“Salted Soil”

Jude 1:3-4: 20-22

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Intro to Series

From Easter to Pentecost, we focused on the nature of our witness—of how we reveal Christ to the world. Our next step can be compared to gardening—planting seeds and tending to their growth; but before we do that, we need to tend to the soil and do what we can to prepare the ground for the gospel we intend to plant.

Today we start with a fairly fierce challenge: what to do when the whole ground is bad. Salting the soil is an ancient battle tactic meant to truly destroy one’s enemy. After the town is ransacked and pillaged, warriors added insult to injury by dumping salt into the fields, preventing re-inhabitation.

But salt was also used ceremonially, to consecrate or to declare separated whatever was salted. So salting a conquered city was a gesture of final, complete triumph by the conquerers, like spiking the football in the end zone. It is a kind of gloating.

Jude writes and changes his tone mid-sentence. He says he would like to write about common salvation—something nice and upbeat—but he must rather call them to “contend for the faith” which was under attack by false teachers.

Jude’s Concern

Jude writes to a number of congregations to warn them about the Godless teachers who have wormed their way into the churches. Their interest is in their own pleasure—what they can manipulate out of the people to get for themselves. This is likely the ancient version of the prosperity gospel, or early libertinism. Hey, if we’re all forgiven—if it’s all about grace—then let’s party!

The threat was that the true faith—that is, the faith handed down from Jesus and the Apostles—was suffering distortions and corruptions. Jude makes clear what is true in all times; namely, that faith must be contended for. In human society, truth is not guaranteed to win out just because it is true. Similarly, the Christian faith is subject to all the ravages of a fallen humanity, and without the followers of Jesus standing up for true faith, the message is prone to distortion and exploitation. People will take the good news and twist it to their own ends. It happened in the first century; it happens today.

Today, contending for the faith takes place across the vast American plain of tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism—which we value—and even within Christian orthodoxy there are hundreds of denominations comprising legitimate, varying interpretations. It has become increasingly difficult to say that someone is distorting the true faith without sounding like we’re being close-minded or theologically bigoted. So we practice a generous orthodoxy—thinking the best of one another and expecting our brothers and sisters of all denominational stripes to holding at least the core truths in common.

That’s the internal struggle, but we also have an external challenge—that of how Christians altogether interface with American society in general. And not only in general, but how is your and my Christian witness perceived by our friends, neighbors and colleagues?

The New Atheism

How is Christianity seen by world society today? The answer is probably as broad and diverse as there are people, and many of the responses would be positive and grateful. There are people outside of the faith who do appreciate Christians being Christians, but for the sake of the series we’re going to start with the hard cases—the salted soil—those who have rejected Christianity and are pride-bound to never set foot inside a church.

Some call themselves atheists, but pushed to the wall, most won’t say that they are firmly convinced that the existence of God is utterly impossible. Most, I suspect, are simply stating that they disbelieve in the God of Scripture. They are rejecting the Judeo-Christian narrative. They have come to disdain religion in general and disdain an idea of Christianity they’ve built up in their minds (Hollywood and pop culture have helped advance the caricatures for many decades).

The majority of research from pollsters (Pew, Gallup, Barna) have shown a common thread. Among Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and Millennials, religion is down, but spirituality is steady. We have a majority of Americans shaking their heads and religion but nodding their heads at spirituality, which is not well-defined.

The New Atheism, as it has been called, has gone from angry reactionaries like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, to a kinder, gentler atheism that—while not angry at Christians and Christianity—nonetheless dismisses Christian faith as irrelevant or inferior—a product of the iron age, suitable enough for people who grew up in the 40s and 50s.

What do they see when they look at Christians and Christianity?

What They See

Those who disbelieve see a world ravaged by religion. They see crusades, repression of personal freedoms, and centuries of domination—religious leaders holding people in control with religious myths.

They see hypocrisy—people claiming the moral high ground who are just as morally compromised as anyone else. They see people preaching a code they themselves do not practice.

They see artificiality. Plaster statues, flowing robes, big pointy hats and enormous financial endowments. They see. Christianity in exactly the same way you and I might see Star Trek enthusiasts attending a Trekkie convention.

They see commercialization. Mega builidngs, multimedia empires, book sales, clothing lines, bigger buildings with bigger sales.

