Chuck DeGroat is a voice I appreciate a lot. His book on narcissism in the church is a must-read for any wishing to understand the psychology and emotional mechanics of narcissism in ministry and what the Bible has to say about it. It can mean the difference between spending the rest of your life nursing bitterness and making a purposeful turn toward forgiveness and healing, because it applies the Gospel to the problem.
But his recent poem on love is problematic. I have heard his perspective before. Here are some of his lines that are often echoed in more theologically progressive circles:
“I grew up in a world where being right eclipsed being faithful”
“The answer was a single word – no”
“A system… where formulations of atonement mattered more than the fruit of love”
“So I began to grow up. Not by grasping tighter, but by letting go. By following Jesus instead of fleeing heresy”
“You must embrace what you once exiled, both in the world and in your own soul”
“You must look up, and see the Father’s arms – open wide – even as you’re still clutching your last defense of being right”
“All is love. And all will finally be resolved in love.”
The reason I say this is problematic is that it is not specific. If by “being right” you mean “I want people to recognize that I am right,” I’d agree with you. But if by “being right” you mean “speaking what is true,” I would disagree with you. Truth will always be more important than our being faithful, because the truth of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ accomplished a salvation for us on the Cross that our own faithfulness never could have. And of all the people I’ve known who liked to criticize others for wanting to be right (which was a lot, as I came up in the PCA church), almost none of them were willing to get specific about what they meant by it.
By way of example: Suppose you and I are on a commercial airliner in the sky over New York City and a flock of birds hits the jet engines. What should the pilot do? Should he listen to air traffic control and turn around and try to go back to the airstrip you just took off of? Should he try for JFK Airport and see if he can touch down there? Or should he ditch in the Hudson? Numerous attempts in a simulator after the fact verified that Sully’s decision to ditch the plane was not only a good plan, but it was the right plan. His skill and instincts guided him to the right decision. And if he had not made that right decision, you and I and Sully and everyone else on that airplane – would have died.
That is a hard reality. Not one you can wish away or pretend it were different. You can say that Sully was just trying to be right, if you like. And he was! If he had not been right it would have been one of the worst disasters in transportation history. And no matter how faithful he tried to appear, or how many people believed he was faithful, or how persistent he was in the pursuit of faithfulness, if he had not been right they all would have died. Being right matters.
“No.” Nobody likes to hear no, right? Kids learn to belt it out around age two, but they sure don’t like to hear it from their parents. And we don’t like to hear it from those in authority over us. So is DeGroat right? (Ha) Did Jesus say “Yes” all the time, and it was only those mean doctrinaire Reformers who said no? To find out we will need to consult the Scriptures, which are the record of Jesus’ life and ministry:
In Matthew 4, the devil tempted Jesus with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. Each time Jesus said, “No”
In Matthew 12, God’s people asked Jesus for a miraculous sign, and He said, “No”
In Mark 3, Jesus’ family tried to manipulate Him into doing what they wanted, and He said, “No”
In Matthew 16, Peter tried to turn Jesus away from the Cross, and He said, “No”
In John 6, the crowds tried to make Him king by force, and He said, “No”
The reason we have to hear “No” sometimes is that there is such a thing as right and wrong, true and false, good and evil, life-giving and death-bringing. It is not because God is mean, it is because God is truth, and His answer to sinful people must sometimes be “No.”
“Formulations of atonement mattered more than the fruit of love.” This one baffles me. Of course the atonement matters more than love. Without the atonement there could be no love for us. If sin had forever separated us from God in eternal punishment, which we know to be true because Jesus talked more about Hell than about almost anything else, we would never have known love. It would have existed with God in perfect unity without us. So, yes. If you are forced to choose atonement or love, make it atonement and you’ll have both. Make it love without atonement and you’ll lose both. Every time.
“Letting go, following Jesus instead of fleeing heresy.” This one is self-contradicting. If you do not flee heresy, you’ll follow the wrong Jesus. “Many will appear in My Name saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.” This was the teaching of Jesus. To reject His warning about false teaching is not only to ignore the testimony of history but to reject Christ Himself, as He is portrayed in the Scriptures. Sounds good in a poem but it is unBiblical. One must flee heresy to follow Jesus, and if you don’t like that, be a Buddhist instead of a Christian.
“You must embrace what you once exiled, both in the world and in your own soul.” As a poet myself I appreciate the lyrical appeal of these words, but they leave me grasping. Embrace what? That God is holy, that there is a Judgment Day coming, that there is such a thing as sin against His holy Law, that salvation is by grace through faith in His life and death and resurrection? Amen to all that. Exile what? That we can have whatever our hearts desire in this world, that we need not crucify the flesh, that God’s Word may not be completely true, that the Gospel may not be enough and we must add to it? Anathema to all that. One set of beliefs is Christian and has been taught this way for 2000 years, and the other is not. Be specific.
“You must look up to the Father’s arms open wide, as you’re clutching your last defense of being right.” Here again, he is not being specific. Right about what? When Jesus looked up in Gethsemane, His Father’s wrath was being poured out on Him. All seemed lost. His very flesh wavered in the hour of trial and He asked for the cup to be removed from Him, because His Father’s arms were not open wide. But Jesus knew that the Scriptures had foretold this very moment. He knew that even though He was innocent, His life was required as a propitiation for ours. He knew what was right, and He did what was right. And without knowing and doing right, He could not have loved His own to the very end. He would have done something different and we all would have died, just like if the plane had gone down in a Manhattan neighborhood instead of ditching in the Hudson.
“All is love. And all will finally be resolved in love.” This one is the last and greatest untruth. The Bible teaches that there is such a thing as right and wrong, holy and unholy, true and false, good and evil. And if that is true, there must be such a thing as Hell. In the Old Testament God said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Did God just have it out for Esau? Is he as mean as the Reformers DeGroat is taking aim at? I believe there is a deeper meaning in this verse. God loves when people repent and turn away from their sins, and accept the forgiveness found in the Gospel, full and free. God hates when people persist in their sin and throw away everything they have for the sake of trying to fill an empty place inside them that was created for Himself. In that sense, DeGroat is right. All will be love in eternity and will be resolved, and those who are left out in the darkness will be outside that love and judged eternally for their unbelief.
But if by “all is love” he is saying that sin will never be judged and wrong will never be made right and all the foolish and immoral actions we’ve all been guilty of will never be called to account, DeGroat is wrong. He is wrong because that is not what the Bible teaches. And Christians cannot love without speaking that truth, just as a doctor cannot do right without diagnosing sickness accurately, or a commercial pilot cannot do right without being right: The truth that Jesus Christ became a man to live a sinless life and keep God’s holy Law, that He obeyed the Father in everything He did and said, that He was right about everything He did and said, and that His rightness led him to a Cross and a sinner’s death in order to purchase our souls for God. This Gospel is truth in love, and it will stand when all the opinions and artistic expression and hopes and dreams of man have either found their home in God or they have strayed off into darkness instead. Only God is all truth; and only God is all love.
Jeremy Vogan, 2025
Photo Credit: negativespace.co
