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“My thesis is that God simply does not attend most churches in America. He won’t work or manifest His presence in places where His Word is apologized for, His Son is polished and marketed, and His power is not sought in prayer or even anticipated. God does not attend churches where the gospel is watered down to a self-help pep talk about ‘felt needs’. God does not attend churches where Jesus’ crucified life is not proclaimed as the only hope for a fallen humanity. God does not attend churches where Bibles are not brought, and the gospel is reduced to a formula that a person can recite in 60 seconds. God does not attend churches where words, biblical words, like holiness, repentance, and Lordship are scrubbed from the vocabulary. You may be able to get people to attend churches like that, but God doesn’t show up much at all.”
- Pastor James MacDonald, Harvest Bible Church
John Piper once told Adrian Warnock,
“I have a place of prayer. In my study there’s a little corner with a built wall, like this — it’s got a bench, it’s got books, it’s got a Bible. So I can kneel, it’s got a little rug. In 1975, so it’s now thirty-two years ago, I realized when I finished graduate school and owned my first home that this home should have a prayer place in it because otherwise, I think if you don’t have a place that’s designated that’s relatively secure, you tend to kind of sit on the couch, cross your legs, put some coffee beside you, and go to sleep, and call it prayer time. You don’t tend to do that if you have a place that’s just set aside for prayer.”
“But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6 NET)
A tiresome rant against “religion” has plagued the Church throughout its history. The pendulum of opinion swings erratically from one extreme to another among professing Christians who, frankly, seem all too ready to impugn Christ’s Church for its orthodox practice of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Shallow-thinking Christians equate “religion” to faithless liturgy or some kind of legalism or hypocrisy, without even taking the opportunity to see whether the Bible even comes out against “religion” in the universal way that they assume it does.
One way to identify hypercritical, graceless, religious zealots of anti-religion is by their confused inversion of legalism. Go to one of their church groups wearing a suit and tie and see what happens. Don’t be surprised if someone informs you that you could have come more casually, because they are not legalistic — as if your desire to be dressed up is sufficient proof of your own legalistic religion. They will claim not to judge you, but indeed they do anyway. They fail to realize that they have merely exchanged formal attire for casual attire precisely to suit their own religious preference. Indeed, the websites of the anti-religious veritably exult in the religiosity of their casual dress code.
Other forms of this post-modern hypocrisy against “religion” exist: such as the disinclination to embrace any music of traditional favor, unless it has been reworked into a cultural modality; the banning of musical instruments deemed to be passé; or criticism of a church that is not, in their opinion, “relevant” to people in some perceived cultural or demographic context.
Here of late, YouTube® has served up a bazillion views of yet another person, complete with post-modern colloquial poetry, who has something to say about the perceived ills of “religion”. Here is the video, with my commentary following.
First of all, Jesus did not come to “abolish religion”. He came to abolish sin and death (Romans 8:2.)
I read a comment on Facebook that appears to suggest a 13th century monastic definition of “religion” thus: “Re-Legion means to bind back – specifically man’s attempt to bind himself back to a god” [sic]. No, “religion” does not mean that. Since the 16th century the etymology of the word “religion” has come to simply mean “service and worship of God; a commitment or devotion to religious faith.”
“Religion” is not a dirty word. The problem is that most professing Christians do not want to be religious about their Christianity, and they don’t even know what that means! They willingly glom on to the anti-religious bandwagon, thinking they are freed from the disciplines of a holy life. A.W. Tozer wrote all of his life about this condition in the professing Christian.
The guy in the video, Jefferson Bethke, claims to disdain “judging” when he says, “Now I ain’t judgin, I’m just saying quit putting on a fake look.” The fact is, Bethke IS judging. It is not possible to assert one’s own belief without making a judgment of other contrary beliefs or people’s practices thereof. In this case, he judges “religion” (based on some unexplained definition of the word) to be fakery. Yet he attempts to disassociate himself from judging. That is, itself, hypocrisy. This is classic post-modern religious argumentation at worst, and sloppy Christian teaching at best.
The video is a clever idiomatic mashup, but one thing it is not: it is not preaching the Word. It is a religious poetry of its own kind, sounding good on the surface, but based in autocratic assertion. Just because he says so in poetic form is not good enough. Sure, it’s dressed up with great videography and clever speech, which gives it its sense of appeal, authenticity and authority. But the Apostle Paul did not deliver the gospel with a coolness factor (1 Corinthians 1:17.) What Bethke says matters, and the accurate things he might say are mixed with things that are decidedly not accurate.
