Are Free Grace Pastors Especially Lonely?

12 May 2026

Several years ago, I was asked for some hints on how to live as a Free Grace believer in a world that’s decidedly…not that. That discussion may also be worth your time; the article below is more specifically about being a pastor. I speak to being a Free Grace pastor here, but substitute in your own doctrinal camp, and see if the shoe fits anyhow. It may; a lot of us have similar issues.

An acquaintance recently opined that it’s particularly lonely being a Free Grace pastor. It’s too controversial. The masses don’t like it. It won’t grow the church. It doesn’t track with what people read in their MacArthur study Bibles or hear on the radio. And so on. I’ve heard these same thoughts from many other Free Grace pastors, over decades. Also (adjusting for doctrinal content) many Independent Baptist pastors. Many Reformed pastors. Pastors in general, really — a lot of guys think it’s about their particular doctrinal identity (which it may be, in a way we’ll get to below), but pastoral loneliness is certainly not unique to any particular doctrinal camp.

Now, I don’t know this guy well. We’ve never met in person. For all I know, he’s a beacon of genuine fellowship-seeking in a sea of self-absorbed and divisive ministers who want nothing to do with him. He may be doing the absolute best that any man could do in his position, and in God’s good providence, he’s all alone. That really does happen sometimes; it’s probably fair to say that Joseph’s fellowship needs were not being met at the bottom of the well. It’s counter-intuitive, but I suspect that the more Christian the overall demographic is, the lonelier the pastor and the fewer opportunities he has for fellowship. Far too many parishioners don’t want to know anything about their pastor’s struggles, so pastors often rely on other pastors, or friends outside their church, for close fellowship.

You’d think that would mean more Christian areas have more opportunity for a pastor to get fellowship. But the unfortunate truth is that when times are good and we have the favor of the culture, most North American Christians don’t fellowship across church and denominational boundaries. A pastor whose church is successful in terms of nickels and noses isn’t likely to get outside his silo much. We give all kinds of reasons, doctrinal and practical, for that. But as the surrounding culture grows more hostile, we find ways to accept support from other Christians, whoever they are. You see this most starkly on the mission field, where a Baptist missionary finds his choices limited to an Episcopalian and a witch doctor. All of a sudden, the other Christian starts looking really friendly…which means we always could have crossed those boundaries, and our wise-sounding reasons are actually lame excuses.

I grew up in the church, I’m a pastor’s kid, I’ve served as a minister myself for over two decades, and I’ve noticed that the pastor himself is often a major factor in the loneliness equation. Early in my ministry, I was very lonely too. And then I repented of some noxious habits, and since then, that loneliness has not been my experience at all. I see those same noxious habits in many pastors who continue to talk about the loneliness of the job as though it’s some inevitable force of nature, like the air getting thinner the further you go up a mountain. Pardon me, but that’s nonsense. Most (not all, but most) of the pastoral loneliness I’ve observed is self-inflicted, regardless of the pastor’s theology — and theology is one of the really big lame excuses.

Many pastors don’t want to hear disagreement on doctrine…or anything else, really. They talk a good game about wanting fellowship, but don’t actually put forth the effort to engage in relationships that foster it. In the end, they’d rather be the petty lord of their little silo, proceeding uninterrupted with their own agenda, whatever it is, than have meaningful peer interaction with people who will challenge them. They don’t want to hear people out, or actually change what they’re doing to accommodate other people’s points of view. (Many pastors don’t really disciple people for the same reason—real discipleship requires letting people get close enough to see your flaws.) Free Grace soteriology, while very helpful in a number of areas, does little to render anybody immune to this set of temptations. Pastors with Free Grace theology can be as bad as anybody, and pastors who are self-consciously part of the Free Grace movement are frequently worse, feeling a need to be a pill about every doctrinal difference they encounter. (You can read more about that on my Free Grace Theology page.) Pastors of other doctrinal persuasions, substitute your own label into that sentence and see if it hits. It just might.

