I’m not trying to be funny. Indeed, there’s nothing funny at all about a dead man at church even when he’s laid out by the finest funeral director.

Our dead man was in the shrubs. More precisely, he was behind the butterfly bushes, surrounded by ornamental evergreens just beyond the church and right by the Family Life Center. The irony of a dead man at the Family Life Center only now occurs to me.

It was Sunday morning. July 13, 2008, to be exact. The senior adult class was entering the educational wing of the Family Life Center when one of their members saw — or thought he saw — a homeless man sleeping among the shrubs in the butterfly garden. With one hand to his lips and the other gesturing toward the prone form, he shushed his companions.

But something — exactly what it was we are not certain — yet, something wasn’t right. Maybe it was the slightly unnatural color of the skin. Maybe it was the absolute stillness of the human form. Whatever it was, something led the good man to check further, to investigate the condition of this “sleeping” man.

That’s when he discovered that the man was dead.

It was about that moment that my eye was drawn beyond the confines of the church office out to the backyard where this good man now paced back and forth gesticulating and talking earnestly into his cellphone. Moments later there were sheriff’s deputies everywhere, ambulances and police dogs, yellow crime scene tape and, then, coroner’s officials swarming over the yard.

It was the Sunday to introduce our new children’s ministry. Awana is well-known throughout the States but new to our congregation and our local missionaries were present to share the beauty of ministering to children with our people. Of course, when they entered the church no one was out front to greet them . . .everyone having gone out back to watch the police work.

What is there about the human body in death — especially in death — that so attracts and fascinates? This, as much as anything else, speaks to me of the sacredness with which God has infused our human flesh. It is as if the lifeless human form holds some magical power over the living which renders us incapable of ignoring that there goes one who once inhabited the same world of the living as ourselves.

The short of it is this. . .

He was a 23 year old young man. I will not now discuss the police theories of how he came to be where he was or how he came to die. Suffice it to say, it was apparently neither suicide nor homicide. It was just a boy, a mother’s son, a son of this community, who came to sacred ground, laid down and died.

—

The next evening as I was much pressured to return to our Conference Ordination Service and was leaving toward that end, I came upon a car and a group of the family gathered in the church’s backyard. I quickly parked and began walking toward them, taking note of the obvious fact that these were among the number of those whom Jesus had in mind when He said “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

They turned to meet me. . .mildly defiant in stance and attitude, as if daring me to run them off from this ground rendered sacred due to their loved one’s death. It was the same response I have seen hundreds of times when poor trespassers are confronted by “the landowner” (though this land belongs to none but God and His Church). I continued walking toward them and spoke the words I had intended to speak from the beginning: “Are you the victim’s family?” “Yes.” “Ah! Don’t be afraid. You are welcome here! We are all grieving with you; our hearts are broken, too.”

The tears flowed and great sobs shook their bodies. Defiance melted and instantly they were around me. . .touching MY body, embracing ME, stroking me like a mother soothes her worried child. They came touching, touching.

“Where did he die?”

“Come and see.”

Fresh tears. . .

“Will you pray for us?”

“Yes, of course.”

And prayer came easy for tender hearts like these. Prayer that boiled with passion as it swirled like liquid lava from my soul and through my lips. Prayer that ignited my own heart until it turned back to strangle the same voice it had prompted. Then in silent tears I stood weeping among them, our tears a common fount to sanctify the earth where once had lain their loved one.

But in those sorrowful silences we were not alone. I swear by all I know to be real and good that Jesus of Nazareth also came and stood among us. . .put His bleeding hands upon us. . . soothed our broken hearts as only He can do.

—

Then, as if I were some priest-confessor, our corporate prayer gave way to individual prayers. “Pray with me.” And things would be whispered in my ear and passed along to God. Requests which He alone knows how to answer. . .and will.

Our church continues to reach out in ministry to the family. Enough food to feed them for a week or more was produced in short order by some of the cooks of the church. Money was raised to help defray some of the burial expenses. Visitation in the home and prayer, prayer and more prayer has been the order of the day.

They are lovely people.

They are the people Jesus loves.

They are His “other sheep” and I long to be with Him, bringing them home.

Will the things you are giving your energies to today, be worth talking about in heaven?

Yes, I know how self-contradictory the title sounds. How can a thing be both small and momentous at the same time? Yet it is by relatively small tectonic adjustments that massive earthquakes are made. I witnessed one such earthquake today.

All Christians, I suppose, justly take pride in their religious affiliation and I am no exception. The denomination to which I belong has an honored past, golden with the valor of women and men who risked all to remove the ugly blight of human slavery and to win women’s right to vote. Today these positions may seem to require no special courage but when our denomination’s founders first rode out against the dark forces which seek to enslave humanity and deface the image of God in it, they required the kind of courage found only among martyrs.

When all the world seemed to be against them, including many of those who ought to have been their friends and fellow-champions within the church, these brave souls counted the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. And, though it meant the loss of every earned accolade and hard-won personal advantage, they “chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.” (Heb. 11:25)

So, beginning in 1843, and building upon their methodistic Wesleyan heritage, the godly people who pioneered the Wesleyan Church committed themselves to the complete and total annihilation of the American slave trade.

Five years later, on July 19–20, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention was convened in a Wesleyan Church (today a National Historic Site) in Seneca Falls, New York. The pledge of our people was clear and unambiguous. Historian and General Superintendent Emeritus, Dr. Lee M. Haines, quotes an early editor of the American Wesleyan (the denominational organ of its day) who declared shortly after the Civil War that “the paper was to be dedicated to acquiring absolutely equal rights for all, regardless of ancestry or color.”[1]

Following the successful fight to end slavery and win the right to vote for women our denomination turned its attention to the plight of the poor and, most especially, those suffering from the consequences of the drug and alcohol trade. Their tireless efforts helped to win important victories offering hope to multitudes of people suffering the sad consequences of chemical enslavement.

