Thought of the Day 09.14.09

George Barna recently wrote a book claiming that American Christianity is in a crisis because so many born again Christians are living as sinfully as non-Christians. His solution is to reexamine every aspect of institutional church practice and, essentially, reform them all.

In response, John Piper has written a book challenging Barna’s core assumption: that anyone who says he is born again is in fact born again. Because accepting this would mean rejecting the Biblical doctrine that being born again always results in a radically changed life, Piper instead concludes that vast numbers of American Christians must not really be born again.

The elegance of this response must not be understated. Whereas Barna presumes that human incompetence can ruin the plans of God, Piper shows that human arrogance about our role in salvation is the source of the seeming paradox that so many people can declare their own salvation even while anyone else looking at them would surely doubt it.
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5 comments:

Andrew Tallman said...

Mark wrote me an email, which he gave me permission to post:

First of all, I’ll say that I really enjoy your talk show. I perceive you to be intelligent, gracious, and thoughtful. However, although I usually am sympathetic to your opinions, I don’t always agree with you. Hence this email !

In your “Thought of the Day 09.14.09” you seem to support John Piper’s opinion that “vast numbers” of Americans who claim to be born again are actually not believers instead of siding with Barna’s contention that the church needs to be reformed in order to help born again believers grow in the faith.

First of all, of course John Piper would say what he said. A favorite hobby of most obsessive theologically over-educated Calvinists is questioning every else’s salvation. So I’ll disregard him.

However, I don’t place you in that camp, so I’m interested in pursuing your comment that there is a biblical doctrine that states that “being born again always results in a radically changed life”. Where exactly in the Bible do you find this doctrine ? I had to add the underlined text below in order to find this requirement of a radically changed life as an additional component of one’s salvation.

John 1:12 “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" and their lives were radically changed.

Ephesians 1:13 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit" and your life was radically changed.

Galations 2:17 “If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!" It means that we are not really born again since our lives have not been radically changed.

Romans 6:11-14 “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." But what I am I telling you these things for ? If your life has not been radically changed then you are not really born again, you are actually going to hell.

The primary role of a pastor and a church is to disciple the flock in the path of obedience via the wonder of God’s moment-by-moment grace. It seems to me that most of Paul’s letters in the New Testament were aimed at this very thing. But you and I both know that most churches don’t do this very well although perhaps you have had a different personal experience. I have to agree with Barna that the church needs to do a better job. Personally, I think older men and older women in the faith have for the most part disregarded their responsibilities in this arena. My experience is that most born again Christians with a so called “radically changed life” are much more interested in complaining about the government and fretting over legalized abortion and in “protecting” their children from the culture thru home-school than they are in living lives of mercy and compassion and in service to the Kingdom of God.

One last note, I would actually not be surprised if a lot of those who told Barna that they are born again and do appear to be walking the talk are actually moral legalists in the fashion of the Pharisees, white washed tombs. I contend that these types are much more dangerous to undermining the mission of the church than the true believers who are in need of discipleship.

September 14, 2009 at 7:04 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

Let me start with the end first. I love Keller. Much more so than I do Piper, who I am only just now reading at a friend’s request. Piper is a Baptist, and among Evangelical groups, I’m least likely to be accused of a Baptist. =) I haven’t read Prodigal God, but I’ve probably listened to Tim preach Luke 15 about 40 times, so I probably know what’s in that book fairly well.

I also agree with the concern you voice that many of the “right-living” evangelicals self-described as born again are probably legalists rather than children of God (categories which, thank God, aren’t mutually exclusive, but which surely often are confused with each other). For those people (as you note), what one observes is adherence to a variety of behavioral norms such as spousal fidelity and church attendance but not a lot (if any) of the fruit of the Spirit. Such questions (Are you patient? Are you peaceful? Are you humble?) are much harder to quantify for the sort of survey Barna employs.

Having read a fair chunk of Barna’s “Pagan Christianity?” I don’t feel I’m misrepresenting him as a misguided Quaker primitivist (terms I doubt he would use of himself). Piper is certainly right that Barna’s definition of who is born again is far too naïve, and the notion that millions of people could truly be born again and yet demonstrate no real change in behavior or “fruit” is Biblically unsound. Could their change be hard to discern via phone survey? Surely. But to take for granted that the millions of sin-embracing, self-described born again Christians are truly born again of the Spirit of God is as much a slander of the text and God’s power as Piper says it is.

