One of the less happy effects of Christianity is how it so often promotes mediocrity. This happens under the influence of what the Barna Research Group titled therapeutic-moral-Deism, which is when Christianity as a religion becomes a self-help program. Although I could spend time showing how this form of Christianity fails to really help people, the point is that this form of Christianity is sizably “woke” in that it assesses its success on how it makes people feel. In this regard, it is terribly postmodern because it is the audience’s feelings–rather than speaker’s intention–which determines the acceptability of a message. When Christianity’s goal is “feel-goodism,” the church is well on its way to becoming the world since the broader culture is the context from which many believers’ views on “how I should feel” are derived. Culture, which is the milieu of various opinions, trends, and controlled-media’s talking points, acts as a control on what the society at large can think and feel. Another way to say this is that culture, in our post internet days, is mass societal conditioning. This mass conditioning becomes a judge on the church’s messaging when the audience’s feelings determine the acceptability of a homily.

The combined and ongoing influence of “having ones feelings” validated cannot but promote mediocrity. Every person’s feelings become an end unto themselves; every person’s inherent god-made value gets postulated as the reason why we should validate their feelings. There is no collective good standard based on some criterion of excellence (I will dedicate a final paragraph to discuss objective, subjective, and inter-subjective truth). This therapeutic-moral-deism, masquerading as Christ’s image-on-earth, still has a moral component that some might argue makes it resistant to the cultural control. However, without the church’s message being based on Scripture—and its acceptability being based on how closely it resembles Scripture—the input from the church on what morals should be becomes decidedly muted. What happens, instead, is a incremental takeover of the church’s morals based on those feelings of the audience of what morality should be, formed and fashioned in the crucible of secular culture. This goes on, until at last, many of the straightforward moral judgements of the Bible become controversial to say even inside the walls of the church.

Why have I spent this time on this cultural-societal analysis? A sufficient morality, a challenging morality, is required for civilization to flourish whereas, for instance, professional sports are not. Nevertheless, professional sports promote the virtue of challenge and physical excellence (or prowess) in potent ways compared to the church, mutatis mudandi. In the corporate world, the challenge of how much capital an employee can generate is the meritorious standard by which that employee’s excellence is determined. DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) is making inroads to the corporate world too, which is a slow ebb towards mediocracy, in which merit is removed as the standard of judgement, and non-challenge-associated-ideas are introduced: skin color, ethnicity, financial class, and demographic-history. Notice how this all lines up with the first and second paragraph: (1) instead of the intent of the corporation or message of the church being the standard, it is the feelings, class, race, finances, or demographics of the audience which determines if something is acceptable or not. (2) This is nothing more than postmodernity in action: rather than there being an objective standard, the subjective persons (the audience) become the standard.

Whatever realm of experience we are discussing, the question is how to determine what excellence is. In sports, it is physical prowess. In corporations, it is maximizing capital generated for shareholders. In the church, it is the promotion of the superiority of Jesus Christ. Do not miss that I did not say that the church’s chief end is to promote morality. Morality is an implication or result of the superiority of Christ. Morality is not the goal; just as the Law of Moses was not the goal, but knowing and loving God (Deut. 6:4). A man who did many great evils, King David—rape, pre-meditated murder, pillaging, family in fighting resulting in death of family members, called a man of blood by God—was extoled and positively elevated in Scripture whereas the most moral law-keepers were vilified by Jesus. The starting point for the church is the accurate exposition and announcing of Scripture. This is the challenge, and this is the standard by which excellence is determined. There can be no other immovable foundation; all other ground is sinking sand, devoured by the cultural-societal sandy rot.

A real singing voice and impressive instrumental abilities are some other measures of how a church is doing in respect to promoting mediocracy. The pastor’s sermon reflecting or resembling what Scripture states is the standard for how we judge a church’s mission. There are subjective influences proper to our age and times which should be considered, but this consideration should only be done in the confidence that Scripture has saturated the messaging of the church. Is the superiority of Christ central, or is the church trying to be a moral police force on the culture, always emphasizing morality in His stead? The calling of God is the high calling of the Christ. It is not mediocre. “Do all things unto the Lord” is absolute challenge, a challenge I cannot imagine could be greater.

