I recently spent some time listening to Dustin Kensrue’s new album, Desert Dreaming. I like his music, and the new album is good. The first song I heard, though, reminded me of the rumors that he has walked away from orthodox Christianity:
When I left town, I was swept up With the visions of a man from Galilee Along the way, I lost my bearings I got swallowed up by sins of certainty
The heart of sedona
The words to this song triggered a desire to research the truth. Kensure was an impactful Christian musician who wrote the worship album of the year not to many years ago. I wondered, therefore, why he walked away (if indeed he did).
I learned that Kensrue was a former worship leader for Mars Hill, the failed church that rose to the heights of evangelical influence with many campuses, only to collapse with the failings of its erstwhile leader, Mark Driscoll.
Listening to the song, Heart of Sedona, off Kensrue’s new album, Desert Dreaming, gave me pause. The words seem to confirm the rumor, and the story seems all too familiar lately.
His music is as good as ever, but it comes with the melancholy of what used to be. Or maybe it never was. It’s hard to know how to process the deconstruction of someone else’s faith.
Given the back story (involvement in a failed church movement), I suspected his “deconstruction” (and many other artists who seem to have followed a similar path) may be symptomatic of some malady that has infected Evangelical Christianity.
My entre into Kensrue’s story begin with the article, It’s Not Enough: Dustin Kensrue’s Turning Away, which is where I learned that Kensrue was intimately involved in the toxic environment of the Mars Hill church movement led by Driscoll, a controversial and polarizing personality.
I had heard of the rise and fall of Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill Church, but I did not jump on the curiosity bandwagon when people associated with Christianity Today produced the podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. I only heard about it, and I had listened to a discussion of the podcast on another podcast. Therefore, I finally felt a need to hear it firsthand to gain some perspective.
The podcast describes the talent and bravado of Mark Driscoll, who was also polarizing and toxic and seemingly proud of it. Driscoll was staunchly reformed in his theology with a cultish personality and a flair for the dramatic. He attracted people on the edges of faith in the notoriously countercultural Seattle area. I summarized some of my thoughts on what I learned in Keeping It Real for the Church: Talent in Tension with Character)
I have also gone back, now, through the tweets highlighted in the article I noted above, and I have poured over Dustin Kensrue’s Twitter (X) feed to gain further insight. These things give me additional food for thought in considering the “deconstruction” of Dustin Kensrue as it relates to the American Evangelical Church.
Though I have spent considerable time researching these things, my thoughts remain preliminary and exploratory. I am not certain that I have gained sufficient perspective to be clear or certain of any conclusions, but all this seems to confirm my sense that the story is symptomatic of a problem with the American Evangelical Church.
In fact, the original article I found, itself, seems to be symptomatic of issues in the American Evangelical Church. These issues may also be reflected in current American culture, affected as it is by social media. I apologize for the length of this article, but I am afraid I do not do much more than scratch the surface here.
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is just a little older than my Christian faith. It was relatively new when I first read the Bible in college and when I first asked Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of my life. I have wrestled with the idea of inerrancy from the beginning of my Christian life until now.
It isn’t that I don’t think the Bible is the “word of God”. It isn’t that I don’t have a “high” view of the reliability, integrity, and divine nature of the Bible. It isn’t that I don’t think the Bible was inspired by God and should be relied on as His word to us to follow.
I believe all these things, but I have issues with statements on inerrancy that seem to push what the Bible says about itself beyond what it says.
Finally, I have found some similar thinking in two of the great Christian thinkers of our time: Mike Licona and William Lane Craig. In his blog, Risen Jesus, Licona introduces a paper to the world that he wrote and presented at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological society.
In the paper, Licona cites Craig in support of a new proposal on inerrancy. First, though, he explains some of what is problematic with the Chicago Statement. I am not going to restate the points he makes here. You can read the paper, CSBI Needs a Facelift, yourself, but I will summarize it for those who don’t have the time or inclination to read the original (though it isn’t long).
Licona starts with the two main verses that provide the inspiration (pun intended) for the doctrine of inerrancy: 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:20-21. At the center of this are the words “God-inspired” or “God-breathed” which are English translations of the Greek word, “theopneustos“.
Licona traces the history of the use of the word, theopneustos, prior to the 3rd Century. The word was not often used, and it was used in very diverse contexts. Licona quotes a commentary on 2 Timothy, stating, “Theopneustos does not have enough precision to go beyond the basic idea that the Scriptures came from God.” and he concludes:
Therefore, 2 Timothy 3:16 does not contribute as much to our discussion as we may have first thought. So we should be cautious not to read more into it than Paul may have intended.
