One of our supporters is an early modern historian (a few still exist), who became alarmed at the evangelical tone of Advent study materials used in her LCMS congregation. She wrote to us, where her letter is given below.
Dear Lutherans: Stop Co-opting Evangelical Language
American Evangelicals are both numerous and loud—which means that their language for religion and faith has come to dominate the public sphere. Because this Evangelical rhetoric is so readily available, it is often the first language that we grasp for. It dominates “Christian” education, music, literature, art, and spirituality. But Lutherans—and other high-church and confessional Christians, such as Catholics, Orthodox, and Presbyterians—need to be careful about parroting such language. Not only does it erase our own unique confessional identity, but it also confuses us about the most important issues of faith and belief.
Case in point: worship songs that boil down to “Jesus is my boyfriend.” If someone breaks out a guitar and a set of bongo drums, you can be sure you’re in for some emotive light-heresy. Take the example of “I Give You My Heart,” which has the lyrics, “Every breath that I take, every moment I’m awake, Lord, have your way in me.” Which, if we replaced “Lord” with “baby,” might easily fit into a Backstreet Boys bop. These songs, like many others in the “contemporary Christian” genre, are filled with similar (or more egregious) language. But these songs mis-represent Christ to us. Jesus most certainly is not your boyfriend. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, terrifying in His glory and holiness. He might have come to save sinners but that did not stop Him from turning over tables and yelling at the “brood of vipers” surrounding Him in His righteous anger.
In fact, whenever someone starts talking about “Jesus,” it’s time to put on your skeptic-les. In general, the more theologically rigorous (and often accurate) will refer to Him with more formal names, such as the Christ, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Lamb of God, etc. These more accurately reflect the complexity in the Second Person of the Trinity and remind us of His two natures, human and divine. Referring to Him as Jesus and using such sentimental language to discuss Him is not only demeaning and over-simplified, but it also leads us into Christological heresies such as of Arianism. We settled this in 325 at the Council of Nicaea.
Likewise, whenever someone starts talking about “feeling Jesus in their heart,” that, too, is your cue to leave. You do not feel Jesus in your heart. That’s you in there. Not Jesus. That is not how God works. The Holy Spirit is surely at work in the world, but the age of revelation is over. We settled this in the second century when we decided that Montanism was a heresy.
If you want to hear God speaking, open your Bible. That is where God has promised to meet us. Or—if you want to do one better—go listen to the proclamation of the Word, for, as Romans 10:17 tells us, “faith comes by hearing.”
A lot of this Evangelical language insists that you must search your heart and that you must feel Jesus deeply enough. One of the problems with this Evangelical language, then, is this over-reliance on emotion. Emotions are important. Surely God does engage the whole human person, body, soul, and spirit, in worship. But emotions are not everything. Faith does involve the intellect as well. An over-reliance on feeling, and insisting that faith is determined by some over-wrought emotional experience that must somehow be maintained over a lifetime—that is turning “feeling” into a good work. That is, we must feel properly in order to be saved. This idea would mean our salvation come from our own notoriously fickle emotions instead of God’s enduring word. But the belief that our salvation comes from our own works is also a heresy: Pelagianism. Which was condemned in 418 at the Council of Carthage.
This over-emotionalism puts our faith at risk, because such powerful emotions cannot be maintained in the long-term. When the emotion fades we think that is our faith fading. But that is not the case. God’s promises do not fade. God’s mercy endures forever. This is why many Evangelicals practice believer’s baptisms, or will have themselves re-baptized ad nauseum. This is something that a Lutheran—or any other type of Christian who practices infant baptism—needs to understand. We have confidence in our infant baptism because we know that God saves us, and that God does not lie. God makes the promise to us in our baptismal waters that we will be saved. There is no need to renew this promise. As Luther writes in the Large Catechism, “Our baptism endures forever.”
Another easy linguistic trap to fall into is the “relationship with Jesus” bit. Evangelicals love to ask how your relationship with Jesus is. You do not have one. The proper answer is this: there is an unbridgeable chasm separating us from God as long as we sojourn in this life. Only in death will the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross atone for my sins; only God can bridge this gap and draw me into a full relationship with Himself. This is why we say something like this in the liturgy every week: “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.”
In fact, this is one of the main reasons why we have such an extensive and repetitive liturgy. Many Evangelicals like to spice up their worship with off-the-cuff prayer and bad guitar music because they find this “boring.” But when we say these words week after week, they become ingrained in us. They provide us the proper language to talk to God with, and the proper language to talk about God with.
Evangelicals are talking in a different language than we are—one that I suggest leans towards heresy. Do not use their language. It will set you apart—and that is a good thing. You will be standing on much firmer ground because of it: “On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.”