Modern Monasticism, A More 'Radical' Religion

Reading Timothy Keller’s ‘Gospel in Life’ sessions, I came across this statement by the author: “It is not enough to simply think there are two ways to relate to God. There are three: religion, irreligion, and the gospel.” I have attempted to relate to God in all three ways, and I can tell you both from scripture and from experience that the gospel is the only one that works.

I have been thinking specifically about religion of late. There is the not-so-subtle variety that vigorously attempts to please God by refraining from or engaging in certain activities which we perceive to displease or please God. This would be the attempt to keep his commandments by our own flesh – the religion of the Pharisee. But there are other, more subtle variations, that are perhaps more dangerous and harder to detect.

Keller identifies the problem we have with religion as being ‘idolatry’, and I think that is a fair assessment. I also think it is open to wide interpretation and can lead some to attempt to attack the sin of idolatry in their lives with religious fervor (to understand the folly of this, see my previous post The Believer's Guide to the Law of Sin).  I would identify our religious problem as self-righteousness. Any attempt to please God by religious behavior is really an act of self-righteousness. Perhaps we make an idol out of our self-righteousness, but it seems to me that idolatry is actually the result of self-righteousness. When we ignore the righteousness we have in Christ, we will create idols out of those things we think can satisfy our insatiable needs for the approval and fulfillment that can be ours in Christ alone.

In the past several years, several young pastors have risen to the surface with a ‘radical’ message of anti-idolatry. In their message, you hear the words of Jesus as definite commands to cast aside all idols and live radically for God. This seems very ‘gospely’ at first glance, but is it? Or is it just a subtle religious spin on the gospel? Take a moment to watch the book trailer to Radical by David Platt at this link.

The book description includes this: “He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard.” My question to you is this; is the effort to root idolatry out of your life a commandment of Jesus? In effect, what I hear Platt saying is that your problem is the idols in your life – your money, home, fame, job, nationality. If you want to follow Jesus, all of that has to go because you cannot serve both. Once you have sufficiently exercised the idols out of your life, you will become a true disciple of Jesus.

This is not a new concept. It is akin to Christian Monasticism. As defined by Wikipedia, monasticism is “is a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work.” To be fair to Platt, he is not calling us to withdraw from the world, but to withdraw from idolatry of the things of the world, which is what Jesus called for as well. There is a very distinct, if subtle, difference between the two calls though.

The call of Platt is essentially this; there is too much competition in your life which is distracting you from God. Get rid of the clutter so you can know and serve God.

The call of Christ is essentially this; there is nothing in this world that competes with God. If you are distracted by the things of this world, you do not know God.

Do you see the difference? While not overtly religious enough to be a call to the work of casting aside all idols that compete with God in order to create right relationship to God, that is the message. The call of Platt is to give up everything you own so that you may be a follower of Jesus. This seems to be the call of Jesus as well. But Paul sums up the result of the call of Jesus like this: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ… (Philippians 3:8 ESV).

Paul’s effort here was not to get rid of everything that he owned so that he may gain Christ, but to gain Christ even if it meant giving up whatever he had previously considered to be of value. He was not about the business of giving up everything that was in competition with Christ in his life, he simply saw that nothing in this world can possibly compete with Christ. It was just one big pile of dung (literally) relative to gaining Christ.

I struggled in coming to grips with this at first, because the call of Platt and others seemed to be on the mark. It has a distinctive gospel ring to it, especially because it does not appeal to the ‘law’ of God, but to the New Testament commands of Jesus. But the truth is that we can no better meet the commandments of Christ without the gospel than we can the demands of the Mosaic law. Without the gospel truth that God accepts us solely on the basis of faith in Christ, the commandments of Jesus are even more wearisome and impossible than those of Moses. God could care less what we have (in fact, he has given it all) so long as our first aim is to seek the righteousness that he has provided in Christ. Idolatry is sin, and must be dealt with as any other sin, by recognizing that there is nothing of value to the Christian that is not found exclusively in the gospel truth.

Again, it is confusion in order between indicatives and imperatives. The indicatives (what God tells us is true about us in the gospel) must precede the imperatives (what God tells us we must do in the gospel). Any time imperatives precede indicatives, you have religion and not gospel no matter how ‘Godly’ the teaching appears.

God Bless.