“Far From the Lord”
A term that was used in evangelical churches sometimes in response the the question:
“How is (fill in name here) doing?”
The reply might be, “Oh, they are far from the Lord right now.”
What the term apparently meant was that some people were close to God while others were far away from God. It also implied that at any given point a person might be close to God or far from God. The idea was that if you were meeting certain conditions in your life then you would be considered close to God, but if you were not meeting those conditions you were far away from God.
“Far from the Lord” is a term that I heard in church culture more a decade or two ago than I have heard recently, but while the term might be less frequent in use, the theology behind it is still all too present.
Whenever I heard term, and even now as I write about it, my reaction was to laugh. I find the term laughably ridiculous. It implies that God is fixed. It implies that God is helpless. It implies that the only agency in the spiritual life is of the person, God is not really involved at all. In “far from the Lord” kind of thinking, God is a fixed point and we either move closer or further away. I think some of my stifled laughter reaction was because I anticipated what a person who would use a term like that would give as evidence for their assertion.
Sample conversations:
“Oh, Steve is really far from the Lord right now.”
“Why do you say that, what do you mean?”
“Oh, it’s just that he really isn’t interested in going to church.”
or
“Oh, he isn’t sure that he believes anymore.”
or
“Oh, he has had some problems with drugs lately.”
I came to see that it was even possible for people in a family to think that one child in the family might be “close to God” while another child in the same family was “far from the Lord”. Consider for a moment what this says about particular views of God and of people. Consider the damage this might do in a family system.
Granted, some of the people who used this expression were loving people. The problem might be more theological than interpersonal. It is curious to consider if people who used that term thought of themselves as “close to God” while others were far away. That’s a troubling possibility.
I sometimes think that there might be a fun way to respond to the simple, “How have you been lately?" question. Of course I mean playfully, but something like this:
Someone asks (a church person or someone who has never been involved with church) “How have you been lately?”
My response:
“Ok, I guess, but I have recently been far from the Lord.”
The promise of Christian faith is that God has moved towards us in Jesus Christ. He does not remain far off. Hopeful Christian faith helps us to see how there is no one who is “far from the Lord”.
Next week’s Evangelical Word of the Week:
“Far from the Lord - the bad theology of this mistake”