Do What You Gotta Do

How Christianity is Becoming Way Too Niche But It's Not My Fault

File: Parable of the Unjust Steward Marinus van Reymerswaele.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

It’s too much. There are so many different items of news I cannot take them in. Every time I think I will write about one thing, something else comes along that seems even more compelling. It is too much.

Therefore, I am going to attempt to mash two pieces of content into one post. One is a segment from a podcast called Give It To Me Straight. It’s a married couple, Jon and Alex, who are super funny TikTokkers. Looking at some of the titles of podcast episodes (which they are no longer making), it seems they veer off into the profane with eager readiness and are not Christian if that is what you are looking for. But, for me, I appreciate a rollicking good time.

This particular clip isn’t merely about marriage and parenting, it goes over into the realm I love so much—should you baptize your kid? But Wait! It’s not just, should you baptize your kid, it’s, well, I’ll let them read the question themselves (click the pic to follow the link to watch it, or scroll down to read the conversation):

For all the rest of us who don’t like to click away. Here is the question:

My husband and I married in and attend a Christian church in the city where we live. My parents, who are hardcore Catholics, are wanting us to baptize our baby girl in their Catholic church. They are dropping hints that only their baptized grandkids will get help with college, etc. I honestly don't care and would be down to dunk my kid in the water to go through the motions. My husband, on the other hand, is a hardcore Christian from a long lineage of Christian pastors and he might not be down. But I feel like since my parents live in another city, it's not like the obligation would extend past the baptism day. Am I naive to think this is not a slippery slope and will not cause problems in my marriage and in my relationship with my parents?

First of all, listening to Alex read the question is pretty funny. Second of all, goodness, there is so much going on here. The issues, as I see them, are, A. The husband of the inquirer can’t be that “hardcore Christian” if he has married someone who, in spite of attending a “Christian” church, is pretty shady on matters of religion. B. It’s so funny how they all distinguish between “Catholic” and “Christian.” I’m pretty sure “Catholics” are “Christian.” Is this the complete deterioration of Christian society, that people who once would have considered themselves part of those realms don’t remember any of the words that would have distinguished one kind of Christian from another? That to know the difference between Catholic and Protestant, for example, is kind of a niche subset of cultural knowledge that is pedantic and a little bit odd? C. The glaring omission in the question, of course, is not what the husband, the parents, or even the child at a later date might think. What’s missing is what God would think. Does God want a baby baptized in His Holy and Triune Name for the college money? I seriously doubt it, though, of course, I don’t like to speak for him.

What answer do Alex and Jon give to this question? Let’s check it out:

Jon: I mean, you do what you got to do.

Alex: What does that mean?

Jon: They’re gonna pay for the kid's tuition? I will lube myself up whatever I have to do to get that money.

Alex: I think you have to have a conversation with your husband about it. But also, like, I mean…

Jon: Religion is important and everyone's feelings on that's different.

Alex: I say double dip that baby, you know, baptize him as a Catholic. They could decide to get baptized as a Christian. I was technically double dipped and now I don't even go to church. So, like, here we are.

Jon: We came from Roman Catholic upbringings.

Alex: And then I became a Christian and got baptized as a Christian. And look at me now. I'm a .... heathen.

Jon: A horrible person.

They are laughing all the time, so you shouldn’t think that he is actually calling her a horrible person. And neither of them are—horrible people that is. They are ordinary sinners who are, in spite of their religious upbringings, apparently completely ignorant of the issues at stake. I’m glad Alex and Jon think the wife should discuss the matter with her husband, but I honestly doubt that would shed any light on the matter, nor being honest with the grandparents who, it seems to me, are simultaneously misguided and sensible if such a thing is possible. They believe something. They want the baby to be baptized because they know it is important and they are willing to leverage what cash and influence they have to accomplish this end. In a world where spiritual obligations are ephemeral or non-existent, they are using material considerations that matter to their children to get something that matters to them—a child into the church, at least for half an hour one afternoon.

And really, this may be shocking, but I like that Alex and Jon say “Do what you gotta do.” Not because anyone should be “double-dipped” in order to acquire a college fund, but because they don’t know that there is any other way to care for the baby and are therefore exercising what wisdom they have. In a world without God, eternal life, or the hope of the resurrection, college is the most important thing. And you should do whatever you can to attain it. Their answer reminds me of the dishonest steward in Luke who cheats his way into temporal salvation and is commended by Jesus for being more shrewd than the Saints in Light. The intense and desperate struggle to be received by friends, to be provided for, to be accepted—that is the singular path which, if traveled honestly, leads you to heavenly dwellings.

