Timothy Keller, 1950-2023

Our culture keeps changing in ways we never see coming.

Most churches are in decline; many Christians show up for productions, weddings or funerals. There’s little social pressure to attend church.

Many Christians have basic religious beliefs:

• There is a god.
• There is moral truth.
• There is sin.
• There is an afterlife.

Churches take these generic beliefs and make them Christian beliefs. Some people don’t have these beliefs, so they never go to church.

So, how do we evangelize in this Western culture?

I heard Tim Keller say these things during a Gospel & Our Cities conference I attended with my campus pastor in October 2018 in Chicago.

Timothy Keller died today, May 19, 2023, at age 72 of cancer.

According to the biographical brochure we received at the conference, Tim was chairman of Redeemer City to City (sponsor of the conference) and the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons. For more than 25 years he led a diverse congregation of urban professionals that had grown to weekly attendance of more than 5,000.

Tributes are pouring in for Tim, because he has influenced a myriad of people throughout the country and world with his talks, books, preaching and leadership. I will add my two cents by revisiting the notes I took from his keynote speech at the 2018 conference in Chicago.

How do we evangelize Western culture? Tim offered five ways.

Apologetics

We critique our culture, because culture’s standards don’t work.

Traditionally, we had the freedom to do what we ought to do. But today, we don’t answer to God or nature. We make nature do what we want it to. This doesn’t work.

All values are relative. Identities are hyper-sensitive. We still aren’t free.

How do we talk about justice when everything is relative?

Individualism is ruining families – I won’t have children, for example, because I can’t leave a 3-year-old to do whatever I want.

Post-Christian evangelism dynamic

The future of evangelism is not in programs; it’s in relationships. We have to talk to people.

• First, get their attention.
• Second, conviction. We have to wait for something to go wrong.
• Third, the attraction of Christ.

We all are looking for someone to affirm us. Only Jesus does this. Even our spouses don’t. We are built to need this.

Before we answer people’s questions, we need to question their answers. What is your meaning in life? If it’s your career, what happens when you lose it? If Christ is my center, losing my job can actually enhance my life.

The meaning of life is to be a good person. Bad news: You’re not good enough. Maybe you haven’t committed adultery, but do you lust? This is Jesus’ standard.

The meaning of life is to be free, to be myself. Bad news: You’re not. If you live for money, you’ll never have enough. If you want beauty, you’ll never feel beautiful. So, how’s that going?

Good news: If you serve one Master, you’ll get forgiveness when you fail.

Category-defying social project

Liberals: a) multi-ethnic, multi-racial

b) we will care for all poor

Neither: c) non-retaliatory and forgiving

Conservatives: d) against abortion and infanticide

e) sexual counter-culture

Christ, however, is radical! We no longer live only for self-gratification. It’s for self-giving. Radically, equally consensual.

Neither side is happy with all of this. It’s a vision of being like God – worship God and no other.

Counter-catechesis

Catechisms are good to consolidate beliefs, but they don’t talk much about Jesus.

Protestant catechisms deconstructed Catholic catechisms – that was their purpose.
Today’s catechism comes on social media. It’s a morality narrative: I define right and wrong. Or a happiness narrative. Et cetera.

We haven’t connected Christ’s catechisms with the world’s catechisms. We must re-direct the wrong.

Grace to the point

The world rejects the church when it goes after power and control.

The Bible is right about sin. All people are messed up.

There’s a difference between religion and grace. Grace is real and life-transforming.

God’s grace wins over self-righteousness.

Tim’s legacy will live on

I hadn’t reviewed my notes on that conference for a long time. Lots of good stuff in there.

The world’s values don’t work. Self-identity doesn’t work. Doing life my way doesn’t work. Liberals and conservatives both have partial truth, but not the whole truth – which is radical and angers people on both sides.

That, I think, is what Tim Keller was saying.

I agree with him wholeheartedly. It’s why I’ve followed him on social media. He knew social media is often mis-interpreted, so he was more likely to write one-line thoughts rather than lengthy statements explaining his faith.

I will miss his sound doctrine. I will miss his love of Jesus Christ and his Biblical knowledge.

There’s truth in culture and catechisms. But they don’t contain the whole truth. There’s a bigger picture, because the living God is much bigger than Western culture and Christian statements of faith.

I think Tim was saying that, too.

And he’s spot on.

Tim Keller’s legacy will live on in the lives of the untold number of people he has influenced over the years. Including me. Possibly including you.

Thank you, Tim, for not falling into the culture wars that so many Christian leaders lose themselves in. Thank you for keeping your reputation pure throughout your life, for finishing well, which some Christian leaders have had a hard time doing.

You led by words and by example.

I look forward to meeting you in person one day.

