Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Night of the Living Dead Christian, by Matt Mikalatos. March 2012 CSFF Blog Tour, Day 3

The author identifies a disturbing problem so prevalent in our churches today, and that is the disjunction between so-called faith and the evidence of that faith through works. He brings this out near the end of the novel, after the werewolf’s quest for a cure has come to a successful conclusion:

...it suddenly hit me that our churches are full of these people. Faith with no deeds. We believe in Jesus, we go to church, we lead semi-decent lives, but we aren’t being transformed. We aren’t changing. We don’t think the deeds matter, because we have the “fire insurance.” We’re going to get into Heaven just fine, so we can keep lying and stealing and sleeping around and murdering and being selfish and whatever else it is we’re doing.

  But what James seemed to be saying was that a faith like that was a problem. It’s not the deeds or lack of deeds that’s a problem, it’s that something is wrong with our faith if it’s not producing actions. It’s ineffectual. It’s the sort of faith that fills a pew but leads us to a moment when we are face-to-face with Jesus and show him our works and he says, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (p 217)

Can we identify the reasons for why this problem exists? Obviously, it has been present with us since the beginning of the New Testament church as evidenced by the letter of James, “So also faith, by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,” 2:17). Part of the reason is the natural tendency of our depravity to misunderstand the implications of the gospel. Paul sensed this as well, and, like James, may have had to defend against it: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” Rom 6:1,2.

Mr. Mikalatos understands this aspect of the gospel, that genuine saving faith produces good works, and he brings the reader face-to-face with it. There is a great need for that in our Christian writing, and Mr. Mikalatos has not shrunk from that.

Yet, there is a serious flaw in Mr. Mikalatos’s theology, and it can actually contribute to the problem. The flaw is this: he does not believe in man’s total depravity, and one's stance on total depravity  has a direct bearing on his preaching and evangelism which in turn affects the response of the unconverted. Let me explain.

In a conversation with Robert (a zombie) and Lara (a vampire), who are despairing of their conditions, Mikalatos points to the image of God in them as a reason for hope. Robert counters by asserting we are totally depraved and if we are a reflection of God, bearing his image, then God himself would likewise have to be completely depraved. Mr. Mikalatos responds:

“I don’t think so. It might mean that we’ve misunderstood what it means to be sinful. Or that we’ve emphasized it so much that we’ve simply lost sight of the fact that in our deepest, most horrific actions, some piece of us is still outside of that, some part of us is made in God’s image, and that’s not something we can ever completely eradicate.” (p 220)

A little later, Matt relates a story for Robert and Lara about a symphony he and his wife once attended, and how the music filled the concert hall with magnificent beauty, and how it revealed that, as an image-bearer,

“...a man can take what is in his mind and scratch it out on paper, and others can fashion instruments, and still other sacrifice their lives to learn to bring pleasing sounds from these instruments.” (p 222)

And then, later again, while observing other nameless men and women who had attended the symphony, and reflecting on the players of the symphony, and the conductor, that for all of them and us,

“... we need not be captives to our base selves, because by God’s grace there stirs a deeper desire to be like the one who made us.” (p 223)

Now, I believe that we are made in God’s image and appeal unhesitatingly to that fact as a reason to pursue writing as a conscious effort to reflect our Creator through the creation of our own story-making.

But being made in God’s image does not mean that there lies within the sinner a spark or tiny island or a small reservoir by which he wants to be like the one who made him. If this notion of an inherent sensitivity or openness or searching for God is at the bottom of one’s anthropology, I maintain that one’s understanding and explanation of the gospel is going to be affected adversely. If there is somewhere deep in the heart of every person a desire to be like God, then the appeal to that person will be merely to become a follower of Jesus. And that is not what the gospel calls us to do. We cannot call sinners to become followers of Jesus because sinners do not want to be followers. Sinners want to be sinners.

The New Testament appeal to the sinner is this, “Repent and believe.” Jesus saves us from our sins. He frees us from our sins. If there is any hope for change, it does not spawn from a fractured remnant of the image of God that resides in us as a deep, innate stirring that seeks to be like the one who made us. We are called to look away from ourselves and turn wholly to the one who has the power to set us free. By the work of regeneration, the Spirit of God awakens us to our sinfulness, grants us repentance and faith to turn to the only one who can free us from our sin - its penalty, power, and someday, its presence. And that will not happen unless the sinner is faced with the truth of his sinfulness and his complete helplessness to do anything about it.

