Let us begin by granting the radical inclusion movement its preferred illusion: that it has discovered the heart of the gospel. It has not. It is, in fact, a very old error, dressed now in newer vestments, perfumed with the liturgies of compassion, and delivered with the moral certainty of those who have never once suspected that they themselves might be the problem.

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The gospel of radical acceptance does not abolish the law. That would at least be honest. Instead, it performs a far cleverer maneuver: it baptizes the law, splits it in two, and then declares one half divine and the other demonic.

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Bad law, we are told, is anything that restricts. Anything that draws a line. Anything that dares to say “no.” This law must be cast out with the same fervor once reserved for heretics. And who now bears the mark of this bad law? Not merely the moralist or the zealot but anyone who raises the smallest question about whether every form of inclusion is, in fact, good. To hesitate is to exclude. To discern is to condemn. To speak is already to sin.

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Good law, on the other hand, is radical inclusion. A universalized acceptance. A hospitality without condition, without judgment, without remainder. It is the law reborn as affirmation. The commandment has not disappeared; it has simply changed its tone. It no longer says, “You shall not.” It now says, “You must. . .” And this “must” is enforced with all the severity of any ancient law code.

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So, we have not escaped the law. We have intensified it.

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This is where the old ghost of Thomas Jefferson makes an entrance. Jefferson, in his admirable but ultimately misguided rationalism, attempted a similar operation. Moses, he reasoned, gave a law of love, but confined it to a tribe, the Jews. Jesus improves upon Moses by universalizing that law. Love, now extended to all, becomes the fulfillment of religion.

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One is tempted to applaud the sentiment's generosity until one notices what has happened. The law has not ended. It has been expanded. What was once binding upon a people is now binding upon everyone. The circle has widened, and the demand has grown.

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Radical inclusion is merely another form of moral coercion, dressed up as kindness, demanding universal approval while pretending to abolish judgment. It does not liberate; it legislates. And like all such efforts, it collapses under the unbearable weight of its own insistence that everyone must agree that everyone is already acceptable. An assertion so brittle that it cannot survive the first honest encounter with reality.

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The theology of the cross will have none of this.

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For here is the scandal: the problem with the law is not that it has been applied too narrowly. The problem is that it kills. Not metaphorically, but actually and in the only way that matters before God. It exposes the truth about you, which is that even your love, your best love, your most inclusive love, is curved inward, fragile, conditional, and ultimately self-serving.

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You do not fail to love because the law has been poorly distributed. You fail because you are the kind of creature who cannot fulfill it.

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And so the grand project of radical acceptance not free the sinner. It multiplies the demand upon her. It replaces the old exclusions with new ones, policed now by the very people who claim to have abolished judgment.

It is, in the end, a harsher religion. Because it removes the possibility of failure while ensuring that failure is constant.

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The gospel does not arrive as a better law. It does not arrive as improved inclusion. It does not say, “Now at last, everyone is accepted, provided they accept.” That is merely the law in its Sunday clothes.

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The gospel arrives where the law has already done its worst. Where you have been named as one who does not, cannot, and will not fulfill the command to love.

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And there, precisely there, comes a word that does not belong.

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A proclamation. You are justified, forgiven. Not because you have loved well enough. Not because you have included widely enough. But because Christ has died for you.

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That is not radical acceptance. That is resurrection. And it is the one thing the Anything Goes Fellowship cannot tolerate. Because it means the end of its project. The end of its law. The end of its carefully constructed righteousness. Christ Jesus has not won salvation for you by widening the circle. He has shattered it entirely. And in its place, He creates the fellowship of the baptized ungodly. Where nothing is required, nothing is proven, and everything is given.