I Have Decided

Jeff Mikels, a former pastor in Indiana and the author of an interesting book, is owning up to complicity and failure to disciple his church in a theopolitical discipleship that conforms to the kingdom vision of Jesus, that is, to the gospel. I don’t know Jeff Mikels, but his book will prove to be light for many pastors staring out at an abundance and majority of Christian nationalists, or at least semi-Christian nationalists, and wondering what has happened and what can be done. Mikels’ book is called Evangelical Idolatry: How Pastors Like Me Have Failed the People of God. I had a heart-felt conversation with such a pastor this week – pastors are all but overwhelmed by the challenge to preach and teach a kingdom vision, a gospel vision, to a congregation that has swallowed what Mikels calls “idolatry.”

These are some telling quotations from Mikels:

“I no longer found any alignment between the Jesus I followed and the practices of the Christians in my evangelical subculture.” (all in italics in original)

“So I spoke up, but when I did, I sounded like one of the voices that many in my own church had already decided to reject. So, they left. A full 80% of our church left, including every elder except one, who lasted one more year before also leaving. Some went to other churches. Some quit church altogether. I felt rejected, and that sealed my disillusionment.”

“I didn't adequately prepare people for the turmoil of 2020. Specifically, I didn't adequately cultivate an allegiance to Jesus, his life, and his words that surpassed other traditional and cultural allegiances.” (all italics in original)

“At the heart of it all was a simple but obvious logical conclusion: If, after seventeen years of being under my ministry, their hearts resonated more with Fox News then with Jesus, I had failed to accurately portray Jesus as our example, authority, and only King.”

He writes, “Afer much consideration, I’m convinced that I am complicit.”

Now read this:

“My approach to preaching, teaching, and discipleship not only kept the door open to conspiratorial conservativism, but it also helped people usher it right into their hearts. And it's not just my approach that was at fault. I have since come to realize that some bedrock principles of Evangelicalism are fundamentally tied to conservative cultural idols, but I never saw them or expose them.”

Many, of course, have been calling attention to these idols, and have been doing so for more than one generation. But silos are silos, and what is heard and tolerable to the ears in one silo may not be heard or tolerated in another silo. As I read this book, I had a hard time resonating with his context because my context has been so different for three decades. But I know his context is substantial in the United States right now. And I know that pastors are struggling. I want this sub stack to become a tool for those pastors and those churches.

Mikels wants to reframe the gospel of his evangelicalism and this is his conclusion after some lengthy explorations of texts and ideas:

“Jesus, Son of God, Lord and King, came into the world to demonstrate the Kingdom life, to sacrifice himself that we might be eternally reconciled to the Father, and to invite us to follow him. We received that reconciliation and lived that Kingdom life through repentance, faithfulness, obedience, and joining Jesus in his work of reconciliation.”

There is much here that I want to agree with period I also think that earlier discussions in his book framed the gospel a little bit more in a Jesus-centric way. Mikels pins a problem on Luther for framing the gospel as a doctrine to be believed. So Mikels offer a summons: “It’s a call for my fellow evangelicals to embrace a gospel that is more than doctrine alone, a gospel that combines right thinking, personal holiness, and even social action; a gospel that changes us inside and out; a gospel that brings the good news of the kingdom into present-day living.” His progress from Jesus to the above definition of gospel takes these crucial steps:

“The good news for Jesus is tied to the now-and-future kingdom of God. It offers many benefits but also demands surrender and transformation.” (all italics in original)

“The good news includes the message of universal condemnation for sin, the sacrificial love of God, and eternal salvation available exclusively through Jesus.” (all italics in original)

“So, what does it mean to believe in the kingdom? It means to live like a subject of that King abiding by the ways of that kingdom.”

“The calling of the gospel is to follow Jesus, doing the work of Jesus, heeding the words of Jesus, expressing sacrificial love like Jesus, and reproducing others who also identify with Christ and obey his words.”

Mikels thinks Paul’s gospel was about Jesus. (Amen.) Here’s how he frames Paul’s gospel: “The gospel is the message that Jesus is Lord, through whom God graciously gives righteousness and salvation to any person who receives it with life-changing faith.” (all italics in original)

“Paul's explanations are certainly more complicated and detailed than anything we saw in the words of Jesus, but his point is clear. The gospel is a doctrine about how Jesus's death and resurrection prove his lordship, a promise that those who belong to him are given the righteousness of God, and a calling to respond in faithful obedience.”

“This is what the New Testament writers mean by ‘gospel.’ It is the entirety of the story of Jesus – who he is, what he is taught, and what he has done for us, what it means to join him, and what's ahead for the faithful.”

So, “It's time that we embrace an understanding of the gospel that isn't satisfied with the extremes of doctrinal accuracy or social progressivism but that embraces the same integration of faith in life that Jesus did.”

Jeff Mikels is to be commended for articulating a reality in some circles of evangelicalism. He confesses: “I'm ashamed to admit that I had to realize that, but once I realized that Paul and Jesus were talking about the same thing, that Paul was merely contextualizing the good news of Jesus for new audiences, I gave myself permission to let the words of Jesus shape and define my understanding of the good news.” He can sing this now: “I have decided to live and breathe a gospel that fully embraces the teaching of Jesus, the example of Jesus, and the didactic instructions from Paul and the other New Testament writers.”

That confession opens a window on far too many today who seem to have little place for Jesus other than as the agent of redemption in a systematic theology based on a Reformation reading of Romans.