened me deeply is the way that the church has seemingly added to (at times) the epidemic of disrespecting and dehumanizing women. The statements made by Paige Patterson (albeit many years ago) regarding the physicality of a teenager and the responsibility of a woman being abused made me sick. The kicker though is when in his sermon he states that two teenage boys speaking lustfully about that teenage woman were simply being Biblical. This is abhorrent and needs action. It would be one thing if Patterson repented and apologized. However, there has been no such statement from him. Rather he has claimed he did nothing wrong.

Let me be clear, this post is not anti-Paige Patterson per se. Rather, I am wanting to correct a tendency in our churches to unintentionally (trying to give the benefit of the doubt) allow the ‘boys will be boys’ mantra (which is unBiblical) to seep into what we teach men and women.

I have been in way too many men’s Bible study settings where ‘ball and chain’ type of jokes are rampant. I have been in way too many settings where apathy, cynicism, sarcasm, and vulgarity are allowed to run rampant in the midst of men in our church communities, a practice that is disdainful. We teach men that they can be lone wolves with Christ devoid of accountability and repentance. They can be vulgar, obscene, complacent. They can be workaholics obsessed with their favorite sports teams, as long as they pray before meals and before bed. Now this is at times hyperbole, but it does unsettle my spirit to realize just how much of this behavior has crept into the church.

When I was met by young women in my college community who began to speak out in search of fair treatment of women in the church, unfortunately my immediate response was to view them as liberal psychos who probably didn’t shower or shave their armpits (again, hyperbole). Yet I slowly began to wrestle with the fact that we have silenced the voices of many who have had so many good and necessary things to say to the church. We give women a women’s ministry full of scrapbooking and surface-level theology, instead of equipping them to be deep-rooted disciples of Christ.

The worst part of this whole thing to me is the fact that men have departed from the church in droves. Rather than leading in the church, they have stopped showing up. Or when they do they are complacent fence-sitters at best. Yet in this immense absence of male leadership, we failed to equip women. We were content with clinging to the dregs of Christian masculine presence rather than equipping the hundreds of thousands of women in our midst who loved God.

Now I personally believe that men are the head of the household. I believe also that men are to be the pastors in our churches. However, I believe that women are able and willing to speak, teach, and lead in our churches and it’s about time that we equipped them to do just that.

I have found myself impacted by women when it comes to my faith in great ways. Auburn Powell, another former fellow OBU Bison, has encouraged me in my appreciation for God’s Word and the study of it. Jen Wilkin has blown me away with much of her writing, namely None Like Him. I’ve even found myself encouraged in my faith by Tish Harrison Warren and her book Liturgy of the Ordinary (she’s an Anglican priest, proof that you can learn from people who you don’t agree with on all accounts). All around us, women are full of love for God and His Word. We should be equipping them. Throughout recent generations a plethora of gifted and godly women have gone out to international mission work in some ways because they haven’t found places here in the United States to use their gifting.

It is time that we take sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual jokes, and sexism seriously in the church in America. It is time that we repent of our sins and seek reconciliation with our Christian sisters.

Sisters in Christ, I apologize for the way that I have viewed you in the past. I apologize for taking so long to start listening. While we may not see eye-to-eye on every issue, that is no excuse for me to not have a listening ear. I apologize that you haven’t been treated as an equal in our churches. Although I believe we have different roles, I believe that they are designed to complement each other. Walk with us brothers towards mutual leadership as we all seek to pursue Christ and the glory of God together.

In His Name,

Nathan Roach

The Lonely Southern Baptist

When I got to OBU, I honestly had a pretty strong disdain for all things theological and doctrinal. To me, my faith was about loving Jesus and others and nothing else mattered. Over the course of my years of study at OBU, I came to realize that theology and doctrine, when studied rightly, lead to loving God and loving others better. With this newfound fervor I began to study, but I started to find myself in an increasingly lonely position.

I grew up in a strongly conservative Southern Baptist church. My beliefs about sexuality, Scripture, sacraments, service, and soteriology are thus all firmly conservative and Southern Baptist. This was a heritage I entered into OBU with, something I was proud of. I was proud to have been raised in a conservative Christian home. My peers and friends around me at ‘The Walk’ at OBU when we started our collegiate journey stood by me in said beliefs.

Then the ‘deconstruction’ began. Countless people I knew, who I sat by in class, began this process of deconstructing their faith, a process that in my belief is the result of the tremendous lack of family discipleship. Many members of my generation grew up in homes where church was mandatory, but the gospel was not lived out at home. This is a tremendous travesty, akin to that of Judges 2:10 – “That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel.” The book of Judges is full of disheartening and disgusting acts done by the people of God, and this is the backdrop. A generation arose that did not know the Lord or what He had done. This means implicitly that the parents of this generation did not show their kids who God was and didn’t tell their kids about what God had done.