Bethke asserts that “Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums”. But who is he to say so? Where is the scripture? The Apostle James is the authority on religion and faithless-works. Why isn’t James quoted?
James says that “Pure and undefiled RELIGION in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27.) That doesn’t sound like God is on the opposite side of religion to me.
Bethke also says, “If religion is so great…why does it fail to feed the poor?” But according to James, true religion does not fail to feed the poor! (James 2:15-17)
The accurate portrayal of God is that He is on the opposite side of the proud: “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6.) Thus the Bible itself states what God is opposed to. Taken with what James says, God is not opposed to “religion” — unless you mean impure and defiled religion (i.e., “false religion”), which is an outworking of pride.
Bethke says, “The problem with religion is it does not get to the core.” I assume, since he doesn’t define “core”, that he means that “false religion” leads one to hell by not affecting the core of one’s soul. But “false religion” certainly does get to the core: it reinforces unbelief. In the same way, whatever is the antitheses of “false religion” (i.e., “true religion”, vis-à-vis James) also affects the core. In other words, in the case of false religion, the soul is kept from the gospel; in the case of “true and undefiled religion”, the soul is exposed to the gospel. Religion is the context of discipline. A discipline of right-teaching that demonsrates right-practice is James 2. The whole design of any religion, for better or for worse, is that it does “get to the core”.
According to the teaching of James, being “religious” is to have a disciplined faith (by walking in the Spirit) that produces works which demonstrate justification. And Jesus taught the core of James’ religion thus: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Another comment I read on Facebook makes the sweeping assertion that there is “no such thing as a religion that saves”. Of course there is: it is the religion of Jesus Christ. That is the religion that saves; James teaches the praxeology of it in James 2, and Peter teaches the soteriology of it in 1 & 2 Peter, as does Paul throughout Romans.
I think the rambling ambiguity of the video is pathetic. As evidenced by the sheer volume of comments about this video on YouTube, everyone is left to their own interpretation of what he is disdaining. Most people appear to think he is disdaining “classical church”. Perhaps “pride” or “hypocrisy” should have been his argument, not “religion” – unless he would have taken care to DEFINE “religion” first, which he didn’t.
There are other sloppy statements in this video. Bethke quips, “Religion says ‘slave’ Jesus says ‘son’.” Notwithstanding Bethke’s ambiguous reference to John 15:15 & Galatians 4:7, Jesus and the apostles DO call us slaves (greek, “doulos”) over, and over, and over. The reason they call us “slaves” is because we have been bought with a price, and we are not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19-20.) That is the very definition of a slave: someone who has been bought with a price and is not their own. So according to Bethke, if religion says slave, then Christianity IS a religion because we are slaves of Christ, according to the New Testament.
Another popular claim he echoes is that the church is a “hospital for the broken.” Actually, no. The correct metaphor would be to say, “The church is a medical school for the saved.” Why? Because those who are saved learn in the Church how to go INTO THE WORLD to the broken, in order to save them, then BRING them into the Church as New Creations where they are discipled and built up (Matthew 28:19-20; 1 Corinthians 14.) The problem with the inaccurate concept of the church being a hospital is proven out by the number of professing Christians who are content to be nursed in the pew (Hebrews 5:12-14.) Adopting the concept of a “hospital” carries the potential to produce the kind of religious people Bethke seems to be against: people who are content to lay in their hospital-bed-church-seats and enjoy church-production for themselves, instead of going out into the workplace and living like genuine Christians.
Yes, there are pithy truths in this stylistically-cool video, but this video is precisely what sloppy “churchianity” is made of: pithy communication that bleeds “style” rather than the patent declaration of God’s Word. The only hope this video has is to make people feel good about themselves as they keep plodding along in undisciplined, religious lives that still don’t understand the gospel. The sheer volume of YouTube views testifies to my assertion.
A Spanish mystic of the Catholic Church, St. John of the Cross (1542-1591, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez), wrote a treatise titled “Dark Night of the Soul”. The subject matter is not unlike that of “The Life of God in the Soul of Man” written by the young Scottish Puritan, Henry Scougal (1650-1678.) Both books are contemplative missives, which – if the English translations were colloquialized – sound as if they were written expressly for the twenty-first century Christian. So I have found these texts thoroughly helpful.
When I read the crystal-clear thoughts of these dead contemplative saints, I am sometimes agitated by what I now see as the shallow, gumball-machine theology of the Christian high school I was raised in: a milquetoast presentation of an academic gospel that was utterly incapable of preparing me or any other Christian for the Dark Night that every serious Christian must pass through when sanctification is pursued. In order to reach the Life of God in the Soul of Man, the Christian must pass through the Dark Night of the Soul. There is no detour around the Dark Night. John Bunyan wrote an entire allegory about this journey in “Pilgrim’s Progress“.
