Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Church Responsibility and Social Decline

             A Fuller Picture

It is interesting to note that Jesus’s story, just like all stories, has many angles by which it can be viewed, and in searching all the available angles, the student can develop a more robust understanding of the gospels, that will not only help us live like Jesus in regards to our main work of evangelism, but in all areas of life, which helps round us out as mindful Christians in whatever area of decision making we find ourselves in. If we cannot live like Christians in any one area of life, we cannot live like Christians in any, for Christianity is not a limited set of principles, but a way of living.

As an example of the diversity of these angles, take a look at the circumstances that dictate the beginning and end of Jesus’s “natural” life, that is His birth and death.

If we want to highlight the supernatural nature of the Christ, we could take a divine view, and examine the revelation that Christ both entered the world and existed in the world in dependence upon the Spirit of God. He was conceived by the Spirit (Matthew 1:18) and went to the grave with faithful confidence upon the fact that the Spirit would raise Him from the dead (Romans 8:11). This certainly sets Christ apart as special and more than a mere human.

On the other hand, if we want to highlight the fact that Jesus came into real human history and His life was subject to real human realities, because, although He was not merely human, He was fully human, we can note that the circumstances of His birth, such as its happening in Bethlehem, were, at least in part, dictated by an Empire under which His people, the people of God, were subject (Luke 2:1-7). We may also note that His death was administered at the hands of the same Roman government, as well as His own local government (Luke 23:13-25).

So, while He lived under the direct influence of the Spirit, He also lived and moved with the culture around Him, including the government.

In looking at these two events out of many others just like it, we come to see a fuller view of Christ’s experience in which Divine and human will shape His experience, so that He may empathize with our own human experiences as they are pushed and pulled by the natural and supernatural. Just as was the case in the life of Joseph, God shows His sovereign rule in that, while the push and pull upon Jesus life by human authorities might have had an effect, their nefarious purposes were thwarted, because what they intended for evil, the Father used for good.

            Contextualizing Messiah

We have presently considered what good can come out of continuing to search the provided angles of a biblical story until we have a robust view, but what happens when we do not, and instead focus too heavily on one aspect of a story? We end up with a warped theology.

For example, what if we stopped short of looking deeply into Jesus’s nature and circumstances, His being divine and living day-to-day by full submission to the Spirit of God and His being fully human, genuinely interacting with the culture around Him. When discussing which of these facets we most often over emphasize at the expense of the other, N.T. Wright states:

We have been so concerned to let the gospels tell us that the story of Jesus as the story of God incarnate that we have been unable to listen more carefully to the evangelists telling us which God they are talking about and what exactly it is that this God is now doing… For far too long now Christians have told the story of Jesus as if it hooked up not with the story of Israel, but simply with the story of human sin as in Genesis 3. (1)

In other words, we do not take serious enough the fact that Jesus in fact belonged to Israel, and all that came with her, including government and politics. When we blow the nature of Christ so far outside the realm of humanity, we lose the ability to relate to Him. His injunctions seem ideal, unreachable goals to give us a sense that the world should be better, even though it is decidedly not. We give up on the call to live holy and perfect lives as our Father is perfect, and we make the seeking first of the Kingdom about keeping our theologies in the clouds instead of about practical, ethical ways of living that are in direct and stark contrast to the norms of the world and culture around us so as to witness to the nature of our Kingdom yet to come, as we live as resident aliens in a foreign land. It is as if, instead of a providing us a way to live now and on into eternity as His people, Christ came to provide a fire escape that we will only follow when our lives are over.

It is certain that if we had to err in our understanding, we would rather devalue His humanness for the sake of His divinity than the other way around, (although we should not think this is without a very high level of theological danger). In the end, however, it is best not to be confused at all. Jesus is the very real Messiah of Israel, and His cultural belonging to that nation, and not just to humanity in general, helps us better understand God, since Israel has always been the people through which God works to bring about His blessings. Israel’s experiences open the doors to all sorts of theological quandaries that are only answered in Christ, from the most important of issues to the most seemingly mundane. Therefore, how Jesus chooses to fulfill this long expected goal of Israel’s Messiah, with all its very specific objectives, should teach us something of His nature and, therefore, more about our own as His people seeking to follow His leadership.