I can’t say which particular ones of those are choked true growth (category three from the parable of the sower), slow-seeming growth, or true tares. No one can from the outside, as all those categories are Biblically legitimate. But the words of James and John about what we should conclude about people who do not show Christian character and behavior are extremely stern, either being dead faith or lacking the love of God, respectively. To claim ALL these people really ARE born again, but somehow our church structures have failed them is too much of one over-simplification. To claim ALL these people really ARE NOT born again is too much of the other over-simplification. I would say there are millions of unsaved but good-looking people in our churches, just as there are millions of unsaved and bad-looking people in our churches. I have no idea how many bad-looking saved people there are, but I expect there to be a lot fewer of them than the other categories. What Piper is challenging is the easy, lowest possible bar definition of being born again that American Christianity seems to believe in, largely as a result of oversimplistic, tract-style thinking about the process of knowing God.

You’re right that I’m not in Piper’s camp, but so far in reading his book, I’ve only seen him make one blunder (in 40 pages or so), whereas Barna’s entire book looks like overstatement and hyperbole to me. Barna’s book has some truth and lots of error. Piper’s book has lots of truth and only minor error so far.

As for your challenge that the Bible doesn’t teach us that people who are born again will lead transformed lives, I suppose I want to ask you whether you seriously believe that. Rather than supplying verses to demonstrate that this is not true, I’m going to work on the premise that you don’t actually believe that, unless you tell me otherwise. =)

September 14, 2009 at 7:05 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

Mark replied:

As for your premise that I think the Bible teaches transformation, perhaps I didn’t elaborate fully enough. The Bible is full of spirit inspired teachings of transformation. But I do not see that it teaches that this transformation process is automatic, without struggle, without failures along the way, and even possible without the prayers and support of the church. That’s the point I was trying to make. Americans tend to be independent and “I can do it by myself” types and the church lets that cultural characteristic into the church. That kind of mentality is not conducive to spiritual growth or radical change as you describe it. So yes, I believe that one can be born again and not show fruit because they are lone ranger Christians and easy prey for the devil because the church is not safe.

Do you think that pastors and believers who use porn must not actually be born again ?

Do you think that pastors and believers who get divorced are not truly born again ?

Do you think the daughters (and sons) of pastors and believers who engage in pre-marital sex are not born again ?

Do you think that pastors and believers whose hearts are not broken by the plight of the impoverished are not born again ?

How does this stuff happen ? Is it because they are not born again ? Or is it because the church is not the community that it is supposed to be ? Is it because we don’t confess our sins to one another (James 5:16) ?

I think I’m tired now of being on a soap box. Your article just tweaked me a little because I am just so tired of Christians who would rather question the salvation of another person instead of coming along side that person with compassion, getting to know them, praying for them, befriending them …. basically showing them the love of Jesus. Why can’t we do that ?

September 14, 2009 at 7:06 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

I see from your email what I originally suspected: that we agree much more than we disagree, if we even disagree at all. =)

I think that the answer to any of the problems you proposed is to consider the possibility that they are not born again along with the other possibilities as well. I want to diagnose properly, and people not being born again is one legitimate diagnosis, but surely not the only one nor one that should be concluded decisively and quickly. But we should also not diagnose people as being truly born again decisively and quickly.

Both are presumptuous errors.

I’ll keep your soapbox in the trunk of my car. If you ever need it again, just let me know. =)

September 14, 2009 at 7:07 PM
Coffee Snob said...

My biggest concern with this discussion is Barna's basic premise; as Andrew said, it's far too naïve.

Let’s define our terms. In his 2003 book, "Think Like Jesus," Barna defines born-again Christians as individuals with “a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in (their) life today.” In addition, they believe they “will go to Heaven because (they) have confessed (their) sins and accepted Jesus Christ as (their) savior” (p. 35). He goes on to say that:

~ Only one out of four born-again adults (25%) “make their moral and ethical decisions on the basis of the Bible” (p. 36).
~ Only one out of seven born-again adults (14%) “rely on the Bible as their moral compass and believe that moral truth is absolute” (p. 37).

Let's also keep in mind what these two men do for a living. Barna is a pollster - a man who makes his living listening to other peole's opinions, while Piper is a man who makes his living studying and proclaiming the Word.

And as a pollster, Barna bases his understanding on a person's "self identification." This is a pollster's way of saying "If I SAY I'm a born-again Christian, then I AM a born-again Christian."

Based on so many Americans' self-identification as B-A Christians, Barna has said, “American Christianity has largely failed since the middle of the 20th century because Jesus’ modern-day disciples do not act like Jesus.”

But if my "commitment to Jesus Christ is still important to [me] today," then one would hope that my life today is visibly, noticibly different than it was when I was a foul-mouthed, sex-crazed, hedonistic teenager.

Transformation is a glorious thing!

September 14, 2009 at 8:48 PM

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