In response to growing up in homes where there was a lack of genuine gospel conversation or Christlike character despite religious practices, many of my peers were driven to process their faith for themselves via the deconstruction of it. Soteriology, Scripture, service, sexuality, and the sacraments. All of these facets of theology were on the table now, ready to be studied and made new in the lives of my peers.

As this deconstruction revolution went up like a powder keg all around me, I found myself ostracized, villianized, and condemned by those who had stood by me as conservatives only four years before.

I remember the day. My Senior year we had Rosaria Butterfield come and speak in chapel at OBU. A group of students who had put sexuality on the cutting block and reassembled their beliefs about it were adamantly opposed to her presence. They stood up and silently left the auditorium in defense of said beliefs. This was the day where I felt the loneliness really start to kick in.

I am all for the right to protest. Yet in the aftermath of this protest, I felt myself smack dab in the middle of a divide with no place to call my own ‘theological home’.

On one side was the ‘deconstructionists’, a group that had pushed deeper into what they were taught and told to believe (an admirable endeavor) and had come out on the other side with opposing views to what I believed about sexuality, service, soteriology, and Scripture. Those who came before me at OBU were militantly and rudely attacking the college on social media in what was honestly a cowardly way of action. Instead of face-to-face conversations, there were social media clap-backs that were not at all showing the love of Jesus that this ‘camp’ was so desirous of. I felt (please know that I’m aware that feelings can be wrong) like I was looked down upon by this group for being one of two things. For holding tightly to my conservative Southern Baptist beliefs I was either 1) foolish and naive or 2) unloving and devoid of compassion. I was either a man who had not thought long and hard about what I believed, or if I had, I was a man who had no love or compassion for the broken and battered in our world.

On the other side were those who I felt like adhered to my beliefs about theology and doctrine. That being said, I felt myself alone in these circles due to my desire and emphasis on holiness. The ‘conservatives’ were now wearing shirts that said “I love Jesus but I cuss a little”. Cards Against Humanity, obscene talk about sex, and an outcry against our legalistic ancestors were the talk of the town. I could never find myself able to fully embrace this camp of ‘authenticity’ and ‘brokenness’ because I can’t escape the call of 1 Peter 1:16 to be holy as God is holy. This camp decried me as being either old-fashioned or legalistic for my belief about this. I became a weirdo in the denominational family that I called home.

When I left OBU I felt quite alone. I had a group of friends that stood with me in this middle ground, but we were few and far between. Two experiences at two different churches solidified me in this lonely middle ground.

On one hand, in Portland I was at a church event where we attended a Portland Timbers soccer game. I left discouraged and frustrated as members of this church chanted “We are the Timbers, we are the best. We are the Timbers, so F*&% all the rest. F&%$ them all! F#$% them all! F%#$ them all! Being authentic believers meant being no different than the world.

On the other hand, I served at a church in Phoenix where jokes were consistently made about SBC life (which in fact funded said church), and how we should not be so concerned with theology and doctrine (which led to an unhealthy meddling of Pentecostal, Baptist, Anglican, and Catholic beliefs). “Let the theologians argue about theology, we are going to love like Jesus”.

In a world of acceptance and charity, I found myself ostracized by those who had deconstructed their faith and outed by those in my own denominational camp because my desire for holiness and Scripture-driven sermons was not in agreement with the cussing Christians.

Where was I to go?

The answer is still not clear.

That being said, I am grateful for God’s grace given to me in two ways. One, I’ve been grafted into a community of youth pastors in my region who seem to be in the same position I’ve found myself in with this middle ground. Second, I’m incredibly honored and grateful that I have been asked to join the conversation at Misfits Theology. Go give that blog a follow!

In His Name,

Nate Roach

 

 

Pillows and Promises?

In the following blog post, I will be confronting the teachings that have become prevalent at a popular church. This blog post is not an indictment against the church or the people who attend it. Nor is this an unjust attack in what can become at times a heretic witch hunt in Christian circles. I have friends who have worked for this church, and I myself have listened to, read, and learned from this church. I am confronting what I believe to be untrue teaching, not condemning the man or church that brought this teaching about. 

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“I have the ability to take a common situation, put some purpose on it, and if I say it’s a gate, it will be a gate. I can look at something that seems so ordinary, a job that I hate can become the gate, if I point at it and anoint it.”

