Four-Way Faith

We trace the fracture back to authority and ask whether the church wants holiness or relevance. We walk through Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, and argue that grace must transform desire for discipleship to remain real.

• defining the core issue as authority, not sexuality
• contrasting culture’s identity story with Scripture’s formation of desire
• outlining the Wesleyan quadrilateral with Scripture as primary
• explaining how accommodation erodes theology, worship, and discipleship
• clarifying love as willing the good, not mere affirmation
• linking sexuality to body, worship, covenant, and allegiance
• warning signs of compromise in worship, holiness, and doctrine
• calling for renewed confidence in grace and sanctification

If you're not dead, God's not done. And the best of all is Christ is with us.

Chapters

• 0:09 Welcome To Uncomfortable Grace
• 2:09 Holiness Versus Relevance
• 3:03 Authority As The Core Issue
• 4:14 Culture’s Story Of Identity
• 6:01 Wesleyan Quadrilateral Reordered
• 8:11 Scripture On Desire And Identity
• 10:01 Tradition’s Witness Under Pressure
• 12:11 Reason’s Role And Its Limits
• 13:21 Experience Matters But Not As Judge
• 15:12 When Churches Trade Holiness For Applause
• 17:03 Sexuality As A Revealing Intersection
• 19:03 Love As Willing The Good
• 20:39 Four Symptoms Of Compromise
• 22:03 Bodies, Worship, And Allegiance
• 24:00 What The Church Tolerates, It Teaches
• 26:02 Recovering Confidence In Grace
• 27:03 Final Charge And Blessing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Hello and welcome back to Uncomfortable Price, a place where truth and mercy lie. We're talking about the church crap. Does the church still believe it is called to be holy or just relevant? This isn't a podcast built for easy answers or comfortable Christianities. It's a space for honest faith, hard questions, and the kind of grace that doesn't just comfort but confront. Here I take Scripture seriously, tradition faithfully, and discipleship personally. I believe Jesus doesn't just forgive sins, He transforms lives. Some conversations here may challenge you, some may unsettle you, and some may push you to wrestle with what you believe and why you believe it. But this is a place where conviction and compassion, they're not enemies, where disagreement doesn't mean rejection, and where grace is strong enough to tell the truth. If you were looking for shallow faith, this is probably not the podcast for you. But if you're willing to lean in, to listen, to wrestle, and to be shaped, welcome. This is Uncomfortable Grace. All right, let's settle in because today is not a soundbite conversation. This is a roots conversation. If you're listening to this episode, you're probably not here for outrage. You're here because you're trying to understand why the church is fracturing, why doctrine feels negotiable now, and why things that were once settled suddenly fill up for grabs. And I want to name the real question underneath all of this. Does the church still believe it is called to be holy or just relevant? Because those are not the same thing. In last episode, I talked about identity and discipleship, why the phrase gay Christian doesn't actually work within historic Christianity, and why the issue isn't attraction but identity and transformation. Today I want to go deeper, not louder, deeper. Today I want to show you why the church cannot change its theology simply because culture says it's okay, and how much is actually at stake when we compromise scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. And if you're Methodist, you know exactly what I'm getting ready to do. But I believe this with my whole heart. Listen, when the church becomes like the world, it does not become more loving, it becomes powerless. Let me say this though, uh clearly and before we go any further. This conversation is not ultimately about sexuality. Sexuality is the presenting issue, however, but it is not the core issue. The core issue is authority. Who gets to tell the church what is true? Who defines good and evil? Who names holiness? Because once the church hands that authority to culture, even with the goodest of intentions, it does not get to decide where the line stops. Paul warns the church in Romans 12. He says, Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now, if you will, notice what he does not say. He doesn't say stay relevant. Um He doesn't say keep up, he doesn't say Umpt your moral vision so people feel comfortable. He says, Do not be conformed. Why, Paul? Why should we not be conformed? Because conformity always costs the church its witness. What we need to hear in this now is culture is not neutral, culture catechizes, culture disciples, culture tells a story about what it means to be human. And right now, the dominant culture sounds like this desire reveals identity, authenticity means self-expression, fulfillment equals happiness, limitation, that is oppression. Listen, that story is not biblical. Scripture tells a very, very different story. Scripture tells us that the human heart is formed by what it loves, that desires can be distorted, that freedom comes through obedience, that life is found by losing it. Jesus himself says, Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for the sake of mine will find it. That is a direct contradiction of modern culture. So when the church absorbs cultural definitions of identity and then asks Scripture to adjust, something breaks and it always breaks downstream. First in theology, then in worship, then in discipleship, then in moral confusion. So let's talk Wesley now. Because one of the biggest mistakes I think we as Methodists do is invoking the Wesleyan quadrilateral without actually using