Those golden hours shimmered and glowed with what many hoped was to be an ever-increasing intensity. Having won battles as difficult to procure as these, one might naturally expect an unbroken train of victories and successes to follow. But such was not to be the case.

In what would be the greatest test of our national character and spirit, a shadow passed between our great Source of light and ourselves. I speak, of course, of the deafening silence which manifested amongst us during the civil rights struggle; silence at the precise moment when our voice and message ought to have pierced the cacophony of voices throughout our land. Based upon our scriptural and historical mandate it was a shameful stillness that seized many of our institutions and pulpits. Where was that zeal for full equality with which our predecessors first set out? Where was that deep and insatiable longing for justice that caused them to leave places of preferment and ease for hardship and hatred and ridicule? It had faded, lost in the gray haze of the shadow of our pitiful attempt to blend into the very culture to which we were called to be prophetic.

No words are sufficient to describe the present generation’s sorrow over the lost opportunity represented by our ecclesiastical silence during those turbulent years of civil strife. Indeed, we find no comfort or refuge in the fact that others within the broader Evangelical movement also failed. It wasn’t their particular message or heritage; it had been ours.

A lot of repair work has been going on over the past twenty or so years and I am greatly encouraged by much of it. It seems as if, especially in the most recent generation, there is a firm and settled determination to heal the racial wound and facilitate true Christian reconciliation between every disparate group.

But, today, during our General Conference, we took One Small Momentous Step in two directions at once: forward toward our future destiny and back to our original mission of being a prophetic people with a prophetic voice among the nations. Today we took seriously all our declamations of sympathy with Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17 which speak of the gracious call of God to “menservants and maidservants” and both groups being empowered to “prophesy” (i.e. preach) by the unction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Today, we trimmed our sails to follow those majestic zephyrs which our founders first set sail to. We began, with a small, but earth-shaking determination, to live out the conviction that the Lord is Lord of His church and, as such, is the One ultimately capable of determining who is fit to answer His summons to ministry. We affirmed, in the most unambiguous manner possible, our conviction that God has chosen women and men to lead his church; confirmed our strongest professions that “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” ( Gal. 3:28 )

Today we elected Dr. Jo Anne Lyon as General Superintendent in the Wesleyan Church.

If you listen, you can almost hear a “great cloud of witnesses” applauding from the celestial grandstands!

Motivational speakers, novelists, pastors and politicians have gone out of their way to emphasize the importance of the invidivual. And this is undoubtedly necessary due to the insignificance technology seems to ascribe to the solitary human. We are assigned to groups, sorted into demographic categories, and allocated certain alleged attributes based upon our past purchases, present address, or income strata. Marginalized by the bits and parts and pieces of our lives…as if, merely knowing the parts of the violin would allow you to hear its music. 

“What can one person really do?” we are often asked and the voice asking the question sounds slightly weary and despairing. What, indeed, can one person do up against all the mass of humanity beside?

Well, today is June 5th. I remember the power of the individual every June 5th for it was on this day in 1989, after a promising several days of student-led demonstrations for real democracy to come to China, that the bloody communist thugs who rule that country decided to use brute force against innocent citizens and turned beautiful Tiananmen Square into a slaughter house. Tanks rolled in amid the ratatatat of machine gun fire which cut through the unarmed crowds of peaceful students and other demonstrators who had gathered there by the thousands. Night descended upon the Square and all through the darkness of those next few hours, the cowardly Chinese government officials and their armed lackeys performed their inhuman work.

 Dawn came, but slowly, that next morning. A grey smudge of light over a smouldering bloodbath. Soot and smoke filled the sky. It seemed as if even Nature herself had come to mourn the loss of beautiful human lives and the murder of infant Freedom.

But the thugs, who — for the moment ruled (and STILL rule) — China, greeted the dawn with genuine joy. Those of us who watched the eventual emergence of their tanks from the Square will never forget how their tanks swung and pirouetted in the street as they lined up in enormous procession. As if in a sheer joy of bloodlust, they “danced” along the avenue like some gruesome, twisted Shriners procession fresh back from the kill. Off they headed to find something or someone else to kill.

And then it happened…

From out of nowhere, a solitary figure, a man with a small grocery bag and satchel, walked out onto the street and faced down the lead tank. Billowing black diesel smoke the tank tried to evade the man, turning first left then right and, finally — knowing that the eyes of the world were fixed upon them through the cameras of journalists in nearby hotels — stopping just inches from the man.

The remainder of the story may be read about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

and the PBS video of the event may be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5804EFEC9CE866DC

The man was eventually hustled off by what were probably plainclothes policemen and, in fact, has never been heard from again. But for one shining moment on a sick June morning in Bejing, the whole world saw the power of one person to say in the most peaceful, yet powerful, way that wrong is always wrong — even if you have the power to do it. And that what the powerful do in secret will eventually come under the scrutiny of all the world.

Jesus’ life also teaches the power one. Paul’s, likewise.

Can it be that you are a choice weapon in God’s arsenal? Perhaps chosen to do something greater than you will ever live to see come to full fruition or completely understand? Are you being challenged to remain faithful in seemingly small and insignificant things and tempted to believe that it wouldn’t matter whether you stand up for the right? Take heart. You matter. Your faithfulness matters, too.

I take these closing lines from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

  Stony the road we trod,
  Bitter the chastening rod
  Felt in the days
  When hope unborn had died.

  Yet with a steady beat,
  Have not our weary feet
  Come to the place
  For which our fathers sighed?

  We have come over the way

  That with tears hath been watered.
  We have come treading our paths
  Through the blood of the slaughtered,

  Out from the gloomy past,
  Till now we stand at last

  Where the bright gleam
  Of our bright star is cast.

