My Interview with Matt Chandler
The young Calvinist on sin, transcendence, and the laziness of our generation.
Sep 10th, 2009 | By Skye Jethani | Category: Church, Features, Formation, TheologyA few months ago I flew down to Dallas to interview Matt Chandler for Leadership Journal. Chandler has been getting a lot of attention in recent years–both for the rapid growth of his church as well as his outspoken adherence to Reformed theology. I must admit, I had some hesitations about interviewing another very popular, very young, very “successful” pastor. Without giving away my biases…I’ve not had a great experience with people who fit that description.
I was pleasantly surprised by Chandler. Not only did he offer thoughtful, reflective, and self-aware responses to our questions (rare qualities among large church pastors who tend to be “doers” more than “thinkers”), he was also humble. But Chandler isn’t known as a touchy-feely. He likes speaking boldly and even abrasively about the shortcomings he sees in the church and in our generation. He defiantly knows how to call people out–including his comrades in the New Reformed movement that he calls “cannibals” for their infighting and doctrinal arrogance.
Here’s an excerpt of the interview Marshall Shelley and I conduced with Chandler. You can read the full piece at LeadershipJournal.net:
Your teaching is deeply rooted in Calvinism. How does that play into becoming more Christ-like? What is God’s role and what is ours?
I believe the sovereign God of the universe justifies us freely, and then we are called to run with him in sanctification. In the book of Philippians, Paul tells us to toil, strive, move, and press on. Paul is unbelievably aggressive when it comes to putting sin to death.
That is what drives me mad in evangelical circles, including some young Reformed circles. There is often a sit-on-the-couch-and-wait-for-God-to-do-something mentality that is unbiblical and wicked. It’s probably been true of every generation, but I can see it most clearly in the younger crowd. There seems to be so little war when it comes to sin.
Do you believe this generation has trouble taking responsibility for its sin?
Yeah. There’s a strong victim mentality in my generation. I think it’s spiritual laziness. They will agree that God is sovereign over all, but then they will say, “Well, I wish he would sovereignly take away my lust issue.” There’s just not a lot of fortitude, not a lot of fight in them.
How do you combat that mentality?
I preach hard against that idea and plead with people to make war against sin. I tell them it’s not going to be easy. Some people are meant to wrestle with their sin a long time before God brings them to freedom, but let’s wrestle. Let’s fight. Let’s do something besides just complain.
What does warring against sin look like?
Sanctification here at The Village begins by answering two questions. What stirs your affections for Jesus Christ? And what robs you of those affections? Many of the things that stifle growth are morally neutral. They’re not bad things. Facebook is not bad. Television and movies are not bad. I enjoy TV, but it doesn’t take long for me to begin to find humorous on TV what the Lord finds heartbreaking.
The same goes for following sports. It’s not wrong, but if I start watching sports, I begin to care too much. I get stupid. If 19-year-old boys are ruining your day because of what they do with a ball, that’s a problem. These things rob my affections for Christ. I want to fill my life with things that stir my affections for him. After a funeral I walked around the cemetery and found a grave of a guy who died when he was my age. I felt my mortality in that moment and it made me love the Lord. It really did. Some types of epic films do that for me, and so does angst-filled music.
We want our people to think beyond simply what’s right and wrong. We want them to fill their lives with things that stir their affections for Jesus Christ and, as best as they can, to walk away from things that rob those affections—even when they’re not immoral.
What do you think this generation is looking for that has been missing in the church?
Transcendence. My generation was raised on a religion of moral control. Do this. Don’t do that. And a lot of self-help religion. Feel better. Get out of debt. Six ways to overcome your fears. Seven ways not to lust. Ultimately that message didn’t work. It was empty. There was no transcendence. The omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful God of the universe wasn’t the focus. I think that’s why we are seeing the resurgence of Reformed theology.
Skye, thanks for this. I actually don’t know much about Chandler, but I appreciate others in the Reformed tradition willing to call out how much bad theology is being done in the name of the Reformed and how many in the newer Calvinist movements are giving both Calvin and the Reformed a bad name. My own brand of Reformed inclinations aligns me, as far as I can tell, with Chandler.