Meaningful fellowship requires far less doctrinal alignment than most people think. Over the past 16 years or so, the far majority of my Christian friends and ministry partners have not shared my (Free Grace) convictions; we’ve taken good care of each other and done a lot of great work together anyway. And it’s not because I don’t mention my views. In fact, over time a number of my friends and partners have come around to Free Grace, or at least Free Grace-friendly, convictions. It turns out that a living example really helps; most of the slurs our detractors repeat about us just don’t stand up to real-world exposure. And then there’s that pesky exegesis (which keeps validating our basic convictions) and the practical grace and encouragement that we’re positioned to show, which is a real blessing in time of need. Over time, skeptical observers come to need that grace, either for themselves, or for someone they love. They can’t see their way to it…but we can. Receiving it, they become far more interested in where it came from. I find that living out our convictions draws people far more than it repels them.

Beyond that, what does work to break the logjam of pastoral loneliness?

One of the simplest places to start is just do things together. Quit imagining all the things that could possibly go wrong if you don’t have maximal alignment on every conceivable issue. Calm down, man. You’re not getting married to ’em. Start small; look for opportunities. Quit focusing on what you might not be able to do, and ask what you can do together.

  • Do you both pray to the God who was revealed in Jesus Christ? Then pray together. Pray for your city. Pray for each other. Pray for the mayor, the county board of supervisors, the high school baseball coach.
  • Do you believe that hungry people need to be fed? Can you agree on doing good and sharing (Heb. 13:16)? Excellent! How much doctrinal alignment do you need, really, to serve a bowl of soup?
  • Do you share a conviction that singing together is important (Eph. 5:19-20)? I hope so. Why do it alone when you could do it together every now and then?
  • Is there some terribly compelling doctrinal reason you couldn’t set aside a Saturday for a Lord of the Rings marathon, complete with all the hobbit meals? Well then…

As you seek those shared endeavors, it will matter how you approach them. Cultivate curiosity about others’ points of view, listen closely, and be willing to have long conversations where the Word of God is the centerpiece. They have the Holy Spirit too; be open to them changing your mind on some things. Just that much goes a very long way. Be willing to have real conversations about actual, messy vulnerabilities (yours and theirs), seek help from people who can meaningfully challenge you, and take their feedback seriously—don’t listen to their concerns just to explain why they’re not valid; actually listen. All that makes a big difference too.

If you’re able to begin doing things together, you’ll build relationships. Care for those people; let them care for you. See where God takes it. You’ll be glad you did.

Leave a Comment » | Autobiography, Ecclesiology, Unity and Community of Christ's Body | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

The Fault Line of Protestantism

5 May 2026

No humanly crafted theology or confession is perfect. As we strive to clearly say the things that God has taught us, we make mistakes. At times, our formulation, intended to document faith, actually ends up creating doubt a little further down the road. This is the case with the Reformation confessions. The Reformation confessions all rightly affirm that assurance of your salvation is not only possible, but expected. By way of example, consider the very first question of the Heidelberger:

“Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?”

“A: That I am not my own, but belong — body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ….”

AMEN!!! But those confessions introduce a tension which the original Reformers (so admirably described by C. S. Lewis in the introduction to his volume of OHEL) did not experience, but which plagued their grandchildren mercilessly. The answer to the first question of the Heidelberger concludes with the statement that Jesus “makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.” In a moment of less-than-wholehearted desire to live for Jesus — and we all have such moments — what’s a fellow to think? The statement can be read in a gracious and grateful manner, as the original framers intended, or it can be read in an over-scrupulous way that plunges entire congregations into a labyrinth of doubt: perhaps none of us is really among the elect! This is the reason the Halfway Covenant existed — a sordid time in the history of New England, and pregnant with pastoral lessons for those who care to look.

When a man is plagued with such doubts, it is not evidence that he has failed to take the confessions seriously; it’s frequently evidence that he read them very seriously indeed, following the logic all the way to the end. The fault line was there from the very beginning (as it always is in human-origin documents; we never get everything right).