They see arrogance—fingers pointing and wagging at them in judgment. They hear no one comes to the Father but through the Son as a condemnation. They see us as the ultimate insiders happy to be inside and vengeful or vindictive against those who will not follow. Certainly that impression has been made by some Christians, but it is also a caricature—a way of demonizing Christians so that their message can be easily dismissed.

What they see in people of faith determines what they say about us.

What They Say

In the words of Jim Morrison of the Doors: “Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection.”

Christianity is not popular. Negativity toward faith—Christianity in particular—is gaining popularity every year. The cultural chorus is singing a new song, and it isn’t “How Great is Our God.” The lyrics sound more like:

1. You can’t be intelligent and Christian. Those with religious faith of any kind have abandoned all reason. Therefore:

2. Religion itself is an abomination. It is not good and it does not make people or society a better place.

3. The Bible is a work of fiction—fiction or fantasy, anyway. Therefore it is not worth reading or taking seriously.

4. If the God of the Bible exists, then he is neither good nor all-powerful. Look at all the Old Testament bloodshed!. If God were good, he would not allow people to suffer.

5. This world would be better without Christianity. Without religion in general, and Christianity in particular, we might all live in peace and harmony.

Remember the song, “Imagine” by John Lennon? It’s now 45 years old and reflects the continuing sentiment of progressivism. The idea is that the age of religion has passed; belief is a relic or the Iron Age. Remove them all and the world will be happier.

Question is: Would the world be better without Christianity?

You may have heard the story of a debate that took place in Chicago a few years ago. A leading, sophisticate atheist professor was debating a Christian pastor. The pastor asked him: “Really? Do you really believe that the world would be better without Christianity?” “I do!” said the professor.

“Let me ask you one more question. Imagine you are driving through the south side at two o’clock in the morning. You’re in a bad neighborhood and your car breaks down. There is no one around. You get out of your car and begin walking to find a phone. Suddenly, out of building ahead of you steps a group of young men in their teens and early twenties. Here is the question—answer honestly!—would you feel any better seeing that two or three of them were holding Bibles in their hands? Would you feel any safer knowing they were coming out of a Bible study?” The atheist professor declined to answer.

How to Contend

My brother, who once served a church in Lubbock, was fond of saying, “Faith is like a tree in west Texas: if you don’t water the thing it’s going to die.” We may think of truth and faith as solid and eternal things, but all things in this world are subject to a fallen humanity and are therefore prone to distortion, corruption, erosion and perversion.We need to know what to believe, why we believe and how to speak of it. We do indeed need to contend for the faith. I want to suggest two ways we can contend for the faith immediately.

1. Outshine the Caricatures

Caricature—the art of distortion— is politics. It is a system of cheap shots taken to whip up the crowd. It may win elections, but it does not serve the interests of truth. 

Religion today is subject to constant caricature. All Muslims are terrorists, all Catholic priests are pedophiles, all Evangelicals some version of flat Earth fundamentalist or snake handlers.

“The suicide bombing community is entirely faith-based” —Christopher Hitchens.

If the world we are trying to reach with God’s love sees us through the distorted lens of caricature, then it is up to us to outshine those pictures. We must be aware of the details which trigger their negativity and work toward whatever openings they may present.

Furthermore, we too must not resort to caricature. We mustn’t think of all atheists and disbelievers as bad people. They are like us—they are our countrymen and sisters—and God loves them as much as he loves us.

2. De-demonizing or “Them”-ing

Part of being the Church is celebrating our unity in Christ and our oneness as a congregation. The shadow side of this is that we build up a cozy idea of “us” against which we tab others “them.” We think of ourselves as the good guys and them as the problem or the enemy to be overcome. Let’s work to get beyond this.

There is no “them”; we are all part of the same humanity and the same flesh which God sent his only Son to save.

We are all more alike than different.

Atheists don’t really hate God so much as they have unresolved conflicts with someone or someones who tried to push faith onto them. We know they need God and we know God loves them. We should stop thinking of them as the enemy and start thinking of them as the beloved for whom Christ died.

Most of their resistances are cultural, not theological.

We must reach them in the ways that Jude suggests: having mercy on those who doubt and doing what we can to snatch whomever we can from the fire. That will never happen with pointing, wagging fingers.

Our witness is most effective—most winsome and compelling—when flavored with the gifts of the Spirit for which every heart longs: kindness, patience, gentle persistence, and a grand generosity of love..†