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This is our hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow with a cosmic past tense, “We have overcome, we have overcome, deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome.”

—

We, too, shall overcome! This is the Power of One…with God!

.

“Tomorrow we take over the world…”

There is something disarming about children’s television programming. Even granting that your standard kids’ TV fare will rot the typical human brain in 72 hours or less, who can refuse to smile at the antics of SpongeBob SquarePants, Ren and Stimpy, or Pinky and the Brain?

Especially, Pinky and the Brain.

Show after show, the hapless Pinky follows, zombie-like, the commands, manipulations, and machinations of his personal hero, the Brain. And just as inevitably, all their plans come to naught, leaving a wistful Pinky and a plotting Brain to vow (as they do at the conclusion of every show) that “tomorrow we take over the world!”

How much we in the church need a Pinky and the Brain kind of determination! How desperately we need to resolve to end each day – even each defeat or discouragement – with a commitment to tackle our task with renewed energy tomorrow!

Galatians 6:9 says “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  A Pinky and the Brain translation would run something like this: “Don’t quit, no matter what, for tomorrow we take over the world!”

Do you believe that ours is a mission that is destined to triumph? Think! Do you really believe in the invincibility of our cause? That, for those who “fight the good fight of faith”, a victorious outcome is ultimately inevitable? That’s what God says (Isaiah 40:5): “…the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Have we forgotten the message He sent by His servant Habakkuk, in Habakkuk 2:14? “…the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” The day still comes when every knee shall bow and every tongue confesses ‘Jesus Christ is Lord!’ How, then, dare we allow ourselves to become weary in doing God’s bidding and will?

John Wesley once said, “Give me 100 preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergy or lay, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the Kingdom of God upon earth.”

Let us be among that 100. Let us be those who make the very gates of hell tremble and yield! Let us carry the conviction that every deed of obedience on our part today is preparing the way for the King and His Kingdom!

Just think! Tomorrow, we take over the world!