You either do the journey, with its mortification of sin, or you don’t. Be forewarned: the journey of sanctification is painful, humiliating, frightening and lonely. When your sin is uprooted, other Christians who have never been through the valley, or have no desire to go through the valley, will not understand; they will sneer and abandon you. But those who have been in the valley will immediately understand that lancing the boil of sin and draining the puss is necessary, and they will rejoice with you and accompany you through the purifying process.
It is the Valley of the Shadow of Death that we all, as God’s possession, must go through. And so be it: it’s an infinitesimally small price to pay for divine union with Jesus Christ, who bears all our burdens and takes away all our sin. But the requisite pain in this mortal life causes a great many to recoil and shrink away from the journey. Mind you: it is not the “valley of death” we travel, because Christ traveled that valley for us; ours is to travel the shadow of it – and in that valley of the shadow of death He is with us, His rod and staff comforting us.
Honestly, I am more and more convinced that is not possible to have assurance of eternal life if you do not do the journey through the Dark Night. Most professing Christians do what they perceive as the necessary justification part: pray a prayer, believe, etc. But unless Christ washes our feet – that is, unless He sanctifies us - we have no part with Him (John 13:8.) There are an abundance of pastors allowing their congregations to resist that sanctifying work. Such ineffective and nearly-damning pastoring runs the gamut from Joel Osteen to the average Grace Brethren or Baptist pastor preaching topical pablum, to the Reformed pastor preaching academic formulæ.
Frankly, if it weren’t for the preaching of John MacArthur or John Piper, I cannot imagine how the post-salvation message (i.e., preaching of the sanctifying Truth, q.v. John 17:17) would have reached my ears. Once the Truth takes hold of the soul, with its designs set on the utter sanctification of that soul, the road becomes very hard.
But I am comforted that I am still breathing, and God has seen fit to allow me to read these writings with deeper appreciation and accompanying conviction than I might otherwise have had 25 years ago. Today’s Church, with its programmatic pastors, need heavy doses of this kind of instructive contemplation.
In “Dark Night of the Soul”, St. John of the Cross writes:
“Many [believers] have also, at times, great spiritual [“greediness”]. They will be found to be discontented with the spirituality which God gives them, and they are very disconsolate and querulous because they find not in spiritual things the consolation that they would desire. Many can never have enough of listening to counsels and learning spiritual precepts, and of possessing and reading many books which treat of this matter, and they spend their time on all these things rather than on works of mortification and the perfecting of the inward poverty of spirit which should be theirs. Furthermore, they burden themselves with images and rosaries which are very curious: then they put down one, take up another, change about, change back again; they want this kind of thing, now that, preferring one kind of cross to another, because it is more curious. … Here I condemn the attachment of the heart, and the affection which they have for the nature, multitude and curiosity of these things … For true devotion must issue from the heart, and consist in the truth and substances alone of what is represented by spiritual things; all the rest is affection and attachment proceeding from imperfection; and in order that one may pass to any kind of perfection it is necessary for such desires to be killed.”
That paragraph is similar to what the Apostle Paul lamented in 2 Timothy 3:2-7,
“For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who are enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Those Christians who can lock on to the Truth, allow it to be burnished on their heart, and then live accordingly to its demands are few — too few. The reason for this is precisely because of the greediness (“avarice”) that St. John of the Cross writes about, or that Henry Scougal (1650-1678) calls, “consecrated vices”:
“There are but too many Christians who would consecrate their vices, and follow their corrupt affections, whose ragged humour and sullen pride must pass for Christian severity; whose fierce wrath, and bitter rage against their enemies, must be called holy zeal; whose petulancy towards their superiors, or rebellion against their governors, must have the name of Christian courage and resolution.
But certainly religion is quite another thing, and they who are acquainted with it will entertain far different thoughts, and disdain all those shadows and false imitations of it. They know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or, in the apostle’s phrase, “It is Christ formed within us.” (From “The Life of God in the Soul of Man”.)
Indeed, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14).
“All swords that have ever flashed from scabbards have not aided Christ a single grain.”
- Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon “Independence of Christianity”
Beware all you Grace Community Churches, First Baptist Churches, and Mt. Calvary Churches out there: some 28-year old, full-time Christian graphics-guy is liable to have his church lawyer brand your derriere with a cease-and-desist letter if he finds your church marketing goods and services with a name and logo too similar to his church.
