The Inefficiency of Cheap Grace

[EricRauch]

The city of Atlanta recently announced that it was going to privatize its parking enforcement. As of November 1, ParkAtlanta, a privately-owned company, took over responsibility for enforcing the city's parking meters and ticketing, as well as the booting and towing of illegally-parked cars. The seven-year contract guarantees the city a $5.5 million paycheck each year, meaning a $38.5 million boost for the city, in addition to getting rid of the hassles of maintaining its own publicly-funded force. Atlanta is only one of many cities that have recently adopted the private option. Cities that have been privatized in whole or part (including Anaheim and Baltimore), have seen remarkable reductions in cost as well as an increase in annual revenue. While not everyone is convinced that the private option is the way to go, no one can argue that it is less efficient.

In fact, some even argue that the private companies' high efficiency is a good enough reason for NOT adopting it. The host of an Atlanta morning radio program and many of his listeners were in agreement recently that November 1 would spell the end of expired-meter "grace" and the dawn of a getsapo-like parking police "reign of terror." Listeners called in from all over the city, relating horror stories of privatized parking attendants writing tickets and having vehicles towed to the shadier side of town with apparent malevolent glee. When the co-host of the program dared to suggest that when a parking meter expires, the car IS technically illegally-parked, she was berated as being a clueless suburbanite who reveled in seeing cars ticketed and towed. It was all rather interesting to listen to on my way to work that morning.

Since I am not a usual participant to these morning debates, I wasn't prepared with the phone number to the station. I wanted to call in to the host and ask him a few questions of my own, but he was too busy decrying the Nazi regime of private meter-maids to give the phone number for the studio. So I decided to write this article instead, because I think the host's nearsightedness in the area of parking efficiency is shared by many, many others.

The first question I would have asked the host if I had been able to call that morning would have went something like this: "Have you been to the DMV lately?" Most of us have been the victims of the DMV at one point or another in our lives. If you live anywhere near a major city, you know just how frustrating a simple trip to renew your driver's license can be. A visit to a major metropolitan DMV is a case study in government inefficiency. I have yet to talk to anyone who looked forward to going to one. I have known people who have driven twenty-five miles away from Atlanta in order to experience small-town incompetence, rather than enduring a half-day (at best) of big-city incompetence. But why would I ask the morning radio host, who is on a kick over private parking enforcement, if he has been to the DMV lately? Because it provides a counter-example and an agreed-upon standard of governmental ineptitude.

You see, because I am relatively certain that the radio host would not be a fan of the DMV, this would pave the way for my next question: "Would you be in favor of privatizing the Department of Motor Vehicles if the company doing the privatizing could devise and deliver a far more efficient system?" Supposing the radio host hasn't quite figured out where I'm going with this, I would then ask: "Are you telling me that you are in favor of governmental inefficiency when it works in your favor (in the area of parking tickets) but are opposed to it when you go to get your license?" To this question, the answer is obviously yes. His praise of governmental inefficiency in parking enforcement is only because he directly benefits from it by not having his car ticketed or towed immediately after the meter expires. However, when this same level of inefficiency is displayed at the DMV, it frustrates him, because it forces him to waste a large chunk of his own time standing in line and signing paperwork.

I am in no way saying that this radio host is unique in his beliefs. Actually, I think he is stating a rather common belief. Most of the readers of this site would claim to be in favor of privatizing much of what the government—local, state, and federal—does. Government inefficiency is so high because government is involved in so much that it has no business being involved in. Rarely is the inefficiency of the bloated bureaucracy of government an advantage. The area of parking enforcement in Atlanta (before Nov. 1 that is) is a rare exception. Some of us, like our beloved morning show radio host, have come to EXPECT a certain level of inefficiency. So much so that when that inefficiency is taken away and replaced with an efficient system of justice and fairness ($1=60 minutes; 61 minutes=1 ticket), we act as if we have somehow been cheated. Such is the selfish heart of sinful man. Grace, even when granted due to bureaucratic incompetence, is not viewed with gratitude, but with righteous indignation. How dare the government take away the grace of their inefficiency and replace it with a private system of efficiency and fairness.

