My Imago Dei Is Delicate and Complex
How Sean Tirres McCain and Zach Lambert together lie about the Bible.
It’s Friday! Did you know? I hope I am not the first to relate this heartening news to you. I’m so late this morning because I got caught listening to this longish podcast between Sean McCain Tirres and Zach Lambert. McCain Tirres, you might remember, was recently the rector of a church in the ACNA (my own denomination, though not my diocese) but his congregation had a rethink in the wake of George Floyd and other political tribulations and they decided to leave and join The Episcopal Church. Matt and I talked about it on our podcast when the news broke on our podcast—I tried to find it, but a lot of our archives are still being moved over to the new site, sorry! Anyway, because, as I mentioned just this moment, it is Friday, I have seven quick thoughts about the conversation between Lambert and McCain Tirres.
One
I’ve been thinking all week about the question of men being men and going to church and I can’t help but be discouraged. Because religion has become the provenance of women, a fact Nancy Pearcey so well documents in her book The Toxic War on Masculinity, some men have (sometimes on purpose, sometimes unwittingly) adopted the inclinations and affectations of women to attract and keep parishioners. I don’t like to blame women for this. It’s just something that happened because Satan is always prowling around like a roaring lion, wrecking everything.
Somehow the subtle but crucial distinctions between the way men and women approach the world and God have flattened. Conflict is difficult and painful. Saying that some people are in and others are out is not a fun time. Over the decades, a little uptalking here, a little folding of the hands in care, a little shoving oneself into skinny jeans, and a rejection of Biblical Christianity has come upon us. Though there are lots of congregations where the pastor is an actual man, the feminizing tide continues to roll in. And in many ways, it feels like it is accelerating.
That’s what I couldn’t help but think as McCain Tirres and Lambert chatted together. They aren’t women by any stretch of the imagination, but the way they talk is some other kind of masculinity—authoritative, but constantly backing away from that authority, a wanting to have it both ways instead of having to choose. A confrontational leadership masquerading as non-confrontational. The manner of their speech wouldn’t feel scolding in a woman, but it definitely feels scolding from someone self-describing as “cis,” “heterosexual,” and “white.” I don’t want to speak for the men of the world, but if I were one, I think I would find it hard to bother to go to such a church.
Which is to say, a lot of men today have stopped going to church not because of the behavior of women, but because of the theological inclinations and behavior of other men. Men hold a sizable portion of the responsibility for inventing the attractional church model. Men have capitulated to the shibboleths of the age. Men have unscrewed the pews, chucked them in dumpsters, and perched on stools to win the approval of the insecure and ignorant.
Men have even done what this man has, rejecting his trousers for a dress, claiming to be an “ally” of other men wearing dresses. Not to put too fine a point on it, but were any women asking for this? I certainly am not. It is a mockery, a sham, a horror, and a shame. Lambert and McCain Tirres, through their discussion, make a wide open space for this kind of misogyny under the guise of being tolerant and inclusive. The wolves of today don’t put sheepskins over themselves to disguise their true nature, they put on dresses, or make way for men who do.
Two
McCain Tirres and Lambert use the word “complexity” what feels like hundreds of times. I wish I had a transcript because I don’t have time to listen again to count. “Issues” of sexuality, in particular, for them are full of “complexity.” They are so “complex” that anyone who tries to say that the Bible speaks clearly, simply, and plainly about sexuality is kidding him or herself. The issues are so complex that no ordinary person can fully understand them, but should only be filled with deep, boundary-less curiosity, leaving their minds, as it were, at the door of the church when they go to look for a cushy chair as the service begins.
Three
It turns out, also, that anyone who wants to understand issues of sexuality, and more importantly, the fathoms-deep belovedness God has for each imago-dei, must not ever begin by looking to God for that understanding. In fact, it must be that anyone who wants to think about the imago-dei and the sexual identity of the imago-dei must privilege the human person over every other consideration. The person should not go first to the Scripture to see what God is like or what he requires of the creatures whom he has made. On the contrary, the person should first consider people and in particular the stories that people tell about themselves. Understand the person first and then, if you have time, fit whatever God “says” in around the edges.
