Kiss “The Love of Man” Goodbye

Again. It happened again. As I read along with the rest of the world, I felt shivers run up and down my spine. Lord, not this… again. Wildly popular author, pastor, influencer, and leader in the Christian community, Joshua Harris, joined the ranks of one of the many who ‘fell’ from the high perch of celebrity-Christian we once placed him on. One week after he and his wife announced they were ending their marriage,he posted this on Instagram:

“I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.”

As I read, I felt heartbroken: for him, his family, and the Christian community as a whole. Each time ‘it’ happens we collectively feel utterly devastated. But why? Why are we consistently devastated by people, being people? In Paul’s letters to Timothy we read about this happening over and over again in the early church. The Christian leaders found in Timothy were ‘wandering from’ (2 Timothy 4:3), ‘veering off’ and even ‘shipwrecking’ (1 Timothy 1:19) their faith. It’s sad and often confusing but it’s not new. According to Jeremiah 17:9, ‘The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.’ We can talk our way in and out of a lot of things without it ever being grounded in the truth of who God is or the hope He has for our future.

I read article after article headlining Josh’s story. I scrolled the comments. I felt the emotions that dripped all over the threads. As I scrolled, I felt sick to my stomach. I was horrified by some of the reactions from both Christians and non-Christians, alike. I read as some took a victory lap filled with pure joy that another Christian wasn’t quite so perfect. Trust me, we of all people get how imperfect we can be, which is why we need Jesus in the first place. The elation was mind blowing as he denounced the faith in Jesus he once held. Joshua called it ‘deconstruction,’ but whatever we want to call it, he’s been a person who held a high place in the hearts, lives, and was an influencer for the kingdom of God. To non-believers, by all accounts this is a huge victory.

And then there were all of the ‘Christian’ commenters. Oh man, these comments hit me hard. As I read, I found myself asking the commenters over and over again, ‘Why? Just why?’ Why do we need to say anything dishonoring at all? Some said, he probably never believed in the first place. Well, we don’t get to play sideline quarterback and decide where or ‘if’ he ever really placed his faith in Jesus. While others scornfully distanced themselves, as to say, ‘he’s not one of us.’ Ugh! He is though. And then there’s those who want to go to battle spiritually and fight for this man’s life. Those commenters offered hope and showed a watching world that absolutely nothing is out of the reach of Jesus’ hands. His story isn’t done being written and the most loving thing we can do is intervene on his behalf.

In Joshua’s story and many just like his, I see my own willingness to consistently place people in places of authority and power that they never were meant to hold. Several years ago, my own family was utterly shaken by the decisions of leaders in the church. Their decisions had an enormous impact on our family and there were times when I felt like a bomb was detonated within my heart. I honestly questioned if I’d ever recover. I felt so betrayed, cast out, and unloved. The reason why the destruction felt so devastating was because I allowed myself to prop leaders up and unknowingly placed their views above God’s. We elevate and put one another up on pedestals in the most unhealthy ways. We give the ultimate voice of authority to those who have a best-selling book, perfectly crafted sermon or wisdom according to feelings rather than truth. We forsake the literal word of God in the process. We don’t examine the content of a person’s life, just the shape of their words. We elevate status on a shifty bed of half-truths because well, it sounds good according to the trendy message of the day or the current leadership structure of the church. We ask popular people to speak into our lives and overlook the truth packed into the Bible. But God’s word has never changed! We, however are constantly changing.

Our love ‘of’ people is killing us. Our love of people looks a whole lot like what every person has struggled with since the beginning of humanity. It’s the opposite of the love God asks us to pour out. We need to kiss the love of people goodbye and usher in our dependence on the truth found in the Word of God, alone.

We even try to rebrand the word, love. We’ve rewrapped it to mean we never speak the truth, never offend, never disagree… but that’s not love at all. In fact, it’s the absolute opposite. If our trendy way of love keeps another human from the truth of the Bible  (even if it’s hard truth) then we are actually gift wrapping hate with a pretty little bow. Love is transformative because it pushes us to live out the sanctification process. But that’s an article for another time.

In this case and almost every other instance, we are witnessing cultural relevance play out. The tragedy of it all, is the transforming truth of the Bible again takes a back seat. God’s written word on sexuality, sin, gossip, slander, false-teaching… all of it, has never changed.