The 2 Peter 1:20-21 text speaks of prophets who were “carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Licona observes that the Greek word translated “carried along”, pherō, is also used by Philo “to describe how prophets received revelation from God, during which time they had ‘no power of apprehension’ while God made ‘full use of their organs of speech.’ Josephus likewise used this word to say that “God’s Spirit put the words in the mouths of the prophets” (quoting Licona, who paraphrased Josephus).
The 2 Timothy passage and the 2 Peter passage express different ideas and give rise to different pictures of how God speaks to/through people who authorized the writings of the Bible. some writings purport to be prophetic and some do not expressly adopt that attitude. The Chicago Statement assumes that both passages mean the same thing, but most biblical scholars disagree with that conclusion.
Licona goes on to summarize some phenomena in the text of the Bible that suggest a “human element in Scripture”. Licona concludes from this, “Although [the human element] does not challenge the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, it does challenge the concept of inspiration imagined by [the Chicago Statement].”
These issues with the ambiguous meaning of the Greek words and the very different images of God working to convey His “Word” through people (God-breathed and carried along by the Spirit), can be reconciled with a “new” paradigm, says Licona. This paradigm was suggested by Craig in 1999.
As an English Literature major in college, I have always been interested in literary devices. Symbolism, hyperbole, allegory, imagery, metaphor, analogy, and simile are some common literary devices, and we can add parable to the list.
Jesus often spoke in parables, but he also used other literary devices. The statement that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God is both figurative and hyperbole.
According to the Oxford Dictionary online, “figurative” means “departing from a literal use of words; metaphorical.” Many literary devices are figurative, including all the ones I listed in the opening paragraph. Literary devices make our communication more interesting, and they communicate truth in a way that is more nuanced, robust, and multi-dimensional than literal statements.
Jesus often used literary devices to convey nuanced, spiritual meaning. For instance, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encouraged a more nuanced (spiritual) understanding of sin when he said:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[Literal] But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” [Figurative]
Matthew 5:27-28
In fact, Jesus used figurative language often. To some people, he spoke only figuratively! (Matthew 13:34) (in parables) He even spoke figuratively to his disciples, and he seems to express frustration when they didn’t get it:
“When the disciples went to the other side, they forgot to take bread. ‘Watch out,’ Jesus said to them, ‘beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ So they began to discuss this among themselves, saying, ‘It is because we brought no bread. When Jesus learned of this, he said, ”You who have such little faith! Why are you arguing among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many baskets you took up? How could you not understand that I was not speaking to you about bread? But beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!’ Then they understood that he had not told them to be on guard against the yeast in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” [emphasis added]
Matthew 16:5-12 NET
The “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” is a figurative statement. Jesus wasn’t talking about bread (literally). When the disciples didn’t get what he was talking about, Jesus told them literally not to take him literally! He also seems to suggest that seeing the figurative meaning is a matter of faith. (Not the other way around.)
Jesus used the metaphor of yeast to convey the idea of the corrupting influence of the Pharisees and Sadducees in the community. We have to discern, though, what he meant. Was he talking about their thinking, their teaching, their attitudes, their assumptions, their hypocrisy, all of the above, or something else? …. Truth be told, I am not exactly sure exactly what all he meant by their “yeast”.
That’s the thing with figurative speech. It isn’t as precise. It doesn’t carry with it a detailed explanation, but figurative speech can be more profound than literal speech, and it can carry fuller and deeper meaning.
Often though, figurative meaning requires deeper thinking and discernment to determine all the meaning. The meaning has a surface level meaning and a deeper level meaning. The meaning may even be multi-layered, which explains why we often “see” new things in Scripture the more we read it and become familiar with it.
The Jesus had to provide some explanation to the disciples in the example above, because they didn’t fully understand it (telling them that he wasn’t making a point about bread at all), but Jesus doesn’t fully explain exactly when he meant by the “yeast” of the Pharisees. What is it about the Pharisees and Sadducees that Jesus was talking about? He doesn’t really say!
People we we label “fundamentalists” have developed the idea that we do not take the Bible seriously if we do not take it literally. The ministry of Jesus is replete with examples that run completely counter to that idea, but it’s easy to understand why people might want to read the Bible literally. It’s easier! We don’t have to wonder what is meant if we simply take it literally. At that same time, we run the risk of missing the whole point if we insist on reading everything literally.
People are talking about Christian nationalism everywhere. The term, Christian nationalism, is often used and often invoked, but I don’t see it often defined. It can mean different things to different people. The phrase has increasingly become a pejorative label, though some people wear the pejorative label proudly now like a badge of honor.