But isn't this the same way that unbelievers characterize God as being unfair for sending sinners to hell? God sent His Son to the cross to pay the death penalty demanded by your sin and mine. God generously offers grace to self-righteous sinners, but being self-righteous sinners, we only take it for granted. If we don't take God up on His offer of grace, we will be left with a system of justice and fairness. God offers grace to the "imperfect" and justice to the "perfect." "Jesus said, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners'" (Matthew 9:12-13). How many will protest God's system of justice and fairness as being too restrictive, too difficult to maintain. Having spent a lifetime taking His grace for granted, many will find God's system of perfect justice at the end of their lives to be not quite what they supposed it to be. Having become conditioned by a paltry view of grace as being synonymous with inefficiency, many believe that they will somehow slip into heaven on a technicality, or a misplaced piece of paperwork, or a lazy parking attendant. Their cheap and shallow view of grace comes from a cheap and shallow view of life—a life that revolves solely around themselves. When justice and fairness enter this equation of cheap grace—i.e. when they really experience a system where the sanctions equal the violations—self-righteous sinners are the first to call foul. "He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it" (Mt. 10:38-39).

[RustyCarr]

One way to examine ourselves and make sure that we are not taking advantage of "cheap grace" is to KNOW THAT WE ARE DOING WHAT WE HAVE BEEN CALLED TO DO. Take up your cross!

If a Christian is not capable of obeying, teaching, and standing up for God's definitions of love, liberty, justice, virtue, wisdom, courage, and His sacrifice for our salvation, then that Christian's hope for eternal life is misplaced hope.

The trouble is, the church has not been educating and equipping the Christians in the pews to stand, to teach, etc... Too much cheap grace out there for too many decades!

I'd like to hang out with some doers, not pretenders... but I was told by a pastor, "Your services are not needed in my church." He said this after I volunteered in response to his request that everyone find a place of service in the church. I was quite shocked. He asked for my testimony. When I told him that I had defied unjustice court orders in protest in order to stand on God's Truth, he brought up Romans 13, the excuse for not standing up for justice against the government.

Oh well, just more weak understanding and fear of man... Standing against injustice is not sedition that provokes rebellion and outright war against the ruling authorities, geezeo! God appointed man to govern man with justice and truth. Punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty is not governing under God's wisdom and Truth...

Do comfort seekers get cheap grace?

[john_rowland]

Atlanta is only one of many cities that have recently adopted the private option. Cities that have been privatized in whole or part (including Anaheim and Baltimore), have seen remarkable reductions in cost as well as an increase in annual revenue. While not everyone is convinced that the private option is the way to go, no one can argue that it is less efficient.

When I lived in Indiana years ago, Indianapolis mayor Steve Goldsmith privatized some city services with similar economic benefit. The city budget benefited. The citizens benefited. The unions did not nor did the ones who used to get "favors" from the bureaucracy. It should be noted that Mr. Goldsmith allowed the existing service provider (City Waste Collection Dept. for example) to compete for the work, but they had to truly get competitive if they wanted it.

[Thomas]

Grace, even when granted due to bureaucratic incompetence, is not viewed with gratitude, but with righteous indignation. How dare the government take away the grace of their inefficiency and replace it with a private system of efficiency and fairness.

I think you are mischaracterizing this. I think the "righteous indignation" over what you are calling the grace of their ineptitude is a leveling, and hence justification, for all the suffering they've endured at that hands of civil government's ineptitude (aka spending a day at DMV &c). When government fails to exact justice, it is not grace, and people know that.

In other words, I think people don't have faith that government is going to be just, so they presume a private company is going to operate with profit motive, which they are, and that efficiency simply means there is no way to "get even" what they are due.

You are interpreting it as an expression of their self-righteousness, and maybe there is some element in there because of sin, but at root I think it is a plea for justice. People are hungering, indeed starving, for justice.