This is one of the virtues of Free Grace theology. It is not a departure from Protestant faith; at its best it’s a highly necessary course correction to an error that was absent from early Protestant practice but very present in early Protestant formulations.

Leave a Comment » | The Story of Our People | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

Wrath?

28 April 2026

Does God’s wrath fall on believers? Most Christians think the answer is obvious. The problem is, there are at least two common “obvious” answers:

  1. Of course it does! God’s wrath is against all sin; if you commit sin, you face God’s wrath in this life, even if you eventually escape it in heaven.
  2. Of course not! God’s wrath against sin was poured out on Christ at the cross. While discipline for our correction and sanctification continues to happen for our good, no believer will ever face God’s wrath.

So which is it? Or are both answers missing something?

Faced with a question like this, I turn to Scripture. It’s usually the case that there’s no single passage that decisively vindicates one side or the other. A surprising amount of some folks’ doctrine is supported by little more than innuendo and a conspiracy-theory-esque stitching together of passages that don’t quite say what they’re claimed to say. What passages actually, pointedly speak to the matter? What, exactly, do those passages say? Equally important, what don’t they say?

  • Ephesians 5:6-7//Col.3:5-7 comes to mind, but what it actually says is that believers should not do these things because God’s wrath falls on unbelievers for them. It doesn’t quite clearly say that believers also experience God’s wrath for them. You could read verse 7 that way: “Therefore do not be partakers (of wrath) with them.” But “Do not be partakers (of these sins) with them” is also a live option. It’s clear on what we’re supposed to do, but tantalizingly ambiguous on the question of wrath.
  • Romans 12:19, 13:4 also come to mind as places that might allow for a believer to experience wrath. 1:18 has already clearly said that God’s wrath stands against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, and “saved from wrath” is much more than justification (5:9) and appears to be conditional (10:9-10)
  • Psalm 95//Heb. 3:11, 4:3 point to exclusion from rest as an expression of wrath, and 4:11 calls for believers to be diligent to enter and holds out failure as a real possibility.

But I gotta say, it’s curiously difficult to find a direct statement that God’s wrath falls on believers, while at the same time multiple passages are suggestive in that direction. What’s interesting about that is that it doesn’t really fit with either of the “obvious” takes that we started this post with. If #1 is true, you’d expect there to be some pretty direct threats. If #2 is true, then you would think the biblical authors would be at pains not to say things that sound like believers might experience wrath after all. The fact that the Bible doesn’t speak the way that we would means that we’re missing something.

Wonder what it is?

3 Comments | Controversies, Exegesis | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

My Friend Dick

27 April 2026

Of all the teachers I’ve ever had, Dr. Richard Seymour is the one I underestimated the most.

Not because he didn’t have good content—he had *great* content, really good, fundamental, life-building stuff. And he was incredibly down to earth for a professor; he spent his days in the classroom, but he started his very early (about 4:30) mornings grabbing a cup of coffee at Denny’s with the cabbies who were coming off the night shift. He’d always tell us “You can call me Dr. Seymour on campus, but when you introduce me to your friends, say, ‘This is my friend Dick.'” He loved to talk about Jesus, and he never wanted credentials to get in the way.

So why did I underestimate him so badly? It’s just that…well…I already knew so much of what he had to say. (Some of you can already see where this is going. What can I say? I was 18.) I was at college to learn; there were other profs with other things to teach, things I didn’t already know. Don’t get me wrong: I took Dr. Seymour’s classes, and enjoyed them. I thought of him as one of the pillars of the school, for sure, but not really one of the leading lights of my education.

About 10 years passed; I became a seminary prof myself. Then one day it dawned on me: all those fundamental things Dr. Seymour taught, the things I already knew—where’d I learn them? I’d known those things as long as I could remember; learned them from my parents.

