Faith & Works

So many thoughts on this topic that have hit me over the last while thanks to various podcasts I've been listening to and things friends have talked about in the past. I'm not sure if I'll be able to express everything coherently, but let's give it a go anyway.

Note that my understanding of history is nowhere near as strong as that of my family members. I may be inaccurate in my explanations of things I discuss here. Nevertheless, we persevere. 

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During the Reformation, one of the things people were concerned about was the overreach of the Catholic Church. They saw a lot of abuse of power happening, and some clergy (mostly bishops) were becoming rich due to selling indulgences and so on. (Think of indulgences as carbon tax/offset--you pay money and get to keep doing whatever, even though money doesn't actually do anything about the problem itself.)

The reformers started really looking at scripture and realized that many of the things the Church was doing weren't things prescribed there, and a lot of the expectations being placed on the laity weren't things God said we had to do. That's basically what Luther's issue was, and why he wrote his 95 theses.

The Anglican Church has similar foundations, and if you read through the 39 Articles with the understanding that they were meant to explain the differences between Anglicanism and Catholicism, it will make plenty of sense. The wording can be a touch disparaging of Catholicism in some places, but it really does shed light on what the Anglican reformers thought needed to change in the Church.

Why do I bring this up at the beginning of a post about faith and works?

Because it's one of those annoying sticking points that Catholics and Protestants argue about so often. I'm neither Catholic nor Protestant (I don't know about Lutherans, but due to the Anglican Church's particular origins, we really aren't Protestants though we definitely aren't Catholics), and I think I mostly understand where they're both coming from and where the debates miss each other. So that's what I'm going to try and talk about here.

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"Faith is the evidence of things unseen" and "blessed are they who believe and have not seen" and "faith without works is dead". (Yes those are all in scripture and no I'm not going to try and find the references right now. They're all New Testament. You can find them, I promise!)

One of the things Protestants yell about is the emphasis that the Catholic Church places on "works". "We are saved by faith alone! You can't get to heaven by doing good things, that's against scripture!" And Catholics respond with scriptural evidence that you do need to perform good works: the parable of the sheep and the goats, the passage in James where he says that faith without works is dead. (That's a hint for one of the quotes above, have fun!)

Here's the thing: they're both right.

We are saved by faith. There is nothing we can do that will get us into heaven. Only Jesus' blood can wash us clean and make us holy.

The thing is, salvation isn't a one and done. If we say we believe in Jesus and then don't do anything about it in our lives on earth, do we really have faith in Him and His redemptive power? Remember, the Bible is all about God's love for us, His longing to be in full communion with us, and it opens with us screwing that up by trying to become gods.

We are not gods. We can never be gods. But we are like God because He made us in His image, and we are meant to live in communion with Him. That's where true joy is found!

Because we live in a broken world that tries to tell us we are our own gods and in control of our own lives, because this world is so certain that there is no such thing as objective truth, we get deceived by it and are drawn into foolishness. Our egos like sin because it often makes us feel important, at least in the moment. It's only afterwards that we realize our mistake.

And that's where confession comes in. We confess our sins, and God forgives us and we're redeemed by Jesus' precious sacrificial blood, and we reconcile ourselves to Him.

And then...

And then, we do it again.

We fall again, and again, and again.

That's what it is to live in a broken world.

There is no health in us.

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So if we live in a broken world and there is no health in us, but we are saved by faith, what's all this about works? Why does the Catholic Church have things like penance? "Say ten Hail Mary's and you're good"? What the heck?

Well, first of all, forgiveness doesn't mean zero consequences. If I'm caught speeding on the highway and I get a ticket, I can pray for forgiveness but I still have to pay the fine. Sin affects more than just ourselves and God, and it's important to try and make things right with the other people we hurt when we sin. Jesus makes things right with God on our behalf; we need to make things right with the world when we screw up.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think saying a bunch of prayers is going to actually deal with the effects on other people when you sin. You still need to do what you can to make things right with them. But the other aspect of that is the effect it has on *you*. Saying a repetitive prayer that you know by heart several times and really focusing on the words and what they mean (and the Hail Mary isn't a short prayer) can have a strong effect on your spirit and mindset. It can help you really hold certain truths in your heart and affect the way you walk in the world, at least for a little while.

That's a form of meditative prayer, and it is powerful. 

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Let's move on to another aspect of this debate. Often, Protestants will point out that if you're in true relationship with Jesus, you will begin to act more like Him, and that's where the works come in.

While that's true (think about how often you have picked up little mannerisms from people you spend a lot of time with) and, I think, important, it misses the part where we also need to put in some effort ourselves.

Remember that first and greatest commandment, to love the Lord your God with everything you are? Love is a verb. That's an action, not just an emotion. And the second greatest commandment, to love others as you love yourself? Again, love is a verb. An action, not just a feeling.

We can say that we love Jesus, but if we don't then do anything to show it, do we really love Him?

"Faith without works is dead" means that if we truly believe in Jesus and have faith in God, we will behave that way. We will feed His sheep. We will love others. We will clearly love God. We will strive to live in right relationship with God and with our fellow man, and do our best to make things right when we hurt someone else.

Not all who cry out "Lord, Lord" will be saved, because if all you do is say His name, you don't really know Him. It's lip service, not relationship.

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Both the Protestants and the Catholics are correct on this issue, they are simply talking past each other. The end results are the same, it's just different approaches and different reasoning to get there.

And I think that's okay.

Peace & Blessings.