When you have begun with the person and been curious about the stories that person tells, you will discover several important and, at this point, completely unsurprising “truths.” First, God loves you so very much. He made you in his image and you are his beloved. Second, your body is so precious. Third, we can all disagree about issues of sexuality. If some of us want to hold to a “biblical sexual ethic” that’s totally fine, but those of us who do should never foist that view on anyone else as if it were some kind of law. People who do that make sexual minorities tired. It’s best that we all “do the work.” Our strength as “Christians” arises out of our disagreements, to the degree that none of us—especially those who hold to a Biblical Sexual Ethic—try to persuade any of us to another view. Our “love” for each other is much more important than the content of our “faith.” Theology is fine, but “love” is much much more important. As long as you “believe the creeds” everything will be okay.
Four
McCain Tirres and Lambert, as you would expect, do not notice the Fall or the Redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ in their lyrical praise of the “imago-dei.” They lie about God, overtly, by saying he—God—never uses shame or ever shames anyone in the Scriptures.
Five
If there is one heresy that has taken Evangelicals captive in the last three minutes, it is that of the imago-dei. The special belovedness of the willful and rebellious and unrepentant creature against his creator without any reckoning for that willful, unrepentant, rebellion is a cancer growing in the church. Christians must get this straight or they will fall to the lie of the age.
Six
I am always excessively bemused about so many pastor-influencers who purport to speak about a God they insist cannot be known by his own words. How do they know what it means to “Follow in the way of Jesus” when they will not let Jesus have the last, authoritative, and final Word? How can they possibly say what God is like when they reject his Law, his instructions, his precepts, his version of the story? Why does anyone still listen to this?
Seven
Rather wonderfully, in the Morning Prayer Lections appointed for today, the chronicler of the history of Israel echos the sentiments for my favorite canticle, which we also got to recite together at that unreasonably early hour. The line is “And when he came to Samaria, he struck down all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to Elijah.” The "he” is Jehu the son of Nimshi, who cuts off the heads (literally, not metaphorically) of all the sons of Israel’s worst king and packs them up in baskets. This is after he has had Jezebel thrown down from her well-appointed window. If you’re looking for a lot of gore, this section of Kings will certainly satisfy you. Over the weekend, if you’re keeping up, the saga of Atheliah will be related.
A lot of people trucking along through the Old Testament wonder why God wanted this part to be included. What is he trying to say? What is he like? Those with more delicately tuned natures finally conclude that God is not to be blamed. Their “God” just wouldn’t be associated with anything like that. Higher Criticism is called upon to support this view.
But if you’re a real Christian, and you go to the Scriptures because you know that everything must begin and end with God, for, indeed, he is the First and the Last, you will, right after listening to the destruction of the wicked—all those precious imago-deis, imagine—from the earth, also have to say these words from Isaiah:
Seek the LORD while he wills to be found; * call upon him when he draws near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways * and the evil ones their thoughts;
And let them turn to the LORD, and he will have compassion, * and to our God, for he will richly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, * nor your ways my ways, says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, * so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as rain and snow fall from the heavens * and return not again, but water the earth,
Bringing forth life and giving growth, * seed for sowing and bread for eating,
So is my word that goes forth from my mouth; * it will not return to me empty;
But it will accomplish that which I have purposed, * and prosper in that for which I sent it.
So anyway, have a nice day!
"I don’t want to speak for the men of the world, but if I were one, I think I would find it hard to bother to go to such a church."
This man says, BINGO!
I was going to say that their line of "reasoning" is chilling, when you lay it out clearly like that. But then I listened to a few minutes of the actual podcast, and it was just as chilling.
Horrifying, really.