1 John 5:4 “…for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

~~~*~~~

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

1. A mighty Fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our Helper He, amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not His equal.

2. Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing,
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle!

3. And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God has willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not for Him.
His rage we can endure,
For, lo, His doom is sure;
One little word shall fell Him!

4. That word above all earthly powers,
No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours,
Through Him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also.
The body they may kill;
God’s truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever!

- ~~iiiilll * llliiii~~ -

Yeah! ‘Tomorrow…we take over the world!!’  Hallelujah!

In those halcyon days of a yesteryear that never was and yet everyone seems to remember, life on the southern plantation was thought to represent the apex of human existence. Soft, gentle, slow-paced living it was said to be. It was life in the balmy glow of early evening’s golden hour when diaphanous insects danced on yellow shafts of sunlight like so many angels suspended between heaven and earth.

The entrance to the plantation was generally portrayed as a gently curving lane, tree-lined and fenced, leading up to a large, white plantation house where sat the resident owner, his family and servants awaiting the arrival of guests. He was the “Bossman” who rode around the acreage on horseback and presided over the affairs of the vast estate in a manner befitting one of his social standing and class.

The plantation house, on the other hand, was ruled over by the “Bosslady”, bride of the “bossman” and undisputed dictator of the manse. To her the sharecropper would submit, bearing gifts of field and tree, and to her all the servants and laborers gave due devotion. Failure to do so would usually provoke a fate so severe as to render the option unthinkable.

Thus the plantation thrummed along in rhythm with life and in harmony with the larger world because of the unfailing presence and unfaltering judgment of the “Bosslady”.

I have lived in relative innocence for many years, assuming that the last “Bosslady” had faded from the scene of action in sync with the disappearance of the plantation…assumed that she had attained museum status and now resided nowhere but on the pages of dry and dusty history books from days gone by. I was wrong.

Not many weeks ago, I was introduced to what my superiors good-naturedly call a “refocusing” process. It sounds innocuous enough. It promises to provide a deeper insight into the truest mechanisms of one’s own heart and mind and serve as a tool to evaluate many aspects of one’s practice. It requires brutal honesty and abject transparency. The emphasis here is on the word ‘brutal’. A kissing contest with a buzzsaw would be more soothing.

Almost skipping with joy, intoxicated with an ignorant bliss, I willingly plunged into this process in much the same way as Pollyanna approached her life — blindly, blithely, and as a total naif. I assumed that we would read some books, watch some films, share some laughs, and then split back to our homes to resume our normal lives. There would be the occasional “a-ha” moment and things would gradually move a notch upward. But I had not reckoned on the existence of a living, breathing “Bosslady”!

At our very first meeting I was just one of several men, mostly big, beefy, towering hulks of maleness with deep booming voices and testosterone in sufficient quantities to assure that we — operating as the herd of water buffalo we were — would be unintimidated and unmolested by any threat. Slowly we each worked our way around the room, shoulder-slugging, yukking it up as only man can do with man. It felt great to be in a place awash with masculine hormonal tides — a place so ripe for man-type conversation!

Then it was time for the meeting to begin and the wheels came straight off our little red wagon (or “everything quickly came unhinged” — you may choose whichever metaphor of horror and reality-come-crashing-down you prefer).

There was this little, tiny blond creature — a woman, to be sure — that materialized in our midst. She spoke with a gentle, but strangely commanding tone of voice as she began to share the story of how she came to be where she was, doing what she was doing. She took us to South America, Indiana, and several others points of the compass. Then, when she had almost concluded, she lowered her voice yet further and in almost a whisper began to tell us why she was going to dismantle and tinker with every little piece of our heads, hearts, and lives: because there were real-live people out there somewhere between South America and Indiana who still needed to be rescued and we had best, by gum!, be busy trying to rescue them or get out of the way and let someone else do it! The startled and wide-eyed water-buffalo herd was surrounded by a “herd” comprised of a single BossLady! All this was but “the beginning of sorrows”…

Bosslady in the wild.

The BossLady has a way of demolishing even the best-constructed psychological hideout. She’ll flush a person out of the thicket of their well-contrived justifications for personal and professional lack of growth, lack of passion, and lack of excellence. Like a blazing firebrand set to the dry thorns of a rabbit’s refuge, she burns down our pale excuses and practiced alibis until there’s just “no hidin’ place down here!” There’s no use trying to lay low behind a hedge of excuses or carefully manipulated statistics; she is devastatingly swift in dispensing with all such feeble resistance. And the most unnerving thing of all is how, in such a soft, calm voice, she can reach down deep and flip a person inside out so that all that internal, hidden stuff just hangs out there in the breeze …catching all the rays of truth you never wanted to face!

She’s a triple-root-canal in blue jeans…and the best friend your God-given dreams and aspirations will ever have! She loves you too much to let you waste your call or your life.

A blond tornado I never heard of so I decided, then and there, to call her “Bosslady”. She runs our particular plantation and we are her hapless sharecroppers. If we ever make it out alive, someday I’ll write the whole ugly story! 

Romans 10:11-17 (The Message)

11 Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.”

12 ¶ It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help.

13 “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

14 But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?

15 And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims, A sight to take your breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God!

16 But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?”

17 The point is, Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to. 

So what did you talk about at church this week?

Do you think the unredeemeed would care?

Take a look at the “Top Ten List of Questions” people are discussing around the world and see for how many of them we have an answer. . . but no relationship in which to share it.

Makes you kinda sick, doesn’t it. Like being three feet from a guy about to jump off a roof. So close. So fatally distant.

There’s just gotta be a way for us to get back in the game.

But first we’ve gotta get out of the building and onto the field.

“Here am I. Send me!”

After a day spent listening to Dwight Smith, that is the overwhelming sentiment one feels.

 And, yet, unlike the words of those who speak to impress, Dwight’s sentences are made of the steel of convicting truth. In your gut you know the man is dead on.

 The European church is dead. (Don’t be distracted by the vestiges of the past like state-affliated churches that are ubiquitous but empty and have no influence in the culture.)

The American church is dead. (Don’t be confused by the glut of TV preachers or the presence of church buildings on every street corner; we have lost our voice, lost our witness, lost our place at the table in the discussion of society’s most vital issues.) No more than 18.7% of the USA is in church on any given Sunday. . .and shrinking fast.

We are blind to our missionfield, deaf to their cries, and have nothing to say of interest or importance to them.

