When In Rome
The Great Omission and Our Hearts' Hidden Longings
Hello everyone, and welcome to all of our new subscribers this week! I’m so grateful to have you with us as we continue our journey into deep discipleship.
I Never Liked Camping
In her book, Transformed into Fire, Judith Hougen recounts the stories of three individuals who believe in Jesus yet have little sense of His presence. Though they intellectually agree with His claims and teachings, the concepts of “the abundant life,” “perfect peace,” “being filled with the fullness of God,” and “experiencing the love of God that surpasses knowledge” are all foreign to them.
Hougen writes
There’s something very wrong in these stories. But because the realities they represent are typical within our faith communities, we dare not label them tragic. If we did, we’d have to admit that the Christian church is daily, hourly, mired in tragedy. We would have to admit that Rome is burning, and we’re sitting around singing campfire songs.
Like all of us, the people in these stories are on a search, a search for love, tenderness, and intimacy where their deepest needs, the hungers of their hearts, will be met…So what went wrong? Did God create within us a longing for a destination he never intended for us to reach?
Hougen is describing the internal effects of what Dallas Willard termed “The Great Omission.” Modern Christianity emphasizes making disciples, yet struggles to do so.
A disciple is an apprentice of Jesus - someone who follows Him for the purpose of becoming more like Him over time. Someone who sincerely desires to increasingly think, act, relate, and love like Him over time, as we join with Him in the ongoing inbreaking of His kingdom.
As we’ve been exploring, however, the “idea” of discipleship has mainly become intellectualized in our post-modern, post-enlightenment era. The quest seems to center around adopting the most accurate belief system. This has become an increasingly frustrating sojourn, as evidenced by the multitudes of available sects, denominations, and systematic (or non-systematic) theologies.
Additionally, we’re discovering that our belief systems only take us so far.
Because our heads and hearts “learn” differently, here at Soil & Roots, we mine a relatively untouched area of modern Christianity: how our inner lives are formed and transformed.
After all, if the primary point of discipleship is for us to become more like Jesus from the inside out, it raises a question of the utmost importance: How is one person formed more like another?
This is not just an academic question, but also an anthropological one. We are not only formed by the information we take in, but perhaps more powerfully by the ideas that shape and govern our hearts. And these ideas are almost always formed through relationships and experience, not simply instruction.
So, if we intellectually agree with the tenets of the Christian faith yet struggle to sense God's affection and delight, or if we shamefully and quietly wonder if He even likes us, is our challenge doctrinal?
Probably not. We may be functioning from a set of experienced realities (ideas) that God is longing to transform.
Disintegration
Years ago, a fellow employee at a Christian ministry disclosed she was being physically abused by her husband (also a professing Christian). After he choked her and threatened her with a knife, she finally came forward and asked for help. We offered her a place to stay, protection for her children, and access to legal assistance.
At first, she was eager to secure her freedom. Then she began talking about going home. We tried to reason with her. However, she eventually returned to her husband (who then publicly accused us of meddling in their family life) and quit her job.
“Abused wife syndrome” is a well-known phenomenon. Those on the outside look on in disbelief as victims willingly return to their abusers. “How could they do that?” they wonder. “What are they thinking?”
The question isn’t so much about the victim’s intellect as it is about their ideas. Their hearts have been malformed through manipulation, exploitation, and brainwashing, usually in intimate relationships.
Though they may not mentally admit it, their hearts are rooted in ideas such as “I deserve the abuse,” “He will eventually treat me better,” or “He needs me to help him overcome this.” These victims exist in a harmful, alternate reality.
Reasoning with a person who suffers from such corruption is rarely effective. Their hearts need to experience life-giving ideas more than their heads need information.
What’s the Point?
As we’ve discussed, a first step in deep discipleship is taking a journey inward to uncover our genuine ideas about God, others, and ourselves, recognizing that many of these ideas may not align with our formal belief statements.
In quieter moments, the tension between the two is palpable. But we do whatever we can to avoid such moments. We work, play, distract, serve, or flee - anything to avoid Proverbs’ invitation: “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”
You may be wondering why I am spending so much time on the topic of ideas. Why spill so much virtual ink on mining for hidden assumptions?
Uncovering our real ideas about God, others, and ourselves is of the utmost importance to us as individuals, families, and (without sounding hyperbolic) the world.
Ultimately, the uncovering of ideas and willfully accepting their transformation lead to love, healing, and wholeness. It is how we come to relate, act, and love more like Jesus, without even thinking about it.
Yes, this expedition usually involves some suffering and pain (for those of you who have recovered from abusive situations, you know exactly what I’m talking about), but life comes through death. This is the way of Jesus.
Hougen comments:
In evangelical circles, we focus on accurately diving the Word of Truth - and rightfully so. But in guarding our pure and undiluted theology, heresy has slipped in the back door. We have become functional heretics, disbelieving with our actions what we say is true in our theology - the absolute primacy of loving others as the central mark of our Christian faith.
We acknowledge that the word “love” has become a term that is often misused and misunderstood in the modern age. Yet if we can settle on a simple description - perhaps “seeking one another’s goodness” - it’s a place to start.
That goodness needs to rest in a set of ideas, and better it be God’s than anyone else’s. When we define goodness for ourselves, all hell breaks loose.
Waking Up
Yet I’m not sure we are “functional heretics” because we want to be. I’m just not sure how awake we are. Many people hold strong intellectual belief systems about something, yet they often have very little awareness of their genuine ideas about God or themselves. They live on the surface and choose to stay there because of comfort, security, insecurity, or to avoid the tensions that come with dealing authentically with God and their hearts.
I’ve been following Jesus most of my life. I don’t recall a day without Him. Yet, several years ago, I finally asked myself if I thought all of His promises concerning a life of abundance, the capacity to love my enemies, giving up our need for control, accepting His delight in me, being okay when life isn’t okay, and resting every day in His security were actually real.
After some soul-searching, I realized my heart accepted His promises were valid, but just not for me. Yet I couldn’t answer why I was somehow excluded from the life He promised.
That was my first step into exploring the world of ideas. And, as Jesus slowly and gently re-integrates my heart into my intellectual beliefs, my heart is beginning to experience the promises I once thought beyond reach.
It takes time and a staggering amount of honesty. If we refuse to deal authentically with God, others, and ourselves, the journey is that much more difficult. Yet, if we accept that God knows us better than we know ourselves, and that He is far more interested in our goodness than we are, we begin to operate from a different set of ideas…His.
Duc in altum—
Brian
Soil & Roots
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