The Holiness Elephant in the Room

Over on Cave Adullam John Thomson has a link to a clip of John Piper. In it Piper expresses his fears about the disconnect between the seemingly great appreciation of God’s majesty many younger evangelicals have and their lifestyles. That is, while in many places there has been a great awakening to the greatness of God (something expressed in great worship songs and a revival of Biblical orthodoxy) – it has not been matched by the same zeal and rigour for practical holiness (e.g. what we watch or how we dress). A discrepancy that Piper fears might be the undoing of this new movement.

It may be that Piper’s comments will open a fresh debate on what holiness actually looks like on a day to day level. If so, we should welcome it because there is a real danger of a conspiracy of silence among us about 'this elephant in the room'.

In the flight (rightly so) from legalism many evangelicals have felt it necessary to adopt a very privatized concept of holiness. That is, we have created a disconnect between our habits and our hearts. So just like the Corinthians of old – we can protest that our Monday to Saturday practices have little bearing on our Sunday spiritual health. The result is that while few today could seriously accuse mainline evangelical churches of excessive legalism – neither could they accuse us of great distinctiveness in lifestyles. Our habits and aspirations too often neatly camouflage the inner beliefs we profess.

Already I sense unease, in myself and in those likely to read this, we are all vulnerable here – even to raise questions is tantamount to throwing the first stone, better to say nothing and at least you won’t be accused of hypocrisy or worse ‘being judgmental. ‘For in the same way as you judge others you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will measured against you’ (Mt 7:2). So it's with acute sensitivity to my own shortcomings that I write this – but the alternative is a paralyzing collusion in which no-one speaks. All the while we keep on following the fashions, watching the programmes and films, consuming the same luxuries, and speaking in the same categories as our non-Christian neighbours and colleagues.

I watch the X-Factor and enjoy much of it – but some of it troubles me. It is so of the world with its glamour, power worship, pursuit of fame, money and success. I wince at the some of the fashions of the female participants – so clearly wearing ‘a man’s idea’ of what looks good on a woman. We sit pretending to be highbrow philosophers, as if the fact that we are observing deliberately sexualized (often teenage) women, is no more than a cultural curiosity to us.

This assumed-naivety extends into our own wardrobes. A generation ago many of today's mainline High Street fashions would only have been seen in the sex industry. Fashions, clothes specifically designed to reveal rather than conceal, used in that industry precisely because they were intended to lure & titillate. Fast forward twenty years and they are not unknown in churches. Of course, we are far too enlightened and liberated to suggest they might jar with verses such as 1 Tim 2:9.

Is this a call to return to a cultural ghetto, to become Amish-like, cut-off from the world around us, a curious and obsolete bunch wishing back the days of Queen Victoria? No, we should be modern people, we should be informed people, we should be people who enjoy all the good things of creation (1 Tim 4:5). But we should be different. A people whose mental energies and time are invested in true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy things (Php 4:8). Those who give no quarter to sinful cravings, the lust of the eyes, or self-promotion (1 Jn 2:15-17). Such things necessitate making lifestyle choices – and it is those choices that Piper rightly senses need to be spoken about rather than ignored.