Growing up in an Evangelical Episcopal home and church, I was spared from much of the American religious kitsch, which is wreaking havoc upon the spiritual lives of so many people who have abandoned the faith and identify now as “dones.”

However, when I was in college, for the first time I was exposed to this kitsch’s crown jewel, a book by Joshua Harris entitled I Kissed Dating Goodbye. On most college campuses in the 90s (heck all college campuses, since people have been going to college), everything was about sex, sex, sex, and nobody actually had a clue as to the emotional and spiritual power of sex, sex, sex. To sort of quote the shoe brand Nike, “they were just doing it.” While thrilling for a moment, a lot of this sex was leaving young people sad, confused, and unable to sustain the emotional wherewithal required for a long-term relationship. One important lesson our culture has learned from the #metoo movement is: no matter what you may think, sex is a really big deal!

Harris’ book had several important insights, one being that life and healthy relationships were about more than just sex. Harris emphasized the importance of friendship and romance in people’s relationships. In his book, Harris called for what at the time—and especially today—seemed extremely countercultural: abstinence, chastity, and ultimately the avoidance of dating before marriage altogether, hence the title of his book. Harris persuaded young people of the importance of not only not having sex before marriage, but more importantly, protecting one’s emotional self from the dangers of simply moving from one partner to the next.

“I thought about it,

but the problem was Mel was the best girlfriend I had ever had and I wasn’t about to screw that up.”

Many of my Christian friends gobbled up this book. I thought about it, but the problem was Mel was the best girlfriend I had ever had and I wasn’t about to screw that up. I also found out Harris got married shortly after the book was published so he was not even in the single realm for the long haul. Nevertheless, I was surprised to read in the news, two weeks ago, that Joshua Harris had renounced his Christian faith altogether. On Instagram, he wrote, “by all measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.” My first response was: WTF! By all measurements that you have for defining a Christian... and pray tell, what would that be?  

I Kissed Dating Goodbye had and has many valid critics, which now include the author. However, the theological criticism of it is the mixing of purity culture with one’s justification before God. That Jesus especially loves virgins, and if you’re not a virgin anymore, I don’t know if you meet my measurements that I have for defining a Chrisitian. This is not Christianity, instead this is a recipe for despair or Pharisaism.

Defining Christianity by any other means than the perfect imputed righteousness of Jesus, given to us freely as a gift from God, in our baptisms, is not Christianity. 

This is Jesus’ entire point in our upcoming Gospel reading this Sunday. In Luke 12:49-56, Jesus delivers some unsettling words about not coming to bring peace, but a sword. He talks about dividing home and parents from children. However, when one reads this passage in context, it is clear that Jesus is speaking about achieving peace, specifically with God, the way the world offers it, through our own works. In this passage, Jesus is essentially saying: do not come and think that I have come to celebrate your achievements, your virginity, your morality or stances on justice issues. Rather, I have come to wash all of that away in the baptism of fire that falls upon me in order to make you the righteousness of God. Jesus goes on to talk about how we can interpret the signs of nature, yet we miss how to interpret the ultimate sign of his presence in his baptism, which is him upon the cross.

Let me tell you, friends, that sign, and that sign alone, is Good News for Joshua Harris and his Christian measurements. It is good news for those of you who’ve kissed dating goodbye, and those of you, who like me, just couldn’t do it. Jesus has not come to reward our efforts at being good, rather he has come to save us from our failures to do so!

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday as we celebrate the grace of God alone found in Jesus Christ alone, and the peace this brings in the midst of our world truly divided by their own self-justification projects. 

Pax,

The Reverend Jacob A. Smith

Dear Parish Family,

I am looking forward to being back in the pulpit this Sunday. What an insane last weekend! I must confess that I have become slightly immune to all the news about gun violence in this country. Sadly, when I come across these stories, I often find myself shaking my head and scrolling on to the next thing. However, one of my best friends in the whole world is the Reverend Ben Phillips, who is the amazing and able rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Dayton, OH. So this week’s shooting hit close to home. Ben and his family are fine but when I spoke with him, he said, “This has been a tough year for Dayton.” Prior to the shooting, Dayton had been hit by some of the most extreme weather patterns this country has ever seen, which included destructive tornadoes and floods. So to add a violent and senseless shooting, one must ask:

Who hasn’t posed this question to God? Suffering and grief are part of life and I have never found them comforting when someone pithily responds, “This is not God’s fault.” I would argue that suffering is profoundly at the center of the Christian faith, it is known as the cross. While I have no answer as to why God allows such things, I know that as we, with Jesus, enter into that profound question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we begin to see that God who is at the center of our suffering profoundly uses it for our good.  

First, God uses suffering to pull us up, out of our despair, and point us to God’s own words and promises that he has overcome the world and the devil.

For in that word and those promises, all speculation and hearsay come to an end. For those means reveal to us the cross, where we hear God definitively say that God loves and cares for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   

Second, through those words and promises, God uses suffering to conform us into his image.

Remember, in this age, God hides his glory in the image of Jesus and as St. Paul reminded us last week, as Christians, our glory is also hidden and therefore like our Lord, often revealed in the midst of suffering. However, the promise is, since we are like Jesus, here we can rest in the fact that we will be resurrected and redeemed and gloriously like him in the age that is to come. 

Finally, God uses suffering so that we might know to place all of our trust in him.

When one reads the manifesto of the El Paso shooter and the Twitter feed of the Dayton shooter, and all the other manifestos and social media feeds, we understand that these were disturbed men who had trusted in themselves to change the world. The history of suffering in this world is often caused by well-meaning men and women taking things into their own hands and, “getting sh%# done!” So suffering reminds us that when we trust in ourselves and play God, even with the best of intentions, humans always totally screw things up. 

The fact is, contra to the American prophets of this media and celebrity age, we are not inclined to the good first, but to ourselves. So suffering thrusts us back to Jesus our savior and his promise from this Sunday’s Gospel:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”

This promise, in turn, creates hope that, in the midst of our suffering, if God who is only good has suffered and died for us, will He not certainly in His love do what is best for us in all things?

And with our trust in Christ and his cross alone, the answer is always YES! Most certainly yes! So let us pray for El Paso, let us pray for Dayton, let us pray for our hurting nation and trust that it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us his kingdom.  

Love,

The Reverend Jacob Smith