We are still operating under the impression that if we run a better steamboat, we can own the river. (There’s a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier bearing down on our “six” that will change everything.)

In truth, Dwight is only calling us back to the words of Scripture. Calling us back to the life of the earnest disciple of Jesus Christ. For me, as a Wesleyan, this has great significance. Mr. Wesley, himself, once said that the Wesleyan way was only “Christianity in earnest.” In earnest about letting “every man, woman, and child” see, hear, and live among a vibrant witness to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But everything we know is wrong. People are not wanting to have that encounter inside the four walls of a church. They want to see it in the living, three-dimensional theater of life on the street where they live, on the job where they work.

They are not waiting for “the right verse” of ‘Just As I Am’ to touch their hearts. They are waiting for Christians to demonstrate the reality of what we have spent our lives talking about. For sure, they’re not interested in the petty power plays of small-minded people who attempt to use the church as a stage for acting out their particular form of mental illness in endless arguments and control issues.

Jesus said it first: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:22, 23 NIV)

John Wesley said it, too:

‘Ye diff’rent sects, who all declare:
‘Lo, Here is Christ!’ or ‘Christ is there!’
Your stronger proofs divinely give
And show me where the Christians live!
Alas! Your claim you cannot prove.
You want [i.e. "lack"] the genuine mark of love.’

Here’s what it may mean for us to become effective, biblical, missional, people of God:

A de-emphasis on personal agendas, denominations, and extraneous dogmas.

A re-emphasis on being One Body together on mission for Christ in our particular towns and regions.
[We're late-comers here. Chinese Christian leader, Witness Lee, strongly held this view. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_Lee#One_in_Christ ]

A willingness to be bi-vocational laborers.

A surrender of “our” properties (churches, Family Life Centers, etc.) to the use of the broader Kingdom of God.

A commitment to partner with all who subscribe to orthodox Christian beliefs in an environment of passionate dedication to spreading the Good News.

Living the Gospel first and foremost, Teaching and preaching it when we’ve earned a hearing. (“Street cred.”)

An iron-clad heart-attitude of support for everyone engaged in this work. (Mark 3:33-35)

Lord, shape me like that!

 [CAVEAT: The following was written some time ago. I post it now only because it still resonates with certain tendencies and issues with which evangelical churches are wrestling. But I am happy to report signs of improvement, especially among the rising generation of believers and Christian leaders. For many of these the status quo is not an option. they are out to change the world even if it kills them. Now wherever would they get such an idea? -Ol' Suit]

INTRODUCTION 

            Perhaps, by this time, nearly everyone has experienced (or has heard from one who has) the inconsistency between a car “bumper sticker” message and the attitude of the car’s driver. The most common of these stories is of another driver who accepts the invitation to “honk if you love Jesus” only to be greeted by the “Christian” driver’s obscene gesture in return. To be sure, that rude driver may be in someone else’s car, but the probability is that, in a certain number of such incidents, the car and the bumper sticker both belong to the miscreant motorist.

            In many ways the incident described above serves as a metaphor for much of the Evangelical movement of the mid-Twentieth Century…especially for the critical years of the 1950’s through the 1980’s. It was during that period that the Evangelical mind became philosophically schizophrenic. On any given Sunday one might hear the glorious strains of ‘A Charge to Keep I Have’ and ‘Blest Be The Tie That Binds’ emanating from churches that had no intention of risking their social status or respectability by crossing color, economic or political lines to keep that “charge” or to forge that binding “tie.”

            What sets this apart from the normal simple incongruity between profession and practice that afflicts the church visible is that among Evangelicals, in many instances, this dichotomy seems to have risen straight out of the heart of our doctrinal focus. By definition, Evangelicals are concerned with the evangelization of the world. In seasons of mature and well-reasoned theology, this focus expands to include the sharing of the “good news” with the poor and oppressed in deed as well as word. But sometimes – and often at critical junctures in her history – the Evangelical movement has become blind, deaf, and dumb to any but the so-called “spiritual” aspects of her evangel.

            The forty year span mentioned above was just such a time. Those years were filled with a nation-wide longing for justice and peace. Civil rights and the Vietnam War loomed large on the country’s radar. Yet, because the Evangelical church had largely lost her voice on such things, the world was left to propose a series of unhelpful “solutions” in her silence. The result has been ruinous.

            In place of a biblically-defined peace we got “peace” without honor that was no peace at all. (Witness the bloodshed and persecution, in South Vietnam, of Christians and other groups by the communist authorities. Even as the last helicopter was leaving the Saigon embassy, a blood-bath had commenced in the streets below.)

            In place of a sound biblical standard of equality, brotherhood and humanitarian love, we received a shallow version offered in at least two flavors: “Hippie” and “cocktail-class elite.” Both were incapable of healing America’s hurting soul. What is more, both were wholly inadequate to the task of curing the loneliness of America’s first “latch-key” generation or protecting the vast number of victims of the “sexual revolution.” And, although a great leader eventually arose who, with charisma and power spoke of a nonviolent way to address the injustices suffered by his people, it was clear that even he suffered from the problem of dualism and a compartmentalized spirituality.[1]

            The Scriptures state that believers are to be salt and light in every age and place. No segment of Christendom ought to be better equipped to comprehend the gravity and eternal significance of these roles than the Evangelicals. Our theology is centered in the fulfillment of those tasks.

             But something happened on our way to living out “the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment.”[2] We fell into the trap of doing “spiritual” things and withdrew from our engagement in the world as salt and light on the broad range of human issues. Our faith grew more and more estranged from the “real” world and less relevant to the felt needs of real people. Like Peter fearing the accusation of the maiden around the High Priest’s courtyard fire we, too, shrank back from the labels others were putting on those who cared about such things. As Brazilian Roman Catholic Archbishop Dom Helder Camara once said “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

             We Evangelicals remembered what we were to win the world from, but forgot what we were to win it to. And in a sudden collapse from our high calling, we became a kind of grotesque multi-level marketing scheme that used religious jargon and churchy symbolism, but for whom the same guilt-driven, ambitious, get-souls-quick motivation was the driving force. It became more about the numbers and less about the pneuma, more about contests and less about Christ. Our “converts,” sadly, looked and acted a lot like us. Nervous. Slightly frazzled. A lot less concerned with living and being…and more concerned with doing the “magic rituals” that would assure an ever larger crowd. And thus came about “the schizophrenia of the Evangelical mind.”           

THE PROBLEM DEFINED 

            One senses a need to define the parameters of the argument set forth in this post. What, exactly, is meant by “the schizophrenia of the Evangelical mind?”  What is the particular manifestation of a dualistic worldview in evidence in the movement throughout the most socio-politically active years of the Twentieth Century?