…who learned them from Dr. Seymour, at Florida Bible College in Coconut Grove, way back in 1969. That man made such an impression on my parents that they named me after him (my middle name is Richard). For his part, he taught them so well that when I showed up in his classroom nearly 25 years later, I already knew all his best material. That is an effective teacher. I’ll always be grateful I dug up his contact info and reached out, a decade late, to thank him for the great impact he’d had on my entire life. He was (predictably) very gracious.

A few years later, I found myself at an FGA conference as part of a brace of panel discussions on a highly charged, controversial topic related to the gospel. As I was getting settled in behind my microphone, I looked up and saw Dr. Seymour sitting in the audience! I don’t mind telling you, that was a little intimidating. I didn’t know exactly where he stood on the issue, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. I was very pleased (and more than a little relieved) when he thanked me afterwards for the things I’d said.

Yesterday, “my friend Dick” stepped into eternity. Today before the throne he joins many, many people who met Jesus through his witness. I imagine he is delighted to be with them all, but especially to be reunited with his beloved son, who preceded him some years ago. And I know my dad is getting a kick out of being with him again! He is survived by his wife, daughter, and thousands of students around the world who are faithfully passing on what he taught them, just like my parents did to me. See you soon, sir. And once again, thank you!

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Why Do They Leave?

21 April 2026

Among the many, many things they don’t prepare you for in seminary is this: people are going to leave your church. It is going to hurt. Not every time; every now and again there’s a blessed subtraction. (If their presence was a chronic pain, their absence is something much more like relief.) But most of the time, if you’re shepherding well and you care about your people, it will hurt.

When it’s unavoidable, it doesn’t necessarily hurt less, but it’s easier to live with. One of your key couples is moving cross-country to take care of her aging parents, say. Hurts to lose them, of course it does, but they’re doing the right thing, and you wouldn’t seriously want them to do anything different. You wish mom lived nearby, of course, but it is what it is. You swallow hard, say your goodbyes, and talk on the phone every once in a while.

Sometimes, it’s a serious disagreement of one sort or another. Maybe it’s the sort of thing that makes a parting of ways inevitable. Maybe it’s not that sort of thing, and yet they’re leaving over it anyway. Those can be extravagantly painful.

But the hardest ones to live with are the ones where there’s no reason. They just disappear. You call them up and ask, and they say they’ve just been busy. You hear through the grapevine they’ve visited a couple other churches. Maybe you ask again, and still don’t get a straight answer. If you’re in a polity where you can push a little harder for consistent attendance, they resign their membership; otherwise, they just drift away. Six months or a year later, word trickles back that they’re going someplace else…or not going anywhere at all. Nobody seems to know why…or at least, they’re not willing to tell you.

Of course it may have nothing at all to do with you, but it’s a good occasion for self-reflection. “This person clearly feels like he can’t just tell me what’s wrong. Is there something I’ve done or said that is contributing to his reluctance?” It’s important to consider the question. A lot of ministers have learned to say the right things about being open to hearing other people’s concerns, but in practice they’re so high on their own rightness that they don’t really listen. They’ll let someone talk, but only so they can explain to him why his concern isn’t valid and he needs to think more like they do. Some of these folks will make the conversation so extraordinarily and unnecessarily painful that nobody wants to bring a concern to them twice.

Of course you’re not like that.

Are you sure, though? It’s hard to tell from the inside. Here are some tells to consider:

  • Has this person brought a concern to you sometime in the past couple years? If so, how did you handle that conversation? If you’re thinking something like “Well, now that you mention it, yeah…but it wasn’t anything serious, and I got him straightened out” — are you sure? I wonder if he sees it that way.
  • You experience a persistent pattern that runs like this: you announce a new program/initiative/idea, someone raises a concern about it, you explain to them why they need not be concerned, everything seems fine and you proceed on schedule, but three months later that family seems to have drifted away. If this happens regularly, you’re winning the argument so you can do it your way, but you’re not shepherding your people, and they’re voting with their feet.
  • When is the last time a parishioner raised a concern that changed your mind about something substantial? Is that something that happens often, or very rarely? If I asked around your congregation, would they agree? Nobody thinks of everything; if the general consensus is that you don’t really change your mind much, then odds are you’re not listening to your people.

