Since 2014, whenever there’s a school shooting, The Onion satirical newspaper hasn’t bothered to write an “article” about the violence. Instead, they’ll publish the same article, tweaked to address the circumstances, but all bearing the same title: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.’”
I’m at the point where I’m ready to do this with Christian figures caught up in scandal.
If the name Michael Tait means nothing to you, then you probably didn’t grow up listening to Christian radio. Count yourself lucky; Christian radio sucks. In the ‘90s and early ‘00s, Tait, Christian rapper TobyMac and now-exvangelical singer Kevin Max composed the Christian rap rock trio DC Talk. From 2009 to January of this year, Tait was lead singer of Christian rock band the Newsboys. In June, The Guardian and The Roys Report broke news of allegations against Tait. Seven men, two of whom were underage at the time of the alleged incidents, accused Michael Tait of sexual misconduct, sexual assault and grooming, all assisted by alcohol and drugs.
My heart broke as I read the TRR report, as these seven men, some of whom had already experienced sexual abuse before their encounters with Tait, detailed the assaults, the grooming, their sense of betrayal when they learned people in the Christian music industry knew Tait was dangerous but did nothing, and the way Tait’s abuse kicked the legs out from under their Christian faith.
My jaw clenched as a frustrated annoyance rose up in me, annoyance that only got worse when I clicked over to Facebook and saw a post saying to pray for Michael Tait and how brave he was to admit he had a problem.
Facepalm, followed by making a string of gibberish by banging my head on my keyboard.
How many times now has a Christian figure been caught doing the most un-Christian things? Michael Tait. John Crist. Jim Bakker. Jerry Falwell Jr. Ravi Zacharias. Bill Hybels. Hillsong and the Houstons. Carl Lentz. Mark Driscoll. More importantly, how many times has the Christian world welcomed them back in with open arms when their only attempts at reconciliation are vanishing for a few months for “spiritual counseling”? How many times can we say “this isn’t who we are” before we realize that, unless something changes, yes, this is exactly who we are?
Allow me to introduce you to cheap grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and leader in the German resistance to the Third Reich who was eventually executed for his role in an attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life. In his most famous book, The Cost of Discipleship, that you should definitely read, Christian or not, Bonhoeffer coined the term “cheap grace.” Why paraphrase when you can hear a definition from the man himself?
Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!…Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Wordy, innit? To simplify, here’s an example of what cheap grace isn’t: the woman caught in adultery.
If you haven’t read your Bible recently, in the book of John, the Pharisees, the religious authorities of Jesus’ day, bring to him a woman caught in the act of infidelity. The laws of Moses, those ancient laws that kept the Israelites afloat as they wandered the Sinai Desert and that Jewish society still observed in that day, say to stone adulterers, so the Pharisees hope to trick Jesus into putting his foot in his mouth. Jesus outwits them by commanding whomever is sinless among them to throw the first stone. Once the Pharisees have kicked rocks (heh heh), Jesus tells the woman, “Go and sin no more.”
This is grace. Jesus never says that the woman hasn’t committed wrongdoing—she has—and he still holds her accountable for what she’s done wrong, but he also absolves her of the consequences she could (and the law says she should) face: a painful, humiliating death.
Cheap grace, therefore, is absolution without accountability, forgiveness without recognition of wrong. And unfortunately, it’s everywhere in the modern Christian world. That, and its poisonous partner-in-crime whose name I’m inventing on the spot: selective grace.
Selective grace is like the equally-annoying inversion of selective outrage. Selective outrage is getting angry when one person or group does something but not when another person or group does something. Selective grace is cheap grace for some but not others.
Selective grace is why Michael Tait is currently persona non grata from the Christian music world for sexually assaulting men but likely would have never been allowed in the Christian music scene to begin with had he been openly gay.
Selective grace is why people in the Christian music industry looked the other way when Tait sexually abused men and minors while condemning gay people who do nothing of the sort.
Selective grace is why Amy Grant was excommunicated from Christian music after divorcing her husband, but Jason Gray has released seven albums and EPs since his divorce in 2015.
Selective grace is why to this day Jemar Tisby and Lecrae have their Christian credentials questioned because they’re dIvIsIvE. Meanwhile, Mark Driscoll, someone who’s actually divisive, as in, his tyrannical leadership is single-handedly responsible for the implosion of a massive spiritual community, now pastors a new church where, according to an open letter from the church’s elders, he hasn’t changed his spots.
Selective grace is evangelical leaders ripping Bill Clinton to shreds for having an affair but turning out in droves for Donald Trump not once, but twice, after he was caught on tape talking about grabbing women by the pussy and being sued by a woman he allegedly raped.
Selective grace is why today the Christian witness is in shambles. And if that’s going to change, something is going to have to change.
Since I started typing up this post, Michael Tait has left the Newsboys and abandoned his social media. As for the remaining members of the band, the Newsboys minus Tait are facing consequences. Several stations, including K-LOVE, the most aired Christian radio station in the country and one of the United States’ largest radio stations overall, have dropped the Newsboys’ music altogether. The band announced their label had dropped them at the end of June. Several festivals have dropped the Newsboys from their roster. As for Tate, new allegations against him have cropped up. An anonymous woman accused Tait of being audience to a Newsboys crew member drugging and raping her.
While any consequences the Newsboys and Michael Tait are experiencing they brought on themselves, the cynic in me can’t help but think these consequences are coming less because of what Tait did and more because of the skin color he had while doing them.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. As flippantly as I say something needs to change, changing “something” singular won’t work. If we keep offering cheap selective grace to Christians caught in scandal who don’t try to take accountability, make amends, or even offer a genuine apology, nothing changes. But cheap and selective graces are plants fertilized by a host of other problems: how easily Christian culture is willing to overlook obvious character flaws as long as they’re papered over with a Christian sheen; the culture of silence and complicity that the Michael Tait allegations have made clear is as bad, if not worse, in Christian entertainment as it is in secular Hollywood; the ease with which Christian celebrities become figureheads, to the point that their removal can weaken or even collapse ministries (see also: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries); the list goes on.
I think the Christian world as an entity could stand to give The Cost of Discipleship a read. That might make them realize that grace, the real, godly grace, comes at a cost.
And that if they’re not willing to pay the price, the world will (and, at the moment, is) happily foot them the bill.
Noah Keene graduated from Calvin University in December 2021 with a major in creative writing and a minor in Spanish. He currently resides in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He spends his free time reading and putting his major to good use by working on his first novel. See what he’s reading by following him on Instagram @peachykeenebooks and read his other personal writing by going to thekeenechronicles.com.
