Today
I am posting an essay I’ve written. The
occasion for writing it will be clear as you read it. I will return to posting sermons and Bible
studies next week. Maybe sooner.
Evangelicals, observers say, have
“lost the culture war.” Those reporting
the defeat were not gloating secularists; one of those announcing what many may
have already suspected is a veteran of the war, a prominent Evangelical
spokesman and educator. Anyone still in
doubt concerning the war’s outcome probably saw the Supreme Court’s decision on
same-sex marriage as conservative Christianity’s Waterloo.
As I read the dismal dispatches, I
recalled the words of another educator. Over
forty years ago I heard American church historian Dr. William Menzies comment
offhandedly: “Our age is the more like
the first century than any other time in church history.”
He meant there was as much
competition for the souls of men and women as there was when the church was
born, as many religious and ideological options at there were when Paul told the
Athenians “I see you are very religious.”
The first-century Christians and
their immediate predecessors, it may be said, won the culture war. The world changed because of the gospel they
preached. Of course, the world didn’t
stay “changed.” Hence, Dr. Menzies’ remark.
But he wasn’t offering that
observation as a reason for despair. He
saw the situation as a reason for hope.
If a small band of believers—men and women whose only power came from
the Spirit and whose message was “God was in Christ reconciling the
world”—could see unprecedented change, so could we by relying on those same
resources.
But did we?
In the past few decades some of us
have relied on political power to accomplish change. We really did seem to believe “the Kingdom of
God would arrive on Air Force One.” If
you doubt that, recall how livid some Christian talk show hosts became when Cal
Thomas and Ed Dobson published Blinded by
Might. As one popular host blasted
the book, he made sure we knew he wasn’t related to one of the authors.
Some of us have hoped “celebrity”
Christians would win a hearing for the gospel.
Remember how excited we became when it was rumored Jane Fonda had become
a Christian? It is beyond my pay grade
to comment on Jane’s spiritual condition, but I recall how disappointed folks
seemed when they discovered the “new” Jane had held onto her old politics. I suppose you could argue Paul was a
celebrity Christian, persecutor turns preacher and all that. His celebrity didn’t get him the best rooms
as he campaigned across Asia Minor and Greece; instead, he had a jail cell a
several times. His hosts didn’t take
him to the best restaurants in town; in fact, he tells us he spent “… many a
sleepless night, in hunger and thirst.” Celebrities
can become believers just like the rest of us; just like the rest of us they
need nurture and training before they are thrust forward as ambassadors for
Christ.
Some of us hoped new programs would
change the culture. For example, like
thousands of other men, I went to “Promise Keepers” gatherings. I heard evangelists, scholars, and athletes
(some I’d never heard of) call for men to take up the mantle of leadership in
their homes, their churches, and their communities. I especially appreciated PK’s emphasis on racial
reconciliation and support for pastors. But
despite PK’s virtues, its leaders could never escape the suspicion they were
attempting to evict women from the workplace, strip them of their Ferragamo’s,
and herd them back into the kitchen, not necessarily pregnant but certainly
submissive, perhaps even making the Stepford wives seem like flappers. Unfair to be sure but haven’t many of the
tactics in this culture war been unfair?
This unfair charge, coupled with
financial woes both for the organization and the nation, challenged PK. The program continues to draw crowds outside
the United States but as marriages continued to crumble, racial unrest
continued to fracture communities, and Evangelicals continued to lose
skirmishes in the culture war, it was clear PK’s promise hadn’t been kept.
That, too, is probably unfair. David Cobia says PK “has intentionally scaled
back,” focusing on racial reconciliation and social service. In any case, it is probably fair to say PK
has encountered a challenge churches, both liberal and conservative, have faced
unsuccessfully for over a century, the challenge of generating “muscular
Christianity.”
In the musical Gypsy, the veteran dancers advise young Rose, “You gotta have a
gimmick.” I’ve wondered if some seminary professors have been singing the same
tune to their fledgling preachers and pastors.
In my preaching classes we were expected to wear jackets and ties when
we delivered our sample sermons. Today I
wonder if student preachers are expected to sit on stools while wearing jeans
and sandals as they deliver their messages (illustrated with clips from the
latest movies). If it’s a matter of
placing “new wine in new wineskins,” fine; but even from the best new
wineskins, the wine must not go down too easily. It suggests the wine might be watered down.
Well, I am meandering. I doubt these things contributed to our
losing the culture war. It may be too
early to adequately determine what happened.
Those imbued with post-modernist
ideology might say the Evangelical emphasis on “true truth” is just too much
for our culture to take. Martha Beck’s
image of heaven being a place where Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Moses might
sit around laughing at the mess their followers made of their teachings is
probably absolute truth for more people than angry ex-Mormons.
The premillennialist will say the
defeat is one more sign the Second Coming is near. Indeed, since the court’s decision I have
heard several dire warnings that persecution like that predicted in “the Great
Tribulation” will soon become a reality for American Christians. But I wonder, will savagery really be
necessary? After all, the culture has
won. While we have escaped the trials faced
by fellow believers around the world and while we might soon face life and
death choices as we follow Christ, I sometimes wonder if the culture has come
to the point of treating Christians the way we respond to our “odd” uncle at
the family reunion when he spouts his conspiracy theories. Winking slyly to bystanders, the culture will
offer uncle a polite smile as it barely stifles a derisive chuckle.
With all this in mind, Dr.
Menzies’s observation about the similarity of the late twentieth century to the
first century raises some questions.