Perhaps you’re a great listener and this isn’t the problem. That’s fine. But opportunities like this don’t come up every day (hopefully!), and it’s worth the time to ask the questions. It would be very convenient — too convenient, probably — if it turns out the problem is all with the person leaving, and there’s nothing you could/should have done differently. Pays to be a little suspicious of oneself.

But then, if it takes two to tango, it only takes one to walk away. Sometimes they do, and they won’t talk about it. That’s a tough situation. Best I can do is this: if I’ve asked all the questions, examined myself as best I can, done what I can do, and they’re still unwilling to talk about it, then better they’re gone. People should be shepherded by someone they can talk to; if that’s not me anymore, then they should find someone else.

Leave a Comment » | Ecclesiology, Mentoring/Disciple-Making | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

Cross of Iron

16 April 2026

On this day in 1953, American President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a war hero just three months into his term in the White House, addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Here’s part of what he said that day:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms in not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

The details and costs have changed somewhat, but this testimony is still true, over 70 years later. I am no pacifist; this side of the eschaton, modern heavy bombers are sometimes necessary. I’m glad we have good ones, and I’m glad to see us use them when necessary. Given the timing of this post, let me be very clear that I’m glad to see our fighters, bombers, and rockets in the air in the latest iteration of our millennium-and-a-half-long struggle against state-sponsored Islamist threats to the world. Deus vult!

(Yes, I know where that comes from. Yes, I mean it. No, we don’t get everything right; nobody does. No, I’m not embarrassed to associate with Christians who defend the world from Islamist conquest; why would I be? In 1400 years of conflict so far, they’ve held back the tide admirably. The worst you can say about them is that they sometimes stoop to acting the way Islamists act all the time.)

But I can be glad (on balance) that we’re paying the costs while keeping my eyes open about those costs. Until all the nations of the earth come to terms with the fact that Someone already hung on that cross for us, we will keep paying.

Compared to bombers, missionaries are cheap. Let’s fund some.

2 Comments | Hammersmith, history | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

On the Supply Side Now

13 April 2026

Dad stepped into heaven 4 years ago today. I have no reason to think my experience of this event is universal. But I recently found myself describing it, and here’s what came out.

It’s a peculiarly exposed feeling, your dad being gone.

You’ll feel naked, unprotected. You’ll maybe fall apart. Maybe you’ll only stumble. Either way, you’ll pick yourself up and do the next thing, and the next, because your people rely on you the same way you relied on him. You’ll tend to the people you love because duty moves you when nothing else would. When it’s fresh, some days you’re fighting through a haze to do what you need to do, but you show up and do it. Mostly. In your weaker moments, it feels like none of it means anything. You know better, of course, but that’s what it feels like. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.

It’ll be the first thing you think about, every single day.

Time will pass.

And then one day, it’ll be the second thing you think about. Then the third. You’ll probably feel bad. It’s too soon, you’ll think. But it happens anyway.

The one year anniversary will come around. You won’t be ready to stop saying “My dad died this year” and start saying “My dad died a year ago.” It’ll still feel like yesterday.

You still feel naked without him.

People say it gets better with time. They’re not wrong…and then again, they are. You might grow accustomed to it, but the naked feeling doesn’t go away. You get callouses, and with them, perspective. (If you’re blessed and you work at it, you might have good community around you. I do; I’ve worked very hard for it, and God has been very kind. It’s great to be shoulder to shoulder with trustworthy folks. But it’s not the same thing, and you realize that, too.) One day, you realize he probably felt the same way when his dad died. He never told you. He didn’t pass on that naked feeling to you; he became the shelter. Under that shelter you grew, unaware of what he was giving you. (“Unaware” isn’t right. I was aware, and deeply grateful. I was blessed to know what I had when I had it. But I know more about it now than I did then.)

Now you know more deeply. And you know you’re not on the demand side anymore; you’re on the supply side. You shelter who you can: your kids, their friends, whoever’s within your reach that needs it.

