Without Theological Triage, You Drive a Car of Glass: A Review of Before You Lose Your Faith

Back in April we took our church staff to The Gospel Coalition’s national conference. For three days we listened to sermons, attended break-out seminars, walked the city streets of Indianapolis, laughed, prayed, and saw friends we hadn’t seen in years.

Each day of the conference The Gospel Coalition provided attendees with free books, including the recently released Before You Lose Your Faith: Deconstructing Doubt in the Church edited by Ivan Mesa.

“Deconstruction is the term often used to describe how evangelical Christians end up as atheists—or something in between.”

I have a huge stack of books to read, so I don’t even know why I moved Before You Lose Your Faith to the top of the pile. But I did. And I am glad I did read it sooner than later, for all the book’s excellent and challenging yet compassionate entries from some of my favorite writers, for example, Samuel James and Jared C. Wilson.

What Is “Deconstructing”?

For those unfamiliar with the term deconstructing, it involves “systematically dissecting and often rejecting all the beliefs you grew up with” (2). Deconstruction is the term often used to describe how evangelical Christians end up as atheists—or something in between.

Deconstruction is happening all around you, not just to some Christian celebrity out there on the Internet or the young men and women on the university campus in your city but also among those in the church you attend. For some of you, although you might not want to admit it, deconstruction might even be happening in your heart and mind as you wrestle with doubts about the Christian faith so personal and so intense you worry you cannot bring them up in a conversation with your pastor.

This is why I appreciated the tone each contributing author uses throughout the book, speaking to readers with the assumption that they are in some stage of deconstruction. Too often Christians talk past the very people we are ostensibly talking with to score points with our tribe, the tribe we imagine listening over our shoulder and cheering us on as we “own” our opponents. Before You Lose Your Faith is not out to own anyone. The book speaks with consistent compassion to the real issues of those losing their faith and overwhelmed with doubt.

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Speaking of the real issues, Part Two of the book has eight chapters devoted to reconstructing views that many in our secular age consider disagreeable or even deplorable about Christianity, at least as they understand Christianity. Issues such as sexuality, science, and social justice receive warranted attention. Claude Atcho wrote a chapter in this section called “Race: Is Christianity a White Man’s Religion?” that explores how our faith would be less syncretistic if we untangled aspects of the true Christian faith from certain aspects of culture and church traditions. Although the Christian church might participate in racial injustice, is racism what true Christianity endorses? This kind of disentangling, he writes, could save people from deconstructing.

Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead has a line I thought about often as I read Before You Lose Your Faith. The main character, Pastor Ames, writes to his son about doubt, saying, “The Lord gave you a mind so that you can make honest use of it. . . . you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment” (Gilead, 179). Before You Lose Your Faith helps disentangle our doubts, especially when we might not have realized our doubts are influenced by the particular fashions of our moment in time and place in culture.

The Need for Theological Triage

A favorite paragraph from the book highlights the importance of what people refer to as theological triage. The triage metaphor comes from war hospitals, specifically the decision process of prioritizing which injured soldiers to treat first. Many years ago, doctors treated wounded soldiers on a first-come, first-served basis, which is nice if you’re first to the field hospital but becomes a bummer when you’re at the back of the line with a sucking chest wound.

In a similar way, theological triage helps rank doctrines in terms of their importance. Gavin Ortlund wrote a whole book on the topic called Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage. In that book, Ortlund suggests as a starting point a four-fold way to rank doctrines: first-rank doctrines are essential to the gospel itself; second-rank doctrines are urgent to church health at the local and denominational level; third-rank doctrines are important but not important enough to justify separation among Christians in the same church; and fourth-rank doctrines are those that are unimportant to our gospel witness and ministry collaboration.

“Like a car made of glass that has no shock absorbers, such a faith shatters upon hitting any bump in the road.”

— Karen Swallow Prior

Coming back to Before You Lose Your Faith and my favorite paragraph, Karen Swallow Prior quotes an author who noted that without theological triage, we tend to have “glass theology.” By this she means when we regard each aspect of our theology as equally important—that is, when all doctrines are “first-rank” doctrines—our theology turns brittle. Prior writes, “Like a car made of glass that has no shock absorbers, such a faith shatters upon hitting any bump in the road” (96). I might add that you don’t have to drive your glass car over bumpy roads for it to shatter; people also throw rocks.

