"For God has not called us to be impure, but to live a holy life." - 1 Thessalonians 4:7
Faith Analysis from Pastor Scott Marshall:
Drop the word “holy” into a normal conversation, and you’ll likely stop it.
It carries so much freight. Most of it negative.
Because of prejudices, fears, biases, and bad experiences, the word itself has suffered harm.
We’re spending time in this space working to paint a fresh and beautiful vision around the Bible’s—and so God’s—vision of the human person: Holy. It is a picture for the kind of person you can be. And it is stunning and comprehensive and full of delight.
But.
It’s meaning is often stopped by its reputation.
When I was a small boy, someone in our church brought us a brown grocery sack filled with an overly generous amount of an unknown squash. I can still picture it sitting on the dining room table, their “gift” protruding from the bag, leaning slightly to the right. Their garden surplus was supposed to be a “blessing” to our family.
I’m not sure if my mom had ever cooked this particular squash, but according to my recollection she felt some sense of obligation to eat it and, more pointedly, make my sister and I suffer in the process. In a scene that lives rent-free in my mind like a short horror film, we sat at the dinner table one evening required to choke down a soggy, repellent pile of slop. That squash, for me, is branded very poorly.
It cannot—in my estimation—be redeemed. Say its name, and I recoil. You can’t tell me to eat it. I won’t listen.
This is something akin to the reputation of the word holy.
In our multi-part series on holiness, we need to pause and spend time clearing the clutter that gives holiness a bad reputation. Note: This necessitates a more thorough treatment today.
It will be painful because reputations are quickly lost and slow to change. Reputations are explained with a word, filtered through biases and prejudices, but are defined by experiences.
Repairing a reputation courageously faces all three.
#1 OVERCOMING THE BAD WORDS
Holy for many is synonymous with “out of touch”, “irrelevant,” “impractical.” So heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good, goes the phrase; the not-so-subtle subtext being, “Listen, it’s basically useless for real life.”
And who wants to be turned into something that makes them useless?
Holy is seen as form of superiority, as the accusation “holier than thou” suggests. The holy person supposes themselves—the assumption goes—as better than.
And who wants to be something that makes them a snob?
Holy is seen as too hard or boring. Only people with too much time on their hands (monks, the retired, lonely people with no friends, religious people who are out of touch) would consider it a genuine pursuit.
And who wants to fail at self-improvement or be a bore?
I’m not suggesting these are the only definitions, just very common ones. Redefine a word and you empty it of all its constructive powers.
#2 PREJUDICES, BIASES, AND FEARS
It’s important to note these sense perceptions around the word holy are not made up.
Definitions are always filtered through prejudices, biases, and fears. Every culture has them.
Prejudices
A basic cultural assumption is that no one should consider themselves better than anyone else. We pre-judge anyone who does. So if there is a religious construct (like holiness) that might make you see yourself as better than me, it is rejected.
If this pre-judgement feels unfair, it’s because it is. That’s what prejudice is; my pre-judgement and assumption of you and about you. Prejudice functions like an algorithm, showing me specific conclusions I want while hiding my own inconsistencies. For example, inside our cultural assumption I have no problem holding a value system that allows me to see myself as better than you.
Prejudice is always highly inconsistent.
So you come to me talking about being holy and I’ve already pre-judged you before you finish your sentence.
Biases
And there exists, for numerous reasons, bias against religion.
The operative assumption is religion invalidates any public perspective. Or that religion shuns science—so does not and cannot see reality. The secular frame biases us against a religious outlook and anything religion serves up. It creates a filter of suspicion against holiness as a realistic possibility. The public square should be value-free, we think.
Imagine if we tried to describe a Governor or a CEO or a Principal as holy. The news cycle would erupt in confusion.
Fears
And there is the very real human fear of failure. To be holy seems like an immense attainment I am required to make. What if I fail?
Again, not all the prejudices, biases, and fears, but certainly common ones.
They filter out holy living as a viable option. Don't make the mistake of thinking you are immune to them.
#3 BAD EXPERIENCES
But the core issue around the reputation of holiness is personal: what real people have experienced that is painful or negative. This is the heart of what makes people believe holy people, holiness churches, and the message of holiness are bad for the world.
Let me sketch two.
One | Mistaught/misapplied teaching on holiness
At the heart of the gospel is the reality of justification. You are justified—both your existence and your standing with God—by God’s grace.
In other words, you do not earn God’s love, you are given it.
On the other side of justification, God begins the process of sanctification. Sanctification means “to make holy.” The Triune God gets on with changing you. Refining your character. Reshaping your values. Filling you with his love so you more and more express it to others.
Sanctification is built on justification.
Meaning, what I do is built on what I have received from God.
This is the gospel. The basis for our standing with God and our existence on earth is that we are justified by grace.
What is either mistaught, misheard, or misapplied is the opposite. Call it a dyslexic version of holiness.
My sanctification is the basis for my justification.
How I think I am doing with God becomes the basis for my acceptance by God.
I begin to believe living a holy life is the impetus for God to decide to be in relationship with me in the first place.
Grace exits. Blame enters.
Whether this is explicitly taught or implicitly received, the effect is the same. It becomes an unbearable form of spiritual exhaustion and failure.
I know legions of people who quit on being a holy person for this (mistaken) reason. It felt impossible and full of shame.
Two | The Misrepresenters
In holiness churches and circles, if we find people who ought to know and do better not knowing or doing better, we falter. Hypocrisy always discredits virtue.
It's in the gap between explaining doctrine and living that doctrine that room is given for hypocrisy to flourish. Notice what I'm not saying. I'm not suggesting the gap itself is the hypocrisy.
To experience that gap is to be human. In a sense, sanctification is the process of allowing God to help you see and close that gap. So that there is a gap is not the problem.
Possibly the issue in holiness circles is ignoring, lacking the self-reflection to explore, or pretending the gap does not exist. To do so is to widen it.
It misrepresents the doctrine.
The holiest people I know are the humblest. The quickest to admit their faults. The ones who nod their heads along with Paul when he calls himself “the chief of sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). The people who take themselves lightly and others deeply. The forgivers. The lovers.
In contrast, the prognosticators, the blow-hards, the pompous, the dishonest, the blind-to-themselves announcers of a doctrine they do not understand; these misrepresenters create a needless gap that disavows and turns the beauty of a holy life into a soggy, repellent pile of slop. Especially when they are leaders.
It's why the antidote for a bad reputation is grace. Grace admits gaps.
- Pastor Scott Marshall, Wichita First Church of the Nazarene