There was a time when Christian churches used the Logos to attract a following. Now the rush is to use logos to attract a following. Whereas Spurgeon would have grilled a young man in his knowledge of the Bible, anybody toting a MacBook Pro into the church can do ministry by creating “brands” and “logos” and “media content”.
 On October 27, 2011, Christianity Today ran an article about Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and their attempt to defend the Mars Hill name and logo. They alleged possible confusion with Mars Hill Community Church in Sacramento. Both churches use the name “Mars Hill” and a logo that is a circle with the letter “M” in it. The Seattle church is non-denominational, and is led by the well-known author and pastor Mark Driscoll; the Sacramento church is led by senior pastors Scott & Karen Hagan, and is affiliated with the Assemblies of God.
Objectively, the logos are different: Seattle’s encircles a capital “M”, whereas Sacramento’s encircles a stylized, right-justified lowercase “m”. (In other words, I can tell the difference quite easily.) Even the official names are different: “Mars Hill Church” verses “Mars Hill Community Church”. And, to top it off, they are two states away from each other.
But according to Christianity Today, “Officials from the Ballard [a neighborhood in northwest Seattle], Washington, multisite church say a member called attention to the Sacramento church’s website, asking if the churches were connected. When elders saw a logo similar to their own, which has been in use since 1996, they sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sacramento’s Mars Hill Community Church, which has three locations if its own. Mars Hill Seattle filed an application to trademark its name and logo in August.”
I am still trying to comprehend what happened in their thinking. Are we to understand that Mark Driscoll and his elders believe the gospel message is a product, and they have a rightful claim to brand-package the product in some form or another? That is precisely what a claim to a trademark is all about!
It is important to point out that the Church has been bought by Christ. It is all His, and no one has a claim to anything at all. Ephesians 2:9 makes it clear that given the opportunity to devise any component of our faith, we would boast about it. I realize that Mars Hill is not using their logo to contrive salvific merit, but their claim to some form of ownership, which resulted in a cease and desist letter, is not surprising if they are convinced that they are bringing essential genius in their presentation of Christ’s gospel. Some of my friends know that I am so convinced of the reality of Christ’s headship of the Church that I think Christian songwriters who write for the Church (the Getty’s, for example) should not copyright their music and then charge licensing fees to churches. (By the way, I understand copyrighting: been there, done that as far as writing intellectual property goes. Perhaps copyrighting and allowing distribution to the Church at no charge is the way artists should handle it: sell it to radio stations and individual artists who will benefit from it, but give it to the congregational churches. My point is, Christ bought the Church, and He gives certain gifts & abilities to individual members to edify the Church. Christians should not have to pay licensing fees to be edified by the God-given abilities of other Christians.)
 The article quotes Mike Anderson, Director of Communications at Mars Hill Church in Seattle saying, “The purpose of including both the name and logo in our filing, as opposed to just our name or just our M logo, is to allow us to prevent other churches from combining a ‘Mars Hill’ name with a substantially similar logo, like what we saw with the Mars Hill churches in Sacramento.”
After I read that, I laughed-out-loud. They actually believe this is a purposeful necessity to their “ministry”. And I believe this is a classic example of full-time, paid-ministry staff who have too much time on their hands, and too much money in the bank. Too many scrubby-faced romper-roomers have been sheltered from the real Church of the living sacrifice, and yet they think they are the real church doing their churchy deeds called “ministry”.
Over the past 26 years, I have registered a number of trade and service marks for various software and business ventures, and was interested to know what Mars Hill Church was claiming as their “goods and services” that would be identified with the trademark. In their federal trademark application (USPTO serial number 85388182), the official “goods and services” are:
“Sound recordings featuring religious instruction and music; digital media, namely, pre-recorded CDs, downloadable audio and video recordings featuring religious instruction and music; computer software in the nature of a mobile application for use in allowing access to news and information related to church activities and mission.”
“Education services, namely, lectures, courses and workshops in the field of theology; providing a website featuring information and non-downloadable sound and video recordings featuring instruction and music, all of a religious nature; on-line journals, namely, blogs in the field of theology; providing on-line newsletters in the field of theology.”
“Church related services, namely, ministerial services, evangelistic services, church worship services.”
Those are the classified “goods and services” Mars Hill Church claims to have engaged in commerce since 1996. Should I therefore conclude that Jesus Christ died on the cross, our sin imputed to Him, enduring the wrath of the Father, so that churches can write computer software for the advancement of God’s Kingdom, and protect their genius by using the perishable tools of this earthly kingdom so that other churches cannot infringe that right? Is that why Jesus died, was buried, and then rose again to send His Spirit to empower the Church?
