Note: This essay is based on my Christmas Eve homily. While it’s not my usual writing, I thought I’d share anyhow.

My daughter has been getting into I Spy recently.

You know the game.

Someone spots something hidden in plain sight, gives a clue, and the other person has to guess what it is.

Lately, it’s been Christmas-themed: “I spy with my little eye something tall and green with yellow teeth.”

(That’s obviously the nine-foot inflatable Grinch on the McNiven’s front yard.)

My kid loves it, I think, because it rewards curiosity and attention. If I’m honest, I love it, too, because it suggests the world still has meaning tucked inside it, waiting to be found.

I’m glad the Bible tells us this instinct isn’t childish at all.

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Proverbs 25:2)

God delights to hide truth, but not to keep it from us. He wants us “search things out,” to look again, carefully this time. Which makes the Nativity of the Gospel accounts something like a holy game of I Spy. If you look closely, you’ll notice how God placed clues everywhere, little signs that interpret themselves once we know what to look for.

Jesus gave us those clues.

He told us who He is and why He came, especially in His “I am” statements found in the Gospel of John. And when you stare long enough at the Nativity, you begin to see them.

I Spy Something Bright

Jesus said,

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Where’s that light in the Nativity?

It shines overhead.

The star pierces the night sky, visible from far away, drawing strangers to worship a child they never met. “For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2), said the magi.

No offense to all the amateur astronomers trying to prove this was an actual event—I think it was—but that’s beside the point.

The point is the world Jesus entered: a dark world.

Darkness in the Bible is less a statement about the absence of daylight than it is the presence of something wrong, something broken, something menacing. Darkness means sin, confusion, fear, estrangement from God, death.

It’s into that darkness God sent His only Son.

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16, CSB

Granted, the light doesn’t erase the darkness instantly—there’s still sin and suffering in the world—but it gives direction, making movement “out of darkness into his marvelous light” possible (see 1 Peter 2:9). Remember, God’s Son came not to condemn the world, but to redeem it (see John 3:17). “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

Light means we’re no longer lost.

I Spy Something Standing Watch

Jesus said,

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).

Where are the shepherds in the Nativity?

This one’s easy.

In the Nativity story, shepherds are everywhere. They’re awake while others sleep, watching their flocks in the open fields at night (see Luke 2:8).

Why shepherds? Because of the cost they pay to protect their flocks. They know the risks, that sheep wander and can’t defend themselves from predators. So, it’s bad news when they wander from shepherd care.

It’s doubly bad news to know that, “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6).

The world Jesus enters, then, wasn’t just dark; it was dangerous, filled with deception, temptation, and evil that seeks to abuse and oppress and kill (see 1 Peter 5:8).

It still is.

The presence of shepherds at Jesus’s birth signals that this child has come to stand between danger and the vulnerable, between Satan and sinner. He doesn’t flee when the cost becomes clear—His own death on a cross.

He gives himself.

I Spy Something to Eat

(This one is my favorite.)

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” and then pressed the claim further:

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:48, 51).

“Wait… Where is bread in the Nativity?” you wonder.

It’s right there in the center of the scene: the manger.

Think about it. We’ve tamed the Nativity too much. To us, the manger is basically a makeshift crib, safe and cute.

But let’s be real: a manger is a feeding trough.

The word “manger” comes from the Latin mandere, which means “to chew.” It’s the same root word where the English “mandible” comes from (jawbone).

Sure, it was a makeshift crib, but toss the pragmatism aside for a moment, you kings, to ‘search out’ what God has ‘concealed’ here: God placed the Bread of Life in a feeding trough to show that salvation would come by consuming.

From the very beginning of Christ’s life, He was placed where food belongs, to be consumed by the creatures He created (see Colossians 1:16–17).

Bread is broken, shared, received. Jesus didn’t arrive merely to be observed or admired or even followed. He came to be given for the life of the world.

Receive Him by faith.

Merry Christmas, friends.

Let’s be honest: Ecclesiastes is a bit of a strange book at first glance.

It reads like the Bible, but not like any story or letter we’re familiar with. Nothing like the prophets and Proverbs. It sounds more like a man thinking out loud at two o’clock in the morning, pacing the floor, wrestling with life’s unfairness and futility, muttering questions he knows don’t have easy answers.

“Vanity of vanities,” the Preacher sighs. “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Eccl 1:2–3).

When we have difficult questions, we want to Bible to be Wikipedia of quick solutions. We want to be able to open it and find something hopeful like, “It’s okay… Just trust God, and everything will be all right.”

But Ecclesiastes says, “Mmmyeah… that’s not how life works. Trust God anyway, even when it won’t.”

Ecclesiastes refuses to gloss over the ugliness and injustice of life “under the sun.” And that’s exactly why we need to pick it up and read.

We live in an age addicted to easy answers. There’s always a new life-hack by another self-help influencer promising you a better you after a 15 second TikTok. Open your phone and you’ll find a thousand shortcuts to meaning, all promising microwaved happiness if you’ll just hit that like button, smash subscribe, and pay $11.99 a month for the insiders.

But the Preacher offers no shortcuts. He drags us by the hand through the long, slow road of doubt and disappointment. Work, wisdom, pleasure, success, even religion itself… none of them delivers the final payoff.

“I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Eccl 1:14).

This is a book obsessed with life “under the sun.” That phrase echoes like a bell through its chapters, some thirty times or more. “Under the sun” is where you and I live. It’s the world as it appears, limited, decaying, filled with moments of joy that always slip through your fingers.

Ecclesiastes is honest about the boredom, anxiety, and dissatisfaction that still gnaw at us even after we’ve built the life we always thought we wanted. It’s less a motivational TED talk than it is a weathered journal from a survivor, and it’s been waiting for you to take it off the shelf and let it speak.

First Naiveté: The Unexamined Faith

Most of us begin our spiritual life in Christ with a sort of bright-eyed faith—a first naivete, as French philosopher Paul Ricœur put it. We trust what we’re told. We believe in the goodness of life. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we get a decade or two before the cracks begin to show.

This is the Sunday school faith of childhood: simple and sincere. Even grateful. There’s beauty here, and we shouldn’t sneer at it. Jesus himself told us to become like children. But if we stay here forever, we risk mistaking sentimentality for faith. We confuse “God is good” with “nothing bad will happen to me.”

But it’s only a matter of time before reality tests that creed.

Ecclesiastes has no patience for such illusions. The Preacher torches them with the flame of hevel, or “vanity,” a Hebrew word for the breath that fogs a mirror and disappears, for smoke that seems substantial until you try to hold it.

Hevel is the crushing realization that everything we’ve been told will satisfy us—success, love, sex, wisdom, wealth, even religious devotion—can’t bear the infinite weight of human longing we’ve piled onto it.

So, the Preacher torches it all.

Every room of life.

Burns it to the ground.

“I hated life,” he says, coughing, waving the smoke away, “because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Eccl 2:17).

The book won’t let us stay children. It tells the truth, and sometimes in a voice so raw it stings.

Some of us—perhaps most of us—eventually move into a stage of suspicion and criticism. (The Preacher certainly seems to, at least at first.) The world is more broken than we thought. We see through the promises of work, money, achievement, even religion. It’s harder to rationalize suffering, to accept the loss of good people, to ignore death.

To make matters worse, the just world shrugs.

But Ecclesiastes meets us right there.

Exactly there.

The Preacher’s questions are our own: “So… what’s the point?” “Why even bother?” “Why should I fear God if the same fate overtakes the wise and the fool?” (see Eccl 2:14–16).

This is not a comfortable place, but it’s definitly necessary. Real faith isn’t built on denial, and the Preacher knows this. He refuses to let us tac a happy ending onto a sad story.

His gift to us is raw honesty about life ‘below the sun,’ in the imminent, in mortality. It gives voice to those who feel like outsiders in church, who sit quietly through cheerful songs and wonder, “Does anyone here see what I see?”

The first naivete is shattered, and you don’t know what to do. You have the questions, but you’re too afraid to ask.

Good news: Ecclesiastes gives you permission to ask the taboo you never dared to mutter aloud.

Second Naiveté: A Hard-Won Trust

Paul Ricœur spoke of a “second naiveté”—a faith that comes after suspicion, after criticism, after the hard questions have been asked. It’s not a return to childhood innocence, but something deeper, more weathered.

It’s the “fear of God” the Preacher lands on in the final verses. A biblical fearing of God isn’t a cowering dread before a terrible being, but a posture of awe, humility, and obedience to a good God in a world that can’t stand Him.

“Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccl 12:13). This is a decision, not a resignation, to live with open hands, to trust God not because the world makes sense but because He is good, even when the world isn’t.

And here’s the secret Ecclesiastes doesn’t say outloud but implies loudly: “under the sun” isn’t all there is. The Preacher’s relentless honesty isn’t meant to drive us to despair, but to unmask our misplaced hopes and point us toward a better one: a hope “above the sun.” The disappointments of the imminent—of the here and now—are meant to stir our hearts for the transcendent. When everything under the sun fails to satisfy, Ecclesiastes dares us to lift our eyes and remember: there’s more.

Second naiveté is not a naive hope that tomorrow under the sun will be brighter. It’s a childlike trust that eternity is real, that the God who made us has planted “eternity in our hearts” (Eccl 3:11).

True hope doesn’t settle for what is passing; rather, it aches for what is permanent.

It longs for the day when the sun itself will fade but the Light above will never fail.

Second naiveté is what happens when we carry our doubts through the desert of deconstruction and still decide to worship. It’s Job, sitting in the ashes, saying, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” It’s the parent who prays for a child that won’t return. It’s the believer who lights a candle in the fog and waits for morning.

Having preaching through this text, I encourage you to take up Ecclesiastes and let it question you. Let it interrupt your platitudes. Let it teach you how to hope after cynicism.

Don’t rush to the end.

Sit with the questions.

Read it slowly, aloud if you can.

Hear the voice of a man who has seen everything and had it all, realized none of it matters, and still found something worth clinging to.

Ecclesiastes is a balm for those who have been burned by shallow faith or cheap answers. If you’re angry at God, or confused by suffering, or simply bored with the same old spiritual cliches spiritual slogans, read Ecclesiastes. It’s not going to try to fix you. It’s just going to sit beside you in the dust, listen to your questions, and quietly ask a few of its own.

