'I Am Not a Christian' - Four Takeaways from Harris' Departure
Joshua Harris, best known for his bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye and pastoring Covenant Life Church for 10 years, a megachurch in Maryland, announced on July 17th that he and his wife of 20 years were separating. Then, just 10 days later he announced on Instagram that he was leaving the Christian faith. Here was his announcement:
“...I am learning that no group has the market cornered on grace. This week I’ve received grace from Christians, atheists, evangelicals, exvangelicals, straight people, LGBTQ people, and everyone in-between. Of course there have also been strong words of rebuke from religious people. While not always pleasant, I know they are seeking to love me. (There have also been spiteful, hateful comments that angered and hurt me.
The information that was left out of our announcement [of our divorce] is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is “deconstruction,” the biblical phrase is “falling away.” By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith and I want to remain open to this, but I’m not there now.
...to the LGBTQ+ community, I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I taught in my books and as a pastor regarding sexuality. I regret standing against marriage equality, for not affirming you and your place in the church, and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry. I hope you can forgive me.”
As someone who has personally benefited from one of his books in a major way, this came as a huge shock to me. My wife and I read his book “Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship,” together while we were dating, which was exactly what the book was written for, and it had a lasting impact on our relationship. It helped us see our relationship not as two people just having fun, but as two people coming together in an intentional way to see if we were a good fit for marriage. This definitely caused a shift in our relationship and eventually resulted in us going forward in marriage.
So in response to Harris’ recent announcements, one of my first thoughts was “how?” How could someone who was such a leading figure in the church, someone who has done so much for God’s Kingdom, just up and leave the faith? It is difficult to process all the why’s and how’s when someone you once looked up to has abandoned what they once stood for.
Though we may never know all the answers when someone leaves the faith, there are four things that every Christian can learn from Harris’ departure:
1) Harris Admits the Bible is Not Compatible with the LGBTQ+ Revolution
With Harris’ new stance on the LGBTQ+ movement being an important reason for his departure, it is important to note that he did not go on to say the Bible affirms LGBTQ+ practices. In fact, he actually went on to say the exact opposite in a recent interview.
In an interview with Sojourners Magazine, Harris was asked about the possibility of having a biblically-based sexual ethic that is not so traditional and legalistic. In other words, if it is possible to believe the Bible while still believing it iss okay to engage in premarital sex and homosexual sex. His responded,
“In a way it's almost easier for me to contemplate throwing out all of Christianity than it is to keeping Christianity and adapting it in these different ways.... from an intellectual standpoint, it actually feels more intellectually honest for me to say I don't know that I agree with the Bible in general than it is to get it to say these things.”
He went on to conclude,
“I guess if we can with one generation make that radical shift with the Bible, who's to say that another generation can't completely shift the Bible to, you know, justify something that we would all think is horrendous? It starts to just be silly putty.”
Though Harris came to disagree with the Bible’s traditional teachings on marriage and sexuality (such as Gen. 2:24, Matt. 19:4-6, 1 Cor. 7:2), he admits that it would be intellectually dishonest to try to make the Bible teach anything other than the conservative teaching. This is very important for Christians to know, as many churches and denominations in recent years have come to affirm that the Bible is accepting of the LGBTQ+ Revolution.
2) Christian Leaders Leaving the Faith Is No New Thing
In 1 Timothy, Paul exhorts Timothy to wage good warfare by holding faith and a good conscience, as there had been many church leaders who had “made shipwreck of” (1:19), “wandered away from” (6:10), and “swerved from” (6:21) the faith. James also writes of believers who had “wandered from the truth” (5:19). With this in mind, there should be no surprise that professing Christians, and even professing Christian leaders, leave the faith. This has taken place since the beginning of the church.
This is important for Christians to remember so that our faith is not shaken when someone we know leaves the faith. It is a tragedy that will cause us to mourn and sometimes question. But at the end of the day, we have to remember that someone leaving the faith does not discredit Christianity. Rather, it points to the fact that following Jesus is no easy task, and some people will fall away.
With both Paul and James the hope was always the restoration of the believers who had fallen away. Through all of Paul’s writings in 1st Timothy, his goal was for Christian leaders to develop “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1:15). For James, his hope was that those who had wandered from the faith would be brought back. He encourages believers that “whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (5:20). This is how we should pray for Harris.
3) Fight the Good Fight of Faith
In light of this, we should remember that none of us are above the possibility of straying from or wandering from the faith. It does not matter how long we have been a Christian or even how much we have done for the Kingdom of God. We are still human on this side of heaven and can still be affected by sin and the plans of the enemy. Paul said it best in the conclusion of 1st Timothy:
“Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1 Tim. 6:11-16)
4) True Believers will Remain
Jesus said of all those who would believe in him and follow him, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-29)
Jesus is explaining that if someone truly becomes a believer they will not walk away from Jesus, at least not for good. Not because believers are so good, but because of God’s faithfulness. In this verse, we have a promise from both Jesus and God the Father that they will hold us fast. This does not mean that we will never wander from the faith, but it does mean that we will not wander forever because Jesus will ensure we return back to him.
John also speaks of this same truth but in the opposite sense, speaking about those who had left the faith for good, showing that they were never truly Christians in the first place: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they are all not of us.” (1 John 2:19)
What this means regarding Joshua Harris is that he is either in a state of wandering and straying from the faith, or he is demonstrating that he was never truly a Christian in the first place. Only God truly knows. What we can do is continue to pray, like Paul and James, that he and others who stray would be brought back and restored to sincere faith.