Three Kinds of Men

C.S. Lewis has a little 2 page article which is not very well distributed, but is, I believe, one of his most important works. The article is called "Three Kinds of Men." You see, here in England, there is a popular evangelistic program called "Two Kinds of People." And the thrust of the evangelistic encounter is this: You go up to a non-Christian and say Listen. There are only two ways to live. You can live man's way - always trying to be good enough, always seeking after acceptance, always being led around by your sin, and always looking after me, me, me. Then the evangelist will say something like, You can either live like that - man's way, or you can live God's way. If you live God's way your life will suddenly have purpose; you will be truly selfless; you will be heirs of the kingdom, etc. (You can find an example of this argument here.)

I am not just criticizing the British on this point, American Christians, while maybe not having the formal program, use this same argument. In fact, I would argue that underneath and behind nearly all the preaching done in America (even by solid orthodox churches) lies this assumption and thrust. And, of course, there is nothing on the surface wrong with saying there are two kinds of people in the world. There are. You are either a Christian or you are not one. You either have a Biblical worldview or you don't. But Tim Keller (and Lewis through Keller) has been very helpful to me on this point. He argues that when we preach and do evangelism instead of presenting "two kinds of people" we present "three kinds of men." What are the three kinds?

Tertullian, an early church Father, said, "Just a Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors. These thieves that Tertullian is speaking of are hedonism (or relativism) and moralism (or legalism). So here you have it:

1. Moralism / "Religiosity" is the view that you are acceptable to God (and everyone else) as long as you are good enough. You see moralists in orthodox churches all the time. Moralists view God as holy and just, and this will lead them to feel completely inferior (because they can't live up) or completely superior (because they do a better job a keeping the rules than others do). Moralists are very religious and very involved in Church, but they have never experienced the joy of the Gospel
2. Antinomianism / Relativism is the view that it doesn't matter if you keep the rules. They just want to be tolerant of other people. Everyone, they say, needs to determine right and wrong for themselves. Relativists wouldn't frequent conservative evangelical churches - they would go to more liberal churches. God accepts just because He is welcoming and loves everybody. Not because he demanded justice for sin which was paid through Jesus.
   
3. Thirdly, there is Gospel. The Christian worldview is neither conservative nor liberal on the typical political spectrum. Instead it is radically conservative and radically liberal at the same time! The Gospel tells us that God is so holy that nothing short from complete payment of sins and perfect righteousness of Christ can satisfy. God is more conservative than the moralists god who can be satisfied by "trying hard." And at the same time, the Gospel tells us that God is so loving that we - even now - received Jesus' perfect righteousness and are beautiful, perfectly accepted in God's eyes. So God is more liberal that the liberal's God because it cost our God something to love us. It cost him his son, death, the depths of hell.
   

So you see, there are indeed three kinds of men. And it is important to talk about all three. If non-Christians here us talking about two kinds of men they assume we want them to become "religious" moral people. Even if we say, "Jesus did it so you don't have to," they are going to hear, "Stop sinning and be moral like me," or, "stop voting democrat and start voting republican," and that's simply not the Gospel. Our God is radically conservative and radically liberal. Let's celebrate him as such!