The Gospel and Fear

The gospel brings many things with it: forgiveness, reconciliation, life, hope. People have spent their whole lives on communicating all of the marvelous things that come with the gospel. The opposite from the gospel, however, is fear. Even a proper "fear of God" is one cultivated out of a relationship of love and respect. Fear is as far from the gospel as the East is from the West. Despite all this we have come up with some clever ways to put ourselves right in the midst of fear, making it the center of our attention. Even when we are aware that fear has no place in our lives, we at numerous times spend extraordinary amounts of time and energy grappling with it anyway. It has the capacity to paralyze us, keep us from moving forward. Fear, despite its demise on the cross, has still been successful in sprouting like a weed in the gardens of our lives. It can happen to the extent that many actually start refocusing the importance of that garden to the weeds themselves, again making them the center of attention. Fear can be of many things, and fear culminates itself in many ways. Fear of failure, fear of not being self-fulfilled, fear of loneliness, fear of disrespect, to say just a few.

For Christians it can even be a fear of sin. Hating sin and pursuing holiness does not equate with fearing sin. If we are to affirm the cross then we must affirm the resurrection. The resurrection is the answer to the potency of sin, the answer to everything that we fear. The very nature of the resurrection and all that it brings: hope, peace, unity, mercy, compassion; all eat up fear. The resurrection has turned the tables on sin and death, making them powerless and in fact making a mockery out of their supposed power.

An incredibly powerful voice on the subject of fear was the contemplative Thomas Merton. He writes a chapter in his book The New Seeds of Contemplation named The Moral Theology of the Devil. "According to the devil, the first that was created was really hell - as if everything else were, in some sense, for the sake of hell." For many the avoidance of hell, and thus the fear of it, has become the center of attention. I have heard sermons based on fear as a motivator. Indeed fear is an awesome - if not to say awful - mover and shaker. Preaching "hellfire and brimstone" is a saying closely associated with preachers who testify to the power and grasp of hell as the motivator for salvation. But there are other, more subtle examples of how fear can infiltrate our lives. I personally have felt a great amount of anxiety for things I know I should let go of. The past tense of anxiety is regret, and I don't think I am the only one to struggle with that sensation either.

The process of consumerization, that is getting in line with the predominant consumer-capitalism culture of America, also has much to do with creating and controlling fear. Within the space of a 30 second commercial we are given cause to fear, and the remedy? To partake in the following prescription for a new credit card, car, alcoholic beverage, tooth brush, facial cleanser, etc. Or else! Or else we won't have security, peace of mind, success, livelihood, and more.

The entire promotion of the nation-state is one based on fear; a tenaciously fed and well managed xenophobia of other states, cultures, ethnicities and ideologies. The book "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton gives some amazing insight into this. Within history the formation of every nation-state, the U.S. included, has rested on conflict. The U.S. came into being only after the Revolutionary War. There always needs to be solidification against a category sociologists call "the other." Nation-states arise in the midst of conflict, and by touting victory of the nation-state against all our "enemies" (please see the "war on terror") it provides us a soteriology other than a bible's. In other words it provides us with a salvation separate and besides the one of the gospel.

I said earlier that the gospel brings with it the destruction of fear, the end to the totalitarian state of the devil. We are given the cure to not only the monstrous fears, but also to everyday anxiety and worrisomeness. It all links with the idea of stewardship and the fact that God has the entire world in his hands. All the resources in the world are already God's, including all of nature, our possessions, and our very bodies. Stewardship is just recognizing this and submitting those resources to that reality. Hope and faith also stem from recognizing the absolute sovereignty of God. With everything in God's hands, and we as heirs to Christ, what do we have to fear? Nothing! Our difficult task is simply realizing what is real.