And when you feel with Ecclesiastes an aching for something not ‘vanity’—for something eternal and meaningful and ‘weighty’—know that His name Jesus Christ, “the Way, the Truth, the Life” you’ve been searching for and yearning for and needing.

Look up to hope for something more than life “under the sun.” To hunger for the “new heavens and new earth” that Christ promises, where the shadows lift and meaning is finally made full.

So, bring your questions, your wounds, your doubts. Ecclesiastes is waiting. Again, it’s not going to give you easy answers. It will give you something better: the courage to keep seeking God, even in a world where all you can do is shake your head and weep. The permission to hope, even after hope has been shattered and remade. The wisdom to live honestly, joyfully, humbly, “under the sun,” with your eyes fixed on the One who stands above it.

That’s the journey: from naïve hope, through desert honesty, to a childlike faith reborn. Not in this world’s promises, but in the promise of the One who holds eternity in his hands.

Maybe that’s what faith really looks like.

Jesus! What shall I Thee give, who didst give Thyself to death, thyself for myself.

These words open one of many devotions in Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg’s Meditations on the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of Jesus Christ. With them, she asks the reader implicitly, ‘What is the proper response to the cross?’

Her conclusion? We are to do everything our instincts tell us not to when it comes to the bloody, awful reality of crucifixion.

To look, rather than turn away. To embrace, not retreat. To linger, instead of moving on.

What I appreciate most about the 17th-century Lutheran poet is that she doesn’t really attempt to resolve the cross. She tires, instead, to revere it. Her language drips with paradox and irony, or what theologians have long called the ‘scandal of the cross’ Throughout both her verse and her meditative prose, she wrestles with mystery.

I think it’s good for Christians to join her, to walk with her through mystery, to stare into sorrow, and worship.

Jesus! What shall I Thee give, who didst give Thyself to death, Thyself for myself.

Here is the shape of substitution, the contours of vicarious love. Jesus didn’t come to give us a second chance. No, He came to give us Himself.

“I live by faith in the Son of God,” wrote the Apostle Paul, “who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

Christ didn’t die because death was strong. He died because His love was stronger. “Thyself for myself,” that Great Exchange of the holy for the unholy. The innocent for the guilty. The Son of God for the enemies of God.

Jesus! What shall I Thee give, who didst give Thyself to death, Thyself for myself. That Life should be meant to die, This I can’t conceive.

How can we?

And if it ever were that we thought we could, to say too easily “Jesus died for me,” maybe we’re not saying it right.

Or, at least, maybe we’re saying it rushed.

But Greiffenberg won’t let us rush past the terror of the trade. She stops mid-sentence:

This I simply cannot grasp.

Good.

We aren’t supposed to explain the cross. We are supposed to behold it.

Let’s linger in the mystery by walking with Greiffenberg through the ironies she names, those divine reversals and sacred contradictions of Calvary. Drawn from her poetry and her meditations, each one is meant to hush us.

Each one invites awe.

Each one pulls us closer to the scandal and the splendor of the cross.

Irony 1: That The Author of Life Was Crucified Between Criminals

Greiffenberg writes in her Meditations:

The Prince of Life Himself was the companion of murderers!

The Word for whom and through whom all things were made (see John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 2:10) was flanked by men who used their lives to take life. The Life-Giver entered death row, surrounded by the condemned.

Not just theirs, but ours.

As Luke records, Jesus was “numbered with the transgressors” (Luke 22:37). That doesn’t just mean He was surrounded by them. It means He was counted as one of them.

Crucifixion wasn’t just execution; rather, it was identification.

Christ died next to the guilty as though He were guilty.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Irony 2: The Head of All Creatures is Brought to Golgotha.

O Jesus! Thou head of all living creatures, indeed, of life itself, Thou art brought to the dead place of a skull.

Golgotha means “place of the skull.” It’s a hill shaped like a head. And it’s there where the Lord of life was lifted up.

The “place of the skull” is crowned by the dying King of Kings whose own skull was crowned not with gold but with thorns.

It’s as cruel as it is fitting.

There’s theological poetry here. In Eden, the first Adam lifted his head to find knowledge but received death. On Golgotha, the Last Adam bowed His head to death to bring us life.

Paul says, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).

Do you see the exchange?

Adam wanted to be like God, the Everlasting Life. But Adam died.

The Son of God became like man, and died, so we might live.

Irony 3: Christ Walked With Sinners to Death, to Lead Sinners to Life.

Because He is to be executed at the same time as sinners, they too are to be resurrected with Him.

We like to imagine we’d be at the foot of the cross, admiring His courage.

But we weren’t.

We were in the crowd, mocking. In the Sanhedrin, shouting. In the soldiers, gambling.

This is the upside-down kingdom. The Righteous One walks the road of shame so the unrighteous can walk the road of joy. The Shepherd becomes a Lamb so His sheep might never be lost. The Judge is judged, so the guilty can go free.

But by grace, we are now in the tomb, buried with Him. And, wonder of wonders, we shall be in the garden too, risen with Him.

“It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

Irony 4: “Inconceivable torture when creation martyred the Creator.”

In one of her most searing lines, Greiffenberg writes:

Oh! Inconceivable torture when creation thus martyred the Creator, when God thus suffers like a human being.

What a line.

The One who invented skin is pierced through His.

The One who brought for trees with the power of His word is now nailed to one.

The One who commands angel armies allows Himself to be seized by a Roman garrison.

The One who speaks storms into silence now speaks no defense.

The One who breathed life into dust now suffocates in ours.

The One who formed the world by speaking falls silent beneath its curse.

This is not a god made in our image.

This is the God who remakes us in His.

No other religion dares say this. Other gods demand worship; this One descends in weakness.

Other gods require sacrifice; this One becomes it.

Irony 5: The Watchers Feel Nothing While the Sufferer Feels Everything.

Greiffenberg reflects:

And the people stood by, watching . . . They regard Him without feeling sympathy, Him who, filled with compassion, turned around their suffering and transformed it into joy.

This may be the most haunting irony of all: the One who feels most deeply is surrounded by people who feel nothing.

And still, He loves them.

“Father, forgive them,” He prayed, “for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

Greiffenberg is exposing something we’re often too ashamed to name, which is our numbness at the foot of the cross.

How often do we stand before it—metaphorically or liturgically—unmoved?

But Christ’s compassion never cools.

Even when our hearts are cold, His mercy is fresh.

Even when our prayers are wilting, His intercession is strong.

A Mystery: The One Torment He Refused

Greiffenberg also notes one final mystery.

She reminds us that on the cross, Christ refused one thing: the wine mixed with gall (see Matt. 27:34). It was a bitter sedative, like first-century morphine drip.

But Jesus turned His face from it.

Why?

Because He would feel it all.

He would drink the cup of wrath unmixed.

No shortcuts.

No numbing.

No compromise.

Not because He loved pain, but because He loved the pained.

What kind of God does that?

Only one.

What Shall I Thee Give?

Let’s return to where we began

Jesus! What shall I Thee give, who didst give Thyself to death, thyself for myself

This is not a question asked to earn grace. It is the cry of someone undone by it.

Greiffenberg sees the crucified Christ and realizes she has nothing to offer in return, nothing but awe.

That is the only right response.

You can’t pay Him back.

You can’t balance the scales.

You can only do what she does: marvel, weep, and worship.

“This I can’t conceive,” she says.

Neither can I.

Neither should we.

We are not meant to reduce the cross to a formula.

We are meant to behold it as mystery.

As gift.

As gospel.

Jesus! This I can’t conceive, all my senses fade away. This I simply cannot grasp: that Life should be meant to die.

It’s madness.

It’s mercy.

It’s Good Friday.

But Sunday is coming.

And until then, we pray praise with Greiffenberg:

Be Thou praised with all my might! Praised with the strength of my heart, praised with the sap of my veins, praised with my spirit’s pondering. Praised with all my soul and senses, praised with inmost enterprise! Praised with all that is in me! Be Thou evermore, O Jesus!

—
Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, Meditations on the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of Jesus Christ, ed. and trans. Lynne Tatlock (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

When Latter-day Saints ask me, “What is evangelicalism?” I sometimes find myself at a loss for words. I know what it’s like, I could point it out when I see it.

But to define it?

That’s where the challenge lies.

In these conversations, I’ve often relied on the Bebbington Quadrilateral to aid me, but I’ve since realized its limitations in fully describing evangelicalism.

Allow me to explain.

The Bebbi-what?

In 1989, historian David Bebbington proposed a framework for understanding evangelicalism that has since become widely influential in academic circles. Known as the Bebbington Quadrilateral (or BQ), this model identifies four key characteristics of evangelicalism:

1. Conversionism: The belief that lives need to be transformed through a “born-again” (see John 3) experience and a lifelong process of following Jesus.

2. Activism: The expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts.

3. Biblicism: A high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority.

4. Crucicentrism: A stress on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as making possible the redemption of humanity.

The BQ is very authoritative to some, serving as the governing inclusion criteria for defining ‘evangelicalism.’ For example, when asking the basic question, “What is an Evangelical?” the National Association of Evangelicals points to the BQ.

While this paradigm has provided valuable insights into the nature of evangelical Christianity, it’s not without its limitations. So, defining a person, church’s, or institution’s affiliation based on the BQ isn’t necessarily gatekeeping so much as it is theological gerrymandering.

Why’s that?

The BQ has some blindspots.

Doctrine Over Practice?

The first major blindspot of the BQ model is its overemphasis on doctrine rather than practice. The quadrilateral’s focus on Biblicism and Crucicentrism primarily addresses matters of belief, while Conversionism implies a doctrinal understanding of salvation. Even Activism, which might seem to focus on action, is often interpreted through a lens of doctrinal correctness. This heavy emphasis on belief, while important, fails to adequately capture the lived experience of faith that is central to Christian life.