You give them what you can, as long as you can, buying them precious time and space to grow strong and wise. You’ll be gone too soon, and it’ll be their turn.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

When Mom Fails…Crickets

7 April 2026

There’s an online account with a growing following (or so it seems to me; I can’t know the numbers for sure) who recently delivered a noteworthy public error. I think it’s worth discussing. See the screenshot below (the commentary is on top, reacting to the embedded screenshot below).

Do you notice something missing here?

Of course, we could start with the embedded notion that young women have no moral agency. He’s right that youth need guidance, but the overall impression he gives is that the poor girls never had a chance and bear no responsibility for the entirely predictable results of their own choices. Come now. But you know what? Let’s give him that one for now. Far too many of these girls really did follow the advice they were given, which turned out to be horrible. The advisers bear a lot of responsibility, and a bunch of them were in the church. That’s our problem, so let’s reckon with it.

Notice how he immediately points the finger at fathers, grandfathers, teachers, pastors? That’s appropriate. When something bad happens to the sheep, we want to know why the shepherds failed, as we should. If we believe the elders of the church are responsible to “shepherd the flock of God” as Paul commanded them to do, and that the elders should be “the husband of one wife,” and therefore men, then it follows that the women of our churches need to be shepherded by godly men. Paul wasn’t afraid to do this; he addressed the responsibilities and sins of women throughout his letters (see, for example, Phil. 4:1-3, Eph. 5:22-24, Col. 3:18, Titus 2:1-8, 1 Tim. 2:9-15). If we are going to follow his example, then we will too.

But do you notice something missing? Re-read that comment: he talks about young men, young women, older men…and that’s it.

What about the older women?

Nobody who knows how to fill out a 2×2 grid could possibly miss this, but more importantly, nobody who has been taught by the Scriptures could possibly miss this. If you need a little help, read Titus 2:1-8. Again, Paul is not shy about exhorting women directly; he does it throughout his letters. But here, he also tells Titus that the older women should teach the younger women. What’s the curriculum? “To be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands.” The exact things, in other words, that our paradigmatic young, single millennial woman didn’t get, and that as a well-traveled 36-year-old cat lady, she’s still missing.

And honestly, this is kind of obvious. Loving your husband, loving your children, being a homemaker—we all know these things are hard work. They don’t come automatically; they need to be taught, and as with any skill, your best resource is the people who are actually doing it. Which is to say, godly older women. So when our commentator is considering the problem, why did he completely leave them out?

Because he’s terrified, and with good reason. This is exactly how the church world works. Blame for everything that goes wrong flows to the formal male leadership, and those men are not allowed under any circumstances to annoy the middle-aged and older women. Those ladies control the decisions about what the family will participate in—volunteer activities, youth group, giving, church attendance, all of it—and if the pastor annoys them, they will leave and take their family with them, or they’ll run him out of the church. So he keeps them happy. That means that when their daughters aren’t turning out the way they’d hoped, he blames the fathers, he blames the grandfathers, he blames the young men who won’t step up, he blames the church staff, he even blames himself…but he’d sooner cut his own throat than say that mom and grandma failed this girl, and so did the other women of a certain age in the church. Some of these guys are so brainwashed into the limitation, they don’t even think it’s there. Finding fault with the middle-aged women is literally unthinkable for them. They can’t process it. Others are more aware, and more cynical. But either way, they don’t shepherd the older women, and they don’t call them to do their job.

Why would I think this particular guy falls into this category? Because I brought the matter to his attention. I said—this is a direct quote—”[Name], you’ve made a glaring omission here. While the men bear their responsibilities, there is another group that has a direct biblical commission to teach young women on exactly these matters: older women (Titus 2:3-5). You entirely neglected to mention them. Why is that?”

You want to know what he had to say for himself? So do I. Crickets. Zero response.

Because, let’s face it, there’s just nothing to say.