Their cheap and shallow view of grace comes from a cheap and shallow view of life

Maybe. Scripture says that when the righteous rule the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, they groan. Everybody has a sense of justice and fairness, I think you are correct that people have been conditioned through a concept of law as being redemptive. But law is not redemptive, but at every level of government from Federal, to State, to local - law is continuously presented with a redemptive character - it's going to save someone from something. But it never does, it can't, but when it fails - it is never the concept that is wrong, the problem is insufficient control, more laws are needed, more controls, more programs.

In my view, it is more this perverted law system, law as mediator, that perverts grace and clouds men's minds where the Gospel no longer has meaning. When law operates as law exacting justice, then people know what sin is and the Gospel has meaning - when it doesn't there isn't any grace at all, not cheap grace, but no grace - there is just getting even.

When justice and fairness enter this equation of cheap grace—i.e. when they really experience a system where the sanctions equal the violations...

There have been times when the Gospel preached had tremendous impact and it was often immediate - that's not the case today. I think the question on most people's minds in the system you outline, isn't that the civil government is concerned with justice, but all they want is money. So, they privatize parking meters, not to further justice, but to increase their revenues. It's that intention, more money means more redemptive law, that rightly results in righteous indignation.

[RustyCarr]

I don't get the point of the previous posts. The first one of the last two posts stated that the city benefitted, the citizens benefitted, the unions didn't benefit.....
Since the thread detoured, may I ask, WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF PARKING METERS AT ALL?

The only benefit I can think of is to keep long term parkers from hogging the spaces in front of businesses that need people coming and going. If that is the purpose of the meters, then the amount charged should only be enough to cover the cost of enforcement, the meter-maid's salary. WHEN DID PARKING METERS BECOME A SOURCE OF EXTORSION FROM THE CITIZENS TO FILL THE CITY'S REVENUE COFFERS? The American public is so lame... they let the government go nuts and run right over the taxpayers. WE HAVE A SERIOUS MESS IN THE GOVERNMENT AND IN THE PUBLIC!

The next post goes into redemptive law? Sorry, I don't understand. Laws don't redeem, Jesus did that. Justice where parking meters are concerned? Insufficient control? Profit motive? More programs... man you lost me!

God is longsuffering. He does not administer justice instantly, BUT HE GIVES TIME FOR THE LOST TO REPENT. No one would like it if lightening bolts were exacting justice at every infraction of God's laws. BUT MOST CHRISTIANS TRY GOD'S PATIENCE. THEY EXPECT GRACE, WHEN THEY OUGHT TO WANT TO OBEY HIM, KNOW HIM, AND PLACE HIS WORD IN THEIR HEARTS.

Expecting grace will lead to destruction. Simply desiring to serve God and actually doing it leads to life.

If I were parking in a busy place, I would want to get my stuff done so I could leave and let someone else have my space. BUT PAYING A PARKING TAX JUST TO PAD THE CIVIL SERVICE RETIREMENT PROGRAM PISSES ME OFF! Get it? Government serves the people. American citizens were not intended to serve the government slave masters. That is according to our founding documents...

[cwcoty@]

Eric, in my view, the only way grace is cheapened is when we think we can add to it by our paltry works of righteousness. The implication of "cheap grace" is that it must be justified or sanctioned by the same activity that must be rejected as justification to be accepted by the Lord. If we can't earn salvation by our works, why must we think we can maintain it by those same pitiful works? I believe It sets up a false hierarchy of legalistic self-righteousness. It lends justification for some to condemn others and seems to leave the depravity of man pre and post belief out of the equation. Once people begin to measure their worthiness before the King by their righteous acts, it seems that the matchless grace of Jesus is lost in the sea of human accomplishment. If the Lord ever poses the question, "Why should I let you into my Heaven?", I will simply confirm my belief in the finished work of Christ on the Cross. However, I will not then add, "And also please consider the body of my life's work as proof that your grace was sufficient." Blessings

[RustyCarr]

I'm so sorry, I must comment. I seem to see a purposeful obfuscation and misapplication of scripture with the intent of devaluing "works of righteousness."