I came across a conglomeration of clips of pastor Steven Furtick’s message to his church earlier this month. This quote is from that church-produced synopsis of the message he preached. I never want to refute something that’s out of context, so I went to the church website and listened to the section of the message in question.

In his sermon, A Pillow and A Promise, Pastor Furtick takes the story of Jacob in Genesis 28 and makes it about claiming good things from God in the ordinary moments of life. In a manner that is actually done quite often, Furtick preached allegorically through this passage, taking aspects and objects of the story and drawing out convoluted parallels to modern life. This take on Biblical narratives saturates his sermons. This was one sermon among dozens about taking control of your life and being blessed (go see for yourself).

For instance, in Genesis 28:11 it says that Jacob came to a certain place. Furtick pauses after this line and tells the church that God can bless you anywhere. It doesn’t matter the place. Jacob was in a certain place and God blessed him. The members of the congregation were in a certain place and God could bless them. This is not necessarily incorrect belief, but rather an allegoirical reading of the text.

In Genesis 28:13 he pauses to say that God is always above the affairs of men, because the text says that God was above the stairway Jacob envisioned. In Genesis 28:14 he pauses to say that what God is about to do cannot be contained geographically or otherwise, since the text says the descendants of Jacob will go to the north, south, east, and west.

After Genesis 28:17, Furtick claims that since God didn’t tell Jacob it was the Gate of Heaven, rather Jacob named it, then we have the power to anoint ordinary places in order for them to become places of God’s blessing. The kicker may be Furtick’s comments on Genesis 28:18, where he proclaims that Jacob’s pillow (the rock) became a pillar, and we must sleep on the promises of God and again anoint ordinary things to receive God’s blessings.

He then flies ahead to Mark 4, the story in which Jesus sleeps in a boat with a storm all around. Furtick says that Jesus is asleep, like Jacob, because Jesus had a promise of God and could sleep in the midst of storms. The parallel to modern life is then obvious, we can rest in the midst of storms because we have promises of God.

To illustrate his last point, Furtick lays down with a pillow on stage to conclude his sermon.

All of this is allegorical teaching, and it becomes dangerous when it culminates in the above quote.

There’s 3 things I want to address.

1. WE CAN’T MANIPULATE GOD. This sermon wasn’t bad. There were parts of it I wholeheartedly agreed with. That being said, it is simply not true that you can look at an ordinary thing in your life and call down God’s blessing on it. At one point in the sermon, Furtick proclaims that the purpose behind any situation in our lives can be determined by us. It is true that I can take a bad circumstance in my life and allow it to be used in a way that draws me closer to God and grows me spiritually. It is not true that I can determine the purpose behind things in my life.
2. THE STORY OF JACOB IN GENESIS 28 IS ABOUT GOD NOT NAME IT AND CLAIM IT THEOLOGY. The pastors and preachers who lean towards prosperity are able to do gymnastics to make texts say what they need them to say (although any bias we have approaching the Bible can lead us to do the exact same thing). The story of Jacob in Genesis 28 is about God’s covenant faithfulness, and how God reminded Jacob of His grace and faithful love, while simultaneously reminding Jacob of His awe and grandeur. This grandeur and grace of God culminates in Christ.
3. HIP THEOLOGY IS DANGEROUS. Like I said at the outset of this blog, I have read much and listened to much of Furtick. He’s not evil. What’s become increasingly evident to me however is his descent into hip theology. When he first hit the evangelical scene, he was solid and just a bit energetic. At this point in the game however his church has become a hotbed for entertainment-driven proclamation of God’s Word. He literally laid down during the sermon I’m addressing, and this is the least of his antics (just look up his water-gun related craziness). When a church becomes about being hip and cool, normally the call to come and die gets watered down (no pun intended). When churches strive to push back into the center of our country’s culture, striving for the good old days, they are likely leveraging the scandalous nature of the gospel message and the weight of what it means to follow Christ. So the message to Elevation Church from Furtick becomes “pray, claim and anoint, and be blessed” rather than “pray, serve, and prepare to suffer”. Our churches should strive to be engaged with the culture from the margins, not force ourselves back into the center.

I am concerned that so many people I know are listening to these type of messages and expecting to be blessed by their faith. Please read the Bible for yourself and see that suffering and difficulty are to be expected. God is not someone we can manipulate into blessing us. He loves and provides for us, but being a Christian is neither cool or comfortable.