Jesus himself emphasized the importance of “doing” in addition to believing. In the Gospel of Matthew, He likens those who hear His words and put them into practice to a wise man who built his house on the rock (see Matthew 7:24-27). Similarly, the Epistle of James asserts that “faith without works is dead” (see James 2:26). The BQ, in its focus on doctrinal elements, neglects crucial aspects of Christian practice such as community fellowship, spiritual disciplines like prayer and fasting, and the imperative of social justice and care for the poor. These practices have been integral to the Christian experience throughout history and across denominational lines.

In short, the BQ invites the assumption that orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy, which it does not, as I’ve argued elsewhere.

Moreover, the very concept of conversionism as a “born-again experience” warrants closer examination. The reference to being “born again” in John 3 may not necessarily imply a dramatic, experiential event as often interpreted in evangelical circles. After all, who among us remembers our first birth? Who could ‘testify’ of their rebirth? Some, but not all. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps Jesus was using rebirth as an analogy for a new life lived, a transformation of perspective and behavior, rather than a singular, identifiable experience. This nuanced understanding challenges us to reconsider how we conceptualize and articulate the process of coming to faith.

What about the Trinity?

Secondly, the BQ exhibits a notable disconnection from historic Christianity. The model makes no explicit reference to the ecumenical creeds, such as the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds, which have long served as foundational statements of Christian belief. More significantly, it lacks any clear formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, a central tenet of Christian orthodoxy for nearly two millennia. This omission raises questions about the model’s relationship to the broader Christian tradition and its understanding of God’s nature.

The importance of historical continuity in Christian theology cannot be overstated. The role of tradition in interpreting Scripture has been a crucial safeguard against ahistorical or overly individualistic interpretations. By seeming to divorce evangelicalism from its historical roots, the BQ risks presenting a version of Christianity that is unmoored from the rich theological reflections and communal wisdom of centuries of Christian thought and practice.

For example, 19th century Unitarianism fits neatly within the BQ, but modern evangelicals would struggle to count them among their ranks, e.g., Oneness Pentecostalism.

What about the Resurrection?

Finally, the quadrilateral’s emphasis on Crucicentrism, while highlighting a crucial aspect of Christian soteriology, presents a limited view of Christ’s salvific work. The focus on Christ’s atoning death on the cross—a major theme also in LDS soteriology—fails to give due weight to the equally important event of Christ’s resurrection. The Apostle Paul emphatically states that without the resurrection, our faith is futile (see 1 Cor 15:14). The resurrection is not merely an addendum to the crucifixion but represents Christ’s victory over death and sin, with profound implications for believers’ present lives and future hope.

Moreover, this narrow focus potentially undermines a fuller understanding of salvation. The Christian concept of salvation encompasses more than just the forgiveness of sins. It includes ideas such as glorification and the already/not yet tension of the Kingdom of God in many Western traditions. By emphasizing Crucicentrism to the exclusion of these broader soteriological concepts, the BQ presents a restricted view of Christian salvation that may not resonate with the full breadth of evangelical experience and belief.

Evangelicalism: Beyond Political Association

Let me address the elephant in the article.

It’s crucial to emphasize that evangelicalism, at its core, is not inherently political.

The movement’s commitment to activism has historically manifested in various forms of social reform, often contributing significantly to societal progress. This activism stems from a deep-seated belief in applying gospel principles to address societal issues and improve the human condition.

Throughout history, evangelicals have been at the forefront of numerous social reform movements. I am proud to belong to a storied tradition that includes:

1. Abolitionism: Evangelical Christians like William Wilberforce in England and Charles Finney in the United States were key figures in the movement to abolish slavery.

2. Women’s Suffrage: Many early advocates for women’s right to vote, such as Frances Willard and Sarah Grimké, were motivated by their evangelical faith.

3. Child Labor Reform: Evangelicals played a significant role in campaigning against exploitative child labor practices in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

4. Civil Rights Movement: While not uniform in their support, many evangelicals, particularly African American evangelicals, were active participants in the fight for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

5. Prison Reform: Evangelicals have long been involved in efforts to improve conditions in prisons and promote rehabilitation, dating back to the work of John Howard in the 18th century.

6. Temperance Movement: While controversial today, the temperance movement, largely driven by evangelicals, sought to address social ills associated with alcohol abuse.

7. Global Poverty and Health Initiatives: Evangelical organizations have been instrumental in providing aid, healthcare, and education in developing countries.

However, in living memory, evangelicalism has become increasingly associated with specific political stances, particularly in the United States. This association, which I personally regret, has often overshadowed the diverse ways in which evangelicals engage with social issues and has led to misconceptions about the nature of evangelicalism itself.

The political entanglement of evangelicalism can be traced back to the rise of the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and the subsequent alignment of many evangelical leaders with conservative political causes, especially seen in the 2016 presidency of Donald Trump. I call this moment the “Hillbilly Elegization of American Evangelicalism,” the shift in evangelical culture and politics towards a more populist, working-class identity, particularly associated with rural and Rust Belt America. But this is the odd glitch in evangelicaism’s storied history.

(V.P. Presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy gained prominence among evangelicals for its portrayal of working-class white culture in Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Before and during the presidency of Donald Trump, evangelicals shifted focus towards issues of cultural identity, particularly those of rural and working-class white Americans.)

While these developments have significantly shaped public perception of evangelicalism, they do not define its essence or represent the full spectrum of evangelical thought and action.

Many evangelicals, myself included, are concerned about this conflation of faith and partisan politics. We believe it detracts from the core mission of evangelicalism: spreading the good news of Jesus Christ and living out His teachings in all aspects of life, including but not limited to the political sphere. We are not Christian Nationalists, and happily work against its influence as much as we work against the influence of policies that subvert the vision we believe best fosters human flourishing, from conception to grave.

This conversation is tangential to one’s evangelical identity, not part-and-parcel of it.

It’s important to recognize that evangelicals span a wide range of political views and continue to engage in social reform through various means, including non-profit organizations focused on issues like poverty, education, and healthcare; environmental stewardship initiatives; racial reconciliation efforts; international aid and development work; and advocacy for religious freedom and human rights.

While the term “evangelical” is not inherently political, it inevitably shapes an evangelical’s politics.

And that’s okay.

What I Say Instead

Given these limitations and considerations, when explaining evangelicalism, particularly to those in the Latter-day Saint tradition, I propose an alternative framework:

1. Transformitive Faith: Rather than emphasizing a singular “born-again experience,” this principle recognizes the ongoing process of spiritual transformation. It acknowledges that coming to faith in Jesus Christ fundamentally changes one’s worldview and way of life. This transformation may be sudden for some, gradual for others, but it always involves a reorientation of one’s life towards Christ’s teachings and example. It’s less about a momentary experience and more about a lifelong journey of growing in faith and aligning one’s life with the gospel.

2. Activism: The expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts. This highlights the importance of putting faith into action through evangelism, social justice, and community service, though it is not inherently political (as so many assume).

3. Solas: The five key theological principles of the Protestant Reformation:

   • Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone): The Bible is the highest authority for faith and practice (i.e., not the Qur’an, Book of Mormon, or other religion’s holy writ).

   • Sola Fide (Faith Alone): Justification is received by faith alone, without works.

   • Sola Gratia (Grace Alone): Salvation comes by God’s grace alone, not by human merit.

   • Solus Christus (Christ Alone): Jesus is the sole mediator between God and humanity.

   • Soli Deo Gloria (To the Glory of God Alone): All things are for God’s glory.

4. Trinitarianism: The doctrine that God is one in essence and three in person—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This core belief connects evangelicalism to historic Christian orthodoxy and distinguishes it from non-Trinitarian groups.

This revised framework addresses several of the Bebbington Quadrilateral’s limitations. It retains the emphasis on personal conversion and active faith, while the inclusion of the Solas provides a more comprehensive doctrinal basis rooted in the Protestant Reformation. The explicit inclusion of Trinitarianism connects evangelicalism more firmly to historic Christian orthodoxy and helps distinguish it from non-Trinitarian groups that might otherwise fit the criteria.

While this alternative framework may have its own challenges and limitations, it offers a more nuanced and historically grounded definition of evangelicalism. It provides clearer points of comparison and contrast with other Christian traditions, including Mormonism, making it a useful starting point for interfaith dialogue and a more robust understanding of evangelical identity in the broader Christian landscape.

In presenting evangelicalism to others, particularly in interfaith dialogues, I strive to emphasize this broader understanding of evangelical belief and activism. The goal is to move beyond reductive political associations and highlight the multifaceted ways in which evangelicals seek to live out their faith in the public sphere, always with the aim of honoring God and serving others.

Admittedly, this revised framework invites new questions. I’m certainly not entirely sure of it, and am being vulnerable with my friends in admitting, “I’m not quite sure what an ‘evangelical’ is.”

But I’m sure of this: An evangelical is not the sum of Bebbington’s Quadrilateral, as helpful as it has been in starting the conversation.

To read a much greater thinker than I on this topic, I highly recommend Tommy Kidd’s Who Is An Evangelical?

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (Mark 15:34; cf. Matt. 27:46).

According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, these were the final words of Jesus of Nazareth. Pinned to the cross by Roman soldiers, and pressed there by religious leaders, all because of the First Adam’s sin, here hung the Last Adam, the Son of Man, uttering the saddest, grief-filled distress ever recorded: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Some imagine this dejected cry as evidence of injustice, divine child abuse poured out from an angry Father upon an innocent Son. But this objection ignores Jesus’s own opinion in the matter, as though the voice of victims ought to be silenced. Just the night before, the Son prayed to the Father to “let this cup pass from me,” but He yielded to their collective divine desire: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). Child abuse is never wanted by the victim, yet the Son of God desired this moment, and because of “the joy that was set before him [Christ] endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 21:2).

God’s Son, the second person of the all-knowing Trinity, knew all too well what was coming and desired it anyhow. As Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg so eloquently put it: “The Infinite Omniscience saw an unfathomable sea of pain before Him that we flooded prodigiously with our sins,” but “His misery meant less to Him than our joy.” It’s an abuse of the Son’s agency to assume He had no choice in the matter. “I lay down my life so that I may take it up again,” Christ clarified, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down” (John 10:17–18).

