I believe it was Samuel Francis who said that Washington D.C. was run by two political parties — the Evil Party and the Stupid Party. The same thing is true in contemporary ecclesiastical politics. We have the people who are selling out the “faith once delivered,” and then there are those who are clueless about what is going on. A dangerous subset of this latter category is made up of those who know that the faith is being corrupted, but they have no idea of how it is being done. They don’t know what play is being run. That being the case, they enthusiastically set up exactly the wrong defense. They blitz, which is what the conservatives usually do, and so then the unbelievers in the Church run a really sweet screen pass. Not only that, but it always works.
I am not really sure what category to put this post under — it could be any number of them. Postmodernism, Auburn Avenue Stuff, N.T. Wright’s and Wrongs — this thought relates to any number of those topics, but not directly. So I am going to put it under Auburn Avenue Stuff, but please make applications elsewhere.
An uproar begins in conservative circles about the relationship between faith and works. With some parties to the dispute, it is just a matter of semantics (this is at the heart of the Auburn Avenue controversy). But outside conservative circles, there are people who really are trying to intrude autonomous works into the process of justification, which is, of course, a really bad thing to do. This is what religious man always wants to do. Conservatives react to this like it was catnip, and it does not matter that it was catnip set out especially for them. Making this observation does not mean that I am friendly to the idea of making anything-that-could-lead-to-boasting into an instrument (or partial instrument) of justification. But what is the actual play being run here?
Taking the broad picture in the Church today, who is most likely to be talking about the need for love, good works, missional concern, social ethics, and so on? Right, the liberals. And why do they do this? In order to seize the high ground, and to make sure that no one brings up their lack of love, lack of good works, contempt for real evangelism, and their corruption of social ethics. Conservatives don’t bring up this glaring inconsistency because they don’t want to play into the “works salvation” scheme. But Scripture requires us to bring up any such discrepancy.
Of course we are not saved by good works (Eph. 2:8-9). But we are saved to good works (Eph. 2:10), which God prepared beforehand for us to do. Not only so, but we are told expressly that the testing ground of true faith is true works. Show your faith by your works, man. Not mere affirmation of good works with the lips, either, but genuine, honest-to-God good works. Not good works redefined to fit comfortably into some humanist’s social agenda, but good works defined biblically, and structured biblically on the foundation of real faith in the revealed will of God.
This is why we should be opposed to the ordination of women — because faith without works is dead. This is why it is a profanation of God’s Temple to solemnize homosexual unions — because faith without works is dead. This is why we have no business redefining sentimentalism as love — because faith without works is dead. This is why godly Christian leaders must stand opposed to the growth of the idolatrous state (even when done in the name of the poor) — because faith without works is dead.
Nothing wrong with sola fide. Amen seven times over. But by emphasizing it the way they have done, some contemporary conservatives have done a grave disservice to the gospel. This is not because they themselves are distorting the gospel, but rather because they are unaware of how the adversary is seeking to distort the gospel at this point. Because of this, the conservatives unwittingly help with the distortion.
Many years ago I learned (talking with Mormons) that we need to speak as though all the Bible belongs to us, and not as though we have Romans and Galatians and they have James. When an evangelical says “by grace are ye saved . . .”, they say, “faith without works is dead.” And there we both are, safely barricaded behind our respective passages. But suppose an evangelical said to a Mormon (I am using them for illustrative purposes because they explicitly avow a role for works), right out of the starting blocks, “You know, a central reason why I can’t embrace the LDS approach is because faith without works is dead.”
Faith and works (biblically) have a robust relationship — like the body and the spirit, designed to work together. Some conservatives, in the interests of keeping these two things really, really distinct, want the body and spirit separated, the result of which is death. Liberals want the body and spirit together, and are all about it, but on closer inspection, the spirit turns out to be an unclean spirit.
When we get to the place where it becomes apparent “what play was run,” it will be seen that one kind of conservative ran a bunch of other conservatives out of their Reformed denominations, paving the way for the liberals. The conservatives who were made to feel unwelcome were those who had been trying to insist that orthodoxy and orthopraxy belong together, and that faith without works is dead. But suspicious of good works that proceed from the grace of God, other diehard conservatives prepared the way for the “good works” that proceed from the devious mind and heart of man. Instead of faith, hope, and love, we will find ourselves with the “good works” of sodomy, tolerance, and free chocolate milk for everybody. All that, and a group hug after therapy.