            Mediating change through example and not force

Jesus enters an Israel, not at the peak of her existence, as in the times of David, but perhaps at her lowest. Even while there were many setbacks due to various disobediences, from the time Moses marched the nation out of Egypt to the time of David, the nation was on a general trajectory upwards, from a slave group, to a nomadic tribe, to a settlement of tribes, to a monarchy. But, after David, the trajectory of Israel spiraled downward, beginning with civil war under Rehoboam, to divided monarchy and on to exile first for the northern tribes then for the southern, and even though the Persian ruler, Cyrus, allowed Israel to return to their land, they were constantly under the administration of various super powers, never again being their own sovereign nation. At the time of Christ, Israel was ruled by Rome.

It is not without warrant that Israel’s religious leaders believe Messiah would come and deliver Israel from the political bonds of their oppressors, in this case Rome, and any future oppressive nation for that matter, forever and ever. In fact, this was promised time and again to the people: A Messiah would come whose rule would be from everlasting and He would rule over Israel with complete authority (See Daniel 7). Where Israel was mistaken was not in what He would do, but in their understanding of how the Messiah would overthrow the powers of the world. They thought it would be a political upheaval, most assuredly leading to military action. Jesus, though, never raised an army, and they hated Him for it. Instead of imposing violence on man, the Son of Man allowed violence to be imposed on Him. To those who believe, this is the wisdom of God, and to the disbelieving world, it is foolishness.

At this point, we might find even more reason to dismiss the human Jesus living within a particular cultural milieu, because, on the surface, and as far as Israel’s leaders were concerned, Jesus was unconcerned with mundane politics and the cultural goings on of Israel, because He does not fulfill the expectation of Messiah as a rebellion leader. We might mistakenly follow their lead here. We might assume that, because He did not use force, Jesus was unconcerned with politics of His day. Is that not how politics are won, through the imposition of will through law or war? Was not Jesus merely concerned with the preserving of souls for the afterlife, and not the everyday life of His people (as if the two are very unrelated)? If so, we might conclude we need not consult Him in our decisions involving our own cultural interactions, especially in our modern context that He could not possibly understand.

It is not that Jesus does not care; instead, He simply wishes to address such issues with a different approach than the normative human response of resorting to force. For Jesus, social change cannot be imposed to any lasting effect, but must be imparted. Instead of actual soldiers, He calls for priests, mediators of grace to the needy. And so all of the Christian community is called out to be a priestly nation, we are all mediators, and a sign of God’s grace. If we are the mediators of God’s grace, we must ask, “To whom?” We look to the first revelation of the purpose of God’s choosing to have a people, when He reveals His plan to Abraham. Through the children of Abraham, in particular the spiritual children of the promise, which now includes the grafted in branch of the church, God will bring blessing to the nations (see Genesis 12:1-3).

            A social mission of exemplary evangelism 

So, how does Jesus envision His people will continue this mission? As I have mentioned elsewhere, Jesus gives us a vision for His community in Matthew 5:14-16 that is social in scope and political in nature. Reliable and realizable change happens, not just as individuals go and tell the good news (although this is necessary), but also when the church collectively lives as an alternative to the way of the world. When we live as other, we give those whose imaginations have been captured by the things of this world, an alternative way of life, through the example of Christ. This is a threat to the world and even the worldly nations. When Christians proclaim their allegiance first to Christ and His way, this indicates to the worldly powers that we might not always comply with their wishes. Our Lord compares us to a city upon a hill, a polis. Christ envisions us as a community that performs good works, divine directives, that in turn mediate grace to the world, and, as those with eyes to see begin to recognize the radical nature of the church, they turn to God.

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

This is His great plan. When the church lives together and lives in harmony with God’s will, the church will thrive and God will add to their number daily those who are being saved, as we see with the church in Acts 2, a perfect example of Christ vision. When we lose that collective vision, when it no longer captures our imagination, but we seek alternative ways of “changing the world,” we forget the vision of Christ.

He sets standard for how this community is to think about change. It is to be in the heart and not just on the surface. Legislation can only go so far, according to Jesus; it cannot get to the heart of the issue. For example, Christ speaks of murder and states that the law fails to prevent the heart issue of hate. Seeking a life of honoring our Father and King, means a life in which we reset our horizons of possibility.

The law’s prohibition against murder, and the social structures that had been put in place to enforce that prohibition—to move murder as far as possible to the edge of possibility—had not addressed the deeper issue of anger and insults, which remained all too possible. Jesus’ response is not just to offer a different set of horizons—one in which judgment will eventually be meted out to the angry as well as the violent—but to offer a cultural solution, a new set of practices embedded in the life of worship and the courts…his prescription for changing the heart involves changes in culture…The followers will begin to demonstrate a new set of horizons for human life to their neighbors and even to their enemies—the horizons of shalom, the horizons of true humanity living in dependence on God.