Regrettably, the gospel call often is misconstrued to be a call to follow Jesus. Mr. Mikalatos himself presents the gospel in this way as one may conclude from videos of his speaking engagements. Such a call assumes that the one called actually has the power to follow Jesus. A call to follow Jesus presumes that if the sinner looks within himself he will realize that following Jesus is the only thing that makes sense.

The response to such a call is disastrous. Instead of the sinner repenting and turning to Christ to be delivered from his sin and thereby enabled to do what he cannot do in himself, he takes courage in his own ability to follow Christ, having a false sense that he has the power to do it, and that all he needs is to give in and let Christ show him how. It does not address the root of his problem, his slavery to sin and inability to do anything but sin. There may be change, but it is not the transformation that the New Testament speaks of. The sinner remains at heart an unchanged sinner.


Thanks to Saltriver (Tyndale House Publishers) for kindly providing a copy of Night of the Living Dead Christian for review on the March 2012 Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour.

Matt Mikalatos’s Web Page
List of CSFF Blog Tour Participants

6 comments:

  1. Hey Thomas--

    I don't want to get in a big debate or anything, and if part of your point is that I'm not a five point Calvinist, then your point is, indeed, correct.

    Prevenient grace is an orthodox Christian position, and while it is in (potential) conflict with (certain branches of) Calvinism, it's certainly within the realm of reasonable understanding of the Scripture. The Bible is clear that people only come to him when they are drawn. I have no quibble with that. Whether he draws only a few or many or all is less clear. I never said that the desire to be like God comes from Man or is part of his nature.

    Also... I don't see any reason to remove the language of choice when discussing the gospel or anything else related to our relationship with God, because that language is used in scripture constantly. Jesus doesn't come up to people in the gospels and say, "Repent and believe" more often than he says "follow me." And God and the prophets often tell people to "choose this day who you will serve."

    I know you believe in human free will, also, but that we would define it differently. I believe in human depravity, predestination and the gospel, just as you do.

    I appreciate your thoughts. I wonder if you could tell me a little more about your idea of what the image of God is and how that functions in non-regenerate people. I'd be interested to hear your point of view on that.

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  2. Matt,

    Thanks for the comment. I'm indisposed at the moment and can't give it the adequate consideration it deserves. As soon as I can, I'll do that.

    -TCB

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  3. Thanks, Thomas. I look forward to it.

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  4. Matt,

    Thanks for your patience in my response. I’ll try to be succinctly thorough.

    "I never said that the desire to be like God comes from Man or is part of his nature."

    This signals to me that the impression I’ve taken away from your book may not be completely accurate. However, before I send any retractions to the press, without this statement, I find it difficult to believe otherwise. Various quotes taken together from your book give me the impression that you believe there is within sinful man something that wants to be different from the sinner that he is, that deep down inside he wants to be like God:

    “There is this tiny, flickering light in the deep darkness, which tells me that all is not as it should be. That I could be something more than this, if only I could find the right path, if only I could find the right fuel for that flickering flame to make it more than a whispered candle’s breath.”
    ...
    "None of use desire to remain wolves. All of us desire to remain wolves. It is the nature of the werewolf to be both man and wolf, and for many years I was satisfied – no, pleased – to be both man and wolf." (p 47)

    “For those two hours we remembered that we need not be captives to our base selves, because by God’s grace there stirs a deeper desire to be like the one who made us.” (p 223)


    In response to Robert’s conclusion that since we are totally depraved and made in God’s image at the same time, God must also be completely depraved, Matt responds:

    “I don’t think so. It might mean that we’ve misunderstood what it means to be sinful. Or that we’ve emphasized it so much that we’ve simply lost sight of the fact that in our deepest, most horrific actions, some piece of us is still outside of that, some part of us is made in God’s image, and that’s not something we can ever completely eradicate.” (p 220)

    This latter quote for me (in the context of the others) is one of the most alarming. I think it shows that for you 'what it means to be sinful,' is less than the absolute corruption of our natures such that we do not have it within ourselves to respond to the things of God and the call to repent and believe. It seems that for you, being made in the image of God means that there is something within that stirs us to desire to be like the one who made us, and if that is the case, then the Arminian view of prevenient grace is the view that you hold to. You believe that though grace is necessary to awaken us and enlighten us to our need of salvation, it does not guarantee faith and repentance on our part; we must cooperate and respond from a heart not made willing by God but of our own doing. And if that is so, it really comes down to me as to whether or not I believe, not God. God is left wringing his hands, hoping that having done his best, I will respond positively to his work of grace.

