This page was created on June 1, 2005
This page was last updated on June 22, 2005

Money for nothin’ and chicks for free...

Even when Dire Straits front man Mark Knopfler penned the above words he knew it at least took playing a guitar on MTV to get the “free” stuff—and I’m sure that neither the money nor the “chicks” came without a cost. Okay, call me the cynic, but I don’t believe anything is entirely free, even salvation, because—just like those “Clearing House Sweepstakes”—someone has footed the bill. Even our own contest is going to cost a few poor saps X amount of minutes trying to be creative so that they can “earn” the free stuff.

It seems like everything I ever got free either cost me dearly or was so pathetic that it wasn’t “worth” it. Half the “free” stuff on the internet is either virus laden or has some marketing ploy attached that costs you in headaches later. No, I don’t trust anything “free” because it always seems to carry too high a price tag.

Maybe this is in part why Christianity can appear so absurd. After all, the consistent Christian harangue is that “our salvation is free in Christ.” Now, this has something of a ring of marketing to it. After all, you can screw up, do what you want and voila! Instant salvation with no responsibility at all! This doesn’t sound quite right or just. Can a man live a life of killing and oppression and then turn to some god and be absolved of his actions, ushered into an eternity of golden streets while many “good” people are left to fend for themselves?

I guess that’s what it may appear like to many people trying to figure out this salvation thing. The problem is that the Bible does indicate that our salvation is not of ourselves; but is it “free,” as we tend to think of the word? Romans 6:23 does clearly indicates that "the wages of sin are death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." There is no doubt that our freedom from sin comes freely to those who ask in faith (see, too, Ephesians 2:8-9), but we cannot read such verses without placing them in the context of whole chapters (such as we find in James 2) which remind us that a saving faith also results in kingdom work.

When we study the scriptures we begin to realize that not only is there a great price paid for our acquittal before God (Christ’s life and sacrificial death), but it also has high costs for those that “choose the red pill,” so to speak. Jesus not only paid that price for us, but He also loves us too much to ever leave us in the hopeless condition He finds us in. We are called literally to consider the cost of following Him, which according to 2 Timothy 3:12 always comes down to persecution. We are called by God to “deny ourselves, pick up our crosses and follow Him.”

But this is not the same as self-determinism or so-called “works righteousness.” The difference is that our suffering and our hard work are a result of God’s work in us, and are not related to our justification in His eyes. We are indeed given eternal life freely, and there is great hope in knowing that this free gift is an act of God’s grace toward undeserving people. There really are no “good” people in God’s economy. There is, however, a good God who acted on our behalf, for His glory. This truth may be hard to accept, but it is also the reason why Christianity is the hope for millions of marginalized people who are deeply searching for release from spiritual bondage.

That’s why I believe that God’s offer of salvation in Christ is supernatural—because it’s hard for us to mitigate our pride. Yes, I’ll admit it’s hard to accept free gifts; and even when we do accept that our salvation is free in Christ, it is hard for us to submit to anyone, even if it is a loving God who has saved us by grace.

I guess that’s why we live in a weird paradox of wanting free stuff while being leery of accepting it. So the After Eden contest is sort of a microcosm of life in Christ. We will provide the reward for free, really—but only by actually accepting this reality will you ultimately work to experience its reward.

Yes, Christ’s gift is free; but only in our obedience do we begin to experience His grace.

Guest Response from our Free Stuff contest winner!

Okay, so I’ll have to admit that I haven’t even looked at the list of stuff that After Eden is giving away. So I can tell you that I’m not particularly interested in free stuff just because it’s good stuff. You may well be giving away a bunch of crap. And I’ve always got a garbage can if I don’t like whatever it is. I doubt it’s a car or anything really big or valuable. But who knows? At least it’s free, isn’t it?

Now this is where I’m taking a leap of faith. There doesn’t seem to be any advertising on the After Eden web pages (okay, there’s that Hunger Site link, but I know what that is, and it seems like a good thing; and sure, HJ in general has click-through links to Amazon and stuff; oh, and your editor, Greg Wright, is an author and has books I’m sure he wishes we’d buy a whole lot more of than we do—but the way I see things, that’s all very natural stuff and not really advertising, exactly, just good sense). So I really don’t think you guys are shilling for someone else.

But one of you, I can’t remember which, said something about nothing being really free. And I agree with that, so I rather imagine that you guys are getting something out of this, though I’m not sure what. I know I’ve never been able to figure out exactly why radio stations like to have people calling them all the time, because it seems to me that would be a colossal pain in the you-know-what. But I presume the motivation for them is the same as it is for you guys: proving somehow to your “owner” or publisher or whoever that people are actually paying attention to the junk you play or say.

So good luck to you. If me merely writing this little bit gets you what you need, and I get some “free stuff” in the process, so be it. And if that all illustrates some hidden desire on my part for God or something, whatever.

Now, if I “win” this little contest and you try to get me to pay some “shipping and handling” fee, I’m gonna be pretty ticked. And God will be too. I know. I speak with him regularly. Heh heh. So be warned.

Oh, and I know I’m working against a word limit here. 500 words or something like that, wasn’t it? So I’m trying to be as brief as possible, but if I find myself getting close to the limit before I’m actually done, I guess I’ll just have to

In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks of Christianity as "the ministry of reconciliation."⁵ By this, he means that the central story of the faith is the reconciliation of Man to God through the blood of His Son, Jesus. Christianity, then, is the ministry of reconciliation because all who claim the name of Christ are ministers—literally, servants in the Greek—of God's specific conciliatory purpose.

But Christianity is not only the ministry of reconciliation—it is the ministry of all things godly. One of the other theological terms applied to the act of Jesus' death on the cross is redemption. In conceiving Hollywood Jesus, David Bruce understood that Christianity is also the ministry of redemption—and in particular, it is the redemptive hope for our culture: not through legislation, stone-throwing or critical negativity, but through showing us the godly things already embedded in our culture. For God reveals Himself through all that He has created, even the things that we may not particularly like.

After Eden is dedicated to this redemptive vision. We believe, as G.K. Chesteron put it, that "humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea."⁶ That's not a reality we endorse. We'd like to help salvage the gold from the gutter, and rescue the diamonds from the sea.

Mike Gunn is a pastor at Harambee Church in Tukwila, Washington, and was cofounder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

Jenn Wright is a writer with degrees in literature and theology. She is co-writing the Narnia coverage for Hollywood Jesus, which has debuted this fall in anticipation of the first movie's 2005 release.

Hollywood Jesus Senior Editor Greg Wright is a writer and ordained minister of the dramatic arts. He teaches English Literature at Puget Sound Christian College, and is author of Peter Jackson in Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema's The Lord of the Rings.

Editor Dave Stark is an ordained minister and former Microsoft manager. He is now a partner in Restoring Hope Construction.

The Devil's Advocate is a composite personality of our consultants and editorial staff. He may look like someone you know—and probably thinks like a lot of them.

Inherited Wisdom
On Free Stuff

There is no such thing as a free lunch.¹

Shakespeare
On Free Stuff

Thought is free.²

Emerson
On Free Thought

If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment.³

Georgia O'Keefe
On Free Expression

Marks on paper are free—free speech—press— pictures all go together I suppose.⁴

Chesterton
On Perception
It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men... have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.⁷