Finally, I love that hint of an anxious worry—will I ruin my relationships? Should I do this thing? Is it a slippery slope? Am I naive? Of course, the answer is as plain as the nose on my face. Yes of course you are, very naive. You are meddling with powers and principalities unknown to you. You should probably stop and investigate the meaning of Christian baptism. It is to die with Christ and be raised in him. It is to be cleansed from unrighteousness. It is to be sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever. The mother of this baby girl should ask herself why it would be so important to her parents, and if they can’t tell her why, she should at least Grok it.

So anyway, my second something today is the thing I linked on Friday from the New York Times. It was the quote I put into my post and then said nothing about. I thought about it all weekend and I just thought I might say a couple of things. Here it is again:

I feel frustrated with you, Father. The Scriptures just don’t seem all that clear anymore, and this is a big issue with huge stakes. So what are we to do in this case of a big issue with no clarity? I hear one side saying, “As best as we can tell, we’re right, and we feel invigorated by our sacrificial commitment to the Lord — but we’re really lonely, sad and somewhat repressed, and wonder whether we’re missing out on a huge part of the life that Jesus would have for us, not to mention the fact that we seem to be closing the door of the gospel on both L.G.B.T. people and the younger generation.” I hear the other side saying, “As best as we can tell, we’re right, and we feel finally free from all the guilt, loneliness and repression we suffered under — but we still wonder sometimes if we’re being immoral.” Neither side seems completely satisfied or convinced. And neither is completely convincing. And the stakes are so high.

Of course, what this person enumerates as “the two sides” are not the two sides at all. His estimation of the “debate” which has so devastated the church and, one can’t help but notice, the culture, in no way resembles anything said in the last twenty years, at least not by anyone who has a real grasp of the issues. He sounds tragically incoherent. How is it possible that a pastor in any denomination between 2013 and 2018 wouldn’t be able to articulate what is really at stake around this subject? It is quite astonishing, and shows, in the first place, that the pastor did not want to try, that his “struggle” was not over the truth, but over any small measure of acceptance he might find in various relational spheres. It is, how can one put it? Utterly selfish.

Once he “came out” himself to his congregation as affirming he lost over half of his congregation. This was very grievous to him, but eventually, other people came who agreed with him and he was able to hire a woman to be his assistant pastor. Here is just one more entry in which he continues to address some deity he calls “Father”:

My theology is changing, Father. It’s been a deep undercurrent for a couple of years now, but it’s surfacing in new ways and with real potency these days. I think there are two main things that are unnerving for me.

The first is that I no longer know how to read the Scriptures. There’s a tinge of doubt, of wariness, of skepticism when I read. How do I know what’s there is from you? How do I sift out the human contribution? I’m reading Scripture differently, with an edge.

The second area that’s unnerving for me is in regard to morality. If I can get to the point where homosexuality is moral, how much does that change the rest of my morality? Sure, I had the conversation with Timothy that I value purity and that I’d like him to save sex for marriage. It was a bit of an odd conversation, because how do I get to land at the point of “no sexual intercourse before marriage” but then redefine marriage? At what point do my sexual mores change? How about the morality of cussing? Of generosity? Of lying? How situational do things become? How open are the Scriptures to reinterpretation on these things? And how about universalism, heaven and hell?

Jesus, I want to do some real thinking about what it looks like for me to cling to you, to know you, to love you and to build my theology on you and not on the Scriptures.

And there, of course, you have it in a nutshell. The New York Times publishes a long stunning, nay even brave piece about two men who apostatized, only one of them was a pastor and a father who had a duty to know what the Bible says and to communicate it to the people in his care. It is the story that has been told over and over and over again. And isn’t it ironic that while this pastor is sending everyone he meets into perdition, squandering the riches of the scriptures that are the true path to peace, at exactly the same time a lot of regular people who used to be “Christian” have even lost the distinction between various descriptive words, like “Catholic” and “Christian.” How is it the case that the vestiges of Christian reasoning are lost so suddenly, as though a whole mountain suddenly crumbled into the sea?

I mean, part of it must be that the New York Times knows better than to have a committed and knowledgeable Christian explain clearly what the Bible says and why. And many so-called pastors around the country didn’t bother to catechize or teach the people who came and even got baptized. And parents didn’t tell their children, but relied instead on symbolic gestures to try to guard what little they themselves remembered. And so the long weary days wore on.

But that is no reason to lose hope. Gird up your loins, and go out there and tell any influencer or apostate you happen to meet about the real Jesus who did not count cultural approbation a thing to be grasped, but came on purpose, doing whatever it took, spending all he had to rescue the lost.

Have a nice day!