    If I am missing your point in these quotes, and my conclusions are wrong, by all means tell me, and explain what you did mean by them.

    Continued...

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  5. “Also... I don't see any reason to remove the language of choice when discussing the gospel or anything else related to our relationship with God, because that language is used in scripture constantly. Jesus doesn't come up to people in the gospels and say, "Repent and believe" more often than he says "follow me." And God and the prophets often tell people to "choose this day who you will serve."

    This is a fair criticism of what I said regarding the gospel call as not a call to follow Jesus, but rather a call to repent and believe. I was remiss in not clarifying what I meant by ‘follow Jesus.’ Certainly Christ called many to follow him though he did so in the context of the call to repent, Mark 1:14-17; 2:17, for example. Jesus spoke of repentance more than he did of following him, but I would agree with you that the call to follow was a critical part of his preaching. But the following came as a result of the repentance and not the other way round. And it is that reversal – the call to follow before the call to repentance – that I had in mind. It is regrettably a call that avoids or neglects (for whatever reason) the necessity to first preach the bad news of our wickedness and offense against a Holy God whom we ought to love and obey with all of our hearts. The bad news is that we are God-haters, not God-lovers, that we don’t love his law as the psalmist does, but that we despise it. Because of that we are deservedly under God’s condemnation and displeasure. We need to repent and turn to the only one who can save us from our sin and sinfulness. Only then can we ever begin to take up our cross and follow Jesus. The gospel call is hard-hitting, and the call to follow Jesus today is too soft because it doesn’t get in the face of the sinner and tell him that he is precisely that, a God-hating, hell-deserving sinner who has the promise of God that if he repents, he will save him from his sins.

    Now, I know you know this, but what I don’t get is why isn’t that what comes through in your book and in the messages that you give as a speaker.

    Continued...

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  6. You asked for my thoughts on the image of God in the unregenerate. The doctrine of the image of God in man is a wonderful, encouraging doctrine, and quite frankly, you hit the nail on the head (and in writing that I think is quite good, by the way):

    “After that, the music filled the whole heart of the concert hall with a tapestry of beauty like I had never heard before. When the evening was over and the conductor returned continually to the front of the stage to receive still more applause, when our hands were raw and tired from playing a sort of music back to him and his orchestra, when he returned one too many times to the apron of the stage and bowed and smiled his superior smile, we forgave him, too, because what he had accomplished was not only some simultaneous reading of music but rather an organized reminder that we, yes, all of us, are made in the image of God. A man can take what is in his mind and scratch it out on paper, and others can fashion instruments, and still others sacrifice their lives to learn to bring pleasing sounds from these instruments. For two hours we remembered that we human beings can provide the faintest echo of the words ‘Let there be’ spoken many millenia ago.”

    Beautiful!

    Adam was made in God’s image and as such he behaved in a way that distinguished him from the brute beasts around him. God’s communicable attributes made him different; he was an intelligent, moral, knowledgeable, purposeful, and a free being. When he sinned and fell, the image was affected though not ‘eradicated’ (the appropriate term you used). What parts were affected and to what degree? That has been the subject of much debate, but I think the total depravity of man affects them all. As an example, man’s moral nature is evident through the law of God written on his heart as Paul teaches; but because of his fall, though this law teaches man what is right and wrong, he is powerless to keep it or keep it in a way that intends to glorify to God. By his intelligence he is creative and can produce works of beauty (another communicable attribute), but also create things that cater to our sinful lusts or are designed to abuse and deprive others. For the Christian, the transformation that comes through repentance and faith in Christ includes a transformation of the marred image into the image of Christ. Of all writers on earth, Christian writers ought to be the best, ever striving to be better, reflecting the creativity of God in their writing – not only in the tale but the mechanics of writing itself.

    -TCB

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