When Parishioners Leave Church Pews Unnecessarily

As a pastor of a local church, there is nothing theoretical about deconstruction and theological triage. I believe if pastor-elders can model prioritizing doctrines well, triage might save a lot of pain among our parishioners. But sometimes, whether pastors model triage well or not, people who we do not want to leave, leave anyway.

This winter I know a pastor who received an eight-page letter from a longtime parishioner, a friend even, who outlined the struggles he had with the evangelical world, the ways the church had failed during the previous year, and why he was leaving my friend’s church. The letter mentioned the disappointments you might expect: error too far in one direction with mask protocols (re: not enough enforcement); error in politics (re: not enough rebuking); error in issues of race (re: not enough engagement); and others. The pastor likely wouldn’t even quibble much about most of the issues, and on a few, the pastor’s personal convictions align precisely with the one who wrote the letter.

The main reason for leaving the church, however, had to do with a specific theological point that the pastor held, even though the church and denomination had stated clearly that it is a position Christians should not separate over. (To use Gavin Ortlund’s framework, the specific doctrine in question should be considered a “third-rank doctrine.”)  Except the man did separate from the church. Now the pastor worries about the letter writer’s faith, what church he’ll now attend, and whether a friend was lost. The whole situation is sad, especially because, as the pastor sees it, the departure was unnecessary.

That’s just one story from the trenches. I have many others.

A Book for Evangelists and Preachers

In the last entry, Derek Rishmawy writes, “If you’ve come to the end of this book, you’re either thinking about deconstructing your faith or you’re worrying about how to talk to folks who are” (131). To be candid, I was doing neither. My faith was not deconstructing nor was I seeking to help those who are.

But reading the book made me realize that I should be in the latter category; I should care about those deconstructing their faith more than I currently do. In fact, I suspect the main benefit to me from the book will be in my preaching. I typically do a poor job engaging contemporary struggles that people have with the Christian faith. Ivan Mesa’s book helped me see that, and the book also stoked my desire to improve while showing me fifteen examples of how to do this well.

Pastors need the reminder that part of contending for the faith once for all delivered, as Jude puts it, must also involve having “mercy on those who doubt” (Jude 3, 22). And part of having mercy on those who doubt involves understanding those doubts. Reading Before You Lose Your Faith will help you understand. It did for me, and I trust it will do the same for you.

* Photo by Veeterzy on Unsplash

Can You Really Become Unoffendable?

The following book review of Brant Hansen’s book Unoffendable was written for The Gospel Coalition. You can read the complete review on their website here.

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Brant Hansen. Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015. 214 pp. $15.99.

WARNING: You might not want to read Brant Hansen’s Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better because, as you read it, you’ll have more opportunities to practice being unoffended. 

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At least that’s what happened to me several times. As a teaching pastor in a local church, there always seems to be a cluster of people who run a low-grade fever of disappointment with me. Recently, the fever spiked. And despite my “warning” above, I was thankful to have Unoffendable coach me along the way.

At least that’s what happened to me several times. As a teaching pastor in a local church, there always seems to be a cluster of people who run a low-grade fever of disappointment with me. Recently, the fever spiked. And despite my “warning” above, I was thankful to have Unoffendable coach me along the way.

But this isn’t just my life, is it? Likely you’ve also found ways to offend others. It’s not hard to do; it’s natural for us as sinners. Moreover, our world—sometimes even Christian subculture—trains us not to have a chip on our shoulder but a lumberyard. We see this when the predictable cultural “buttons” are pushed concerning issues like abortion and marriage, and now bathrooms, but also in less expected ways. Consider John Piper’s article last winter on guns and self-defense. The volley of response articles revealed his article didn’t simply touch a nerve; it grabbed one with tweezers and yanked.

And surely this presidential election year, as it has already, will continue to multiply opportunities for offense. How shall we respond to these provocations? I loved how Russell Moore responded to Donald Trump when Trump tweeted that Moore is “A nasty guy with no heart.” Moore replied:

[This is] one of the few things I agree with Donald Trump on. I am a nasty guy with no heart. We sing worse things about ourselves in our hymns on Sunday mornings: we’re a wretch and in need of God’s grace.

But where does this ability to be unoffendable come from? Is it as simple as making a choice to not be offended? And backing up a bit, should we really seek to be unoffendable? Isn’t there a place for legitimate, non-sinful anger?

Good questions. Hansen offers provocative answers to both.

Do You Have a Choice?

Let’s start with the first question. This is where Hansen opens Unoffendable. It’s also the central idea behind the subtitle.

