August 27, 2008: "What Is Christianity Mainly About?" (Part 2)

Bill Maher complained recently that religion (by which he meant Christianity) is "not mainly about doing the right thing or being ethical. It's mainly about salvation. It's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die."

I think I can understand why Maher would say that. He's probably heard some bad sermons over the years. I've heard them too. Ever since I was a boy I've heard invitations to receive Christ that were really only about getting into heaven and staying out of hell - and some of those were so egregiously self-centered that they deliberately gutted the gospel of any call to repent and serve God. Jesus was presented as our ticket to heaven rather than the Lord who must be worshiped and obeyed. He was that "Thing You Had To Believe In" in order to get to the unending fun you really cared about. "You want to go to heaven? Say this prayer!"

The problem of crass Christian exhortation is an old one. When Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto begged the citizens of Geneva to return to Catholicism in 1539, he made a point of appealing to their desire to go to heaven. He wrote: "I presume, dearest brethren, that...all... who have put their faith and hope in Christ...have done so for this one reason: that they may obtain salvation for themselves and their souls."

Was that really the only reason to believe in Christ - to obtain salvation for oneself and one's soul? Not for Christ's own sake, nor for his pleasure, nor even because he commanded it - but simply to get saved? I'm afraid Sadoleto thought so. He even taught that personal salvation was the greatest thing a person could desire: "We all...believe in Christ in order that we may find salvation for our souls. There can be nothing more earnestly to be desired than this."

Sadoleto's letter was brought to John Calvin, who quickly wrote a response that merits careful study on the part of all those who proclaim the gospel. Attacking Sadoleto's notion that the best thing a man could desire was salvation, Calvin wrote: "It is not very sound theology to confine a man's thoughts so much to himself." Exactly. Instead, Calvin continued, we must "set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God." That is and must always be the Christian's main motivation: to glorify God. The zeal to exalt God must overrule the natural - but purely selfish - zeal to save our souls. Or, as Calvin put it, "This zeal [for God's glory] ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage."

Calvin even warned that good people would find tasteless and boring a constant stream of sermons about getting into heaven. The following quote is worth reading twice: "It certainly is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the salvation of his own soul. I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with a true piety, who will not consider as insipid that long and labored exhortation to zeal for heavenly life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God."

I don't know if it will do Bill Maher any good, but I hope that some day he gets to hear some solid evangelical preaching that seeks above all else to magnify God. Glorifying God is what our faith is mainly about. Yes, there is that matter of getting our butts saved when we die - but that is just icing on the cake.