Against Brokenness Theology
Replacing Sin with Victimhood
A popular, contemporary evangelical song opens with these words:
O come, all you unfaithful
Come, weak and unstable
Come, know you are not alone
A few verses later we read:
O come, bitter and broken
Come with fears unspoken
Come, taste of His perfect love
A subtle, yet devastating error is found in such sentiments, one that is causing great mischief in evangelical churches. It is, at its most basic, a substitution of the language of brokenness for the biblical language of sin.
It is subtle, as much false teaching is, because it sounds on the surface very biblical. Has not the fall introduced disorder into the world? Has it not wrecked human relationships, destroyed families, churches, and nations, and brought about the dissolution of God’s good design for human life? It has done all of these things and more.
Is brokenness, then, such a bad way of describing the human predicament? It is indeed. Brokenness theology is, in fact, a denial of the Bible’s teaching on sin, a perversion of the Bible’s teaching on salvation, and a theology that leaves fallen sinners without hope.
What are the components of brokenness theology? First, it must be said that brokenness theology may give lip service to orthodox tenets of Christian theology. It may not deny that the Fall has corrupted human nature outside of Christ, or that we all are guilty sinners as a result. It does not, however, as a matter of routine patterns of speech (seen in sermons, songs, conference talks, articles, books, etc.) emphasize fallen human nature and individual acts of sinful rebellion as the most fundamental problem facing humanity. Instead, it emphasizes brokenness, which can be defined as disordered aspects of human existence. Brokenness, however, is not the same thing as sinfulness. Brokenness happens to a person. It comes from outside of him. The song I opened this article with gives a representative sample of the kinds of things one finds in brokenness theology: weakness, instability, loneliness, weariness, barrenness, bitterness, fear. But note that all of these states are framed in this song as if they were caught like the common cold; they are things that happen to you.
The biblical picture is far different: yes, we are weak in ourselves; yes, we face manifold temptations to give in to disordered instability in our lives, to succumb to self-pity and despair in the face of loneliness, to become bitter when God’s providence is hard, to rage against God for our barrenness, to succumb to fear and anxiety in moments of stress. But all of these responses are sinful. They are not neutral things that happen to us. Brokenness theology turns humans into passive victims of forces outside their control, rather than sinners who chose to rebel against God and who are therefore in desperate need of forgiveness and spiritual transformation.
In short, brokenness theology gives sinners a false understanding of the fundamental problem they face (God’s wrath), obscures the solution (repentance, faith, sanctification), and leaves them without hope (they’re simply broken victims). As such, it is a narcissistic, therapeutic perversion of the gospel. Sinners outside of Christ are indeed slaves to sin (Rom 6:17–21), but those savingly united to Christ are not helpless victims of forces outside their control. The grace of God has pulled us out of ourselves, to turn us to the savior in whom we find forgiveness for our rebellion, anxiety, fear, bitterness, grumbling, and doubts, and to find daily strength to fight against these sinful states of heart and mind. Brokenness theology teaches that God’s grace merely gives us help to endure all of these states, which are taken as characterizing the normal Christian life. These states, however, are sinful and must be repented of, not endured as so many unfortunate things that simply happen to us.
The biblical picture of the human predicament, and God’s solution, is radically different than that held out in brokenness theology, despite deceptive ways in which brokenness theology seems to use biblical language.
The fundamental problem is human rebellion against God and his law. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18). “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things” (Rom 2:1). “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” (Rom 2:12). “We have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Rom 3:9). “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:19–20). Every person is a sinner who stands by nature, and by personal action, condemned for his or her transgressions of God’s law.
The solution is God’s redeeming grace in Christ. First, his redeeming grace that makes us right with him through justification:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:21–26).
Our sins, including our willful and sinful “brokenness,” are forgiven solely by the blood of Christ (“propitiation by his blood”) and his righteousness counted to our account (“justifier [aka “one who declares righteous”] of the one who has faith in Jesus”).
Second, his redeeming grace which rescues us from bondage to sin, including our willful and sinful “brokenness”: “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.” (Rom 6:20–22).
Brokenness theology is not only unbiblical and spiritually damaging. It is also the gateway drug to a whole host of other heresies and errors. By teaching people that they are primarily helpless victims of forces outside their control, rather than willful sinners in need of salvation, it opens the door toward seeing every difficulty or challenge in life as an incapacitating force over which they have no control. Christians who have come to see life through the lens of brokenness theology, and thereby to believe that their primary problem is that they are victims of forces outside of themselves, rather than the active agents causing those problems (anxiety, doubt, whatever), will then begin to define everything else in similarly extrinsic terms.
This is happening all across the evangelical church. “My pastor won’t agree with me no matter how many times I talk to him: I’m a victim of spiritual abuse.” “I’ve gone through a very hard time: I’ve been traumatized irreparably.” “I’ve likely been traumatized by events I don’t even remember.” Brokenness theology even leads naturally to accepting homosexuality, transgenderism, and other perversions within the church. What is homosexuality, or gender identity, in this way of thinking, other than yet another unchosen, unavoidable aspect of our brokenness? Many in the evangelical world are already making such arguments, and many more are leaning in that direction. Brokenness theology must be purged from the church. We must eliminate its patterns of speech from our sermons, songs, writings, and even our everyday speech. This will be difficult and painful, since the disease has progressed very far.
So I won’t be singing “O come, all you unfaithful” because I know that God has not left me “weak and unstable.” I know that my union with the risen and ascended Jesus Christ means far more than that you can “know you are not alone” as you continue to wallow in self-pity, perpetually “bitter and broken.”
No, I’ll stick with the old hymns: “Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and pow’r.” Weak and wounded, sick and sore, yes, but such things because of my sinful rebellion against God, from which I’ve been saved by Christ’s almighty power. We’re “lost and ruined by the fall,” as the hymn also says, yet brought near to God through “true belief and true repentance,” and by “the merit of His blood.”
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