Cancer took you to your Savior a little sooner than you might have otherwise gone. It happens. We all will get there one day, into that afterlife.

The arms of Jesus are the place to be. You are there now. Part of me is jealous. The rest of me looks forward to being there with you.

Faith in the Jesus Christ of the Bible, not in any cultural Jesus, is the way to get there.

Well done, good and faithful servant. Many will join you in heaven because of your faithful witness.

See you soon.

Serving God and government

Evil King Ahab wanted the high-profile prophet Elijah dead. Drought had devastated Israel for three years. Elijah had predicted the drought, and it happened.

“After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year of the drought, saying, ‘Go, present yourself to Ahab; I will send rain on the earth’.” (1 Kings 18:1)

But Elijah didn’t go to King Ahab right away. He got a mediator to set up that meeting.

The mediator was Ahab’s chief of staff, “in charge of the palace” (verse 3). He was a top-level employee of the most wicked government on Earth at the time.

He also was a follower of the living God.

Elijah knew this.

The state of government

Can faith-filled believers serve an evil government and a holy God at the same time?

Yes. This employee, Obadiah (not the same man as the prophet Obadiah), proves that it can be done.

Governments around the world are becoming ever more evil. The obvious examples are Russia, with Vladimir Putin’s devastating power grab in the Ukraine; China’s oppression of its own people and neighboring Taiwan; and a civil war in the Sudan that began last month between two former government allies who both now want to run the country. There are plenty of others.

Are there followers of the living God inside any of those regimes?

It’s hard to say. If there are, they can’t be open about it, because all of those governments suppress Christianity.

And then there’s the increasingly polarized United States, which isn’t so united anymore. While Christianity is openly allowed (as are all other faiths, including no faith), evil shows itself in many ways here:

• Abortion is the killing of unborn children (although that issue isn’t as simple as vocal opponents think it is).
• Our gun culture leads to far too many deaths and injuries through violence.
• We deny our identity by trying to change it (we can’t do that no matter how hard we try, despite what proponents say).
• Our isolationist, self-centered mindset denies the relationships that we need, on individual, societal, national and international levels.
• We search for love, meaning and purpose in life in all the wrong places – violent gangs, drugs, illicit sex – and not in our families or churches.

Can U.S. government employees serve the living God? Yes, they can. And do.

The state of mankind

Can Christians rise above partisan politics when living out their faith?

Depends who you ask. Christians who are passionate about political issues say yes. The rest of us aren’t so sure.

I look back on 2020 as a landmark year, as I’m sure many of you do. Three issues dominated the news that year: COVID; racism, sparked by the George Floyd killing; and a very contentious presidential election.

I found myself defending non-Christians against Christians on all three issues.

How did that happen?

We have lost our moral compass as a nation. All of us.

Which leads me back to my original question: Is it possible for us to serve an evil government and a holy God at the same time?

Serving authorities

Not only can we do that, we are commanded to do so by the apostle Paul in Romans 13.

Verse 1: Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

This is hard to stomach when government is evil – or, in the case of the United States, if we perceive it to be evil.

But this is our command.

Verse 2: Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

Verses 3, 4 and 5 take this thought a step further:

For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.

This is the way government should work. Obadiah feared for his life (1 Kings 18:12) if Elijah did not fulfill his end of the bargain and show up for the meeting with Ahab, who wanted Elijah dead. Elijah promised Obadiah that he would show up for the meeting (1 Kings 18:15), and Obadiah trusted him.

Elijah and Ahab met. The next scene describes a dramatic showdown between Elijah and 450 of Ahab’s prophets – and Elijah’s God literally showed up and won the day.

Does God judge nations as a whole? Yes, He does. The Old Testament prophets testify to this. In Jeremiah 18:1-10, for example, God promised to judge Israel and then other nations as well.

Evil rulers and nations, therefore, will face their own Judgment Day.

It’s hard to wait, no question about it. But justice, real justice, will come.

In the meantime, we are to serve God and, as best we can, the secular governments that we pay taxes to. (Romans 13:6-7 commands us to pay those taxes.)

Serving each other

After talking about serving government, the apostle Paul continues with this, in verses 9 and 10:

The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

The next step, after willfully agreeing to serve our government, is to serve each other with our personal and social lives. Which is why social issues matter.

It’s a mindset. Serve God, serve leaders, serve each other. If we fight with any or all of those, we’ve broken the contract God set up for us with Jesus. (Paul explains this contract as well as anyone, fleshing out what Jesus talked about when Jesus walked among us.)

It’s hard. Obadiah knew it. Elijah knew it, too. Even in the face of adversity, they stayed true to their principles – and to their God.

If we in 21^st century America did the same, we would solve most of our societal struggles. We would. Because God and justice are two sides of the same coin.