Others, though, imagine Christ’s cry as the heart wrenching moment when God the Father could no longer look at the face of His dying Son drenched in our sins. Because God “made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin,” the Son forfeited His eternal relationship with the Father “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). No wonder these lyrics resonate so deeply with our souls: “How great the pain of searing loss, The Father turns His face away.”

But is it the case that God truly turned His face away from the Son at the crucifixion? It depends on how we understand what it means for God ‘to face’ someone. We know, in a literal sense, God cannot turn His face away because He has no face. “God is Spirit” (John 4:24) and “a spirit does not have flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39), His Son taught us. Yet, even in an allegorical sense—though God may show favor or affection when he “makes his face to shine upon you” (Num. 6:25)—we ought to take care in knowing what this means.

Would God really turn away His face (would He cease His affections) from His son in whom He is “well pleased” (see, e.g., Matt. 3:17; 17:5; 2 Pet. 1:17) especially at the epicenter of redemption history, the cross on Calvary? When else was God more pleased than at that pivotal moment when His Son forever redefined true power—not through force but through sacrifice—as He inaugurated the new covenant, loosened sin’s grip, defeated Satan, and forged lasting peace, reconciliation, and unity between God and humanity?

Indeed, while God permits persecution, he does not forsake the persecuted (see 2 Cor. 4:9). If the Lord God “will not leave or forsake” the children of Israel (Deut. 31:6), would He truly leave and forsake His only begotten Son? To answer “Yes” is to imagine the unimaginable—a relational rupture within the Holy Trinity, Son torn from Father and Spirit, meaning that for the briefest of moments in all eternity the Trinity ceased to be Triune, and God ceased to be God.

So, what did Jesus mean when He uttered that most mournful lament?

Christological Reflections on Psalm 22

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I don’t fault you for assuming I’ve quoted Jesus again. I haven’t, though. I’ve quoted David (see Ps. 22:1). This psalm was originally a hymn, written “to the choirmaster, according to The Doe of the Dawn,” a tune lost to history.

But herein lies the first clue to understanding what Jesus meant when He uttered those words: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Perhaps he didn’t utter them. Perhaps he sung them. Filling his lungs one last time, belting from his diaphragm with all his might, Jesus intoned the forlorn melody.

And just as anyone today who, on hearing this simple line, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,” could complete the refrain—“that saved a wretch like me”—so too would many people at Christ’s crucifixion know immediately the hymn He began to sing.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” (Ps. 22:1)

Here, David’s voice transcends his life experiences to echo over the crucifixion, begging those with ears to hear to re-listen to the psalm considering the Son in whom God was well-pleased, even on the cross of shame.

Christ’s suffering for our sins was not occasional in this moment, ebbing in relief only to later flow again in pain. It was persistently unrelenting. “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest” (Ps. 22:2). The one who invited us to come to him “all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28), this same one could find no rest in His labor of our redemption.

Still, the Son honored God. “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame” (Ps. 22:3–5). Christ knew His time in death is temporary because His righteousness is unending, and He completely trusted the Righteous One to spar Him from the shame of Sheol. The Lord God “will not leave you or forsake you” (Deut. 31:6).

But that was three days in the future from then. At that moment, Christ was “a worm and not a man” (Ps. 22:6a), or so the world saw its Creator this way—not merely a creature, but a disgusting, wriggling, worthless one at that. And so God’s Son, who “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17), endured cruel mockery, “scorned by mankind and despised by the people” (Ps. 22:6b), though He was there for them, “reconciling to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20).

“All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; ‘He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!’” (Ps. 22:7–8). It sounded a little different at Golgotha. “Those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads” (Matt. 27:39), mocking him this way: ‘If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross’” (Matt. 27:40), not knowing that doing so would confine them, and not Him, to eternal death. “He saved others; he cannot save himself” (Matt. 27:42), they taunted, failing to grasp the Trinitarian mystery that, indeed, God would save Himself—the Father, by the Spirit, would pull the Son from death’s grasp—to save others.

“Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help” (Ps. 22:9–11). How unfathomable a paradox—a man, born of a virgin’s womb and dependent on His mother’s care, is yet truly God, ungenerated and eternal. The “Author of Life” (Acts 3:15) born to die that many dead might live forever.

“Dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me” (Ps. 22:16) and in jest, they took the king’s regalia: “they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Ps. 22:18). The same happened to Christ as Roman soldiers divided up the King of the Jew’s clothes by casting lots (see Matt. 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:23–24), if that is who He was, anyway. “Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion” (Ps. 22:12–13). “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!” (Luke 23:37)

Worse yet, “they have pierced my hands and feet” (Ps. 22:16), crucifixion’s cruel and torturous mode of operation, so feared and hated at the time that the Gospel writers all simply reported: “they crucified him” (Matt. 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:33; John 19:18).

“I am poured out like water,” (Ps. 22:14), pierced by a soldier’s spear (see John 19:34). “And all my bones are out of joint” (Ps. 22:14), yet to remain the spotless lamb, “they did not break his legs” (John 19:33) because it was prophesied: “Not one of his bones will be broken” (John 19:36). And they weren’t. “I can count all my bones” (Ps. 22:17), wrote David.

“My heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd” (Ps. 22:15), the very moments before “he gave up his spirit” (Matt. 27:50). “And my tongue sticks to my jaws” (Ps. 22:15), though he would utter “I am thirsty” (John 19:28) to clear his voice enough to announce to earth, heaven, and hell “It is finished” (John 19:30).

“You lay me in the dust of death” (Ps. 22:15). Having suffered under Pontius Pilate, Jesus Christ—God’s only Son, our Lord—died and was buried.

But this suffering was temporary. Life would stir again soon, in three days to be precise. All because the Father would not turn His face away from His Son, which Psalm 22 helps us understand.

“For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (Ps. 22:24). The resurrection is coming; the first fruits of eternal life will blossom (see 1 Cor. 15:20–22). And “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations” (Ps. 22:27–28).

Yes, “it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it” (Ps. 22:30b–31) because the King of the Jews has already declared: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

—-

Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, Meditations on the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of Jesus Christ, ed. and trans. by Lynne Tatlock (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2009), 63.

Let’s think about Thanksgiving.

No, not the middle child of holidays, that neglected sibling born after Halloween and before Christmas. I’m writing about a state of the heart that recognizes dependence and is open to receiving and expressing gratitude in affection, words, and action. Thanksgiving is among the less contemplated Christian virtues. It’s a virtue we want to be known for—we want to be known as being a grateful person—but we spend so little effort trying to understand and practice it . There is a good reason for wanting to pursue thanksgiving. G. K. Chesterton described gratitude as “happiness doubled by wonder.” Who doesn’t want that? But there’s a bad reason for wanting to remain ungrateful. We are all sinners, as Augustine reminded us, incurvatus in se, or “curved inward on oneself,” rather than oriented outward toward others and God. To be outward-oriented is inevitably to be grateful; to be inward-oriented is just the opposite.

It’s helpful to consider what the Bible tells us about Thanksgiving. This brief theology of thanksgiving is based on the book of Leviticus, the Psalms, and New Testament.

Thanksgiving in Leviticus

We often think of gratitude in terms of its twin opposite, ingratitude. Our hearts take offense when we give but do not receive. “So and so was so ungrateful,” we mutter beneath our breath. “Let’s see if I ever do that again for them.” Petty retribution for a gift ungiven. This is wrong, of course. It’s the same kind of reflexive indignation that landed the “wicked servant” of Christ’s parable in jail even though he had his debts forgiven (Matt 18: 21–35). The man would not bring himself to extend the same forgiveness to a lesser debtor, in part, because of his ingratitude. The parable is a sobering reminder that God gave the greatest gift He ever could—His only begotten Son—to a largely indifferent, ungrateful world (John 1:11–12).

Yet even in our private tantrums, God can teach us something about gratitude. Thanksgiving is, fundamentally, give-and-take-and-give-again. So when “so and so” took but didn’t say a quick “thank you” in exchange for your act of kindness, you rightly felt the cold absence of gratitude. It felt wrong, unjust, even. (Hold that thought for later.)

On their way from Egypt to the Promised Land, God instructed the fledgling nation of Israel about the Law, His covenantal self-revelation of holiness. Much of this instruction is recorded in the book of Leviticus, where it just so happens that the very first instance in the Bible of the word “thanksgiving” presents itself to describe a type of offering (Lev 7:12–13, 15). The nation is told to bring their “thanksgiving sacrifice” to the Lord to give a tangible, material expression of the heart’s present feeling. In fact, the Hebrew word for “thanksgiving” is related to another word that means “to extend one’s hand.” How appropriate. In a thanksgiving sacrifice, two hands extend. First, the grateful giver’s hand extends with the sacrifice, and second, God extends His ‘hand’ through priests to receive the sacrifice. We give; God gets. And in return, God gives the blessing of forgiveness, as the sacrificer receives life. God gives; we get.

Reflecting on this give-and-take-and-give dynamic, Carmelite nun Thérèse of Lisieux discovered a hidden blessing of thanksgiving. “What most attracts God’s grace is gratitude,” she said, “because if we thank Him for a gift, He is touched and hastens to give us ten more.” God’s ability to bless is infinite; it’s endless. At issue is not God’s ability to bless our gratitude, but in our ability to seek blessing in Him through our gratitude. To search for blessing in an ungrateful “so and so”—or in the many idols and gods of the world—is to court ingratitude because it grinds against God’s will. He wants our highest thanksgiving to end in Him, and for all other gratitude in all other situations to lay downstream from His throne. So, we ought to “give thanks in all circumstances,” wrote the apostle Paul, “for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess 5:18).

Gratitude, then, is a state of humility that leads to blessing because it indicates our need, dependence, and willingness to receive. In gratitude, we remember the One “from whom all blessings flow.” Indeed, as we consider the origin and nature of Levitical gratitude—that it requires some sort of giving—it’s no wonder we come to the inescapable conclusion that thanksgiving is doxological, that it is properly expressed in giving praise to God.

Thanksgiving in the Psalms

It should surprise no one that thanksgiving praise is found most frequently in the book of Psalms. In fact, pound-for-pound, there are more instances of “thanksgiving” among the psalms than anywhere else in the Bible. Perhaps most famously is Psalm 100. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!” (Ps 100:4). This psalm is well-known as a doxology of gratitude, and appropriately so. Its fourth verse captures the heart of thanksgiving in the Psalms—worship is a form of gratitude to God. Never once is thanksgiving used outside the context of worshiping God in any psalm. This means that gratitude to God is not only a state of humility but also a posture of humble worship.