            The simple answer is that the Evangelical church, for the most part, began to divide life into two spheres: the sacred and the secular. Within this division, “the sacred” was that which was explicitly religious; “the secular” was everything else. At the “street level,” the place where the theology of our pulpits wears work-clothes and plays hard on the weekend, this translated into a compartmentalized view of life where what we did inside the church had little or nothing to do with what we did outside of it. (One need only read a sampling of the Barna[3] or Gallup polling results to see the statistical proof of this. Worse, you have only to sit and listen to the conversations in most Sunday School classes to hear it!) How has this come to be? And what has been the outcome of this view of life?

We have come to so rely on a salvific moment that the result has been a diminishing of a more holistic view of life. Out of the very thing that is our greatest strength – the publishing of the evangel and pressing for a decision – has come our greatest weakness…the being more concerned with that past event than a present lifestyle of relating with God, His church, His world, and His creation. So we ask, “Have you been born again?” instead of “How is it between your spirit and God? between your spirit and others?”

            It is a matter of historic record that the church, for much of her existence, saw herself as being engaged at every level and sphere of human life.[4] Thus she promoted education, the arts, philosophy, theology, (in fact, all of the sciences). Once the church gained the ascendancy, and for about a thousand years afterward, she led the way in nearly every field of human endeavor and study. If one wanted to be on “the cutting edge” of everything good and worthy then one very much wanted to be near the church and involved in her life.

            Christianity was, in those days, not deemed an “unmanly” religion. Though it promoted love and fraternity it did so without becoming predominately feminine in its expression of that love and without, in fact, doing injury to either human sexual identity. There truly was neither “male nor female” in Christ.[5]

             Mysticism and pietism are often said to be responsible for introducing the notion that the material world is at war with the spiritual and vice versa. However it came to be and whoever was responsible for it, the struggle between holistic and dualistic versions of Christianity has not abated since those days.

            The rise of the Evangelical movement held great promise that the integration of all of life into the category of “sacred” would again be achieved and that the Good News would bring improvement across the gamut of human society. After all, the first great Evangelical awakening – the Wesleyan revival of England and, later, Colonial America –had a similar impact on the society of its day. The influence of the evangel had extended far beyond the bounds of the church reaching even the furthest, poorest, darkest segments of the English populace. The same movement that spawned field preaching also brought social programs, jobs for the poor, educational institutions, healthcare for the sick, and hope for those whose lives were marred by sin. Even people already ruined by sin – the condemned criminals of the Newgate Prison[6] in John Wesley’s England – came under the redeeming ministry of those early Evangelicals.

            Later, when religious influence had again declined and the church had again grown cold, another generation of Evangelicals – this time the Wesleyans in North America – arose to lead the fight for the liberation of the slave and to promote the full equality of all women and men. They did this while maintaining a godly sense of balance between the preaching of the Gospel for salvation and living out the Gospel for the relief of the oppressed. (See Haines, Lee M. ‘Radical Reform and Living Piety’ at web site: http://campus.houghton.edu/webs/employees/gavery/wesleyweb/radical_reform_and_living_piety.htm )

             That they should do both things was truly laudable. But it was not because they were finer men and women. They did what they did in obedience to Christ’s command to love their neighbor as themselves and as part and parcel of their commitment to fulfill the Great Commission. They knew the promise of Jesus is that He brings life; life – in all of its forms and in every dimension of those forms – and makes that life full, abundant, and satisfying. (John 10:10) (The word there used is zwh, a word commonly defined as conveying the notion of full and complete life, life in all of its forms and expressions. In the specific context of John 10:10 holds out to humanity a life that includes every good and noble and excellent thing.) 

             Indeed, an integral part of Christian belief is that Christ Himself is the source of all life. This is true, not only in His role as its Creator, but also in His capacity as the Sustainer of life. Much could be and has been inferred from the works of the Creator regarding His nature and person. For instance, God could have made this (as Franky Schaeffer points out in his book ‘Addicted to Mediocrity’ p. 17) a bland, flat and monochromatic world devoid of distinction and beauty. He might have formed us to speak in monotone or never given us the ability to laugh or sing.

              In truth, life might have been much, much different…and infinitely boring…had not our Creator lovingly, thoughtfully, and wonderfully wrought each creature, crag, and cascade. But He did build beauty and wonder into our world and so permeated each particle with them that even the horrific consequences of the Fall have not succeeded in entirely obliterating their witness. Therefore we read in the words of the Psalmist (Psalm 8:1, 3-4 KJV) “O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” Paul follows with a concurring witness (in Romans 1:19, 20) saying,“…that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead…” (emphasis mine)

             These (and many other Scriptures) testify to the wise extravagance of the Creator God and to His concern with things that contemporary pew-level Evangelicals do not typically classify as “spiritual.” And therein lies the problem. 

             The Evangelical focus has recently lain in the field of witnessing and soul-winning. The evangel – the Good News – has shrunk…shrunk from its original application to every facet of life, down to a very narrow concept of “spiritual life.” Our world-view has shriveled from the expansive place it once occupied, so filled with wonder and art and philosophy and intellectual curiosity, down to where we are now left with the mere prunes of ‘The Four Spiritual Laws’ and ‘Just As I Am’ and a sloganeered Gospel. As Luke 11:42 says, “These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” (KJV)

             However, these things sadly represent the finest offerings the Evangelical movement of recent years has contributed to the world…and that is precisely the point. It is not wrong to use such mechanisms to take the Gospel to the unconverted; It is, however, deeply painful that this is all we seem to have offered to them. While it is true that everyone needs to be “born again” why must the accepted means of accomplishing this objective be so utterly bland and stereotypical? How many will we fail to win merely because they do not fit our “cookie-cutter” approach? Where is the beauty and splendor of the arts and literature that might captivate the imagination of the human spirit? Where is that “full and abundant life” of which Jesus spoke? Among the leading talent of the world, how many of them are now to be identified as Evangelical Christians? Why have we settled for a monochromatic world-view? How have we managed – in the very telling of what is to be “good news” – even the GREATEST news – to make it all about a single event – about walking down an aisle?

              C. S. Lewis was converted in a motorcycle sidecar on the way to a zoo (doubtlessly rendering his conversion suspect to a great many!) R. C. Sproul was converted due to a conversation that developed while on his way to buy a pack of Lucky (Strike) cigarettes.[7]  It is manifest that the altar is but one of many places where we may meet with God and conversion is more – much more – than a 3 minute trip “down front.” So why should the conversation about the life of God in the life of humans trail off after it reaches that point?