Will
we learn from those early Christians to cherish the straightforward message of
the gospel? In his great book Classic Christianity, Thomas Oden says,
“Jesus did not come just to deliver good news, but to be himself the good
news. The gospel is the good news of
God’s own coming. Jesus is its personal
embodiment.” Oden wasn’t the first to
say something like that but it needs repeating because we have so often
forgotten it. Whatever else “Jesus is
the good news” may mean, it must mean he should be the focus of our preaching
and teaching.
Years before I came to Ohio I began
listening to a certain radio pastor. I
didn’t always agree with him but his commitment to proclaiming Christ overcame
any objections I might have had. Then,
his preaching began to change. No, he
didn’t cast doubt on the Bible or proclaim some from of religious
relativism. His preaching became more
and more political; he sometimes hinted that America was God’s chosen
nation. In the mid-90’s I stopped
listening. A few years ago I was out of
the state and came across his program unintentionally while looking for a
station to listen to. His message had
become even more political, even suggesting becoming a Christian would mean
embracing his ultra-conservative political ideology. He had abandoned the gospel just as surely as
the liberal preachers his Fundamentalist heroes had opposed years before.
No, we can’t ignore political and
social issues when we speak. But cannot
make these matters our message. As Paul
told the Colossians, “We proclaim him….” The earliest Christians impacted their
world by telling the story of Jesus.
Though the gospel would eventually end slavery, they did not attack
slavery; though the gospel would bring racial equality, they did not make
racial equality the crux of their message.
They called people to trust Christ and they trusted Christ to change
those people. That’s what we forgot in
the fury of the culture war.
Though Gustavo Gutiérrez is
probably not quoted very often by Baptist preachers (even retired ones) he says
something very important to those of us who wish to proclaim the gospel: “Being a Christian does not mean, first and
foremost, believing in a message. It
means believing in a person.” (Cited by Oden.)
The early Christians “won” their
culture war because they trusted Christ to be the great change-agent.
Will
we learn from those early Christians to rely on the power of the Spirit in all
we do to advance the Kingdom? A
quick review of Acts reveals how often we are told the early disciples were
“filled with the Spirit” as they spoke or acted, how often the Spirit guided
their next step, how often the Spirit comforted or encouraged them when things
got tough. Despite the urgency of the
work before them, the believers were told (both in Luke’s Gospel and the Acts)
to wait until they received power from the Spirit. They waited, they received the Spirit, and
they said and did things that filled onlookers with wonder; enabled by the
Spirit an ordinary fisherman would speak to the religious authorities of the
day and cause them to marvel. Yet, in
our day a conference speaker explained to his audience that the early church
needed the power of the Spirit since those believers didn’t have the
communication technology we have. Carl
Bates, former pastor of Amarillo Texas’ First Baptist Church once said:
If God were to take the Holy Spirit out of our
midst today, about 95% of what we are doing in our churches would go on, and we
would not notice the difference. Yet if God had taken the Holy Spirit out of
the midst of the first Christian community, about 95 % of what they were doing
would have ceased immediately.
In more graphic terms Bates said
something like this, If the Holy Spirit were to die (which, of course, can’t
happen) but if the Holy Spirit were to suddenly die, our churches would meet
next Sunday and no one would notices the difference. Bates, of course, was speaking to Baptist
churches but I strongly suspect many pastors in other Evangelical denominations
would reluctantly admit the same thing.
I have pastor friends within the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches
and they all privately acknowledge knowing how to “push the right buttons” when
a service lags.
What psychology and sociology can
tell us about effective communication is useful, but we are hoping to do more
than inspire agreement or stir feelings; we are hoping to call unbelievers to
lower their rebel flags and pledge allegiance to a new King. For that we need the Spirit’s power.
Will
we learn from those early Christians the capacity of love to overcome fear and
hatred, to win a hearing from the most resistant? In this most recent culture war we Christians
haven’t always been especially loving. We
have matched our opponents insult for insult.
We have spoken of those for whom Christ died in the most insensitive of
terms. One prominent pastor described
homosexuals as “brute beasts.” Hardly the attitude of a follower of the Man
whose harshest critics complained, "He gives a welcome to notorious
sinners and joins them at their meals.”
Just as significantly we Christians
have often failed to love one another. Our
insistence on singing or hearing only the music we like has given us that wonderful
term “Worship Wars.” Some churches have
opted to cater to the varied tastes of their members by providing different
services. I suppose there is nothing
wrong with churches offering “Traditional” and “Contemporary” services but I
wonder if non-believers reading the church sign say to themselves, “Those folks
have no idea how to get along with each other.”
How can we learn to love one
another and love the world in a way that wins a hearing from the most
resistant? Of course, it helps to study
the example of Jesus. It helps to review
the lives of those who have been most effective in touching their
cultures—“saints” some Christian groups might call them, perhaps because their
lifestyle demanded some term to underscore how differently their lives were
from those of “ordinary” Christians.
And, of course, there are those who aren’t called saints but were surely
saintly in their lifestyles—David Brainerd and Amy Carmichael, are just a
couple examples. Yet, maybe there’s a
limit to how well we can learn to love. Perhaps
this is another occasion when we need to recall our need for the Spirit,
remembering Paul’s statement, “the fruit of the Spirit is love….”
Will
we learn from those early Christians to confidently believe it is always unwise
to publish the church’s obituary? One
of the benefits of studying church history is perspective. So many times in the past the church’s
enemies have reported it to be safely dead and buried. Funny, Christ’s earliest enemies could have
warned them about placing too much trust in tombs.