So ladies, let’s do better with the next generation. You know that the things you do—conducting a successful marriage, raising children, managing a household, stewarding and multiplying the wealth and advantage of your family—you know those things don’t just happen by accident. None of it is easy; it all takes discernment, strength, subtlety, and lots of hard work. So teach the skills. Teach them to your own daughters. Teach them to the girls at church that aren’t getting taught at home. Mentor. Guide. Lead. You’ll be glad you did—and so will everybody else.

Leave a Comment » | Equality and Difference of Man and Woman, Mentoring/Disciple-Making, New Fundamentals | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

Hunting for the Innocent

5 April 2026

There’s a lineal descent of protest and grievance in American politics that runs from the civil rights movement to second-wave feminism to gay rights to the trans movement to supporting Hamas in the wake of October 7. (I suspect this line could be extended back in time a good ways: parts of the labor movement, temperance, abolitionism, and more.) The line of descent is less a matter of the causes being related than a matter of the same class of people supporting them, one after the other.

Good has been done along the way. Evil has been done along the way. But as the trajectory becomes both undeniably clear and undeniably evil, honesty compels us to ask if we got something wrong at the very start.

We did. Not with the causes themselves—the merits of the causes are a whole series of separate conversations—but with what we think it means to support them.

There’s a class of Americans that reliably supported all these causes, one after another, in an attempt to relieve itself of guilt. The emotional logic has been the same all along: if I can find innocent victims of oppression, lionize and defend them, then I will be redeemed from my guilt. When it fails—and it fails just as surely as Stalin’s Five-Year Plans—we always react the same way: jump to a new group of supposed innocent victims and try harder. The less obviously innocent they are, and the more extremely we debase ourselves to support them, the better our chances at excising our own inner stain.

It has not worked, and it never will. We are trying to self-medicate our way out of the wrong problem.

That inner stain cannot be removed by any amount of your own effort. Even if we only consider your own life, let’s be honest: your life contains plenty of evil you can’t blame on anyone else, and in your more honest moments, you know it. And that’s to say nothing of your ancestry: we surely all have ancestors who deserve to have their entire legacy wiped from the earth. Do you imagine that in the long history of humanity, you are descended from nothing but saints? No. All of us are descended of rapists, murderers, child molesters. We try to forget. We pretend that if we belatedly rescue the innocent now, we will somehow balance the scales, as if the lives our ancestors destroyed could somehow be restored to health after they’ve ended. As if the murder victims’ descendants who will never be could somehow be brought into existence after generations.

Sometimes a thing gets broke, can’t be fixed.

We are guilty children of guilty parents. We will never find someone so innocent that the rescue, were it even possible, would balance the scales. The endeavor is doomed from the start.

But our intuitions are not wholly wrong. In the dark recesses of the long, long memory of the Christian church, deep truths move that even most Christians aren’t consciously aware of. Here’s one of them: we hunt that innocent victim for good reason…just not the reason we tell ourselves.

We won’t rescue the innocent. The experiment has been tried. We were once given a truly good human, a man who did literally no wrong. We murdered him in cold blood. So it’s too late. You can’t “stand with” him, and it wouldn’t matter if you did. Thinking there was something you could do…that was the mistake all along. You can’t. Worse, you wouldn’t if you could.

But you don’t need to stand with him. You need him to stand with you.

That day he died, the world changed. Drawn by the monstrous perversion of his murder, every moral failure, every twisted desire, every sin, every sickness, every dark thing that stains our souls was drawn into Him. He willingly accepted it all, carried all of our darkness in his very flesh.

When He was nailed to the cross, so was all your darkness. When He died, it died. When He was buried, it was buried. And because He was righteous, God the Father would not leave Him in the grave. Raised to new, unending Life, He did not come out of the grave dragging a giant bag of your crap. He came out clean, infused forever with the power of an endless life. He lives now to make you clean. That stain you could never remove, no matter who you stood with, no matter how hard you tried? He knows every quarter-inch of it, better than you ever will. And He removes it.