             As a matter of fact, as Keith Drury points out in his book, ‘The Wonder of Worship’ (p. 78), baptism has been the most common manner of confirming one’s decision to follow Christ. Baptism was then viewed as but the gateway into a lifetime adventure with God.

             Yet, growing out of the Evangelical movement’s keen (and laudable) desire to evangelize the spiritually lost, we seem to have come to believe that these new rituals and forms are sacrosanct and indispensable to the church. They constitute the new “Mass”. Thus, in many Evangelical churches, a service which does not conclude with a formal invitation is not deemed to have met its spiritual responsibilities at all. Where did Jesus or the Apostles insert the “altar call?” It seems as if, for them, the call was more to a relationship than an event. The call to “follow Me” issued by Jesus was sincere, direct and simple. And it meant exactly what it said: “follow Me.” An undivided heart and an uncompartmentalized life was clearly the goal. “Follow Me with all you are, with all you have, with all you desire. Follow Me!” (Matthew 22:37-40)

             As someone has said (John Wesley, I believe, though I am unable to find the exact quote in his ‘Works’) “It is the goal of the Christian to be at all times what he is some of the time.” Consistency implies more than regularity or one might be found consistently inconsistent and, thus, be called “consistent.” Consistency implies a breadth of application that extends to every area of one’s life. Thus a man who is consistently a moral father (and thus does not molest his children) must also be a moral (and, thereby, faithful husband to his wife) and, in fact, be moral in every area of his life before we may rightly call him a consistently moral man. And a man living in the realm of the sacred ought to find every area of his life under divine influence.

             The church of the Twentieth Century has deviated from the authentically consistent Christian faith and life through its practice of dividing life into “sacred” and “secular” and what it means by those two concepts. In this, she has departed from the Master’s mandate. That mandate is carefully laid out in Matthew 22:37: “Jesus said unto him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (KJV)’” This, then, is the mandate: Let love completely engage us with our God and our neighbor at every level and area of life.

              A caveat is needed at this point. Among a certain (minority) segment of the Evangelical community there is broad appreciation for the classical Christian concept of zwh in its all-encompassing sense. Likewise, these people hold the arts and sciences in proper esteem and value them for the contribution they make to life – not only in the conversion of the unredeemed but to its esthetic enjoyment. For these people, a song need not explicitly state that “Jesus Christ is Lord” in order to reveal that truth. To them, a song exhibiting true beauty and craftsmanship, one that lifts the spirit and exercises an ennobling influence upon the heart and mind, is declaring the glory of the Lord in the same way as the stars or fiery sunsets or the majesty of some marvelous wild creature moving in fluid strides across the savannah. These folk treasure the sounds and sights of the fine arts, they relish passionate philosophical debate (not as a means of intimidation or control but as an expression of a sanctified thirst for knowledge which cannot be acquired in isolation or without the “iron sharpening iron” role of acting in a larger community) and they do so because they feel themselves nearer to God in the pursuit of such things. As Johannes Kepler once said, these enlightened souls see themselves as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him” and every fresh discovery or sonnet as some new manifestation of His goodness and glory.

             However… this community exists only as small island (or “upper level”) in Evangelicalism. Around that island lies a vast ocean of those who also call themselves “Evangelical.” These, too, describe themselves as “born again,” “blood-bought,” “saved,” “Spirit-filled” and “rapture-ready”…and they truly are children of God. But, like amateur plastic surgeons, though their heart may be in the right place, they have marred the beauty and attractiveness of Christ’s Bride. They have made war on the “beautiful” to make room for the “broadly acceptable.” Uniformity and conformity are the watchwords and values by which they operate. In this class one must regularly have “goose-bumps” and an appetite for “National Enquirer-style” reports and paranormal happenings in order to be thought “spiritual.”

              This description is more than the sum total of the cultural differences between the “upper” and “lower” Evangelical church. Rather, it amounts to a difference in spiritual orientation and a truly dissimilar value system. Whereas the “upper” group “sees” God’s lingering glory everywhere, and thus views every area of life as sacred, the lower group has applied a more worldly (at times, almost pagan) concept to the church. Witchdoctors are merely replaced with pastors, the Bible becomes a fetish – a book of quasi-magical incantations to ward off evil or defeat one’s enemies, preaching becomes a propagandizing performance-art, and how a thing makes me feel becomes the surest test of its goodness and truth.

              No doubt some of these adverse effects arise out of the sudden prominence of the Charismatic movement with its less-than-ripe theology. The centerpiece of their teaching was (and to some degree still is) our power in and through Christ rather than His power in and through us. At the pew-level this was quickly interpreted to mean that we could “name it and claim it”…what we want is what we’ll get. And because we are Spirit-filled, Spirit-led believers, what we feel to be consistent with God’s will is consistent with God’s will and we can now “command” the hand of God to act.

              For many of those associated with the Charismatic movement, the proof that you were having a deeply spiritual experience came from what you were experiencing emotionally and the degree of the peculiarity of (and, therefore, allegedly supernatural nature of) the signs or (assumed) outward “manifestations” of the presence of the Lord. Thus the weird became the “holy;” the common became the “unspiritual” and the presence of the Lord was to be detected by what was incongruent with normal human life. (One wonders how these folk might react if God was to act among them as He did for Elijah in 1 Kings 19:12?) At any rate, many of our thinking young women and men, not able to endure what smacked more of superstition than genuine faith, left the church and, sadly, have not returned.

             In certain Native American tribes, I am told, the deaf and the mad were assumed to have a special kinship with the Great Spirit or the deceased. To some extent, the recent history of some segments of the Evangelical movement has reflected a similar strain of thought. If something is strange to the point of being mysterious it seems to have gained special credibility with some. (Take, for example, the weirdness of Brownsville or the so-called “Toronto blessing” with their howls and barking and growls and seemingly insane laughter. Although not new, they were given an unusual prominence and usually attributed to those already professing a work of grace. But at the early American Cane Ridge revival such signs have normally been ascribed to the lost who were then rendered incapable of being distracted from what ought to be their first order of business…the business of their soul.) This is the result of an uncritical acceptance of anything not easily comprehended and, therefore, deemed to be spiritual.

             It is certain that many (perhaps even a majority of) Evangelicals did not subscribe to the totality of Charismatic theology and experience. Yet, the influence of that group  – with its hyper-spiritualizing tendencies – made itself felt at every level of Evangelical life through TV, radio, publishing, music and worship. When churches with a more Charismatic approach to worship began to swell in numbers, it wasn’t long before the numbers provided a degree of legitimacy to the doctrine and style of worship in the broader Evangelical groups, as well.  

