I was there (sometime in the 90s) with my youth group friends in the basketball arena of what would one day be my college alma mater. I cheered and screamed. I couldn’t hear myself, but I sang along with gusto: “I don’t really care if they label me a Jesus freak; there ain’t no disguising the truth.”
Kevin Max’s lead vocal on “Jesus Freak”, title track to the blockbuster album, along with DC Talk co-singers Michael Tait and Toby Mac, helped define a generation of Christian music. But of late Max has declared himself “Ex-vangelical.” What’s this mean? It means he no longer wants to be identified as evangelical. It means that, according to his Twitter claims to still believe in “the Universal Christ” (I haven’t read Richard Rohr’s 2019 book by that title, but Max’s capitalized reference to that term appears to point in its direction) and to be “here for ‘The Grace’” (another likely nod to a more generalized, universalized version of Jesus as a mere good example or manifestation of the inherent goodness of nature), his beliefs have e-volved away from e-vangelicalism towards an ex-vangelicalism that, in his view, is far more accepting and tolerant and far less judgy and hypocritical. The catch-words in the Christian Post article (linked above) that Max comes back to several times are “progress(ing)” and “regress(ing)”—as in progress = good, regress = bad: ‘Let’s keep moving forward; let’s keep progressing; the Christian message is harming people; it’s making people feel left out, ashamed, judged, and condemned so let’s move forward towards something that makes us feel…well…not those things!’
Okay, I’ll grant Kevin Max’s point that evangelical believers, churches, and even denominations need to check their hearts and to confess and repent of attitudes and behaviors that grossly misrepresent the biblical Jesus and the euangelion (Greek for “good news”) that He saves sinners through His atoning life, death and resurrection. On this side of heaven, no true Christian is without residual selfishness and meanness; we’re all capable of it when we fail to exercise the Spirit’s gifts, including self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). But by the Holy Spirit, by the Bible, and by the covenant fellowship of Christian accountability in the local church God equips us to be continually confronted on these sin issues so we can turn from them and have clear consciences before Him and our fellow men.
But let’s be honest. The good news that Jesus saves can’t come to us without its leading “bad news” edge: we’re all sinners deserving of God’s wrath and eternal punishment (Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:3; Colossians 1:21, etc.) . That’s a message that can, does, and should leave every person feeling judged, left out, ashamed, and condemned—that is exactly the point of those verses (and plenty of others)! Christians, churches, and denominations aside, if we don’t feel those things from a holy God, we’ll never see our need for a Savior. Maybe Kevin Max really is just freaked out by Jesus’ people, but I think that’s a culturally-acceptable, points-scoring, socially-applauded way of masking that he’s really freaked out (and offended) by Jesus Himself and by a belief system that would dare require that its adherents first come to grips with their own wickedness and spiritual bankruptcy and then be conformed to Christ, namely to a scripturally revealed pattern of righteous thinking and living (Romans 12:2; 2 Timothy 3:16).
The Christian Post article quotes Max in a recent podcast saying, “I've been deconstructing for decades. I've always been progressing, as you can say, and then sometimes I regress. But I think where I'm at right now is I've really gone on a journey to find out what I truly believe in by reading a lot, thinking a lot, keeping my eyes and ears open.”
Well, just to go back to that scripturally-revealed pattern of thinking and living, the apostle Paul warns a young Christian leader named Timothy, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,” and “the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (1 Timothy 4:1-2; 2 Timothy 4:3).
Kevin Max can imply that all convictional evangelical Christians have blinders on and earplugs in when he says, “I've really gone on a journey to find out what I truly believe in by reading a lot, thinking a lot, keeping my eyes and ears open.” But in keeping his eyes and ears open to sub-biblical versions of Jesus and salvation that are more in keeping with what’s perceived as cool, acceptable, and tolerated among a growing number of “nones” (those who claim no affiliation with organized religion)—not to mention potential consumers of his musical products—he should at least admit to covering his eyes and plugging his ears as well—just in his case to the sound doctrinal truths he used to sing about so boldly and so well.
Kevin Max feels compelled to lead people, by way of his personality and celebrity platform, to what he thinks is a better version of Christianity. Likewise those without his vocal talents and influence in the culture-creating industries of music and media but with more ordinary types of influence within the institutions of family, church, and even denominations must also seek to lead people to stand firm on evangelical principles set forth in Scripture—principles that have have steadied the church and made its message of salvation through Christ a beacon of hope for 2,000 years. If there’s something new in the world, something truly progressive, it is the culture-upending power of the euangelion to affirm the dignity and worth of all people AND the redeeming love of God for them in Christ! If there’s something regressive in the world, it’s the same old self-centered, me-centered falling away from God—the same old assuming we can improve on His plan—that first showed up in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 and has always attended His redeeming work among people. It’s not new, and yet it’s still heartbreakingly sad. Apostasy should be addressed with alarm by those who see it for what it is.
If he is a true believer, I hold out hope that God will yet show Kevin Max the error of the path of cultural accommodation and the arrogance of generalizing sincere evangelicals as hateful bigots. While he lives and breathes, may the Spirit of God bring him back to the real and socially uncomfortable gospel of the Bible; may he rejoin the ranks of us Jesus Freaks. I hope Kevin Max’s departure from the faith isn’t true, but at this moment it would seem there just ain’t no disguising it.
~Darin Avery