All this to say, challenge and striving for excellence is proper to the church’s ethos. Challenge is the inescapable reality of all things that are not infinite. To not be infinite is to be limited, and to be limited is to be a created thing/person. If we speak of challenge, then we also speak of competition since being limited will always imply a difference in ability across different people. 1 Corinthians 15 notes that we believers will not all shine the same, but differently according to our efforts, but there will be no envy. Can I compete without envy? I absolutely can: I can compete through efforts “unto the Lord” and in celebration of the other shining lights I enjoy. These efforts are not to overtake them, or to sniff out their lights, but to be inspired to greater efforts unto the Lord, all the while celebrating their excellence. Anyone who has played a sport seriously knows this experience. There are those we competed against who we respected and took joy in what they could do, even while we competed against them. Essentially, the high calling in Christ is to go beyond yourself to new heights in Him. Heaven will be an endless reality of joy and bliss, and a context of that heavenly reality will involve challenge. We will still overcome even then; we will not overcome others, or envy, or boast. We will overcome our present limitations to the next step of our ever growing capacities, and these capacities enable us to enjoy ever greater degrees of God’s infinitude. We will witness the overcoming of other heavenly believers and how far they have gone with God, and we will rightly desire greater intimacy with Christ. We will shine, and we will celebrate others’ shining, even as we are challenged by our limitations to take the next step in theosis, the growing divinization of the eternal saint, as Scripture states:

“Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:4).”

For the past half-decade, I have been undergoing a detoxification of embedded secularism discovered throughout so much of my thought. There are 2 highlight that come immediately to mind:

I’ve been escaping the impact of age-ism. Scholars talk about this as chronological horizon; philosophers might call it the zeitgeist. There are certain assumptions that guide all thought across the globe to one degree or another (excluding, of course, peoples who are not plugged into the global interconnectedness, like primitives tribes, and so forth). To the extent we can escape and overcome the barriers imposed by the assumptions of our age (age-ism), we get some great benefits that, frankly, make life more fun.

• Humility: coming to an understanding that our thoughts are limited by our age has made me profoundly clear on my weakness.
• Being free to disagree with current thought-trends, no matter how seemingly immovable, is astronomically freeing. Doing a bit of homework, we would find that the scientific consensus in the 80s and early 90s was that the universe was eternal; now the consensus is that the universe had a beginning (big bang). A Nobel Price winning physicist now argues that this universe is one in a series of expanding and collapsing universes–his view has not displaced the big bang, but it shows that would-be immovable scientific facts change in a relatively short amount of time.
• The mental prison most people live in without noticing seems so obvious now. The quest of freeing people’s minds is also a quest for what we should free them unto. Certainly in the West, an assumption that guides so many is that they should be free, free to do as they please. This has led to a hasty erosion of morality since “doing as you please” demands us to answer what it is we should be pleased to do. The thought-trend prominent in the 20th and early 21st century in the West that “I am free to do what I want and everyone else should not prohibit it” is a fragmented notion, and it should be clear why the West is destabilizing at a quickened rate. The associated idea that “I am okay, you’re okay, just let me live my life, it is a private matter,” is painfully myopic: it implies that someone’s desires are virtuous or “right” simply because this person has the desire. Desire unmoored from morality leads to any number of rampant evils. To my postmodern friends, let me affirm your sneaking suspicious that I am conjuring the specter of truth and asking “whose morality.” You are precisely right, I am advocating for logocentrism.

I have also learned the fact that the spiritual battle between good and evil is prominently a battle of epistemic exposure. If we think about the Adam and Eve narrative in Genesis 1 – 3, we find that the events of humankind’s ill-fate happened because humanity changed its epistemic limitation in the wrong way. Adam and Eve were limited to the good, but then they knew both “good and evil.” The serpent undid the trust humans had in God; the manner of how one comes about the knowledge of evil and how that knowledge is understood morally is largely at the crux of humanity’s ill-fate. It is therefore critical that we note that the ability to frame knowledge, color its moral quality, and set its limitations is a god-power. In this season of humanity’s destiny, big tech companies and social media’s capacity–both with very few guide-rails–to govern how knowledge/information is framed, delivered, and understood puts humanity into god-tier power, a return to the Tower of Babel as it were. Most humans are unimpressive; in terms of morality, most humans are even more unimpressive. Bureaucracy is evidence of human failure: in its purest and best form, it is the endless rules humanity has to make to prevent human immorality, all the while installing a systemic web of control far more evil than the evils that supposedly justify bureaucracy. Lastly, bureaucracy is wasteful in so many ways.