What does He require in exchange? Nothing. Which makes sense, if you stop and think about it for a minute. Nothing you can do contributes to the solution. You have nothing that He needs. And so what could it be, other than sheer gift?

If you want to be clean, you can be. Trust Him to take care of everything, and it’s taken care of. Too simple? Too good to be true? Downright offensive, even? Yup. But there it is. God loves you that much, and so He just did it anyway. You don’t have to contribute; you don’t even have to approve. But since it’s already done, don’t pretend it isn’t. The cost is paid. Just say yes.

…and then, because you have been given mercy beyond imagining, do the same—in whatever limited way you can—for others. Not in a frantic and doomed effort to put yourself right, but as a secure expression of the truth: you are righteous. You are clean. You are forgiven. Because Jesus is risen from the dead.

Happy Easter!

2 Comments | Preaching | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

Every Beggar’s Hand an Altar: New Covenant Sacred Space

31 March 2026

What does sacred space look like for the Church today?

The theology is pretty clear, but there’s different ways to apply it, and it makes a big difference which direction you go.

The theology is “Here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.” The fire and storm that came on Sinai and that inaugurated the Temple sacrifices in Solomon’s day came on every head at Pentecost. From that day forward, sacred space isn’t a chunk of real estate in the same way that it used to be under the Old Covenant; the Spirit-indwelt believer is a portable mountain of God.

The commonest response to that reality is to ignore it, and just think of a church building as the “house of God” in the same way Solomon’s Temple was. Theologically, that’s a non-starter, but it’s very common.

The second most common application is iconoclastic: none of the buildings matter, it’s all just about the people now. This has curb appeal because it’s a very simple, straightforward application of the theology. Too simple, as it turns out. It misses two very important things.

First, in the immediate context of Hebrews, the same passage that says “we have no continuing city,” also says we need to do good and to share, “for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” The book of Hebrews carefully develops a theology of new covenant priesthood in which Jesus replaces the old covenant priesthood with the far older priestly order of Melchizedek—and we come behind Him as our Forerunner. His sacrifice ends all sacrifice for sin, but there are still new covenant sacrifices, and we offer them as part of our priestly duty. He ministers, not in the earthly sanctuary, but in the heavenly sanctuary of which the earthly tabernacle was a copy. So there is such a thing as new covenant sacred space. It’s just in heaven.

But the iconoclasts are still wrong. Hebrews situates Jesus as our Forerunner and us as His younger siblings. Where He goes, we go. He goes behind the veil, into the heavenly sanctuary. We also offer sacrifices—the fruit of our lips, doing good, and sharing. When you’re a portable mountain of God and the Lord of Lords is your Forerunner, every beggar’s hand is an altar. The picture Hebrews paints is not that the sacred space is far away from us; we have been given the spiritual authority to call the sacred space down right here, right now, to offer our sacrifices in the presence of the Most High. That doesn’t mean there’s no sacred space on earth, that just means it moves: “here we have no continuing city.” We make the sacred space wherever and whenever we need to. Anywhere we offer our sacrifices, heaven meets us there.

Second, the iconoclastic move neglects the way God made us to be: humans exercise dominion over the earth. We build homes, shops, neighborhoods, cities—and that’s not some incidental factor or regrettable failing; it’s obedience to the first command God gave us (Gen. 1:28). We build things for purposes. A merchant has a store, a mechanic a shop, a chef a restaurant, an artist a studio, a teacher a classroom. From the Church’s earliest days, we gathered in multi-purpose spaces: principally homes, but also Solomon’s Porch, the School of Tyrannus, like that. It wasn’t until a few centuries in that we purpose-built spaces for the church to gather – not surprising, considering our quasi-legal status prior to Constantine.

Making a building for the purpose of gathering is the most natural thing in the world; it’s what we do for any other purpose. But constructing the building for that purpose does not make it sacred space. Sacred space is made when we, as new covenant priests, minister in the heavenly sanctuary. We do that all over town. And we can, and should, do it in the church buildings, too.

4 Comments | Ecclesiology | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

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