Let’s Talk About Reckless Theology

I intentionally waited a while to post this blog.

1. Because I had way too many posts about song lyrics… You can clearly see where my passions lie.
2. Because I wasn’t sure I wanted in on this conversation, because it may step on a few toes.
3. Because I didn’t want to write from a place of anger and frustration. Yet here we are.

I hesitated because this may come off as somewhat of a rant. And you know, rants aren’t really “instagram-feed-level-pretty”, but they are authentic, and I do believe that this is an important conversation to share. I do want to ask if you’re reading this, that you read the entire post before jumping to any conclusions based on my title or intro. 😉 

So yes, this is one current topic that I am a little heated over. It all begins with Cory Asbury’s song “Reckless Love”.

Chances are that if you listen to any amount of worship music you have been lucky enough to have heard this song a few hundred times since the single was released in October of last year. It’s not only a beautiful, easy-to-catch-on-to melody, but it also has some incredibly inspiring, profound, and TRUE lyrics that have become a battlecry in churches across the nation, including my own.

So why am I writing this post?

Well, because, as usual, there are a surprising amount of self-proclaimed Christians out there debating the appropriateness of the song and saying it shouldn’t be sung in our churches. (Cue the eye-roll. Sorry but I haven’t been able to control it since I was twelve, God’s still working on me).

Now I know, I know this blog is supposed to be filled with grace, and I truly do not want to make a habit of posting things that are anything but encouraging. However, this keeps coming up and I am over it like I’m over having bangs.

Anyway, some are debating (trolling) on Cory Asbury’s Instagram account (and the rest of the internet) with reasons why the song is theologically incorrect, by saying things like; “God’s love isn’t reckless, that is blasphemy!” and … well… basically thats it, that’s the only argument… just over and over again enough to make me write this post.

And I don’t want to get into the details however I must say that I don’t only agree with the wording, but it may be some of my favorite wording ever to describe the love of God.

FOR the record: a love that would leave the ninety-nine sheep to find the ONE could be considered Reckless to our practical human understanding, Yes? Yes. (See the parable Jesus told in Luke 15.) Moving on.

Really, it isn’t just this incident that has caused me to write this post. Here’s the real issue. 

I’ve been noticing a rise in Christians being overtly critical of each other recently, and I think thats the most upsetting thing, because we are on the same team.

I see so many Christians openly complaining about their churches, their leadership, the style of worship that should be acceptable, and pretty much everything else in the world recently, and its upsetting.

What kind of example are we setting for non believers when they look in from the outside and see us spending more time and energy debating the theology of the songs we sing in our churches than we spend feeding the poor, or spreading the gospel?

You may argue that we aren’t all the same but this is where you’re wrong… to the outside world, if we call ourselves “Christians” we are viewed as the same, and wherever we go, whatever we choose to post about on social media, or however we treat others, we are representing Jesus to them. We may in fact, be the only version of Jesus they get to see. Convicting? Uh, yeah. Unbelievers don’t need to know about our denominations, our theology, or our stance on politics, they need to know our SAVIOR. They don’t need our debates and degrees, they need HOPE.

It has also become a popular thing in the Christian culture to “success shame”.  (There are a lot of quotations used in this post, thats a sure sign that I’m annoyed. ) But do you know what I mean?

It’s common to start hearing negative rumors about churches once they become a so called ‘mega-church’, or Christian authors and speakers once they get “too popular” or financially successful, or the pastors that get criticized for being seen with celebrities.

Now listen, I know people are not perfect. I am not perfect, you aren’t, and we all have our issues to deal with, but at the end of the day these “Big name” churches and teachers have drawn a lot of people to Jesus. Methods aside, are you doing so much for the kingdom that you feel like you can comfortably criticize them for the way they are operating in their calling?

I know I’ve certainly been guilty of this at times and am convicted to work on being more purposeful in pointing to the good in Christ rather than the bad in Christians. Because at the end of the day, we are all flawed humans in need of grace. People will fail you, churches will fail you, but God will not fail you, and He’s the one our lives should be pointing to.

So here’s my declaration for today, starting with the only person I can control, me:

• Less arguing, more listening.
• Less accusing, more understanding.
• Less judgement, more grace.
• Less adding to the noise, more adding to the kingdom.
• Less Facebook debates, more coffee dates.
• Less fire and brimstone, more Reckless Love.
• Less theology, more Jesus.

Who’s with me?

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.” – John 3:16-18 MSG