In the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, we find our hero in a temple. Indiana Jones is after a golden idol, but he knows that the moment he takes it from its pedestal, he’ll trip a deadly trap. So, he stoops down, and fills a bag with sand until it’s roughly the same weight as the golden statue. Carefully, he swaps it out—trading one idol for another, or at least for a bag of sand.
Jared Wilson says that religious people do something of the same. Rather than worshipping an idol of self-indulgence, we swap it out for an idol of self-righteousness and moral obedience. But apart from the grace of God, religion is just as deadly a trap as anything we see on screen.
THE DANGER OF RELIGIOUS IDOLATRY
This isn’t just abstract. Phil Vischer—the creator of the beloved VeggieTales Christian cartoon series—came to realize that he himself had been complicit in teaching a gospel of moralism:
“I looked back at the previous 10 years and realized I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, ‘Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so,’ or ‘Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!’ But that isn’t Christianity, it’s morality…”
Wait, what’s wrong with being moral? The danger is that in believing that if we do all the right things we can be good enough for God, without God. Luther once said that “to trust in works…is equivalent to giving oneself the honor and taking it from God.”
Decades ago, the Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse speculated what it would look like if Satan took over his city. He imagines a world in which
“all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No ma’am,’ and the churches would be full every Sunday…where Christ is not preached.”
Religious moralism may be free from the idols of pornography and the like. But just like our adventure hero, it replaces these idols with another false god of our own moral record.
GRACE > KARMA
After conducting a series of interviews, Notre Dame researcher Christian Smith expressed surprise at just how many young adults believe in “karma.” “In evoking karma,” he says, “they meant that good attitudes and behavior will be rewarded in this life and bad will get what it deserves, too.”
There’s some truth, to this, of course. But the good news of the gospel is that in Christ, I don’t receive what I deserve. Jesus Christ pays the price for me.
Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2, put it this way:
“[At] the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…every action is met by an equal or an opposite one….Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions…I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge…. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point….It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.”
One of the hardest things to fully wrap our minds around is this basic principle of grace. Sure, I love the idea of my slate being cleaned, but I might hate—absolutely hate—that grace robs me of the privilege to “boast” (cf. Ephesians 2:9) of my moral superiority. Don’t I deserve credit, after all?
LAY YOUR DEADLY DOING DOWN
The problem of this kind of arrogance is that it leads us into a dangerous path, relationally speaking. Because only one of two things can happen. First, my moral system might actually work for me, more or less. Life goes well—I get a good job, raise good kids, and be respected as a pillar of my community. I conclude that I am blessed; my righteousness has earned God’s approval. And I am constantly sneering at my neighbors, who have not achieved my blessing—clearly because they’re just not as morally upright as I am.
Secondly, my moral system might not work for me. I might spend a lifetime of trying, only to be routinely confronted by the naked brutality of this fallen world. I obeyed all the rules; why doesn’t God bless me? I become bitter—at myself, at God, at my fellow church-goers who—despite not sharing my strict moral convictions—always seem way happier than I can ever hope to be.
Life is far messier than all that. But so is grace. Jesus joins us in our mess and—as we’ve been saying—absorbs the stains of our sin that we might have God’s approval not through any—any!—works of our own, but only through the finished work that he achieved on our behalf.
This is why it’s hard to hear the gospel if you’re a religious person. Because it’s easy to assume that you already know it—when all along you’ve only been learning to cling more tightly to your moral code. And it’s killing you.
Moral character isn’t a disposable part of the Christian life, but if we make transformation a prerequisite to forgiveness we strip grace of its beauty and strip the cross of its power. At the cross we do more than repent of our self-indulgence; we repent quite equally of our self-righteousness. Let it go. Let it all go—your self-righteous moralism, your sense of self-importance and smug religious superiority, your condescending attitude toward the sin of others deemed to be worse than your own. Let it go, and stand in the glorious grace of the once-for-all grace offered by Jesus.
“Lay your deadly doing down,
down at Jesus’ feet.
Stand in him and him alone,
gloriously complete.”
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
- Do you struggle with the idea of “karma?” How does the gospel help you let it go?
- How can you learn to better rest in the finished work of Christ?
- Explain how religious idolatry might lead to either arrogance or insecurity.