Is it possible, then, to worship God without thanksgiving? No, because ingratitude is an appendage of injustice, and “those who worship [God] must worship in spirit and truth,” Jesus taught (John 4:24). What justice is there in lies? Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas described gratitude as a subset of justice because we owe our highest thanks to God as sinful debtors of his mercy and grace. Any act of gratitude, then, is an act of justice, another prominent theme of the psalms. And so, we begin to see the cyclical relationship of gratitude and praise and justice, the give-and-take-and-give-again nature of thanksgiving. “For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints” (Ps 37:28). Does this truth make you grateful to God? Then shout His praise with thanksgiving and receive the blessing that follows, i.e., “entering the gates” of His presence! It’s right and just to do so, and attracts God’s grace as he ‘hastens to give us more.’ Which, in receiving again, ought to lead us to a deeper space of gratitude, so we praise Him even more, and on and on.

Thanksgiving in the New Testament

Finally, we come to thanksgiving in the New Testament. Our greatest reason for being thankful is on full display in the Gospels. It begins with the incarnation of the Son of God—“from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom 11:36)—“who for a little while was made lower than the angels” (Heb 2:9) because He “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6b–7), our Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Then, the Lord Jesus Christ, “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedience to the point of death, even death on cross” (Phil 2:8), “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb 12:2a), so that He might “reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph 2:14) by “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:2). Finally, this Jesus was “raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25) “and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2b), so that we might be “raised us up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6). Praise God with thanksgiving that we “enter the gates” because He first entered our world, died, and rose again!

But there’s more. There is power in our gratitude for the person and work of Christ, the realization that we live in a new reality on this side of Easter Sunday. The Holy Spirit is on the move, leveraging our thanksgiving to preserve the fallen world and transform a people being raised to heaven. In fact, gratitude as a transformative power seems to be the apostle Paul’s big idea on the subject.

Thanksgiving has the power to transform, “for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4), and with that transformative power, the ability to discern in gray areas for our sanctification. So often, when faced with vague options, we ask, “Can I do or have?” What if instead we pray, “Lord, may I thank you for this? May I thank you for this gift, this opportunity, this film, this friendship, this kiss, this promotion?” Asking this question taps into the true meaning of “free will.”

Free will doesn’t mean the ability to choose right from wrong; at least, it didn’t mean that prior to the Enlightenment, when men supposedly killed God and were left with the ethical consequences. Long before Leibnitz, Hobbes, and Kant, “free will” meant—and still truly means—the ability to please God by our desires, thoughts, and actions. So, if instead of asking, “Can I do or have,” we pray, “Lord, may I thank you for this?” When God says, “My son, that’s not from me!” then you have your answer. But if the unexpected answer is, “Enjoy it, my daughter!” then you’ve just discovered the antidote to works-righteousness: holy gratitude.

In fact, thanksgiving is more than a transformative power; it’s also an occupying power. Gratitude conquers and replaces sin and vice. For example, thanksgiving occupies the space where anxiety once flourished. “Do not be anxious about anything,” said Paul, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil 4:6). This is less a command than it is an invitation, one in which our RSVP is signed with gratefulness.

In other words, thanksgiving is a state of being, a posture of worship, and a lifestyle.

We ought to thank God for what He has done by offering ourselves as a humble, thankful “living sacrifice,” as Paul reminds us in Romans 12. It’s interesting that he listed the ungrateful among a litany of other vices, e.g., the proud, abusers, reckless (2 Tim 3:2–5). “Avoid such people,” he said rather bluntly, and for good reason. If Aquinas was right, that “gratitude should incline [us] to do something greater,” then ungratefulness inclines us to less. It’s the irresistible lure into selfishness where we become trapped by entitlement, resentment, and loneliness. Ingratitude is an incarceration of the heart. In Christ’s parable, it was the ungrateful “wicked servant” who, once forgiven, was inclined not to more (grace) but to less (petty comeuppance). “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers” (Matt 18:34), warned Jesus.

Praise God, though, we need never to see the inside of that jail cell. But more than this, praise God that gratitude pushes anxiety out of our hearts, humbles us in our worship, and gives-to-take in an exchange that makes us more outward-focused toward Him and others.

May this brief biblical theology of thanksgiving inform and form your gratitude.

I’m sure you’re familiar with faith ‘deconstruction,’ an experience you’d describe as revisiting, reassessing, and dismantling beliefs to construct new ones. At the very least, you likely know someone, whether friend or family, who is presently ‘deconstructing’ their faith.

It started with a bit of uncertainty and doubt about something. Whether it was a theological or ethical issue, at this point, it doesn’t matter. Sure, the first thing that gave them pause may have been the perceived incompatibility of Genesis with evolution or the seemingly passe sexual ethics of the New Testament. But there’s very little among the rubble left to recognize on this side of the deconstruction process.

At face value, the concept of deconstruction appears to be rooted in metaphor. A building that is constructed incorrectly eventually becomes dilapidated and in need of repair. So, too, will a faith built on shifting sands inevitably lean and crack and falter, requiring a bit of demolition to uncover the weak spots.

Likely, most people who are ‘deconstructing’ are unaware of the profoundly philosophical origins of deconstructionism. Some philosophers have suggested that the relationship between words and meaning is subjective; nothing is axiomatic in meaning. “There is no outside text,” argued Jacques Derrida, no final dictionary against which we may check our definitions, no supreme governing Merriam-Webster in the heavens. Why? Because “we are all mediators, translators,” said Derrida, and that’s just the way things are. We never leave the world of interpreting words into one in which we simply experience the world. Interpretation is how we experience; there is no reality apart from interpretation. So, to discern meaning, we must allow experience to critique and inform language.

If everything is interpretation, then deconstructing existing interpretations (or structures) of philosophy, theology, and ethics is an opportunity to question the status quo and amplify marginalized interpretations. The most radical forms of deconstructionism present us with an opportunity to set a demolition date on the ways we presently discern truth, goodness, and beauty so that we might build something else. As one author put it bluntly: “Destruction is essential to construction. If we want to build the new, we must be willing to let the old burn.”

When applied to faith, though, there’s a problem, one that not many are willing to admit, I imagine. We speak about deconstruction as if we were the ones who constructed our faith in the first place. The true faith, the envelope of the gospel, “was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). We didn’t build it, nor did we construct it. The faith was delivered to us. And, if we’re honest, the faith we began to deconstruct was not that once-for-all-delivered faith. It was a pre-fab built by our families and given to us as an inheritance.

Moreover, when we apply deconstructionism to faith, ironically, we’re left with very little room for nuance. We must either “be willing to let the old burn” or tolerate the old to our own detriment. After all, “deconstruction is essential to construction.”

What if we didn’t see faith in a binary constructed-deconstructed status? What if we riffed off the “construction” theme to better frame how we approach faith and doubt? And, in making that discovery, learn better ways to frame our faith journey and shepherd others in doubt?

Here’s my proposal. In keeping with the construction theme, the Christian faith offers us not two options for faith and doubt but five: 1) demolition, 2) disassembling; 3) remodeling; 4) renovation; and 5) rearrangement.

Before moving forward, I’m keenly aware of how ironic it is to introduce and define terms as an alternative to deconstructionism. And, trust me, a postmodernist cricket sat on my shoulder the entire time I wrote this, interrupting me after every sentence with, “Yes, but what about…” If “deconstruction is essential to construction,” what’s to stop us from deconstructing deconstructionism, to let deconstructionism burn and build something better? So, I flicked the cricket aside.

Demolition

First, demolition is an intentional, insincere, and even fabricated “faith crisis” to leave the faith while saving face, feigning to be a victim.

Let’s not fool ourselves. Some people leave the faith because they want to, for whatever reason. Just like the fool of the Old Testament convinced himself in his heart to believe “there is no God” (Ps 14:1), some people demolish their faith intentionally with the wrecking ball of sin. They don’t hold fast to their faith, nor do they genuinely desire, in good faith, to believe. In doing so, Paul says, “some have made shipwreck of their faith” (1 Tim. 1:19).

In the end, they don’t abide in Christ. “They went out from us, but they were not of us,” explained the apostle, “for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 John 2:19). To be frank, it’s not that they disbelieve God, they disavow Him. The hidden motivation of their “faith crisis” is pride and selfishness.

“Did God really say?” I couldn’t have him or her? “Did God really say?” I must keep my word? “Did God really say?” He is the only way? The demolition crew isn’t interested in the answers, only the questions, because the answers are as foregone as their hearts. There is a biblical term for this concept, apostasis. It’s where we get the English word “apostasy,” which means “to stand apart.” Those who demolish their faith intentionally ‘stand apart’ from the faithful.

And there’s a biblical approach to engaging the apostate: to treat them like an unbeliever, not as an outcasted other, an object of scorn and contempt. Instead, to treat them as if they don’t understand the gospel, no matter how much they say they do, for “each tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44). And believe deeply that Jesus loves them and wants them for Himself, even as they are running from Him.

Disassembling

Second, disassembling is the sincere exploration of one’s faith foundations. There are two modes, skeptical disassembling and hopeful disassembling. They are indiscernible, separated only by a difference in motivation.

Skeptical disassembling is a sincere exploration of one’s faith foundations with a sense that it will not work out in the end. It’s not as cavalier a process as demolition; some want it all to be true. But, in reality, they’re not all that hopeful. Still, they feel the need to do their due diligence. They see their destination and, to their credit, want to do the work to get there. But their end is the same as demolition.

Hopeful disassembling, however, is a sincere exploration of one’s faith foundations with the hope that it will work out in the end. And this crowd, among all the doubters in the church, are among the most scrutinized and marginalized by everyone.

On the one hand, the demolition crew is beside themselves, wondering why the hopeful disassembler won’t just hurry it up and leave already. Don’t they know that remaining in the church empowers all the issues they are presently wrestling with? “If that disassembler were sincerely wrestling with doubt,” reasons the demolition crew, “then they’d come to the same conclusions we did and would leave the faith to join us.”