Dr. Scalise

I recall a great conversation with a friend of mine, who ran a finance firm: he noted that a loving God would not provide a place called Hell. Why bother, he would ask, with a place of punishment when all the cards are in His hand? He didn’t have to make it that way, he would complain. I have no innovation of thought from what I told him then, nearly 12 years ago now. If the God-world relationship is primarily deterministic (or Calvinistic), there is great value to his objection. If, however, the God-world relationship involves genuine freedom, then the objection (in my opinion) losses most of its potency. Before I get into this, however, there is another important feature we should discuss, one which I discussed with him at the time as well.

The realm of life: where is it? The realm of nothingness: how should this be understood? When Jesus brought Lazarus (John 10) back to life, Jesus corrects an erroneous thought that gets spoken in His presence: “Lazarus will be resurrected” near the end time, on the day of Judgement. Jesus notes that He is the Resurrection and the Life, in response. This is nothing new; clearly the Spirit of God is the Agent who is directly responsible for the life of humanity according to Genesis. We should be careful that we do not affirm panentheism or pantheism, that God is in all things (or the ground of all things) as being identical with those things. Elsewhere in Scripture (Colossians 3), we learn that all things subsist in the Christ. The point we want to pull out here is that all life abides in the Life or owing to the influence of the Life. The realm of life is really the realm of Life; there is no other “place” to find life but in God Himself. There is not a place or a way, in the final assessment of the matter, that life can abide without direct dependence on God. To tie this in with our larger objection levied in the opening paragraph, there is not a framework in which life is somehow independent of God. If this is true, however, that Jesus is the Life, then there is no place in which life can exist perpetually with the influence of evil allowed to continued. Evil, recall, is the depravation of good; it is parasitic. If evil is allowed to persist into the realm of Life, then Life would become corrupted. Life is God. If God is corrupted, how would heaven not become hell? Not just any hell either, but hell of the worse sort, a place in the presence of a Being (God) who does not die, has eternal power, and cannot be out maneuvered, resides. No, the moral purity of God must continue to be so if He is going to continue to be the Life. Life corrupted, after all, becomes much like our living, current experience: a realm often visited by horror, sorrow, and disappointment.

There ultimate end, then, of the realm of Life is that it is one in which no evil can be allowed to occupy. The realm of evil is really the realm of nothingness, for the ultimate end of evil is destruction, and what is ultimate destruction than nothingness? The point I made to my friend the finance CEO was that there is no neutral ground in which life can reside that permits any admixture of evil and good. Hell, as a consequence for evil, is the logical conclusion of what it would take to preserve life as Life. Any concession towards allowing evil into the Life turns the Life into a living hell.

We can turn now back to the point about calvinism (determinism) and genuine love. Even without the forgoing discussion about the realm of life vs. the realm of nothingness (which is a misnomer, I know), we can address the objection by drawing out the importance of love. Few, I believe, would say that coerced or forced love is really love. The prison population would testify to this along with their sexual crimes. If freedom of choice is required for love to be real love, then God setting the stage to allow for freedom (and therefore love) to obtain answers the objection. Few, again, would say that love is just not worth it. Don’t take my word on it, but let’s let the huge amount of dollars, fan-fare, and attention, put into the music industry around the importance, desirability, and achievability of forming genuine loving relationships do that speaking for me. I believe this data-set would silence any minority that thinks love isn’t worth the risk. If that doesn’t do it for you, bring in the movie industry and its huge focus on love-movies, or, for that matter, horror or crime movies involving forced, so-called, love (rape, and other crimes, etc). Humans and not just God-minded people understand how important love it. It is not a Christian thing or opinion. All of human creation attests otherwise.

Dr. Scalise

A notoriously difficult doctrine is the inspiration of Scripture, often incapsulated in the Greek term theopneustos, which is a combination Greek word for God (theos) and breathing (Pnue). The challenge lies in the fact that all Scripture comes from God, but it came in a variety of forms, packaged in and through man. There is no denying that human personality comes through the pages of Scripture. If we understand the human person to be a theomorphism, the challenge is hugely reduced–I’ve written much on theomorphism, but the shorthand is “features of humanity that owe to their divine semblance.” There have been some great theologians who have handled this topic, but I believe too much ground is ceded to secular humanist ideology at the starting point of much of their thought.