it the way Wesley intended. Scripture is at the top. Tradition, reason, and experience follow. These are not four equal authorities. Scripture is primary. Wesley never believed the quadrilateral gave us permission to override scripture. He believed it gave us a way to apply scripture faithfully without abandoning it. When we reverse that, however, when scripture becomes flexible and experience becomes decisive, we stop doing Wesleyan theology and we start doing cultural accommodation. So let's walk through this carefully. We'll begin at the top with Scripture. Scripture does not ask permission from culture, Scripture reveals the nature of God, the condition of humanity, the meaning of sin, the possibility of holiness. And Scripture is remarkably consistent on one thing desire does not define identity. Belonging does. Paul tells us in one Corinthians six, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. That is ownership language. That is covenant language. Identity flows from who owns you, not what you feel. When Scripture talks about sin, it does not reduce it to mere behavior alone. It goes deeper to the loves and the desires that shape the soul. Jesus says, Out of the heart come evil thoughts. That means the gospel doesn't just manage behavior, it heals the heart. And listen, this is critical, this is critical. If the church denies that grace can transform desire, it quietly denies sanctification itself. Wesley believes sanctification was real, not hypothetical, not symbolic, but real. Grace does not merely forgive, it restores. If grace can transform pride, if grace can transform greed, if grace could transform violence and lust, then it can transform sexual desire too. If it cannot, then holiness is a myth. And Christianity collapses into um moral therapy. Now let's move into tradition because this is where I think the pressure is highest. People say things like Cody, the church has been wrong before. Cody, this is just like slavery. Cody, we finally caught up. We're catching up. But here's the problem with that argument. When the church corrected itself historically, historically, it did so by returning to Scripture, not by abandoning it. Tradition does not mean the church never struggled. It means the church consistently refused to bless what Scripture called sin. From the earliest centuries, Christians believed in um Christians well, they lived in a culture that normalized sexual practices the church rejected. The church did not change its theology because culture changed. It changed culture because it refused to change. And when the church did compromise, when it did compromise, listen, we have history to show us what followed. Moral confusion, weak discipleship, loss of witness, eventual irrelevance. See, tradition reminds us that when the church becomes indistinguishable from the world, it stops offering salvation and starts offering affirmation. Now hear this, please. Hear this, check this, check this. Affirmation cannot save. So let's turn the page into reason because reason matters, but only when it knows its place. Wesley never meant for reason to be the judge over scripture. Reason, you can say, helps us understand how obedience is lived, not whether obedience is required. What we often call reason today is actually um moral intuition shaped by culture, right? We reason from what we assume is good, but scripture asks us to reason toward holiness. When reason becomes autonomous, it always sides with comfort. And comfort has never ever, ever, ever, ever been the path of discipleship. Now we flip the page into experience. Experience matters. People matter, stories matter, but experience does not define truth. Experience tells us that people struggle, not what holiness is. If experience becomes authoritative, the church loses its ability to call anyone to transformation. Um, period. The church loses its ability to call anyone a transformation. And here is the pastoral tragedy, friends. When the church tells people, this is just who you are. What it's quietly doing, what it's quietly telling is grace has limits. Listen, listen, that is not compassion, that is despair dressed as kindness. So let me be very direct now. When the church compromises scripture to match culture, it pays a very, very high price. It loses moral clarity, discipleship depth, prophetic witness, confidence in grace. And listen, this comes too. Eventually, it loses the gospel itself. Because a gospel that never caused people to die will never raise them to life. Jesus did not die to affirm us as we are. He died to make us new. Wesley believed holiness was not optional. Holiness, it's not legalism. It's it's freedom. Freedom from being ruled by desire, freedom to love God fully. When the church stops preaching holiness, it doesn't become more loving, it becomes less honest. And honesty is love. So let me push this further. Because I don't think we fully appreciate what happens when the church decides the culture gets to uh set the moral horizon. Listen, here it is. Every generation of Christians face the same temptation to believe our moment is unique, our pressure is unprecedented, our compromise is compassionate. But scripture tells us something sobering. In Judges, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, Israel does not abandon God outright. They simply start doing what is right in their own eyes. And that church right there, that phrase should terrify us. Because doing what feels right is not the same thing as doing what is faithful. Did you guess that? Doing what right what is right does not and is not the same thing as doing what is faithful. The church never collapses because it stops believing in God. It collapses because it stops believing God knows better than we do. And this is