On the other hand, people within the church are fearful and intolerant of their questions. How could a good God allow evil? Why would a loving God send people to hell? How can we trust the Bible? Why does God care about who I sleep with? Isn’t it myopic to say that the gospel is the only way to salvation?

To go deeper, they ask the questions few know how (or even want) to answer. If God makes us citizens of heaven, why are we so captivated with the politics of earth? If God is a good heavenly Father, why did He give me an abusive earthly one? If pastors are shepherd-protectors of God’s flock, why does he allow some to abuse His sheep?

These are the questions with which many disassemblers wrestle. For so long, they simply assumed the house of faith in which they lived had good answers, built on a firm foundation to weather storms brought on by doubt and sin. But when the massive weight of these issues began to settle atop their house, the heaviness caused their faith to groan and the foundation to crack. Of course they need to disassemble their beliefs to see what’s going on, and that’s not a comfortable process for anyone. But do they need to deconstruct their faith altogether? I’m less convinced.

What they really need is faithful friends who will stand near them, prayerfully holding the pieces as the disassembler does her work. Fellow saints ought to come alongside them to carry some of the load of their doubt, to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). They want it all to be true. They look to Jesus in tear-swollen eyes and say with the desperation of a pleading father: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Don’t push them out; pull them in.

Remodeling

The third is remodeling, an overhaul of theological convictions that doesn’t affect faith foundations like belief in God or the resurrection. Remodeling means changing a space’s form, like converting an empty basement into a guest suite. Things look different, but the foundation and support beams haven’t been touched.

It’s waking up one morning and confessing to yourself: “I really need to change some things, and I think I’m ready for that change.” You’ve spent years thinking about it, imagining what it would look like, even soliciting advice from trusted friends. Of course, you’re not going to demolish the house—that’d be crazy—but neither do you feel the need to disassemble anything to check the structure or foundation. You know they’re good.

It’s just that you’ve become convinced the function of an open floor plan is a better use of the space. So, you consult remodeling experts—theologians and writers and pastors, likely from another denomination—and, one day, you break the news: you’re leaving the church you grew up in for another one across town.

Not everyone will appreciate the remodeling job. Your parents might not like what you’ve done to your grandma’s house, the place they grew up in, the one gifted to you in her will. Why change the faith she taught you in song and story? But did they honestly expect you’d keep everything exactly the same? And your friends might think your Presbyterian choice of curtains is quite the change from your old Pentecostal shades. Still, Jesus is Lord to you. For that, they ought to praise His name.

But don’t confuse questions about the meaning and mode of baptism with the impulse to burn it all down. Don’t throw the baby out with the baptismal water. It’s far cheaper—it exacts a far lesser existential cost—to remodel one’s faith than to burn it down and build back up, if the rebuilding happens at all. Changing denominations isn’t deconstruction.

Renovation

Then there’s renovation, repairing or restoring something to its original function or even an improved state. Renovation keeps the structure the same but updates the wiring and appliances to match the new kitchen island. Things look similar, but they’re much better and in good repair. It’s a shift of opinion from one theological position to another within one’s faith tradition.

For example, maybe you grew up with the apocalyptic anxiety that the rapture could occur at any moment. God help you if the pilot is a believer and you were not among the elect when Jesus returned. But as the years passed, you left behind one eschatology for another. Jesus is still returning in the future, but less on Nicholas Cage’s terms. (Yes, that’s right—you forgot they tried to reboot the movie with Nicholas Cage. If you didn’t, I’m sorry to inform you that its sequel is due out this year.)

If you’ve ever been house-hunting, then doubtlessly, you’ve been introduced to a house “with good bones.” That phrase means the structural bits of the house are good but prepare yourself for the interior decoration. Popcorn ceiling? Shag carpet? Pink and avocado wallpaper in the guest bathroom?

Just because the home needs renovation doesn’t mean you must deconstruct the home. How ridiculous is that potential homebuyer who, when faced with the prospect of renovation, cries out, “That’s it! Let the old burn! Deconstruction is essential to construction!” The relator won’t simply refuse to work with you any longer; they’ll call the police to prevent arson.

Simply because you were taught the eighty-eight reasons why Jesus would return in 1988 doesn’t mean you need to keep that popular 1980s wallpaper. It’s okay to move past the debate and remove yourself from discussions that were popular three decades ago. There’s no need to knock down the wall. Just repaint it.

Rearrangement

Finally, and very briefly, there’s rearrangement, simply moving theological furniture around in a room to emphasize something that might have been hidden away. For example, you might have been very interested in doctrines of grace early in your faith but are now captivated by the spiritual disciplines. For some, it looks like you’re reneging on earlier convictions, but you aren’t. You’re just more interested in other things now.

Believe, And Don’t Be Afraid to Admit Your Unbelief

Sometimes you need to rearrange, remodel, and renovate your faith. I have. I’ve even experienced hopeful disassembling, feeling the rubble of my faith’s foundations in my hands, hoping that repairs would be made. And they were, praise God. But had I been told—or, better, confused—by someone telling me to deconstruct, to burn it all down to build it back up, I don’t think I ever would have hired the contractor for reconstruction.

Perhaps we need believers to admit such a thing, to confess our struggles without collapsing our theological rearrangements and renovations and remodeling and disassembling into demolition. Collapsing these concepts into one, “deconstruction,” ignores the nuance of faith’s relationship to doubt, dismissing the dynamism behind re-evaluating our beliefs. And it makes things difficult—if not altogether impossible—for a struggling believer to describe their doubt so that the faith community, through the word for the Word, can prescribe a hope.

To call this wide spectrum more or less the same approach (deconstruction) mixes apostasis with genuine concern about teasing out true faith from personal or imported beliefs and experiences. It’s to lump together those who willingly stand apart with those who were dragged apart. While the world says that we “must be willing to let the old burn,” the gospel offers a better way, one that invites us to pray, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

On a snowy Easter Sunday, April 2, 1899, Dwight Lyman Moody stood from his chair to approach the pulpit. Most heads in the congregation were bowed in prayer as the famous evangelist shuffled across the stage. There were thousands of them—upwards of 6,500—and they were quite unlike the people to whom he was accustomed to preaching. Moody, the Protestant evangelist, was in Salt Lake City, standing in the famous Mormon Tabernacle, facing a sea of Latter-day Saints.

It wasn’t his first time. Twenty-eight years earlier, in June 1871, he preached at the exact same spot by invitation of Brigham Young. And other non-Mormons guests, like presidents and celebrities, would be invited to speak after him. But when the prayer concluded, and all eyes drew upward to Moody, he doubtless felt the significance: a Protestant preaching to Latter-day Saints in their primary assembly space.

What did Moody say, and how was it received? What follows is a reconstruction of Moody’s sermon based on three sources recorded in The Salt Lake Herald, The Salt Lake Tribune, and The Deseret Evening News. Non-italicized text are direct quotes from the articles while italicized text are a blend of both commentary and quotes to fill in gaps. For endnotes, download this version.

Sermon Reconstructed

“There are many important verses in the Bible, but I want to get the text today in the hearts of the people. I will read these two verses, although I shall only preach on the first; they are the seventh and eighth verses of the sixth chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians” [Galatians 6:7–8]:

“‘Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.’”

“The speaker told of preaching from this text in the Tabernacle twenty-eight years before.”

“I was here twenty-eight years ago [June 1871], and I believed that then, but I believe it a thousand times more now; it has been burning deeper and deeper into my heart with every year. There is nothing new about that truth; it is as old as man. God made Adam reap before he left Eden, and it has been so through all the ages.”

“‘Be not deceived.’ There isn’t a man or woman out of Christ in this house who is not laboring under a terrible delusion. Every child knows what it is to be deceived. You know what it is: you have been deceived by your friends and by the god of the world. There is the difference, for the God of that book [the Bible] never has and never will deceive. And do not try to deceive Him; there is no folly like trying to deceive the Almighty; He knows each of us personally, and our secret thoughts, and it is impossible to deceive Him. Some people don’t believe this and there is a class in this world laboring under this delusion. They think a thing isn’t so because they don’t believe it.”

“It is God’s eternal decree that we must reap as we sow. You may not think so, but that does not alter the fact. A lie is a lie, and the truth is the truth, whether you believe it or not. This law meets every man; you can’t get over it or under it or around it, for it is God’s law; didn’t God make David reap, even if he was a saint, and didn’t He make Eli reap, though he was a priest?”

Moody then outlined the sermon beneath four headers, although he said “he didn’t ordinarily believe in dividing a sermon into firstly, secondly, thirdly and so on, but on this occasion he would divide his talk into four heads and stick to them if he could.”

The Salt Lake Tribune, April 2, 1899

Man Expects to Reap When He Sows

“The first head, I will only touch upon, for it is self-evident no farmer would plant if he did not expect to reap; no merchant would but if he did not expect to sell and reap a reward; you all expect to reap when you sow. Certainly no man who didn’t expect to reap would sow.”

[Man] Expects to Reap the Same Kind of Seed He Sows

“You expect to reap the same kind of seed that you sow. That is the law of the natural world, and it is the law of the spiritual world. If you are at home when a neighbor calls, but you tell your child to say that you are out, in six months that child will lie to you.”

Moody pressed the illustration by relaying how “mothers had complained about the falsehoods told by their children. He was not surprised at it for in most of such cases the lie had been sown by the parents.”

“If you sow lies you will reap them every time. And you know that ‘birds of a feather flock together,’ so a liar will have liars about him. If you tell your servant to lie for you, you needn’t be surprised when that servant lies to you. There are society lies and political lies, and white lies and black ones, and I don’t know how many nowadays, but a lie is a lie no matter what it is called. If you teach your clerk to cheat your customers, he will surely cheat you and you needn’t be surprised—that’s where our defaulters come from. This [is] not astonishing when the merchants themselves set the example of deceit. What this nation needs is a revival of righteousness.”