Eric, in my view, the only way grace is cheapened is when we think we can add to it by our paltry works of righteousness.

Define "paltry works of righteousness." Is it "walking in the light" DOING what God's word teaches us to do? Is it "abiding in the vine?" Seems to me that loving God and neighbor would motivate us to walk in righteousness treating one another according to the righteous laws of God. "And teach them to obey all that I have commanded."

The implication of "cheap grace" ... rejected as justification to be accepted by the Lord.

Justification by grace does not mean "no need to walk in righteousness." Ac 26:20 ...I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.

If we can't earn salvation by our works, ... hierarchy of legalistic self-righteousness.

Legalistic self-righteousness is found in the parable of the good samaritan. The Pharasee who walked by the injured man OBSERVED ALL THE LAWS OF GOD, therefore he thought he was a saved man of God and he lorded over lesser men. His "righteousness" was his salvation, BUT HE FAILED TO OBEY THE SECOND GREATEST COMMANDMENT. He didn't love his neighbor... His effort to "work" and "observe" God's commands fell way short. The Pharasee failed to see that God's laws were written to teach HOW TO LOVE GOD AND NEIGHBOR, NOT JUST TO OBSERVE THE LETTER OF THE LAW.

It lends justification for some to condemn others ... depravity of man pre and post belief out of the equation.

Notice, I just condemned the Pharasee, above. Or did Jesus condemn him? It wouldn't be taken as condemnation by the Pharasee IF THE PHARASEE WAS HUNGERING AND THIRSTING FOR JESUS'S TEACHING. Jesus points out his error NOT TO CONDEMN, but to save. Can the Pharasee humble himself and accept it, or does pride get in his way?

Too many people take correction as condemnation. ?Pride?

Oh, are men "post belief" still depraved? What value is the gospel if that is so?

Once people begin to measure ... is lost in the sea of human accomplishment.

We don't measure our righteous (loving) acts. We simply perform them because we are motivated to love God and neighbor, motivated by the Holy Spirit.

If the Lord ... proof that your grace was sufficient."

The devil believes in the "finished work of Christ," too, but he wants to disregard the righteous works of loving God and neighbor.

We have a calling... to do His work on earth and take a stand, Eph 6:10-20

[MoGrace2u]

Great article! I suppose grace is cheap to those who presume upon it. Whereas it is precious to those of us who know the price paid to bring it to us.

[Billsey]

I'm so sorry, I must comment. I seem to see a purposeful obfuscation and misapplication of scripture with the intent of devaluing "works of righteousness."

"Why do you call Me good? No one is good save God alone."

Since no one is good save God alone, no works are good, save those done by God alone. Those claiming to be good by their works of "righteousness" are calling God a liar. Somehow that does not strike me as good.

[RustyCarr]

I'm so sorry, I must comment. I seem to see a purposeful obfuscation and misapplication of scripture with the intent of devaluing "works of righteousness."

"Why do you call Me good? No one is good save God alone."

Since no one is good save God alone, no works are good, save those done by God alone. Those claiming to be good by their works of "righteousness" are calling God a liar. Somehow that does not strike me as good.

You are an example of why we need a Holy Spirit. He connects the dots correctly in our mind, giving us understanding.

We are called to do good works, AND WE GIVE HIME THE GLORY, for if we had not known the Truth that Jesus gave his life for, then our works would never be good. We would always fail being schizophrenic and BEING SEPARATED FROM GOD.

But now, I have my God dwelling in me. He leads me into the Truth, convicts me of error, and motivates me to do what is right in God's eyes.

If I love God, I will certainly do works of righteousness. THAT IS NOT CALLING GOD A LIAR. But how can flesh and bone, dust of the earth do good WITHOUT KNOWING THE TRUTH? Time to rejoice! Let's rejoice FOR JESUS OPENED THE DOOR TO OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN SO THAT WE ARE NO LONGER INGNORANT AND SEPARATED FROM GOD'S TRUTH, AND UNDERSTANDING IT CORRECTLY.

Jesus began his ministry with, Mt 4:17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven o is near.”