“…unless you distinguish the Gospel from religion and moralism, they assume that you are simply asking them to become better people…” -Tim Keller
In the video above, Tim Keller discusses the importance of distinguishing between the gospel and religion and moralism, especially when sharing with the irreligious and secular.
Knowledge of Sin Through the Law
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3:19-28)
Beauty Outside – Death Inside
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:27-28)
We have been called to make disciples, not Pharisees. How tragic it would be if, in an attempt to share the gospel, I led one to believe that the answer to irreligion is religion or moralism.
The distinctions make sense, but I can't go down this road. Secular does not necessarily mean irreligious. In any civil society in which religion has not been debased by a totalitarian hierarchy, there is a necessary secular component, along side the religious. Only thus can the church be protected from the profane hand of the civil magistrate. There is also a difference between religion, generally, and a religion. Our civil constitution does not say that all religions are equally true, it merely provides that our government is incompetent to judge which, if any, are true, leaving that to individual conscience and to God.
When it comes to defining what is the Gospel, as distinct from religion, I look first to Jesus, rather than to Paul. Jesus spoke in general terms of his own significance, while Paul tried to bring the Gospel into a very tight focus. That may have been a mistake. Just as C.S. Lewis said that material for a historically accurate biography of Jesus have been deliberately withheld from men, so it may be that Jesus did not intend his ministry to be cast in a sharp doctrinal mold. Jesus said that all the law and the prophets hangs on two commandments. Anyone who sincerely tries (and necessarily fails) to obey these two commandments, particularly because Jesus said to, is a Christian.
If there is a distinction to be made between the Gospel of Christ and the religion of Christianity, how is this anything but an admission of heresy? Whether the dogma of a particular sect is correct or not, to differ with it makes you a heretic, at least to that sect. While an heretical message may be more palatable to a secular audience I don’t think you will gain much traction when you say “Christianity has it wrong, listen to Jesus really said.” Or rather “Listen to what Jesus has revealed to ME!”
Unless you have some source of divine information not available to any other Christian, that information comes from your own projection, and not from God. Anyone who claims to have a special revelation from God cannot serve an omnipotent God, because by “special” they must mean “unique to me and unavailable to you”, thus denying God could or would reveal anything to you or me. God may love you enough to die for you, but He doesn’t love you so much that He won’t or can’t reveal Himself to me.
If the church must be “protected from the profane hand of the civil magistrate”, what must exist to protect the parishioner from the priest? The resent scandals in the Vatican indicate that civil laws of free nations go farther to protect the innocent than the Dioceses of the Catholic Church. Not just the reputation of the church, but the services of the offenders are more important than the lives of the innocent victims and, by extension, you.