In other words, the good works Christ mentions in His description for how the church will mediate blessing outward, as seen in Matthew 5:14-16, are not ethereal ideals, but described in what follows as Christ challenges the culture through the repeated refrain: “You have heard it said…but I say…” These were not simply instructions for individual lives, but for collective lives. Remember the primary audience here is Jesus disciples, a group Christ purposefully called to live together so as to carry His ministry forward.

 His resurrection would launch a political movement like no other. The miracle of Christ’s victory over death drove countless people to the church. The church continues to influence the movement of history. As a movement, the church has power. Sometimes we have failed by abusing our power, but more often, without the notice we gain when we abuse our power, we have made differences in whole communities, and we have changed countless lives here and now, as well as for the eternal future.

            Not world changers, but Church growers

It seems today that we have forgotten Jesus description and prescription for social change. While He clearly demonstrated the failure of legislation as a means of change, Christians on both the right and left, but especially on the right (at least our voice is the loudest) continue to feel defeated each time our leaders fail to enforce a code that would hold people outwardly accountable for immoral action.

Over the years as various legislative decisions have failed to go our way, I have heard lament from my fellow Christians. If we are disappointed that our nation is not as collectively unanimous on holding to traditional morality, this would be okay, but when we proclaim we have lost hope, because the church has lost legislative control, I wonder where our hope is located in the first place. The church is not here to serve the world, but to serve as an answer to the world’s failings. We are not here to continually patch up the mortal wounds of the world, but to call people out of the sinking ship, but not so that they merely have a fire escape, but so that even today they can begin to seek the Kingdom in their everyday lives.

The grace of God that helps people find their way in following the will of God, according to Christ, is not to be mediated through the government, but through a cultural alternative, the church. While this is certainly a political challenge, Christ calling us to live as an alternative to the ways of the world, it is not by force (through legislation or war).

In the end, when people ask for my reaction to various failures of our governmental leaders to uphold morality, I often respond that I am hopeful that this will lead the Christians who still put hope in national causes to turn back to the church as a means to initiate change. The world will always be the world, and as soon as we patch up one wound the stitches of another will pull open. Trying to strong-arm the world to act right will fail. However, a real victory can be won when we live as a social alternative to the ways of the world, and because of this testimony, people leave the world in exchange for the church, at least this is what our Lord thought would happen. This is a threat to the world indeed. This is political indeed. This is exciting indeed.

(This is not to say we are to give up on participating in the political process. We should vote. We should fight for what is right. The church should provide a voice, especially as it relates to righteous causes that combat horrid injustices such as abortion, but the point to see here is that if we lose the vote, we do not lose the war. We still can provide moral solutions, social alternatives such as adoption, to those looking for hope. If we again get to a place in which laws can help remind us what is moral, that is well and good, but as long as people see them as limitations to what they truly desire to do, we have a bigger issue to fight.)

            Moral decline as a church problem, not a political problem

In the end, I do not think a moral decline should be an indication of the failure of the nation and its leaders alone, but should be an indication that the church might not be living up to its calling either. If Jesus is correct in His assumption that, as we live as the light, our city on a hill will grow, because it is changing hearts, then the decline of Christianity (and the morality associated with it) in America should not cause us to blame the immoral world for seducing people away from the church (the world has always been fighting this fight as it always has, and we cannot pretend it is just now savvy enough to beat us).

Instead, we should ask ourselves if we still believe in Christ’s vision. We need to examine whether or not we as the church are living so radically different as a community that the people around us have no other option but to recognize the grace by which we thrive. When we forget Christ came to show us, not only the priceless path to eternal life with Him, but also how to live and navigate in the world we now find ourselves in so as to demonstrate the glory of God through our collective lives together, we forget that He is not just the hope for the future, but is a present hope. Every time we outsource our cause to the government and do nothing within the church to bring social alternatives to the issues we see, we show we have lost the imagination to envision Christ’s call. When we lose the vote, we still have a body that can work to solve problems.


There are many Christian who are holding out hope for a rebound in the social conscience of America. I will stake my reputation on this: If a true renewal in the social conscience ever happens, it will not happen because a small majority elects an individual or group of individuals who can sway our nations outward actions through policy. It will happen when and if we experience another great revival of faith. Yes, this could even be such a great revival that it impacts our national policies, but it will be revival that will impact policy, not policy that will impact revival.

1. Wright, NT, How God Became King (New York: Harper One, 2012) p23
2.Crouch, Andy, Culture Making (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2008) pp138,139

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