To set the stage, it is a controversial point–supposedly suggesting the Bible to be nothing but another book–to say that a biblical author has development in their thought or have too much personality come through the scriptural words (I wonder who decides what is too much?!). To have a problem with human personality or cognitive abilities shown in the pages of Scripture is already to be a secular humanist at the starting point. The presupposition that needs exposed is this: it assumes the human person to be an animal or mostly just a biological entity. This is sizably darwinian. It assumes that all there is to human personality is that it is enhanced animality, autonomous or largely autonomous from God. We should instead understand human personality to be an image bearing quality (Imago Dei, humans are made in the image of God). Before continuing, let’s add a bit more to the discussion.

A side comment on Deists is in order: those who believe God set the universe running and then stepped out of the equation. Not to be missed, but this understanding of man’s autonomy from God precludes the presence or power of God contained in humanity in terms of theomorphisms. Deists are resoundingly in the secular humanist camp since their starting point for man already has humankind isolated from God. Scripture, however, understands the human person to be theomorphically composed: made in the Image of God. Thus, human personality is built from God’s Personhood. Cognitive growth/development is part and parcel to the human’s ever growing need to have those abilities to appreciate God more and more, evermore. Anything limited must grow. Anything limited must have development of thought. Anything limited does not have its continued existence in itself (Aseity). Thus, the objection that human development of thought or human personality being contained in Scripture shows its non-divine origin is question begging. This assumption already shows a darwinian or deist starting point (maybe agnostic too); why would those who affirm humanity to be God’s divine image bearers cede this ground?

Therefore, human personality and human thought development is an expression of God’s gracious Presence, not evidence of His absence. How could it be otherwise? If humanity is limited–and it is–no human will escape having development and growth as part of his or her identity and formation. It is odd, isn’t it, that the pages of Scripture make sure to inform us that Jesus “increased in wisdom and in years . . . (Lk. 2:52).” This is fitting since Jesus was fully human and fully divine and for a time willingly “emptied himself” of his divine prerogatives (Phil. 2:7-8). How could Jesus be like us in every respect (Heb. 2:17, 4:15) if He did not partake in human limitations, which limitations are the very makeup of what it means to be a creature (contingent)? If Jesus popped out of the womb speaking Latin, it would be very obvious He was not human. Scripture wants us to know that even Jesus, the incarnated God-man, underwent growth and increases while He was incarnated. Therefore, for those persons who wrote Scripture to have increases in their thought across Scriptures’ pages, and to have their personality shine through, is not a renunciation of God’s presence or that those words did not originate from God. Instead, growth in thought and personality shining through is precisely the kind of thing we should expect since both human personality and human limitations are part of how God made humankind and how He made humans in His image. Humans transcend their limitations time and time again, and this is why advancements of any type in any field are possible at all. Humans can become the stories they tell, and no other species can do this.

Two side of one puzzle: God condescends to speak in the limitations proper to all things created; humankind ascends through their transcending growth abilities to pursue God and all Who He is. I am certain there is not enough fanfare about human growth capacities, at least not from a rich theological view. Amazingly, crowds pay huge dollars to see athletes demonstrate these upgraded abilities. There is something else driving the premium on professional athletes’ abilities as a fan-favorite: scarcity. Our short life spans, and our even shorter physical improvement time-frames, makes these abilities scarce. The takeaway is that humans have the ability to break through their limitations, and humanity recognizes this ability as extremely valuable. This instinct is right because it is only humans, among all God’s creatures, that can do this. I describe this unique feature of humanity the “ability to transcend ideological confines.” We could also say it is the “ability to reframe our epistemic limitations.” For my larger purpose here, we must be realistic about how Scripture comes to us. God deemed it appropriate to come to us through humans, involving all that is proper in human growth and various personality factors. We have allowed the secular humanists and others to set the stage, implying that “if something is human then it is not of the divine.” The point is that the humanity of something does not necessarily imply the lack of divine influence; quite the opposite may be true, to be human is to have the divine image built into you. The incarnation of the Son of God should have made this point long ago: the divine comes to us humanly. If God had wanted it otherwise, it would be otherwise.

The inspiration of Scripture must involve personality for personality belongs first and properly to God. If God speaks to humanity as being creatures, He speaks in the framework of our nature, which involves growth, which is quite proper to what and where we are. There is no way this could be otherwise. Why, you ask. How could what is finite (humans) hear He who is infinite if the Infinite spoke to us in perfect infinitude? No, love would suggest that the Speaker speak in a way the listener can discern. Indeed, only a very cruel being would drop infinite articulations onto extremely limited humans, in which there would be no starting point for them to transcend upward.

Dr. Scalise