In the late nineties, Joshua found himself smack dab in the middle of the popular ‘Why Wait’ or ‘purity’ movement. He sold more than a million books as youth groups from all around our country flocked to read his words. I was in my teens during this movement and gobbled up the teachings. ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ and ‘Boy Meets Girl’ was birthed out of a place where Josh felt God was breathing a transformative message into an often difficult to navigate dating world. His books were phenomenal and so many found hope as they wrestled with hard questions. In Joshua’s mid-twenties, his words about dating and later marriage paved the way for him to lead a huge body of believers at Covenant Life Church in Maryland. Joshua Harris was a major influencer within the Christian community. In 2015, the church he led walked through a scandal that shook all involved. He was left questioning his leadership during this time that undoubtedly shaped his statements made about his new found realization of faith in Jesus.

Our culture shifts, the Bible does not.  We can historically look back and see how every generation believes they have new ideas for old problems. We easily slap a new label on it and brand it differently. Every generation believes they are more enlightened then the one before and desperately try to come up with clever ways to avoid the problem of sin. We adjust our beliefs in an attempt to gain new revelation in a sea of cultural change. We elevate the ‘new’ teaching of people, trusting we are growing closer to the living God, only to get further and further away. New leaders will come and go, but God is the only one who belongs on the pedestal where we look up to find truth. Everything else is extra.

As believers we know we aren’t permitted to place any-thing or any-body before God, because it resembles idol worship in so many ways. Idol worship is a sneaky little thing and in the Christian world it is often seen in the way we view leaders, teachers, and people with spiritual influence over us. For some reason, we fall for the new and improved… every… single… time! But again, God’s teachings from yesterday is the same for today. We can shout for people to pick themselves up, wash their face, pass out free hugs, and even be our best self. We can rebrand it, twist it to fit our conference or event, and sell a million plus books; but if God’s word isn’t front and center of the teaching coming forward, we are simply elevating the current Christian celebrity, not Christ. Their pedestal will fall; God’s will not.

Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”

So what are we to do to guard our heart, mind, and soul against our sinful desire to place people and things above the truth and steadfastness of God’s word?

1. Always, always, always take everything you hear to scripture. Always. Sometimes what feels good isn’t truth filled. Whether it is preached from the pulpit, written in a book, or cleverly crafted into a meme; always line it up with the word. If you don’t hear the words of our savior, reject it. Run like hell in the opposite direction.

2. Love people, don’t elevate them. Every single person is just that… a person. They are processing the world through their own lens of experience, hurt, hang-ups, joys, and strengths. If what they are teaching preaches well but their own life isn’t living out God’s truth, love them but never elevate them. Putting any human on a propped up pedestal of ‘kind-of’ truths feels good momentarily, but the weight of it all will ultimately suffocate them and hurt you.

3. Look at people. Because guess what?! They are people. I literally encourage you to look into the life of the person you are allowing to speak into your own life. Their theology, feelings, and personal story are shaping who you are becoming. A great rule of thumb for reading books that profess to transform your life in any way or are marketed as wisdom from the Bible (Christian) is to take a few minutes and look into the author’s story. Yes… Google them. Research them and their ministry. Teaching God’s word is a high calling and we are called to test everything against the word of truth. Treat everyone the same. Joyce, Joel, Jen, Rachel, every single person is held to the same Biblical standard. Every ministry has fruit. Often the fruit looks shiny and delicious from the outside but when you cut it open, it’s full of worms. Even if it’s a best-seller those worms may not begin to eat at you or the heart of the reader for years. Do yourself a favor, don’t take a bite.

4. Always assume you are an influencer, because you are. Everything you take in will eventually come out.

5. Recognize the fact that whether a person is on T.V, in movies, creating incredible music, teaching an inspiring sermon, writing a dynamic book, or is a disciplined athlete they are never worthy of our worship. As believers we often think we are immune to this pop-culture mentality within the church, but we’ve seen it plague our places of worship for decades. Whenever a person is placed into a position where others idolize and cling to their talents, pride often creeps in and begins to sow seeds of destruction.

6. Pray for those in lofty positions. People come with lives, right? Everything a person does or says comes from an overflow of their own lives. Every person in our lives or sphere of influence that we think is just so dang ‘amazing’ is facing their own set of hurt, hang-ups, and issues. We are all wrestling with our own sinful nature on a daily basis. It always costs the person serving something. Love them by praying that their hearts remain pliable to the redemption of God.

7. The life of a Christian is filled with consistently repenting and drawing close to the heart of God. Sin separates us, period. Repentance gives us the opportunity to live out God’s redemption to a lost a dying world. When we repent we acknowledge our need for Christ and our willingness to run like hell in the opposite direction we were headed.

In closing, let us together build one another up and encourage each other to press on toward the prize, while refusing to place any person ahead of Christ. He alone holds our hearts and His word is the ultimate source of truth. May every action and deed flow from a place of humility to the living God.