On my way back home this morning, as I listened to Ben Harper’s “God Fearing Man,” my focus was held by the feeling of rot deep in my stomach- it was a mixture of coffee on an empty stomach, a slight nausea from lack of sleep, and a sickening sense of guilt flavored ever-so-slightly by a tablespoon of shame.
My heart had been stirred by Nikki Wilcox’s prayer to open First Priority thirty minutes earlier, that we all would live lives of “unashamed faith,” and yet, though I amen’d her words, it took me no more than ten minutes before I again cowered behind the man others wished I was, affirming the lies they held as truth and preserving false unity at truth’s expense… My soul has grown so weary of false representation, and I have resolved and purposed myself over and again to be as genuine and forth-coming as I possibly can, and even still, in a moment of truth, I faltered, preferring to maintain decorum at the expense of the offensive & liberating truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The speaker this morning began his sermonette by quoting a story by Joel Olsteen, a man whom he highly recommended and a man who’s mere name compels my stomach into turmoil with disgust, bile, and rage. The lesson was on “God’s good versus God’s best,” and it was a series of pleasant stories with Jeremiah 29:11, of course, misappropriated for an Olsteen-esque “God wants to give you the absolute best” conclusion. What the speaker meant, of course, by “God’s best” is exactly what Olsteen means by it- though cleverly disguised, both men really are saying that, as Christians, God desires to give unto us precisely what WE want instead of what He wants for us (Adding to my misery, the speaker also misremembered the stories of Jonah & the big fish as well as Moses’ stuttering problem). And thus, like the Levite in Judges 17 &18, God becomes a means to an end, a way to get what we want. God is made into our own image, fashioned just the way we would like him to be… cute and cuddly, overwhelmingly generous, dismissing justice for the sake of mercy, and spoiling us rotten…
After it was over, the speaker approached me amongst students and told me, “Great job.” I stammered back, “Yeah, you too.” He followed this exchange with his grand plan for the two of us: we should hit the road together, a la Third Day and David Nasser, with him as a speaker and me leading worship. I laughed it off. “All right, all right... Except we’ll be sure infuse some youthful vigor, right?” I shot back. He chuckled, as did the half-dozen students still in the choral room.
Sitting back in my car, with Harper crying, “I am a God-fearing man” into my ears over the clang of his steel guitar, I realized the implications of what I had just done to those six students… I had just given affirmation to this man and, by implication, to his prosperity gospel. And there was no way to right this wrong… The kids were gone… The trite words of this well-meaning man were echoing in their heads while bold truth had been painted o’er for a more “pleasant” scene…
Dear Sweet Merciful Lord, let me be a God-fearing man and refuse to stand by any and all falsehoods declared in Your name, for the sake of Your glory among the nations.
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