It seems the answer is yes and no. I do think we can choose not to take offense. This choice, however, isn’t made in isolation; the choice to be unoffendable is an interlocking one determined by our answers to a host of other questions. To use an analogy, is the choice to run a marathon just one choice? Well, yes and no. To be sure, it’s a choice, but it’s not a choice made in isolation from other choices about diet, sleep, training, and rest. The same can be said about choosing which car to own. It’s a choice, but one contingent on other things, such as career and income and family size and comfort with debt....

[Click here to continue reading on The Gospel Coalition's website.]

This Quote Terrifies Me

I remember when I heard it. I was riding my bike listening to the audio of a panel discussion. I couldn’t keep pedaling. It’s a quote from D.A. Carson at the 2011 Gospel Coalition conference.

I sometimes tell students at the seminary that I have learned during the last thirty five years that most of the students do not learn most of what I teach them. What they tend to learn is what I most emphasize; they tend to learn what I come back to again and again—what I put at the center.

Therefore, if it is a broad sweeping discipline that I am trying to pass on to them, only a few of them will pick that up—the other eggheads like me. But on the other hand, if at the heart of a teacher’s ministry is a passion for the gospel, a passion for men and women, even while they are teaching advanced Greek grammar and that sort of thing, it does shape their priorities and values beyond the discipline itself.

(D.A. Carson, speaking at The Gospel Coalition: Training the Next Generation of Pastors and Other Christian Leaders, Panel Discussion: R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Mark Driscoll, David Helm, Don Carson and Ligon Duncan, The Gospel Coalition 2011 National Conference, Apr 13, 2011; quote at 25:00-25:30 minutes)

You may be confused why this quote terrifies me. It terrifies me because I teach for a living. And as a teacher, I too emphasize all sorts of different things. And Carson’s comments terrify me because they force me to evaluate what I prize at the center of all that I teach. What do I come back to again and again? What is at the heart of my ministry? Is it the gospel—a passion for the fame of Jesus Christ?

Consider what you are really passionate about—the thing behind all of the other things in your life. What is it that you think about when you are just sitting around or driving across town? What do you day dream about? If I spent the week hanging out with you, what would I remember most?

These are scary questions.

A great example of keeping the “main thing” central in one’s teaching is seen in the fatherly advice from Proverbs 1-9. Over and over—and just before and just after everything else that the father talks about—the father in Proverbs calls his son to treasure the supremacy of wisdom and the commands of God (cf. 1:20-33; 2:1-22; 3:5-8; 4:1-27; 5:1-2; 6:20-23; 7:1-4; 8:1-9:18). I think the takeaway is that there are 1,000 pursuits in life—but above them all and through them all—we are to seek to know God in wisdom.

It’s so tempting in the teaching ministry of a church or in a seminary, or in life generally, to be pulled into 1,000 separate noble pursuits. But what I learn from Carson and Proverbs is that we have to keep the main thing, the main thing— since everything else will probably be forgotten.

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Spring Loaded Camming Devices and The Expository Sermon

Picture yourself rock climbing. The sun shines and sweat drips from your forehead. You’re fifty feet above the ground on the side of a rockface. Your arms burn. You keep dipping your sweaty hands in the bag of chalk that hangs from your belt as though that will make climbing easier. Of course, you expect some measure of difficulty—you’re rock climbing after all. But when your pulse begins to climb too high, you pause for a moment to catch your breath. For the first time you glance down. Woah—it’s a long way to the bottom.

But then, as you reach for the next handhold, your right hand slips off the rock. Oops, you think.

Suddenly your right foot slips too. Double oops!

Now you cling with only your left hand and left foot; your body swings out from the rockface like a barn door on hinges. Your thoughts flash to the last anchor you set in the rock. How well did I place it? Will it hold me if I fall?

Climbing as a Metaphor for Life

This situation is a lot like life. You are working hard and go about your days with some sweat on your forehead, or at least under your arms. The kids get the flu, work requires overtime, and drama flares up with your in-laws. But you expect these sorts of difficulties and take them in stride.

Then the CFO of your company announces a plan to “re-organize.” Your job, your income, your livelihood slips away. It’s fine, you think. I can deal. I’m still holding strong. But then your wife says, “Honey, I think I found a lump on my breast.” Now both a foot and hand have slipped off the rockface, and you barely hold it together. Your body swings like a door on hinges dangling above danger. Woah, it’s a long way down.