But, going back to my own soapbox, I’m not sure his point about fortitude is helpful (or Reformed), but I could be mistaking his point. Yes, we do need to fight against sinning, but sin isn’t action, it is a reality of the heart. Therefore we have no real power against sin itself, but can only turn to the Lord who is sovereign, who intercedes for us and whose Spirit calls out from our deep with groanings too deep for Words (Rom. 8). He is right that Paul is aggressive when it comes to putting sin to death, but it flows out of the reality of what God already has accomplished - you are already alive in Christ, therefore live that way. Life in Christ, as far as I can tell, cannot take on a teleology of fortitude, but must take on a teleology of surrender. The posture of the Christian therefore is not strength, but strength only in weakness - strength while kneeling at the foot of the cross.
I imagine that I’m pushing these points way too hard, and would certainly give Chandler the benefit of the doubt here. But I’m always worried about moralism slipping in the backdoor - especially with such a hard stance against moralism (our greatest point of attack is always our weakest defense - paraphrase of Os Guinness).
Kyle,
I understand your concern about moralism, but if you read the entire interview with Chandler he addresses this head on…sin isn’t a behavior, it’s a condition… it’s who you are. I suggest reading the whole piece at leadershipjournal.net
Skye
“I want to fill my life with things that stir my affections for him.”
A very helpful reminder indeed. Thanks for this, Matt and Skye.
Skye,
I read the interview, which I thought was great by the way, but I still have worries. Like I said, I think he says what he should be saying, but that is the subtle problem with lots of theology - affirming right doctrine doesn’t mean that it is practiced. Even the simple comment about watching basketball and getting angry, facebook, movies, etc. The solution cannot be simply putting those aside - because it ignores the reality that those things have no power to cause anger, greed, lust, etc., in you, but are only avenues for that to spill out of your heart. Once again, it was a short interview and he probably would have spelled it out in a much deeper way, but at face value, this inclination can easily undermine Reformed theology and become practical moralism. That is more my concern, hence the Os Guinness quote. I think my Reformed brothers and sisters are actually more open to moralism because it seems like such a theological impossibility that they don’t notice it when it creeps in and starts steering the ship.
In all honesty, I think Jonathan Edwards failed at this very point at times, and many of his followers, I believe, have picked up and ran with the same mistake.
kyle
There is so much nominalism in terms of dealing with sin. This interview is a great challenge - thank you!
We are about to take our congregation through a period of searching and confession - looking at Scripture and deeply examining ourselves in the light of the Word. The point is not to make ourselves religous, but to cause us to take responsibility for our sin.
“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is GOD WHO WORKS IN YOU to will and to do according to His purpose” Phil 2:12, 13
Only God can change me. Only the Holy Spirit can illuminate the Word to my heart for me to see my own sinfulness. But what we seem to miss is that He brings about the real change in my life by causing me to consciously respond to that Word - and that is something I have to be prepared to co-operate with. If I don’t take my sin seriously, I will never change.
Another quick thought - perhaps we must be cautious of understanding our doctrine and God’s Truth in terms of the labels we like to use. “Reformed”, “Calvinsim” - what are these? They’re simply frameworks in which we try to understand Scripture. And that’s ok. I am fearful, however, that we like to label ourselves according to those things, and compare ourselves to others, and even criticise others, according to those things.
Jesus is not leading you to be a better Reformed Christian, or a more correct Calvanist. He is leading you, by His Word, to become like Him. The labels have the danger of getting in our way…
[…] Jethani interviews Matt […]
[…] Thoughts on sin Posted on September 14, 2009 by ryanedwinpaulson This morning I read an interview that Leadership Journal did with Matt Chandler (a pastor in TX who I respect a lot). He had some great thoughts about what it looks like to live a life that truly follows Jesus. Here is an excerpt from the interview that I found especially interesting (take from here): […]
My latest post on the spirituality of fantasy football relates to the issue of stirring our affections for Christ:
http://thecommonloon.blogspot.com/2009/10/fantasy-football-affections.html