In His Name,

Nate Roach

Non-Christian Prayers

PRAYER LIST

• Susie has pneumonia
• Youth group fundraiser night is coming up
• Bob broke his leg
• Jim is having surgery on his knee
• Roseann has the flu
• Kyle needs a job
• Frank is fighting for our freedom overseas
• Adam has been having bad migraines
• Emily’s dog is in need of medical care

If you are part of a local church, you likely see some sort of list like this frequently, whether in the church bulletin or via an e-mail blast to all the church members. These lists are good, and useful for the church to become aware of the ailments and needs of the members.

That being said, I believe that as followers of Christ, the prayers we engage in both privately and corporately should go beyond the sicknesses, ailments, and trials of the congregation.

Here’s why: I believe the church should pray the things that we see in Scripture. the Bible for sure commands us, exhorts us, and encourages us to pray for healing from sickness.

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. – James 5:14

Yet to limit our private and congregational prayers to just healing is to take a theme of prayer in the Scriptures that honestly is not super prevalent and make it the onus and center of our whole prayer life.

I’ve written in the past that to pray for healing is Biblical and necessary.

That being said, our prayer lists in our churches are often filled with prayers that nonbelievers wouldn’t find weird. They’re filled with prayers that nonbelievers who don’t understand the gospel could pray. They’re filled with prayers that nonbelievers would affirm. While this isn’t explicitly wrong, I don’t think it sets the church apart.

The church should sing, proclaim, share, and pray God’s Word.

As the people of God, we should be praying deeper prayers than just the health of our members.

In his book Word-Centered Church, Jonathan Leeman gives the following list of Paul’s prayers as examples of deep, gospel-centered prayers:

• He (Paul) prays that the Ephesians would be given the spiritual sight to see the glorious inheritance awaiting God’s saints (Ephesians 1:16-19)
• He prays that the Philippians love would become more discerning and knowledgeable so that they might pursue only good things and live holy lives (Philippians 1:9-11)
• He prays that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will so that they might live pleasing lives of good works and growth in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:9-10)

Now those are some prayers that would perturb the nonbeliever. Those are prayers that would seem weird, that wouldn’t be prayed around the dinner table of a nonbelievers’ home.

These are the type of prayers that I believe we as Christians are called to pray for one another. These prayers are gospel-centered, God-centered, and produce eternal fruit rather than our measly “I want this” type prayers. We do our congregations a disservice if we limit our private and corporate prayers to praying for the sick.

I’m thankful to be currently serving under a pastor who prays genuine and bold prayers for God to be glorified amongst our congregation. During our Sunday morning gatherings, I look forward to his prayers. As he prays, I can see that his public prayer for God to be glorified is the overflow of his private prayers for God to be glorified.

Here are some other types of prayers that the church should pray, setting themselves apart:

1. FOR OUR ENEMIES. Praying for our congregants is admirable, but not all that surprising. Praying for our neighbors, and even those most adamantly opposed to all that we stand for is most definitely surprising. Too often, my prayers against the wicked are all judgment-based. I should seek instead to pray that the wicked are redeemed from their wicked state by placing their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. FOR AWARENESS OF SIN. This one is a doozy. We live in a culture where sin is downplayed, even in our churches. Yet as Christians we miss out on experiencing in our core the forgiveness and mercy of God if we don’t acknowledge our needs for His forgiveness and mercy. The puritans of old would pray for the ‘gift of tears’, meaning they would ask God to bring them to tears over their sins. While I think this is somewhat extreme, I do believe it’s important for us to pray that God would make us aware of our offenses against Him so that we can in turn confess and experience the forgiveness already extended us via the cross.
3. GOD’S WILL. Most nonbelievers would not be surprised or caught off guard by a man or woman praying that God would bless their individual will for their life. That’s often how we treat God, as if His role is to bless us and prepare the way for us to achieve all that we desire and dream up. That’s not how that’s supposed to work. We should as followers of Christ (looking in the mirror like crazy on this one) be praying that God’s will would be done in our lives. This is a prayer that would be weird to a nonbeliever.
4. NO MORE UNSPOKENS. I understand that people have been burned by church members in the past, if not ministers. Unspoken prayer requests are likely a symptom or result of these heartbreaking situations. That being said, if a church is healthy, if a church is doing what it is called to do via praying for one another in love and grace, then there should be no need for unspoken prayer requests. Yes, be wise and don’t air dirty laundry publicly before the congregation. But be in a community of faith at some level of the church where you can reveal your sin, your struggle, or your doubt in fullness.

Please keep your prayer sheets and prayer request lists. They are good, and they do good.

I pray that you and your congregation go deeper than that though. Don’t just pray in ways that nonbelievers would. Pray in ways that shows that we are the people of God, set apart by God, praying the Word of God.

In His Name,

Nathan Roach

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