The Gift of Conviction

Unleashing Your Heart for God's Sake and the Good of Your Neighbor

Some time ago, I had a meeting with a potential donor for our young church. He adamantly tried to set up a meeting with me for several weeks; it was clear he was eager to meet. Others had told me that this individual could be our largest donor ever. I was told he might even support us enough to buy our own building.

For an urban church like ours, that would be a game-changer!

Our meeting was going well until this individual shared with me the one hill he would die on: he demanded that I affirm and sign John MacArthur and Voddie Baucham’s statement on social justice.¹ After giving several examples of why he thought it was important I sign this statement, they concluded, “This statement is the Reformed and biblical view on justice. I need to know that the pastors I support agree with it.”

It had been nearly four years since I heard either of these names. As a pastor in the DC area, I regularly found myself having to make the case to other Reformed Christians why neither MacArthur nor Baucham is Reformed, how they often twist what others say to make their point, and why neither should therefore carry any authority in our churches. When I left the DC area, I was happy to leave these names and those conversations behind so I could focus instead on ministry to the forgotten and the marginalized.

I had no intention of reengaging those debates with this individual. Instead, I responded: “Well, MacArthur and Baucham are not Reformed.² As a Presbyterian, the only doctrinal statement I will sign is the Westminster Standards. Furthermore, I’m concerned by any attempt to rationalize what Jesus said should be governed by love. But, if you’re willing, I want to meet again to discuss what Jesus and John Calvin said about social justice.”

I left him with links to sermons I’ve given and essays I’ve written here. I haven’t heard back.

I do not doubt that some might hear this story and think I’m foolish for not being flexible enough to do what this individual asked to gain his financial support. After all, it wouldn’t harm anyone to appease his conscience so that our ministry could gain some significant funding, would it? In the grand scheme of things, isn’t it worth bending a little bit for the sake of the long-term mission of your church?

No. Going against your conviction is never worth it, no matter how much money is on the line. I regret nothing.

Convictions are deeply held beliefs of the heart that give shape to every area of our lives. They are light that penetrates everything; like pressurized air, they will not rest until they fill every accessible space.³ Convictions are more than mere opinions, which can quickly change, do not stir us to action, and remain mere ideas in our heads.

For the Christian, conviction is deeply connected to faith in Christ and what he has commanded in his Word. Convictions are only valid when they fulfill the greatest commandments to love our God and our neighbors (Mark 12:29-31). When convictions take hold of us, our hearts are unleashed for God’s sake and the good of others.

Conviction is the greatest gift we can give to our neighbors.

The idea of conviction has fallen on hard times. I’ve written elsewhere about how social media culture has allowed us to accept shallow substitutes for true charity and justice. I think the same could be said for conviction. We have confused Facebook “activism” and strong opinions with conviction. Yet, in most cases, the strong words we post are little more than passionate noise and vented frustration. Most of us can recognize that this behavior is tiresome.

Yet this is not conviction.

Nor is conviction mere passionate demonstration in the public square. We might look to those who led and marched in the Black Lives Matter protests as people of conviction. The January 6^th rioters, whether we are sympathetic to their cause or not, were acting on their conviction. Pastors who took a stand for racial justice in 2020 were willing to stand on their convictions.

Were they? Where are those who marched now? Where are the pastors who signed denominational statements and preached that three-week series a few years ago? In many cases, our activism and public statements are motivated more by the desire to appear as people of conviction than by actually being people of conviction. For many, their passion for a vision for justice has passed as a fad.

I am old enough now to have observed many of my friends radically change their political and social positions several times within just a few years. I’ve seen passionate republicans become outspoken democrats only to become disciples of MAGA, all within a few years. I’ve observed the same in the reverse direction.

Opinions are matters of preference and ideology that can easily change with new information. Opinions are not wrong, they’re just rootless. They’re tied to our perspective and experience and will quickly shift when our circumstances change.

If a conviction is worthy of the name, it must be rooted in moral norms and objective realities. Conviction is not an idea that easily changes, but a force that powerfully changes us. An opinion is an idea we hold; a conviction holds onto us.