where sexuality becomes such a revealing issue. Um, because sexuality, you can say, it it does something like this. It sits at an intersection, and I believe that intersection is something like um desire, identity, authority, and obedience. And listen, if culture gets to redefine sexuality, it will eventually redefine marriage, which we know it has, the body, it's darn sure trying to do that. The meaning of sin, the meaning of salvation, and the purpose of discipleship. This is why the stakes are so high. So we need to talk honestly now here. Because I think this is a good place to begin to do it. The word love, it has been hollowed out. In Scripture, love is never defined as affirmation. Love is defined as willing the good for the other, even when it costs something. Hebrews tells us that the Lord disciplines those he loves. That means love sometimes says no. Love sometimes limits, love sometimes wounds in order to heal. But when the church adopts the world's definition of love, love becomes permission. And permission feels kind until it leaves people enslaved. So let me say this as clearly as I can. A church that cannot say no is not a loving church. It is a church that has lost confidence in transformation. And listen, when the church loses confidence in transformation, it replaces discipleship with therapy. People are no longer called to die and rise, they are taught to cope and self-affirm. That, that friends, is not the gospel. Scripture gives us a pattern, if you will, that we ignore at our own peril. Whenever God's people blur the lines between themselves and the surrounding culture, four things always follow. Worship becomes Confused, holiness becomes optional, sin becomes redefined, God's presence becomes assumed rather than sought. And we see this in Israel, we see this in the prophets, we see this in Revelation when Jesus warns the church that compromise is not neutral, it is deadly. Jesus does not rebuke churches for being too strict, he rebukes them for tolerating what he calls sin. And that should sober us. The church today is not being prosecuted or persecuted for holiness, it is being applauded for accommodation. And applause. Listen, applause is rarely a sign of faithfulness. People often say, um, why are you making such a big deal out of this issue, Cody? Why? Why does this even matter to you? Well, because scripture never treats sexuality as a side issue. Sexuality is directly tied to the body, it's tied to creation, it's tied to covenant, it's tied to fidelity, it's tied to holiness, it's tied to the very image of God. Paul explicitly connects sexual ethics to worship in Romans 1. Not because sexuality is the worst sin, but because it reveals who or what we worship. Sexuality exposes allegiance. That's why Paul doesn't say, listen, he doesn't say, live however you want, just believe the right things. I know we've all heard that. He says, offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Bodies matter, and a church that disconnects faith from the body will eventually disconnect faith from obedience entirely. Let me say something um pastoral but very direct. What the church tolerates today, it teaches tomorrow. If the church tells people this desire, this desire, it defines you. This behavior, listen, it doesn't matter. This teaching, we can change that. This authority, man, this is negotiable. Then the church is catechizing people, even if it never says those words out loud. And here is the quiet tragedy. This is this is what it is. Young believers stop believing holiness is possible. Older believers stop believing obedience matters. Leaders stop believing scripture has authority, and eventually people leave. People leave, not because the church was too demanding, but because it had nothing distinct left to offer. Wesley believed, and I do too, that grace could heal disordered desires, grace can form holy habits, grace can shape a holy people. If Wesley were alive today, he would not ask, how do we change doctrine to keep people? He would ask, Why have we stopped believing sanctification works? Because when the church stops when when the church stops expecting transformation, it quietly teaches people to settle for bondage. It's not mercy. Let me be blunt now. A church that looks like the world will never challenge the world. A church that sounds like the world will never save the world. A church that affirms what the world celebrates will never offer resurrection. Jesus did not say, you are the salt of the earth unless it offends people. He said, listen, he said, if salt loses its saltiness, it is good for nothing. That is not harsh language. That is honest language. And this is where this conversation matters so deeply to me. Not because I want to exclude people, not because I want to control people, not because I want to go backwards, but because I believe the church is called to be set apart, not blended in. And here's where I'll end this. Let me give you just my final thought, and it's a similar one as last time. You can be a Christian who struggles, you can be a Christian who wrestles, you can even be a Christian who stumbles and gets back up. But you cannot be a Christian who refuses transformation and still call that faithfulness. Wesley believed grace was strong enough to change people. I believe that too. Not just forgive them, but change them. And if that's still true, then the church doesn't need to rewrite its theology. It needs to recover its confidence in grace. Thanks for sticking with me today on Uncomfortable Grace. I hope this challenges the believer and unbeliever alike and the church. And remember, God is not done with you yet. If you're not dead, God's not done. And the best of all, the best of all is Christ is with us. Grace and peace, friends.