For western Christianity the question for which Jesus is the answer was guilt. A much deserved hell was a clear and present danger for the general population and the church offered forgiveness and release from that threat. Money poured into the church through the sale of indulgences. Luther transformed the church when he discovered that our release had already been purchased. The audience glued to Jonathan Edward's sermons saw themselves as that spider dangling above the pit of hell suspended only by God's grace-filled self-restraining effort to not react to its rebellious loathsome appearance. Much has changed.
Harold Bloom quite correctly assesses that contemporary American culture bequeaths an instinctive assumption that God finds us amazing as we are and is dying to get close to us. We've all heard about helicopter parents also called "lawnmower parents" who mow down, smooth and remove all obstacles out of our paths. This is the God most people I meet are looking for. With such a God his children can do no wrong. Ron Nydam who teaches at Calvin Seminary says that for most adults today guilt is an achievement.
This change has become a challenge for conservative Christians. The 20th century staples of evangelical evangelism no longer grip. No one imagines God would ask anyone to justify why He should let them into his heaven. "Just as I am" is a birthright, no plea is needed.
Mark Noll has noted that one distinctly American contribution to the history of the Christian church is the entrepreneurial pastor. American pastors adapt quickly and some have simply embraced the lawnmower God. John 10:10's offer of abundant life seemed to become the vision text for every new suburban church hoping to be the next evangelical big box. They might be a bit chagrined if they realized that this can be eerily similar to what new age guru Wayne Dyer offers when admonishes that we "reconnect with the source".
More conservative pastors discovered that when this guilt eliminating hammer was the only tool in their box given by their European forefathers they were quickly left having to hand out nails. If people don't have an instinctive visceral fear of hell given by their culture, they'd have to offer this themselves through scary signs and scary plays. Before you can convince the public of the good news you first have to convince them of the bad news.
Even though release from guilt is not the cultural felt need it once was, westerners are still looking for something, their selves. In February 2009 Miroslav Volf, professor at the Yale Divinity School preached at Bob Schuller's glass house in Southern California not about guilt, but about identity. Tim Keller, the senior pastor of Redeemer Pres in NYC likewise find that identity issues connect with his audience in ways that guilt issues don't and makes our new identity in Christ as key element of his theological narrative. We can also note the rise in popularity of Orthodox denominations in the West for whom understanding salvation through identity transformation has been a key theological contribution.
Seculars struggle less with guilt than with their place in the universe. When identity is no longer received by one's village, family or god but has to be constructed from the pastiche of cultural artifacts, the unbearable lightness of being can be acutely felt. For those finding their poorly self-sown identity wearing thin, identity in Christ can be a tremendous relief. Identity is the new guilt.
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Comments (10)
I prefer to think of the guilt that humans share as fundamental to our core identity and needs no conjuring. It is universal, timeless and transcends culture. It is a guilt that knows intuitively that we fall short of God’s standard, that we love darkness rather than light. It is a guilt that is so powerful that ultimately it would convince us that it doesn’t exist, else we despair.
What you pastors have to realize is that it is the job of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin. Either he is real and active or He is not. Guilt will never go out of style, the Holy Spirit will never be out of a job and the saving power of the gospel is eternal.
I doubt that Harold Bloom believes that westerners have an instinctive assumption that God finds us amazing. There is nothing instinctive about it, it is a transitory, learned cultural response and a delusion. Instinct is a strong word. Guilt is instinctive, hiding from a holy God is instinctive, wanting to be made right is instinctive
Defining self in a post modern society is an inadequate motivation for conversion and is only an extension of Wayne Dyers philosophy in christian clothes. Finding our identity in Christ may be the result of conversion but unless we realize that “all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God” we will never experience real forgiveness. All religions offer a new identity and an escape from lostness, only Christianity offers complete forgiveness based on grace.
Conversion is a spiritual reality, not a psychological exercise. Guilt is the new guilt.
The operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives is revelatory. It turns the light on, opens our eyes to the guilt that we have which might then induce a guilt that we feel. The Holy Spirit also opens our eyes to the new reality that we have/are in Christ Jesus (Eph 1:17-19)
Thanks for your comment.
I have been talking about the feeling of guilt. The emotional, persistent sense that I am broken, that I am separated from a Holy God, that I am at heart selfish, that I don’t measure up. Felt guilt needs to be assuaged and we do that through attempts to lead a good life, self-justification, self righteousness, self medication, therapy, rationalizing God away, religious delusions, denial, silencing the persistent voice of the Holy Spirit through debauchery, entertainment, constant activity or in extreme cases, suicide. There is not the same base of theological knowledge that people might have had during Jonathan Edward’s time, but the visceral guilt is still there and is universal in the human race. Post modernism hasn’t erased it, if anything it has licensed it.
The Holy Spirit convicts of sin so that we feel painfully aware of our alienation, offense and short-comings. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is how we deal with felt guilt. I am not necessarily a fan of Kirk Cameron or the evangelist Ray Comfort but watch 5 minutes of their man-on-the-street videos and you see how quickly that felt guilt surfaces.
In other words, (I paraphrase here) deep down we know we deserve judgement, that's why these films are popular.
I believe longing of the heart and the desire to be "whole" is what western culture agonizes over - unlike Luther's agony for resolve over his guilt. A good address on this issue is Alan Mann's - Atonement for a Sinless Society - an excellent read based on Alan's Master's thesis on how to communicate atonement and salvation to the present culture.
Its interesting as well that as Western Christianity focused on guilt, the Eastern Church has continually rested on salvation as a return to relationship with Trinity and entering into the Triune circle through their attachment to the Son. They have maintained this from the early Eastern Fathers. Zizoulas points out that salvation in the Eastern context is relationship and sin is individualism [resulting in alienation]. I wonder all these years if we should have been paying more attention to our Eastern brothers and sisters?