For Christians, conviction is deeply connected to the concept of faith. Faith, when it is rooted in Christ and his Word, brings us “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). As Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) beautifully described, this conviction contains the qualities of “courage (Matt. 9:2), rejoicing (Rom. 5:11), and joy (1 Pet. 1:8, etc.).” Even when our convictions bring us incredible suffering, trial, and loss, “Believers will sooner give up everything than renounce their faith. Nothing is more precious to them than faith, not their money, their goods, their honor, or even their lives.”⁴

Many Christians have also confused strong doctrinal positions with conviction. Yet, any doctrine that does not transform is not conviction; it is mere opinion. Theological beliefs that do not result in good news for us and our neighbors are not a result of faith but doubt. Orthodoxy without love is liberalism that separates the body and soul and prioritizes the individual over the common good.

For Bavinck, true conviction—faith— is an agreement of the intellect and the will that brings about “love, desire, joy.”⁵ Perhaps the Apostle said it best: the only thing that counts is faith working itself out in love (Galatians 5:6).

One of my new favorite books is a little devotional titled Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place by Ben Lansing and D.J. Marotta. This book is a wonderful devotional filled with beautiful iconography of many global saints from throughout church history that I have never heard of before. Each entry includes a brief biography of a saint, a Scripture connection, and a prayer prompt. I highly commend it to you.

I was struck in a recent entry about Pandita Mary Ramabai (1858-1922), a convert from India who became a passionate advocate for oppressed women in her country. As an educated woman, she was able to travel the world, teaching her language and culture to others. Though she loved her country, she was searching for a belief system that did not degrade women. While in England, she heard the gospel, renounced Hinduism, and put her faith in Jesus.

Ramabai was a woman of deep conviction, and she didn’t allow any resistance she faced to keep her from acting on them. Indians resented Ramabai for embracing Christianity, and she frequently clashed with the colonialist attitudes of Westerners. Upon returning to India, she established safe havens for homeless Indian women and children, and she advocated for oppressed women in India. She translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Marathi. Her conviction, deeply rooted in faith, was a transformative force in her life and the lives of her people.⁶

As we’ve set out to cultivate a new church on Indianapolis’ Near Westside, it has always been our intention to prioritize the forgotten and marginalized in our community. Over the last several months, a single immigrant mother whom I’ll call Emma has frequently joined us for worship and Bible study. Emma has been harmed by many other people in her life, including former pastors. She is taken advantage of by her employers, and her landlord doesn’t seem to care about the terrible condition of his property.

Emma comes alive when she’s with our group. As we discuss Jesus’ tender mercy, his care for the vulnerable, and the transforming effects of his Spirit in a community, Emma lights up because she knows that Jesus and this group of people are for her. As she prepared to leave one of our recent gatherings, she said to the group: ‘Thank you for always remembering me. Thank you for your heart.”

Had I signed that statement to get that money, I would have declared that Jesus does not have a special place in his heart for women like Emma. I would have had to agree that it is not the church’s responsibility to prioritize caring for women like Emma. I would have had to deny attention to the systemic forces that converge to keep women like Emma trapped in neglect and poverty. Having abandoned my convictions, women like Emma would no longer find our church to be a place of grace and refuge, but further pain and harm.

People are tired of meeting Christians with mere opinions. We need Christians who are sent out into their neighborhoods with transformative convictions rooted in Christ and his Word. Such Christians would attest to a kingdom of love and justice that even now is breaking into this world. As they sacrifice their time and resources for others, they would declare with their words the salvation of Christ the King, who liberates sinners and renews creation.

Who are you? Who do you want to be? Are you a person with opinions? Or do your deeply held convictions direct your steps? Look to Jesus and search his Word. Ask him to fill your heart that it might be unleashed in love for God’s sake and the good of your neighbor. There are few prayers he loves to answer more.

1. See: https://statementonsocialjustice.com

2. As Reformed historian Richard Muller has said, the views of men like MacArthur and Baucham would have been repudiated by Calvin and would have caused them to be thrown out of Geneva! See https://the-highway.com/how-many-points_Muller.html

3. See Abraham Kuyper, “Is Error a Punishable Offense?” in On Charity and Justice, 183

4. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics 1:573

5. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics 4: 129.

6. Ben Lansing and D.J. Marotta, Our Church Speaks, 83-84.