As a teaching pastor, I think about these types of situations often. And not only has rock climbing become a helpful metaphor for the way I consider life, it’s become a helpful metaphor for something I try to accomplish in my preaching.

But let me back up for a moment.

Lead Rope vs. Top Rope Climbing

There are two main ways to rock climb. Well, I suppose there is a third way, the way of Alex Honnold  free soloing up El Capitan, but let’s not count that as a “way” others should imitate. The first way I have in mind requires using “Spring Loaded Camming Devices,” or just “cams” for short. When you climb with cams, you wedge your own anchors in the rock as you climb up the rockface or you use anchors previously placed by others. They call this type of climbing lead rope climbing, as opposed to top rope climbing. In top rope climbing, your harness is attached to a rope that is looped through an anchor at the top of the climb, hence the name. However, when you climb using cams (lead rope climbing), there’s no anchor fixed at the top of the climb; there are only the cams placed in the rock as you climb.

Therefore, in the event of a fall while lead rope climbing with cams, you don’t need a dozen superficial anchors. Each anchor must count. Each anchor must be firm and deep into the rock. A chintzy fastener placed casually won’t do the job; it won’t take the force of an unexpected fall. Anchors improperly set, even if you have a dozen placed every two feet, will pop under the weight of your fall. Instead, you need just one quality cam wedged into a crevice. Just one cam will hold you when you fall, that is, if it’s properly set.

Deep Anchors and The Expository Sermon

For me, rock climbing with cams is a metaphor for preaching. Too often in sermon preparation I feel the pressure to say everything about everything. But there is only so much time in any given sermon, and a dozen random comments—all true enough—are like chintzy fasteners. They simply won’t hold when hardships cause our faith to slip.

Instead, I want my preaching each week to set just one anchor deep into some aspect of who God is and what he has done, is doing, and will do for us in Christ. People on the face of a rock—people who could lose their grip at any moment—need the stability offered in gospel preaching. I need this in my life too.

Don’t misunderstand me, though. I know sermons do not save people or keep us saved any more than a cam by itself keeps climbers safe. But what that anchor can do, and what a sermon should do, is keep people firmly attached to the rock, or in my metaphor, The Rock. Stability and joy and life are offered to those securely attached to the rock.

Why the Expository Sermon?

Implications of this metaphor extend to how we organize our worship services, attempting to link the themes of sermons and the themes of our liturgy and song. Additionally, consider how this metaphor might challenge Christians to attend church with greater frequency; if you miss chances to insert anchors, you might fall a dozen or two dozen feet before you stop, which breaks bones.

But I want to zero in on preaching. This metaphor is a large part of why I favor the type of sermons we call “expository.” Expository is a term preachers use from time to time, but we rarely explain what we mean by this term. At The Gospel Coalition’s 2011 National Conference, in one of the panel discussions there was a great conversation about preaching generally and the expository sermon specifically (here). In that discussion, Pastor Mark Dever succinctly described expository sermons like this: “In expository sermons, the main point of the Scripture passage is the main point of the sermon.”

That’s simple enough. I like that definition: the one main point of the sermon comes from the same one main point of the Scripture passage. To me, that definition sounds remarkably similar to what I mean when I say that each week’s sermon should put just one anchor in The Rock—deeply and properly.

Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying a topical sermon is inherently a chintzy anchor. If you ask me, when done well, a topical sermon has the potential to affix our hearts more deeply to an aspect of the gospel than an average expository sermon. But to also be candid, I don’t have the ability to preach deep topical messages week in and week out. I find preaching good topical sermons overwhelming, and I also find them disconnected from the way most Christians read their Bibles.

I realize that many people who read this blog are not preaching pastors. However, perhaps you occasionally have the opportunity to lead a Bible study of one kind or another. I’d encourage you to consider how “making the main idea of the Bible passage, the main idea of your lesson” might strengthen your lesson by giving your lesson focus.

This article isn’t the place for describing all of the tools pastors use to find the main point of a passage. How to find the main point of a passage in light of what God has done for us in Christ would require another article. But once I find the main point of a passage, my next steps in sermon preparation attempt to mold every aspect of the sermon—the outline, the explanations, the illustrations, the applications, and so on—to serve this one end, that is, serve the main gospel point of the passage. When you and I do that as we teach, I think we can rightly call our lessons and sermons “expository.”

And when we teach the gospel like this week in and week out, we will provide our people with firm and deep anchors to the only Rock who can save us.

[Update: an original version of this article appeared on May 17, 2015 but was updated in January of 2020; Image]