Does he believe sexual immorality is shameful (Eph. 5:12) and corrosive (1 Cor. 6:18) and ought not to be discussed, or does he believe that being a ‘[insert sin here] Christian’ is just another form of Christian experience? Does he believe that it is blasphemy to associate Christ’s holy name with enduring sin and to make that sin central to one’s identity, experience, personhood, or ‘authentic self,’ or does he think it is needless alarmism and decidedly unwinsome to object strenuously to such obviously worldly notions?

It is one of the ironies of life that the writings of dead men often contain a better understanding of contemporary affairs, albeit unwittingly, than do many contemporary observers. They have the advantage of being immune to the distorted thought patterns, banal conventional wisdom, and often imbalanced priorities and mistaken values that frequently cause contemporary pundits to see only a part of any given matter, and to see even that askew. To understand the present one must read from the past. One must get away from our debates even to understand them, just as one must sometimes leave his workplace – say, by taking a walk around the building – to understand what is going on in that workplace. One must leave the atmosphere of urgency, raw emotion, conflicting perspectives, unhelpful advice, differing personalities, and other thought-corrupting elements in order to see them rightly and to think with one’s reasonable faculties rather than by spontaneous habit or emotion.

So it is that one of the best critiques of that contemporary social movement that is called, with doubtful accuracy, ‘social justice,’ appears in the lectures of a Dutch historian from the mid-19th century.[1] So it is that one of the best criticisms of what is now called postmodernism appeared in Chapter III (“The Suicide of Thought”) of the English journalist G.K. Chesterton’s 1908 partly autobiographical book Orthodoxy. So it is that many a Presbyterian professor of yesteryear has left us thoughts which bear an abiding vitality even now. To our purposes here is an excerpt from Chesterton’s 1905 book of social criticism, Heretics, but before quoting it I must note that he is a not wholly reliable thinker who failed to understand the Reformed tradition and who entered the Roman communion in later life. In that work he wrote:

Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.

We live in an age of wide unbelief, with the result that we live in an age of obliviousness to the evil nature of many words and deeds. To be clear, Chesterton was not speaking of the objective reality and severity of blasphemy, but rather about how it is perceived by those that have committed or witnessed it. The evil of blasphemy in no way depends upon the conscience or faith (or rather, lack thereof) of its human subjects in order to be blasphemous. It is a terrible offense against God, whose eternal majesty and omniscience never change, even where the sinner is ignorant of the real nature of what he has said. In order for one to realize that someone has committed blasphemy it is necessary for him to have a measure of faith; and where there is a lack of awareness of blasphemy, there is occasion to fear that true faith is lacking as well.

It is with sadness then that I say that there is blasphemy present in the evangelical world, and that it does not receive the censure it deserves or which we would expect if it were recognized in its true nature. The other day I passed a car with a bumper sticker that read, in total: BINGE JESUS. Undoubtedly this was an attempt to commend him to the public, a praiseworthy goal. And yet it seems to be lost on the vehicle owner that putting our Lord in the same category as junk food and cheap thrills is quite irreverent, and that there is something terribly amiss in suggesting that people should relate to him in the same way as many people relate to Netflix. I doubt the car owner would concur that his sticker could be paraphrased as ‘approach Jesus like you approach your weekend drinking habit,’ and yet given the actual meaning of ‘binging’ in our culture it is more likely to be interpreted in that way (if subconsciously) than met with the thought that Jesus is God Incarnate and worthy of total submission.

Binging anything is an intentional loss of self-restraint, the deliberate consumption of something in excess for pleasure. It is a contemporary form of revelry and a species of that seldom condemned sin of gluttony to which Scripture ascribes such woeful consequences (Prov. 23:21). That is emphatically the opposite of what is involved in following Christ, who expects steadfastness at all times (Mk. 13:13) and who presents following him as an act of self-denial fraught with hardship rather than an easy thrill whose appeal soon fades (Rev. 2:10; Heb. 3:14; 10:39).

To associate binging with Christ is then a sort of casual blasphemy which, however well intended, actually portrays Christ in a very misleading way. Elsewhere we see ministers, including some in the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), use certain four-letter words to express themselves. The case can be made that all cursing is blasphemy, because the one who does it arrogates to himself something which is the prerogative of God alone, and directs it toward circumstances which God has sovereignly ordained for the good of the sufferer (Rom. 8:28), or toward people who are made in his likeness (Jas. 3:9). It is a bitter truth to remember that our sufferings are ordained by God, and it is a truth which must be used with immense tact and prudence; but still, to curse our hard circumstances is to curse God’s providence, which is a grievous evil indeed. And yet some of the men who represent God and serve him actually do such things themselves! They who should be calling men out of such sins of the tongue are giving an example of them to the wayward. “These things ought not to be” (Jas. 3:10).

This which we are discussing is a large part of the ongoing fitness for office controversy in the PCA. There are many who have criticized certain forms of self-description for denying progress in sanctification or for other errors, which are serious faults. But there has been too little denunciation of such terms on the ground that they are simply blasphemous. Well might a man stop his ears and tear his clothes to hear some of the phrases which people have used to describe themselves even in prominent forums and in our General Assembly. Words which have a well understood meaning in contemporary English as referring to people whose lives revolve around transgressing (or wanting to transgress) Leviticus 18:22 are applied to our new life in Christ, and those who object are accused of petty, inconsiderate Pharisaism for wanting to ‘police language’ and ‘argue over terms.’ God says to not even name such things (Eph. 5:3), and yet many among us assert that they have an indisputable right to refer to themselves with such terms, and do so brazenly without shame or fear (comp. Jude 12). And many others have not the spiritual understanding to see that this is brazen blasphemy, and do not join in efforts to forbid it.

“Blasphemy depends upon belief” — and if one does not see the blasphemy he ought to examine his heart to see what are his actual beliefs. What are his beliefs about holiness and sin, judgment and redemption, the nature of the flesh and the nature of our new lives in Christ? Does he believe that “to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21) and that following him involves a life of suffering and sacrifice (Matt. 10:16-24), and of denying oneself (Matt. 16:24-26) and following him in a way that involves endless war upon one’s remaining sin nature (Gal. 5:17; Jas. 3:2)? Or does he believe that it is acceptable to name oneself by his indwelling sin, sin which is abominable in God’s sight and for which he subjects the nations that approve it to his wrathful judgment? Does he believe sexual immorality is shameful (Eph. 5:12) and corrosive (1 Cor. 6:18) and ought not to be discussed, or does he believe that being a ‘[insert sin here] Christian’ is just another form of Christian experience? Does he believe that it is blasphemy to associate Christ’s holy name with enduring sin and to make that sin central to one’s identity, experience, personhood, or ‘authentic self,’ or does he think it is needless alarmism and decidedly unwinsome to object strenuously to such obviously worldly notions? “Blasphemy depends upon belief” – and where there is no objection to blasphemy, well might we suspect the beliefs of the silent and suggest they test themselves to see whether they are Christ’s (2 Cor. 13:5). For it is written of him: “Zeal for your house has consumed me” (Ps. 69:9). The church is his house (1 Cor. 3:16-17) and we his people are to imitate him (11:1; Eph. 5:1-2). Where then is our zeal to silence blasphemy in our own house?

Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name.

[1]     Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer’s Unbelief and Revolution