Living as a “Mugwump”

by Russell Young*

God strongly condemns living as a “mugwump.” A “mugwump” is someone who lives with his mug on one side of the fence and his rump on the other. He or she is partially committed to living for Christ but has not divorced himself or herself from the world. A mugwump wants the pleasures or benefits they perceive as coming from the world as well as those promised by Christ…hope of an eternal life with Christ. Many are taught that a person can live as a mugwump. However, the Lord has prophesied, “[B]ecause you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:16 NIV) James has described these people as being double-minded. “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (Jas 4:7 NIV) He has also proclaimed the inability of the double-minded to gain wisdom. (Jas 1:8)

Believers must be careful not to be deceived. Paul wrote, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Gal 6:7─8) The Holy Spirit and the natural spirit are opposed to each other so that the confessor must make a conscious decision to accept one and to repel the other. When he or she cannot accomplish this, that person might be considered to be a mugwump. The pleasures of the world, entertained by the natural spirit, will bring destruction; obeying the Holy Spirit will being eternal life. The Lord also admonished, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Mt 6:24 NIV) This passage is a caution against “mugwumpery.”

Belief without cost is often the connotation of freedom that has allowed for fence-sitting. Evangelistic efforts often proclaim the glory awaiting the one who would profess a commitment to Christ. Promise of eternal security, surety of a place in God’s eternal community, allows for diminished commitment. Understanding that all believers–defined as those who have made a profession of faith–will share in Christ’s glory and rule with him, allows for a relaxed and uncommitted lifestyle. The mugwump does not seek righteousness since regardless of his or her choices Christ is promised as his righteousness.

Life is “good” for the mugwump. He or she lives a life of promise while basking in the pleasures of the world. The promises are false, however. John has recorded, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 Jn 2:15 NIV) James depicts friendship with the world as adultery. “You adulterous people don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” (Jas 4:4 NIV) Living as a mugwump is the same as being married to a wife while claiming the right to flirt, or worse, with others on the side. God is a jealous God and will not delight in the person who is not prepared to love him with all his or her heart, soul, mind, body, and strength. A believer is a person who is fully committed to the purposes and objectives of his or her Lord; He or she does not walk the path of personal interest or convenience.

Those who live as mugwumps will live to regret their positioning one day as they find themselves separated (2 Thess 1:9) from the one that they had pledged as their lord but had not committed to live under his rule.

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*Starting today, Russell Young’s column here moves to every other Tuesday, or the first and third Tuesday in months having five. He is the author of Eternal Salvation: “I’m Okay! You’re Okay!” Really? available in print and eBook through Westbow Publishing, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble; and in Canada through Chapters/Indigo.  9781512757514

To read all of Russell’s contributions here at C201, click this link.

Partial Depravity

Nobody likes to think of themselves as “depraved” but one of the things Calvinism has brought us is the phrase “total depravity;” it’s actually the “T” in the “TULIP” acronym.

Catholics say that we are born with “original sin;” though to see to widespread nature of different types of sinful acts is to know there’s nothing original about it.

The “Four Spiritual Laws” begin with premise that “Man is sinful and separated from God…”

But what happens after conversion?

Much of the Apostle Paul’s writings discuss the dual nature; the fight put up by the desires of the flesh.   James talks about “double mindedness.”   In the epistles at least, we get a picture of the spiritual warfare raging all around us; the accompanying tension between where we are positionally in Christ, and where we find ourselves pragmatically in the world.

But on Sunday mornings, nobody wants to admit this.  That’s probably why in surveys of “crazy hymn and chorus lyrics” people always vote for:

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love.

I mean seriously, what terrible advertising for the Christian life.   Nobody wants to admit to that propensity to sin.   And as for depravity, Dictionary.com defines it as “moral corruption” and there are people I know who don’t know Christ that I would regard as “upstanding morally;” so I don’t think too many Christ-followers would even want to say they were depraved before they made Him lord of their lives.

This past week I was driving my car and my mind wandered into less than stellar territory.   (More about thoughts in tomorrow’s post.)   Please don’t try to guess or read too much into this, but after the thought had flashed through my brain — okay, it actually parked there for about five minutes — I thought about how people are, and how I am, always just a few mis-steps away from conceding to my human nature and its way of thinking.

But we are also possessed of a divine nature.   I want to end this the way the song quoted above ends; with a prayer for redemption;  this was my prayer for the beginning of this week, and it’s not such a crazy hymn lyric, either:

Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.