Faith in Fig Leaves

We've been thinking a lot about Truth versus Pietism these last several weeks. One of the interesting insights has been how the rejection of truth goes right back to Adam and Eve's experience in the Garden. It seems appropriate during this season of Lent to think about the Fall and how that dynamic is still at work. Below I've tried to map how the Fall played out in our first parents and how it functions in us. Mankind, abandoning his faith in God, now has faith in fig leaves.

Step 1 – Kingdom of God

Life in communion. God is a community of persons (Trinity). Reality is by nature communal. Being human is good.

Faith, relationship, and peace. Trust and truth (honesty) are the essential elements of relationships. Wholeness is found in communion (shalom).

God is the definition of good. In God is all reality and goodness. There is no other good besides God.

Symbol: Tree of Life. Path (tree) to life is union with God. Life is found in union with God (which also implies union with reality).

Gen. 1:31; 2:25; Luke 18:19; 1 John 4:8 Creation is very good. Naked & unashamed (complete through communion). Only God is good. God is love.

Step 2 – Mistrust

Withdrawal from communion. Without confidence (trust), relationship is impossible.

Doubt, self-preservation, isolation. Doubting God is doubting reality. Trust requires a risk of personal survival. Loneliness is rejection of relationship.

The definition of good is something other than God. Mistrust in God implies that good is found somewhere else other than in God. God is opposed to my ultimate good.

Symbol: Serpent. Satan works by introducing doubt about God's character (accusation). Mistrust starts from concern about being cheated out of something.

Gen. 3:1,4-5 Did God say??? (accusation). You will not die (autonomy works). God knows you would become like Him (God is hiding something & cheating you).

Step 3 – Fractured Reality

Life distorted. If God can't be trusted, then there is no truth. Life is irrational.

Compartmentalization (secular/sacred). Truth of heaven is different than truth of earth. Spirituality (the meaningful) is divorced from truth.

Good is confused. With no absolute, good is relative. Good is subjective.

Symbol: Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Path (tree) to knowledge of good and evil is death. Good and evil can't be understood apart from God. Evil is anti-relational.

Gen. 3:6 Woman saw tree (path) was good for food (nourishment/life). Delight to eyes (her view, not truth). Desirable to make one wise (sufficient).

Step 4 – Inadequacy

Wholeness lost. Autonomy is incompleteness.

Fear, worry, anger. Inability to insure wholeness breeds insecurity and demand.

Good is not found in self. Mankind is finite, vulnerable, and fallible. Not “good”.

Symbol: Nakedness. Human frailty is weakness. Being human is shameful.

Gen. 3:7a Their eyes were opened (they swallowed the lie). They knew they were naked (humanity unprotected by communion).

Step 5 – Self-righteousness

Adequacy manufactured. Use any means to look and feel adequate.

Pride, ambition, power. Boast in talents. Don't admit lack. Compete with others. Dominate others.

Good is artificial. Someone is always better. Success is fleeting. Others get hurt.

Symbol: Fig leaves. Mask true self. Image more important than truth. Lies & hiddenness.

Gen. 3:7b; Eccl. 1:9 Made themselves coverings. Nothing new under the sun.


Click here for a pdf version of the chart.

Sacred Spaces

Right before the Super Bowl, my son and I were discussing the "Truth versus Pietism" material I've been blogging about. He began sharing some interesting insights on sacred places. So I'd proudly like to introduce as my first guest blogger, my son, Timothy Krell:

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A few days before Super Bowl Sunday, the idea of people watching the game in their churches was brought to my attention. I don't know about you, but when I hear about people getting together in their local church to watch a football game, I cringe. But, instead of simply brushing over that feeling and moving on, I'd like to exercise the unique human ability of thinking about thinking and examine that thought. Where does this cringing come from?

Let’s assume that the game watching is not replacing any normal church service. Still there is the cringing. Our community has a room where we come together each Sunday for our Sunday service, cleverly termed the “Meeting Room.” I recently suggested that we watch the game on the TV there, but I did not feel the same cringing. Is this being a little hypocritical? I don’t think so. Allow me to explain.

In our meeting room, not only do we have our Sunday service there every week, but we have also watched movies ranging from The Passion of the Christ to Spider-Man, played games from musical chairs to Pictionary, and listened to music from worship to classical. The Meeting Room is simply another room that we happen to have our services in. It elicits no “spiritual” feelings from me like one would expect a temple or sacred sanctuary to. This is not to say, however, that the room is secular or that all our rooms are secular. Rather, they are all sacred. It is the life that I live together with my Brothers and Sisters every day that makes it so.

The reason, then, that I don't have this mindset with a church is that it is designed to separate the secular and the sacred. Think about it. A church is built as a place for people to come once a week to worship God and hear the Gospel, away from their busy lives out in world and apart from their home and career. I realize that for some congregations there is need for more space than one member's living room can offer, but it seems the problem is that the building is not part of the people's daily lives. It is a reserved and sacred place, and hence comes the separation of the experience they know Monday through Saturday and the experience they know on Sunday. Even though it is not intended to be, the church building itself becomes a Pietistic symbol of the separation of secular and sacred.

I believe that it is much more beneficial to the congregation when the place where they come to worship on Sundays is not reserved for that alone, but also used for group activities, common meals, times of meditation, etc.. It is best when the church is a place where one can hear laughter, worship, weeping, praise, silence, and teaching throughout his daily life. This way we can symbolize to ourselves and to our children that every part of our lives together is sacred.

Looking and Feeling Spiritual

Adam and Eve chose to believe that the truth of heaven was different than the truth of earth. In doing so, they became the world's first pietists. Pietists divide reality into two realms: sacred and secular. They see life divided into compartments, some spiritual and others not. This kind of thinking causes them to confront a fractured reality. The visible world and rationality become less valid and important. “Content, truth, and logic take second place to experience, fervor, sincerity, and rule-keeping” (Schaeffer 201). For the pietist, the exploration of truth isn't as important as feeling and looking spiritual.

In Eden, our first parents experienced wholeness as they walked and talked with God in paradise. Their humanity, in all its weakness and vulnerability, flowed in perfect harmony with heaven and earth. They lacked nothing. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31a). All this changed after their fateful choice to split heaven and earth by embracing the lie that God was hiding something. Their mistrust of God left them with a broken reality and the impossible task of creating their own wholeness. Even though God had never told them that they were naked (lacking or inadequate), they now felt ashamed and incomplete.

Their first order of business was to hide their real selves. Truth no longer mattered. They must look and feel adequate, and now through their twisted view of reality they no longer seemed that way either physically or morally. Their imperfections of body and soul terrified them. And so began the war against truth as they covered their bodies (fig leaves: looking spiritual) and covered their souls (blame-shifting: feeling spiritual). Pietism was born.

As they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Pietism informs many people's attitudes. Looking and feeling spiritual (or righteous, holy, good, etc.) takes precedence over truth. This manifests itself in all kinds of ways.

God's redemptive plan involves a reuniting of heaven and earth where wholeness is restored. This is what the Bible calls salvation. In community, we try to live honestly and truthfully with one another, embracing the values of the Kingdom (Matt. 5-7), in order to “prefigure and embody the reconciliation and healing of the world” (Hays 32). While we wait for the Kingdom to fully come, we can reject the temptation of false spirituality and really care for one another as brothers and sisters in God's family.

Reference and Bibliography

All scriputres quotes from The New American Standard Version. Lockman Foundation.
Schaeffer, Franky. Sham Pearls for Real Swine. Brentwood: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers Inc., 1990.
Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1996.