My concern about “Christian nationalism” grows out of my own Christian experience. I admit that my experience is primarily anecdotal, but I find in Scripture adequate cause for that concern, and Scripture shines light on my experience and on any form of Christian nationalism, as I will explain.
I am chiefly concerned about the Church’s faithful witness and faithful adherence to following Christ. I am concerned that the world often confuses Christianity with particular political expressions, and I am concerned that Christians often do exactly the same thing.
The very fact that “Christian” nationalism has become a pejorative label suggests my concerns have some warrant. And not just me; I see a rising tide of concerned followers of Christ wrestling with the issue.
Jesus was clear to his detractors, and to his followers, that people should give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. (Mark 12:17) I don’t see Jesus confusing or conflating what is Caesar’s and what is God’s, but the idea of Christian nationalism does both.
The very term, Christian nationalism, blurs the lines between what is Caesar’s and what is God’s. It suggests a conflation of biblical and political principles. It creates confusion that results in (or from) not knowing where politics end and Christianity begins.
I have the same issue with the way people use the term, evangelical. Originally, the term had a purely religious and theological meaning. Today, media and political pundits ascribe a political meaning to it. For the majority of people today (perhaps), the meaning conflates political and religious ideas into a confused mess that can mean very different things for different people.
As for a definition of Christian nationalism, I “asked” Bing’s Copilot for help. The resulting definition is my starting place for the rest of my thoughts today (not that I think it is a particularly good definition):
“Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to fuse Christian religion with a nation’s character.”
I would agree that Christian nationalism is an ideology, but ideologies do not seek. (People do.) (So much for the power of AI.) It seems more accurate to say that Christian nationalism is an expression of Christianity and of nationalism that fuses the two ideologies together. Whether people seek to fuse them, or simply do fuse them, together may be splitting hairs.
Having become a Christian in college in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, I can attest to the organic nature in which patriotism fused with my own newfound beliefs in the milieu of the post-Jesus Movement. I didn’t seek or set out to fuse them together. They just became entangled.
Before I became a Christian, I grew up pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, as did all public-school students in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The Fourth of July rivaled only Christmas on my list of favorite holidays. Parades and flags and fireworks were the traditional rituals of the observance of nationalism and those rituals continue today.
Columbus Day served as reminder of our good fortune that God-fearing explorers with perpetual good will braved stormy seas and the specter of a flat earth to discover our fair land. Thanksgiving was encouraged as reminder that God ordained these things and established our manifest destiny in His good graces.
The groundwork for nationalism was laid in my life long before I became a Christian. I am a Boomer who was educated in an atmosphere of post-war optimism, but I am also a late Boomer. I was born on the cusp of the tumultuous 1960’s.
I witnessed the backlash against that post-war patriotism on the nightly news. The protests and protest songs, the burning of American flags, the “sit ins” and “love ins”, and increasing counter cultural attitudes pushed back against that patriotism institutionalized in the 1950’s and ingrained in my educational experience in the 60’s.
Many people in the American Church resisted the rising tide of rebellion against conventional norms, both in the Church and outside the Church. Many people clung reflexively to patriotism and national pride in reaction to the countercultural protest and unrest.
If traditional churchgoers were like the older son in the parable of the prodigal son in that time, the protesters were like the (younger) prodigal son. Our focus may be drawn to the excesses of the younger son, but we realize in the back of our minds that the older son is prodigal too.
My own story links up with the Jesus People Movement. The Jesus People were countercultural prodigals who found Jesus. They repented, turned from their rebellious ways, and embraced the Ancient of Days, God who became incarnate and died for the sins of the world.
I became a believer in 1980, and I joined a church with roots in the Jesus People Movement in 1982. The “radicals” who got saved in the early days of the church had long turned from their rebellious ways, when I joined them, and they had settled into a cultural conservatism that belied their former years.
Sometimes, we throw out the baby with the bathwater. Sometimes, in rescuing the baby, we take some bathwater in. Their newfound cultural conservatism was turning political and patriotic when I arrived. It was a patriotism not simply informed by secular pledges of allegiance; it was a patriotism that was infused with biblical blessing and mandate.
I spent six years in that church formed by hippies who migrated to the northeast in the late 60’s and early 70’s and found Jesus on their way.
These people had turned from flower power to a higher power, from the Rolling Stones to Randy Stonehill, and from sticking it to the man to worshiping the God who became man in Jesus and died for us.
When I joined this church, the original members had already closed their candle shops to become landlords and insurance salesmen. They no longer lived in communes where they shared resources in common. They were no longer long-haired hippie freaks. They had stable families and businesses and owned their own houses.
With their conversion, they repented of their sins, and they rejected their former radicalism. In rejecting their former radicalism, they embraced a newfound conservatism that included a renewed sense of patriotism.