“In this text is the strongest argument against selling whisky. Leave out the morality or temperance part of the question, if you will, and I tell you no man can afford to sell whisky. If you make my son a drunkard, someone will make your son a drunkard; if you sow whisky you will reap drunkards; it is inevitable. I challenge you to show me any man who has been dealing in whiskey for twenty years who has not had the curse come home to himself or some member of his family. If you are in the whisky business, get out; don’t sell out, but take an axe and known in the heads of your barrels and let the damnable stuff run into the gutters. Do you say you must sell whisky or starve? Why, the word needs a martyr, and it would be a great thing to have on in Salt Lake City.”

“If you sow brothels, you will reap adultery. I knew a man who rented his property as a brothel at a great price; he had no daughters, but his four lovely sons went to destruction through that very building. I tell you that the man who rents his property for use as a barroom is as guilty as the man who sells the whisky. Plant brothels and you will raise adulterers. If you plant sin, you will reap it, it as been so through all the ages. Am I right? If I am, there is nothing more solemn than this in the Bible.”

“Jacob is sneered at often because of his rascality in getting Esau’s birthright, and religion is included in the sneer, because Jacob is held up as a saint. Jacob cheated Esau out of his birthright, but he paid ten thousand times more for it than it was worth, and he was punished straight through life. Why, he worked seven years for Rachel [Gen 29:15–20] and then discovered that he had been married to the wrong woman [Gen 29:21–25]. Wasn’t that punishment? He sowed deceit and reaped it. Jacob sowed a lie and his best beloved son was sold into captivity but his brothers [Gen 37:12–28], who came back and told him [Jacob] that he [Joseph] had been killed by a wild beast [Gen 27:32–33]. His lie got back home at last. Every lie you’ve told, if God’s hasn’t put it away, is on your track, and sooner or later will overtake you.”

“I have heard men laugh at David’s downfall. I had rather put this hand in the fire than do that, for if ever a man was punished David was. He committed adultery, murder and rebellion, and reaped all three. The king on his throne and the peasant must all reap; rank makes no difference.”

The Salt Lake Tribune, April 2, 1899

[Man] Expects to Reap More Than He Sows

“Then a man reaps more than he sows. Jacob mourned twenty years for Joseph, cried through weary nights for his favorite, whom he thought dead. He told one lie, and ten sons, each with a lie on his lip lied to him; that lie had come him. If Jacob, the grandson, the third from Abraham had to reap way back in the early dawn, don’t you think we’ll have to reap in the blaze of Calvary?”

“It [takes] longer to reap than it does to sow. I have been forty years building up a Christian character, but I can blast it before the sun goes down tonight; it takes long to build up, but a short time to tear down.

Moody then “told of a man occupying a reasonable position, who committed a crime while drunk, and pictured his return after four years in the penitentiary. He found his old friends cold, everybody against him, and the world bleak and cheerless.”

“He sowed in a moment, but he was a long time reaping; he reaped in prison and through all his after life.”

Ignorance of the Kind of Seeds Makes No Difference

“Ignorance of the kind of seed makes no difference. If you saw a farmer sowing seed that he knew nothing about, you would say he was a lunatic. When he sows he knows that he is planting good seed; he is sowing for one season, we are sowing for time and eternity.”

“Let’s look at the seed and see that it is good. How do you treat the Bible? Do you think it’s old fashioned and unworthy of belief? Then you will have a black harvest.”

Moody pivoted toward reproofing wayward children, especially young men who “drive their parents into their graves by reckless dissipation and neglect.”

How do you treat your father and mother? Do you say they are old fashioned; that when you were young they crammed too much religion down you? Do you make fun of them? I protest against it. God have mercy on the man who goes about saloons dishonoring his parents. How long have you been away from home? How long is it since you have written to your mother or your father? Tell me how you treat your parents and I will tell you what your harvest will be.”

Moody followed this point with a story about “a loving mother and a dutiful son which seemed to find personal application in the hearts of many of his hearers.” He “drew a picture of a mother’s love, its sweetness and dear simplicity and all-pervading tenderness; its unselfishness and purity. It was a lovely, a true and a sad picture, eloquently portrayed that sorrow that came to loving hears when the boy went wrong.”

The Salt Lake Tribune, April 2, 1899

“We only hang our best murderers; the worst ones are never touched. The man who comes into my home at night and stabs me to the heart for money is a very prince of good fellows compared to the boy who puts his heel on his mother’s heart and takes five years to crush it to powder [or the] man who reels home drunk, night after night, to the loving hearts waiting there, and who curses the gray hairs of his parents if he is remonstrated with; who takes five years to murder them by inches—that man is the meanest man unhung. God help us to so good seed in our homes.”

Moody concluded by asking “all who wished henceforth to sow nothing but good deed to stand. Nearly every person in the big audience rose and remained standing during the final prayer and benediction.”

Reception

Intense interest in Moody’s visit prompted reporters to take detailed notes of his services. The evangelist was invited by representatives of the YMCA and Salt Lake Ministers Association to preach at the First Congregational Church while traveling between California and Chicago. But after his first evening of preaching, when the Congregational church buckled at its seams with attendees, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints offered Moody the Tabernacle to preach on Easter Sunday.

Moody’s sermon was well-received by the largely Latter-day Saint audience. Many of the moralistic themes resonated with the ethical code of the Church. They affirmed Moody’s diagnosis of personal, familial, and societal ills, but many were left wanting more. A Deseret Evening News opinion piece said Moody’s message “was full of truth” and “told with vividness and dramatic force.” Still, something was missing; Moody’s proposed cure for society’s illness. “As a rule it is not fair to criticize a sermon for what is not in it,” they acknowledged, “but to a great many it seemed strange that the celebrated speaker, before an audience of six or seven thousand people . . . did not explain the plan of salvation.” True, Moody “emphasized with terrible force the consequences of lying” and all manner of sins, “but of the remedy little or nothing was said.”

“What would be thought of a physician who should tell his patient that he is suffering from a dangerous fever and then leave no prescription,” they wondered? Moody had, in fact, articulated his gospel message before and after his Tabernacle sermon, but at a different venue and before a different audience. Not everyone appreciated Moody’s message. Apparently, at some point, he shared his conviction that baptism was a non-salvific ordinance, which is a theological departure from Latter-day Saint doctrine. At General Conference later that month, a church leader “took issue with Evangelist D. L. Moody, who asserts that ordinances such as baptism and laying on hands are unnecessary.” “Anti-Christ says these ordinances are non-essential,” he warned.

It happens so often that I’ve lost count.

I’m enjoying conversation with an unbeliever, and then they learn about my theological background. Suddenly, a guarded and suspicious fog rolls into our conversation. “What do you think of them?” I’m asked. They want to know if I’m associated with them or if I’m like them or approve of them.

We’ll call them angry apologists.

I’m sure you know a few. Angry apologists are overwhelmingly male—a rather bearded version of the gender, too—and typically spring from my theological tribe, the reformed Baptist tradition (or a sad and narrow caricature of it). Their primary theatre is digital. Blogs and podcasts are their stage, and social media is their microphone (the acoustics are especially excellent in YouTube and Facebook). They uphold apologetics as critical to engaging unbelief, perhaps because it was so instrumental to their own conversion, yet they do so with all the wit and charm of a Marine Corp drill instructor.

Not all areas of unbelief interest them, though. Simply the ones they deem most dangerous to believers and damning to unbelievers. For example, the various heterodoxies in the United States are given far more attention than, say, eastern religions despite the massive difference in adherent populations. Most Hindus live thousands of miles away, but the “cults” quite literally stand on your doorstep, posing the greater threat. Angry apologists also tackle the myriad problems of secularism, from philosophical follies to immorality, but often do so in a way that only makes sense to biases begging to be confirmed. I’m not saying anything is wrong with this approach. I’m always up for seeing naturalism shellacked by good arguments for miracles. But to what extent this approach is helpful to doubters and skeptics is far less clear to me.

My intention is not to list candidates; you know the ones I’m writing about. If you don’t, perhaps you’re being written about. I am, however, addressing a sort of Zeitgeist in apologetics, an unclean spirit possessing apologists and their ministries. It causes them to rummage through the basket filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit only to pick up kindness and gentleness, examine them with a tinge of disgust, and toss them aside.

Let me not bury the lead any longer: anger has no place in apologetics. If for no other reason, it barely has a place in the life of a believer. Of course, anger is unavoidable in a fallen world, but what is the Christian to do with it? “Be angry,” Paul says, “and do not sin” (Eph. 4:26). Don’t even let the sun set before you’ve settled things, he adds. Here, the apostle riffs off David, who cautioned the same thing, adding that we ought to “reflect in [our] heart while on [our] bed and be silent” (Psalm 4:4). According to the Bible, anger ought to be personally reflective and silent, not publicly reactive and scrappy.

And anger is certainly not the default disposition of Christians toward unbelievers. “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone,” Paul commanded (Phil 4:5). There is no asterisk in the Greek suggesting certain exclusions may apply. He means everyone. In fact, the Greek word for “reasonableness” is the same that James says is born from wisdom above (Jas 3:17). An angry apologist is also a foolish one with no regard for his reputation and even less respect for the authority of God over his emotions. And let’s not forget that harshness is reciprocal. It is “a soft answer [that] turns away wrath,” instructs the Proverb, “but a hard word stirs up anger” (15:1). Apologetics aims to stir up interest and affection toward the gospel, and nothing else.

Cue: the objections.

“Well, what I say matters more than how I say it. It’s the gospel message that saves, not me.”

Yes, of course, but are we called to make converts or disciples? I’m not being pedantic. To convert someone is to change their mind about something. But to disciple them is to ask that they follow you as you follow Christ. Who wants to follow someone they perceive to be angry?

I’m not saying it’s wrong to warn unbelievers about the consequences of sin. Jesus did it a lot. But the physician who irritably gives bad news to a cancer patient shouldn’t expect great reviews on Yelp. And this gets to an important point. Whether intentional or not, the reputation of many apologists among unbelievers is incredibly poor, which curtails their audience to people who already agree with them. The bad news of sin is bitter enough on its own. No wonder a minimum threshold requirement for pastoral character is being gentle, not violent, and not quarrelsome (1 Tim. 3:3).

“But Jesus overturned the money changers’ tables.”

