Holy3
Holistic Holiness for
Humanity, Part 2
Reaching for Clarity
in What Fully Surrendered Humanity Looks Like
By David
Drury
This is the second part of
this effort to describe how we might rethink and reimagine holiness in the
future (click
here for part one).
Three paradigms influence
what I have to say here. The first is that
there four different but interrelated dimensions of holiness to describe
here. The four dimensions, as I conceive
them, are culture, community, family and individual
lives. We all live and move and breathe
and have our being in Christ in these four dimensions. Every one of us has these spheres to operate
in—particularly if you view “family” as a more open term than some might use
it.
The second paradigm that
influences what I’m saying is the idea of surrender—described in part in the
first of this effort to rethink and reimagine holiness. One way I’m beginning to look at holiness is
a matter of time. There is a matter of
surrender that deals with the past—and the past always brings with it sin.
So there is first a surrender of sin,
and there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
after that surrender, or confession of past sin, takes place. The second part of time, after the past,
deals with the present. Our present
decision making must be surrendered to God—our will must be molded in obedience (Galatians 2:20; 5:17.) We must decide obey in the present with our
will. This matter of alignment is key to
the paradigm of time—but the final component is a matter of the future and
surrender. We must surrender our
future—our desires—to God (Galatians 5:24.)
So our past (sin) our present (will)
and our future (desires) are all caught up in the
beautiful mysterious surrender to God.
The third paradigm is that
not engaging each of these four dimensions into each of the three stages of
surrender results in major dangers becoming realized. If our culture is not impacted by this
surrender—then we risk irrelevance. If our community does not live it out—then we
risk lawlessness. If our families do not experience
surrender—then we risk weakness. And finally, if we as individual humans do
not surrender in full then we—as we all certainly know and fear—risk hypocrisy.
The first dimension: a culture fully surrendered to
Christ
I envision this kind of
holistic holiness as being for humanity. Archbishop William Temple famously taught us
that “the church is the only voluntary society that exists for the benefit of its non-members.” The church is the new humanity for humanity
and much like Christ was a gift to earth his body continues in that covenant
pact to bless all nations. There was a
day when the holiness movement’s evangelistic fervor led them to cry out that
their mission was to “spread holiness across the land” and we need to return to
such a sentiment.
We will know we are succeeding
in a truly holistic holiness when our culture comes to grips with it’s past
sins and confesses them. Whether this
means racial reconciliation in a divided town or repentance for polluting the
waters for decades and restoring them I don’t know—it depends on what culture
you find yourselves in. We’ll also know
success when we see our culture turning it’s will over to
We will know we are failing
in pursuing holistic holiness when our culture views spiritual things as
irrelevant. Without this dimension, even
if the other three are beginning to click, our influence is ingrown. Our transformation looks like legalism. Our surrender seems like separation. And our salt loses its flavor because the
light is under a bushel.
Let us choose surrender over
irrelevance for our culture!
The second dimension: a community fully surrendered
to Christ
I envision this dimension of
holistic holiness being in humanity. Many quote the mantra of the church being “in
but not of the world” but it seems like most of our Christian communities fall
off the log on either being “too in” the world or of being “too out.” Our Christian communities—or churches—must
enter a new season of discovery toward defining community commitments and
holiness. What does it mean for an
entire local church to commit to incarnating the gospel in such a way that we
are set apart? At one time churches made
collective decisions, around the time my grandparents were helping run things,
to live in a certain way so as to be set apart.
They believed that not drinking alcohol, or playing cards, or going to
the bowling alley, or even attending amusement parks would help them to be “in
the world but not of it.” Now, I do
three of those four things today, and don’t feel like any of them really define
me as being “not of this world” adequately.
Over time such community commitments begin to miss the point. But I worry that in our fleeing from legalism
that we have no community commitments.
It’s time to coin our own for our generation. We need to mint fresh distinctives that will
help us incarnate the gospel as Christian communities and help us keep one
another accountable. And the generations
that have gone before must realize that their death grip on the bans of the
past actually keep us from re-painting what a holy people should look like in
our age. They need to realize that their
stalwart legalistic fight against the slippery slope may actually grease our
current slide into lawlessness. It’s
time for them to release their grip and time for my generation to get a grip,
grow up, and determine our own holy destiny as a people set apart in the world
for his purposes.
We will know we are
succeeding in becoming holistically holy as individual churches when we fully
surrender our past—our sins of legalisms and lawlessness—to God. Somehow we must slay these beasts and leave
them in the past where they belong.
Likewise we need to surrender a present day decision-making to God. Our churches and denominations must forge a
new path in polity and behavior that looks just radical enough to point to
Christ but relevant enough to allow us to remain always in the world, even if
not of it. And then we can surrender our
community desires to God in obedience to him.
Our communal lust for church growth—our rampant steeple-envy as
pastors—these sins must be overcome as we become more holistically holy in
humanity.
We will know we are failing
in pursuing holistic holiness when our churches are lawless—when there is
virtually no difference in lifestyle, choices, addictions and sin patterns in
the church and in the culture. Our
lawlessness, in fact, is what may determine our eventual irrelevance in the
culture. Why would the culture crave
what we have if we have the same things they have, only with a more generous
heaping of guilt? Even though I grew up
in a “holiness denomination” I did not grow up in a legalistic church within
it. The churches I attended, and even
now help lead, are in fact lawless. The
people in them are smugly sinful, and the only thing they seem to have more of
than the culture is guilt. This must
change. We must pursue an authentic
holiness that is truly holistic, and re-mint new priorities in living out the
prophetic message of Christ in our age.
The third and fourth
dimensions will be covered in part three of this series, still to come.
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