While I was living with them, I saw the influence of the Moral Majority take hold. The post-war patriotism of the Baby Boomer generation turned religious when hippies converted, rejected their former radicalism and were welcomed into the church by older prodigals who championed the Moral Majority.
I also saw portents of a darker future. On the edges of that idyllic, “New Testament church” with communal roots from a more radical past lurked associates of the John Birch Society and sundry other political influences.
My church embraced politics as an expression of working out God’s purposes in our local community and to the ends of the earth. But the path to the kingdom of God is always a narrow one. We don’t have to wander far from it to find ourselves invoking God to work out our own purposes in our local community and to the ends of the earth.
Christian nationalism involves a blurring of the lines between God’s purposes and our own purposes. Christian nationalism is a form of syncretism – the blending of Christian belief into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into the expression of our Christian beliefs.
In a recent podcast conversation I listened to Skye Jethani speaking with Brian Zahnd who mentioned his disillusionment with American Christianity at one point in his pastoral career. (Beginning at about 54 minutes into the podcast) Zahnd shared that he came to a place where he thought, “Jesus deserves a better Christianity than what I have experienced.”
What Zahnd may have been talking about is the kind of consumeristic Christianity that grew alongside the Charismatic renewal as the turbulent 1960’s gave rise to the Jesus People Movement and leveled out into a new style of conservatism and the allure of the Prosperity Gospel. that was his world, and it was partly my world as well.
I can relate to Zahnd. Though I grew up Catholic, I became a Christian in college and plugged into that environment – a more or less loosely associated connection of independent, charismatic churches in the 1980’s that had grown out of the Jesus People Movement. That religious culture was variously impacted by PTL with Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, the Christian Broadcasting Network with Pat Robertson who ran for President, and Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, which became a political rallying cry.
And then I went to law school.
Influences during my time of “growing up in the faith” in my twenties included the prosperity gospel and right-wing political groups ostensibly intending to bring our country back to its “Christian roots”. These influences focused on gaining prosperity for ourselves and regaining power and control that we perceived we were losing in our society.
Brian Zanhd described a period of time in his life in which he began trying to “untangle American Christianity from Americanism”. I was forced into that same position by law school and what I learned about our founding fathers.
Today, someone might call what I experienced “deconstruction”. I began to see things from other perspectives. I began to see that separation of church and state was a mechanism that people hoped would protect the church from the state, as much as anyone hoped it might protect the state from the church. I began to see a disconnect between the things Jesus said and the ways we twist them to suit our own ends.
In more recent years, I have come to see that “empire” isn’t the way of Jesus. Empire is the way of the world. Jesus said his kingdom isn’t of this world! Jesus preached an upside down kingdom that many Christians warp into a religious version of an earthly kingdom.
Jesus rejected the temptation of empire in the wilderness. When the devil offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor (Matt. 4:8-9), Jesus responded this way:
“Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Matthew 4:10
The podcast focused on “Americanism”, understandably, because that is the cultural milieu in which we live in the United Stated of America. Americanism, however, is indicative of tendencies that are common to all human beings. These are the tendencies Satan tried to capitalize on when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness with the promise of power, influence and privilege.
These human tendencies are antithetical to everything Jesus taught:
Consider others better than yourselves;
Love your neighbor;
Love your enemy;
The parable of the Good Samaritan;
The greatest among you will be servant of all; and
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s.
(God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.)
We naturally are attracted to what is familiar. We naturally advance our own interests. We naturally protect ourselves and our own kind. We naturally see ourselves as the good guys. We assume the best about ourselves. We identify with our own people, and we have a hard time protecting others from ourselves because we don’t see the need to protect them from us.
People were no different in the 1st century. Jesus was well aware of this human tendency, and he addressed it head on with his first followers.
The first time we see him doing that is right after the temptation in the wilderness in which the authority and splendor of all the kingdoms of the world were offered to him. The next thing Jesus did after leaving the wilderness was to walk into his hometown synagogue, pick up the Isaiah scroll, and read from it:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18-19
When he finished, he sat down, and he said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”. (Luke 4:20)
At first, the townspeople spoke well of him. They were even amazed at his words. Their amazement began to wane when someone remarked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4:22) Then, Jesus dropped a bomb on them:
“Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
Luke 4:23
They did not even have time to process what Jesus just said when he added, “Truly I tell you … no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” They still didn’t understand, but they they were about to become really agitated.
With the next words Jesus spoke, Jesus picked a fight when no one was (yet) in a fighting mood, but he knew what was in their hearts. It is the same thing that is in our hearts, if we are not careful to root it out. I think you will see what I am getting at if you read on.
Navigating by Faith 