According to Mr. Anderson, the purpose of filing the trademark application was to “allow” them to “prevent other churches”.
That stated purpose exposes the ignorance of Mr. Anderson (and whatever church elders subsequently engaged their law firm) on one hand, and the utter disregard for Who is building the Church on the other. This is the deception of Laodicea; this is what it can look like when churches perceive themselves to be “rich and in need of nothing”. This is what it can look like when Jesus is outside knocking to get in to His own church. Mr. Anderson makes no bones that it is within his and his elders’ purview to secure legal privilege to prevent other churches.
Mr. Anderson declares that the trademark serves to “prevent”. The first question that came to my mind (after reading that Mars Hill Church did not sue anyone) was, “Just how will they enforce prevention?” and “What does ‘prevent’ mean in the context of some future Truth-preaching, growing church that has the same ubiquitous name and unimaginative logo?” Suppose the elders of another church say, “No, we will not change our name.” Then what?
So again, how does a church enforce prevention? Trademarking means that they either enforce it in the courts of man, or they don’t enforce it at all.
This is a sorry display to the world, and an utter disregard for who is building the Church. Jesus Christ, the author and the finisher of our faith, does not need branding elements to preserve the message of the local church. Neither does He fret His li’l ‘ol self over the corruption of doctrine by others who would use His name in vain (such as “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”) and corrupt His gospel (such as “The Book of Mormon”.) Jesus does not require trademark protection. Why? Because all authority has been given to Him in Heaven and on earth.
It is offensive to the gospel that Mars Hill Community Church in Sacramento would receive a legal missive from law firm Stokes Lawrence: a missive designed to engage the litigation process. I understand that Mars Hill Church didn’t actually sue anyone; but as I have been advised by my intellectual property attorneys over the years, “You don’t send a cease and desist letter unless you intend to back it up in court.” It is, in fact, a volley fired over the bridge.
The offical explanation of Mars Hill Church included this statement: “When cases like this arise in the business world, it’s customary for a law office to send a notice asking the other organization to adjust their branding to differentiate it. This is commonly referred to as a cease and desist letter. On September 27, 2011, our legal counsel sent such a letter to these three Mars Hill churches requesting that they change their logo and name.”
My oh my, the pomposity of it all! Calmly explained in the matter-of-fact tone of a mere mistake in judgement. But the fact is, someone in authority actually wanted another church, two states away, to change their name!
From a business perspective then, I am persuaded to ask Mars Hill Church, “What violation of interstate commerce is at play here?” That’s what federal trademark protection is for. I have no doubt that the California-based church could have retained all rights to their name and logo in California AND could have gotten an injunction against the Seattle church to keep their name and logo out of California. What Mars Hill Church did was engage the proverbial sword. If they continue, that same sword is going to come back and swipe them.
And what argument for confusion or commercial damage is there? Imagine hearing this in court, “Your honor, the defendant led a person to Jesus Christ by using digital media, lectures and ministerial services using a brand that was confusingly similar to our trademark. We demand an order that they cease-and-desist.” Is that it? Can you imagine the preposterous legal argument that would have to be made?
Pay particular attention to this part of Mr. Anderson’s statement, “…like what we saw with the Mars Hill churches in Sacramento.” By naming that church and using it as a generalized example of a potential rights infringement, we learn that no prejudice was given to the Sacramento church who is part of a well-known, true-gospel-preaching denomination (the Assemblies of God). In other words, Mars Hill Church of Seattle was willing to protect their brand creation for is own sake, not only against a hypothetical false church (such as one named Mars Hill Church of the Community of Christ, which could be an RLDS church), but against true Christians.
I realize the concern is that another Mars Hill-named church might be preaching a false gospel, and it would be desirable to prevent such confusion. But again, my response is, “Jesus Christ does not need to be communicated or defended on the basis of brand identity.” He said unequivocally, ”I will build my Church.”
So I think this is wrong on several fronts. Mars Hill Community Church in Sacramento was gracious, and declared that Mars Hill Seattle had asked forgiveness. I’m glad to hear that. But reading the public responses of both churches is revealing. In my opinion, the Seattle response is a typical postmodern, ’round-the-bush, wordy, velvet-glove confession to save face and move on. Sacramento’s response is candid, simple, and Christ-honoring.
I think of Matthew 5:40. In the end, Mars Hill Community Church effectively gave Mars Hill Church their “shirt and coat” (they did not send a legal response, and they are changing their logo), and the Seattle church gets to keep its brand intact. Who do you think is going down to their house sanctified?
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