Yes he did, that one time, and you aren’t Jesus. I’m not saying one-off events aren’t worth repeating. Jesus was resurrected only once, and I hope for the same one day. But we cannot justify undesirable behavior as a norm based on that one time the incarnate Son of God was consumed by zeal for his house and cleaned it up (John 2:17). And this point is key: it’s his house, his representatives, his servants that his anger was directed toward. Isn’t the head allowed to clean the house if his servants produce corruption? Jesus thought so (Matt. 24:14–30). So this doesn’t fit as a model to approach unbelief. Jesus flipped tables at the temple in Jerusalem, not the one in Samaria.

Also, that wasn’t the only time Jesus was angry. Earlier in the Gospels, he scowled at Pharisees for their opposition to him healing a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1–9). He healed the man’s hand in spite of the Pharisees’ hardness of heart. In that story, Jesus’s anger didn’t translate into overturning a table but un-withering a hand; not heaving but healing. Jesus shows us that righteous indignation doesn’t always need to show itself in sternness.

Imagine a scale that weighs the times Christ was harsh with corruption against the times he was gentle with sinners. Doesn’t one side, the gentle side, immediately collapse to the ground and jettison the opposite side filled with harshness like a catapult? There are times for scathing rebuke of the broods of vipers. Perhaps you were once like that, a proud nail needing hammered down by truth. But not every unbeliever is a nail and apologetics isn’t a hammer. There are many spiritually parched women waiting near wells to hear about the grace of living water (John 4:1–26) and many fathers who believe but need help with their unbelief (Mark 9:24).

This is partly why Peter commands apologetics to be done in gentleness and respect (1 Pet. 3:15). We have to wonder; of all the fruit of the Holy Spirit, why did Peter choose gentleness? And why pair it with respect? Perhaps he knows how odd it is to be treated with gentle respect by those we disagree with. In a callous and contempt-filled world, our opposites expect incivility from us. Don’t believe me? Yes you do. You have social media, too. Let’s give the unbelieving world what they never anticipated; a radical message delivered in meekness.

Otherwise, we run the risk of continuing the legacy of the Ephesian church.

The Lord Jesus was proud of that church, perhaps in ways that remind us of apologetically-minded congregations today. He was proud of the way they stood for doctrine and purity. The Ephesians tolerated neither false prophets nor feigned practitioners. They upheld orthodoxy—confronted the cults and contended with culture. Theirs was a church known for truth and piety, and they worked very diligently at preserving the faith within their church.

“But I have this against you,” said Jesus. “You have abandoned the love you had at first” (Rev. 2:4). What love? The same love that compelled the Father to send his Son to redeem the world. The same love that first captured the hearts of the Ephesians in unbelief and transformed them into champions of orthodoxy and godly living. It’s not that they were unloving to one another; they were unloving to the unevangelized world. They had a selfish zeal, one that favored those already in the kingdom to the exclusion of those waiting to come in.

I sense a similar lost love among angry apologists. Yes, they are to be commended for defending orthodoxy. Yes, they strive to live and teach orthopraxy. But this isn’t enough for the Lord they claim to defend. He wants more; he wants better. He wants a strong witness from a gentle spirit.

In the end, God will ask all of us to give an account for our gospel encounters. I imagine there will be two questions. First, “What did you say?” Did you stand for truth even when it was “out of season” or did you scratch itchy ears (2 Tim. 4:2–3)? Angry apologists will be happy to report their stalwart loyalty, but then the second question comes.

“How did you say it?”

Photograph ostensibly of a UAP taken in McMinville, Oregon, 1950. (Alamy Stock Photo)

UFOs exist.

Well, that’s what the U.S. Department of Defense would have us believe anyway. A government task force is set to submit a report to Congress next month on ‘unidentified aerial phenomena,’ or UAPs, after decades of seemingly opaque indifference to the subject.

The report comes after efforts by concerned officials, among them former Nevada Senator Harry Reid, to raise awareness of near habitual incursions into restricted U.S. airspace by unknown, and sometimes unimaginable, flying objects. For decades, these objects have been observed by military eyewitnesses, advanced detection systems, and targeting equipment.

After circulating on the internet for a few years, the Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of three videos that captured footage of UAPs, one from 2004 and two others from 2015.

In one case, eyewitness observations by four Navy pilots—whose job depends a great deal on their ability to make accurate observations—described a Tic Tac-shaped object in the sky that intelligently traveled at speeds and maneuvers impossible to any presently and publicly known aircraft, including the most advanced drones, e.g., descending from 80,000’ in one second, arriving at planned waypoints known only to Navy officials, etc. F/A-18 instrumentation recorded the object’s movement. Radar from regional Navy warships confirmed their presence.

In another case, a fleet of objects was observed by F/A-18 pilots and equipment. The objects bore no discernible control surfaces and left no propulsion exhaust while traveling in a steady direction against 120 knots (138 mph) of headwind while rotating.

Still, with unprecedented disclosure and an imminent government report, the subject seems largely ignored by Christians (at least publicly) and neglected by Christian leaders. Specifically, I’m writing to pastors. You will be on the front lines of the inevitable tsunami of questions from your people. Members in your congregation are already wondering and chatting privately. It’s only a matter of time until they approach you for guidance.

Perhaps, like most people, we pastors don’t know what to think, let alone what to say. And, even if we wanted to speak up, maybe the tired stigma of the tin-foil hat muzzles us into silence, but it seems those days have passed. The UAP phenomenon is real. Are Christian leaders ready to address it?

Okay, what are they?

I’m willing to bet that most of the parts of the pending report will disappoint UFO enthusiasts looking for tangible evidence of what they’ve long suspected to be reality: our planet has been host to myriad extraterrestrials. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the report is nothing more than a terse, reluctant admission from the government that it has witnessed technology it cannot identify as either domestic or foreign, and that they are committed to the continual analysis of the data. That’s it.

Even if they identify specific events, I’ve read many reports from plenty of skeptics who have traveled great lengths to offer more earthly explanations for UAPs. Most of them make compelling arguments, although I’ve not come across impeachable answers to the more difficult questions. Oftentimes, eyewitness accounts are either ignored or dismissed altogether, and the apostle Paul would have something to say about the value of many people all seeing the same thing at the same time (1 Co 15:4-6).

But it’s not necessarily cause for comfort that UAPs are human-made. If UAPs have prosaic explanations, some of your people—especially veterans of national defense—will need a godly dialogue through the implications of the possibility that adversaries of the United States possess technology far beyond the horizon of what we though possible in our lifetime.

Near-peer threats to our safety at home and abroad are already the centerpiece of defense concerns. It is alarming, to say the least, that some UAPs can effortlessly invade sensitive and restricted airspace without the worry of being challenged. Such a reality is especially chilling for members of your congregation who spent military service and government careers defending such spaces.

But let’s say other parts of the report can’t be explained by human technology, that the conclusion our government reaches is the one we’ve all wondered but haven’t thought through very well. What if UAPs are extraterrestrial, trans-dimensional, or beyond the frontier of our imagination? What if UAPs end up exceeding the parameters of common theology?

If intelligent life beyond our planet or reality exists, the paradigm shift will be massive, and we will need to answer questions that have rarely (if ever) been asked before.

What is the relationship, if any, between UAP phenomena and Christian angelologies and demonologies? How does the doctrine of the imago Dei fit in? Can our theology of the fall address extraterrestrials? What if they arrive denying the lordship of Christ (Gal 1:8; 1 John 2:22)? What if they arrive proclaiming the lordship of Christ (Rom 10:9)?

Developing a Biblical Ufology

Fortunately, the Christian faith is robust enough to address these questions. In fact, C. S. Lewis tackled this issue, especially in his little-known—but excellent and highly-recommended—The Space Trilogy.

He all but concluded that animal life exists on other planets, but what about intelligent beings? Lewis essentially shrugged his shoulders, wondering why it would matter in the grand scheme of theology. His primary concern seemed to be the incarnation. Why would the Son of God don human, not alien, flesh? Is it because they do not bear the imago Dei? If not, where does that place an intelligent, moral-decision-making being in the scheme of redemption? Christian demonologies and angelologies have long addressed these issues in parallel.

At any rate, says Lewis, however foreign extraterrestrials seem to us, we have one thing in common—humans and aliens belong to the created order. And as part of creation, which groans under sin, they too are part of an order waiting to be “set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). And a critical element of that coming freedom is redemption and restoration by the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, Lewis concludes, “[it] may be that Redemption, starting with us, is to work from us and through us.”[1] In other words, no matter how advanced, no matter how intelligent, no matter how moral or immoral, aliens are still part of God’s created order. And maybe, as God’s redeemed image bearers, we have a role in their renewal.

In fact, Lewis was far less concerned about any violence aliens would bring to us than he was about the human sin we would pass to them. His idea was quite radical at a time when aliens were always portrayed as terrible monsters, invaders of innocent planet earth. Not so, said Lewis. We might be the terrible monsters who teach them to be selfishness, filled with pride and folly.

But there is a more sinister thought. What if aliens don’t exist but the fallen beings of a spiritual realm want us to believe that they do exist? What if the same power behind the Egyptian magicians’ counterfeits of God’s miracles is staging yet another show of fraud, only this time on a global scale. From time to time, I wonder what inconceivable power is coming to aid the ferocious deception that Christ warned was on the horizon. False messiahs and prophets, he said, would “perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:24).

Imagine for a moment that in our immediate future beings from another world will promise the cure to our violence, tribalism, illness, disparity, and mortality, but there’s a catch. We must jettison unhelpful and fanciful myths like Christianity. Imagine them coming to deny the Father and the Son, fulfilling a general warning from John that “[this] is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).

Whatever the report concludes next month, there are serious conversations to be had in the local church.

If the explanations are straightforward, they will nevertheless be troubling. Western technology isn’t where we thought it was, at the front of innovation. If that’s the case, many of us are about to discover how heedlessly—whether implicitly or explicitly—we’ve placed our trust for safety in modern chariots and horses. Pastors will need to remind their people: “we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7).

But if the explanations are preternatural, then it’s time to develop a biblical ufology.

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[1] C.S. Lewis, “Religion and Rocketry,” The World’s Last Night And Other Essays (New York: Harcourt, 1952), 88.