            Add to all this the fact that the greater part of the Evangelical movement lives in the West, specifically America, and you have yet another layer of extra-Biblical influence – American culture. Since the discovery of the assembly-line, at the end of the Nineteenth Century, “standardization” has been the guiding principle of American economic life. Perhaps this is, in part, to blame for the bland “sameness” we see in the church world. In the American mindset it is thought that what works in the marketplace must also work in the church.

              Thus, time and again, a church grows to some unusual size in an unusual amount of time and suddenly the marketplace is flooded with another round of “how-to” books based on the newest sensation of the moment. Gradually pressure builds on other churches to conform to the new standard and what was “to die for” yesterday, is declared “dead” today.

              The current functioning definition of the word “sacred” is largely whatever belongs within the four walls of a church…and would not be acceptable much of anywhere else.

             Just reverse the above definition to arrive at what “secular” means…anything that could be done anywhere but in a church.

              But are these definitions compatible with Christ’s teaching? Are they faithful to the historic faith and lifestyle of Christians throughout the millennia? Are they reflective of Bible guidelines of life and conduct? In each case, the answer must be a resounding “no!”

              Yet because we Evangelicals have allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of being a merely culturally acceptable religion we lost our prophetic voice. The crowds of civil rights marchers heard no “good news” when we spoke and the sexual revolutionaries could detect no viable alternative to the sterile, loveless living that was the by-product of the materialistic world of their church-attending parents. And still the solemn question hangs in the atmosphere around us, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? (Romans 10:14 KJV)” But we did not apply the Gospel to their areas of need so…we did not preach, they did not hear, and they did not believe. We are “reaping the whirlwind” of our impotence still.

             Would not the travel-worn apostle Paul rise in our assemblies to preach to us what he once preached to the Corinthians: “…if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost… (2 Corinthians 4:3 KJV)?” And with what conviction might he preach those words among us!

             It is clear that we neglected to “stand in the gap” during the years of the civil rights struggle. Despite the zeal of our faith’s fore-parents to press the cause of equality and liberty for all the oppressed, we let down our guard and slumbered while Christ wept and sweated anew in a reborn Gethsemane. He stands with the broken, with the prisoner, with the poor, with the down-trodden. (Luke 4:1 And He calls on us to be agents of justice and mercy and grace nor will He acquit us if we fail to do our best.

             “But,” we were told, “civil rights is not a spiritual issue. The church should stay out of politics. Christians should pray more and protest less. Those who think otherwise are trouble-makers and liberals…not truly God’s children. By their disruptive behavior they have shown themselves to be unworthy.”  But, even if that were so, is not grace made for the unworthy? …and none else! And mercy can only be offered to those whom the law would indict! Can that thing be called “justice” which is so blind it cannot envision the possibility of redemption?

             The stark division between the physical and spiritual (or secular and sacred) seems to have been the legacy inherited from our fundamentalist roots…a view supported by Donald W. Dayton’s ‘Discovering An Evangelical Heritage,’ George M. Marsden’s ‘Fundamentalism and American Culture’ and Mark A. Noll’s ‘The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind’ (especially chapter 5).

             The best solution, according to some, was to “send them all back where they came from.” The fact that this did not comport to the subjects’ wishes, that it was a violation of the promise to give them “forty acres and a mule”[8] here in this their new land, or that emigration had already been tried in colonizing Liberia[9] and other locations – with but limited success – did not seem to matter. “We were too wise to be confused by the facts; our minds were already made up!”

             So Selma smoldered, and Memphis melted, and Birmingham burned, and L.A. lay in ruins…and the evangelical church stayed home and sang of ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘The Sweet Bye-and-Bye.’ Black Southerners were bludgeoned – often by good deacons and church-going Christians – but through dualism the Evangelical church had lost her voice and had nothing left to say.

             But we took care of spiritual matters, didn’t we? We still held revivals. We still sent missionaries to blacks “over there”. We still rolled bandages and prayed and shouted and had campmeetings like we haven’t had since when–?! Is it possible that we could do so much good and yet be utterly blind to the good Heaven wanted us to do?

             What we now know is that we lost a unique opportunity to reaffirm the claims and power of the Good News to our generation. Forever after when the question is asked, “Where were the Evangelicals?” the answer must leave us with our heads hung low in shame. Our publications did not take up the cause of the oppressed. Not even Christianity Today stood up for the pastors and laity who were repeatedly attacked by truncheon-bearing thugs in the uniform of the state – choosing, instead, to relegate the issue to the “spiritual” sphere and saying, then, that to rely on legal reform and legislation was “to expect too much from legal compulsion and unregenerate human nature.”[10] 

             But we “kept the glory down.” We enforced church discipline and, even though we could muster full-fledged denominational wars over mergers and dress codes and TV, we never quite got around to the “weightier matters of the law” (Matthew 23:23 KJV)

             So when, in the 1970’s, our children went to their public schools and frequently faced the ridicule of young teachers whose university training had come during those earlier tumultuous years of the civil rights struggle, the sarcasm of those teachers was unanswerable when they demanded to know where and how the church had “done unto others” as it would wish to be done to.[11] 

             Of course, it is easy – too easy, perhaps – to throw stones at the Evangelicals of the 1960’s…and neglect to see the gravel that may soon be accumulating at our own feet. Today the mistreatment of the African-American is compounded by discrimination against the Hispanic-American. Although their children have married our children and we risk decimating an entire generation of families, once again the only answer some can give is that we should send them back. But what’s to become of the children and grandchildren that will be left behind? Perhaps the real question is: “How will I – as a part of the “pro-family” Evangelical church – acquit myself in, this latest test of the Gospel’s power and relevance?”

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE 

            Perhaps nothing can, for me, convey the sense of damage done by a dualistic world-view than this salient illustration from my own ministry:

            In one early pastorate I received the handsome salary of $50 per week and the use of a house in which to live. The church was a beautiful place. Or, I should say, had been a beautiful place. Its Bedford stone was magnificent; its steeple rose 60 feet above the street; its sanctuary seated 800 – 500 on the main floor and 300 in the balcony. The exterior wall of the basement was lined with large and inviting classrooms and in the middle was a youth chapel with opera-style seating which would accommodate another 250 people. And among other anomalies the church had the word “Evangelical” prominently featured in its name…an utter misnomer!

            Early in the pastoral selection process I had explained my philosophy of ministry, which included an intentional outreach to the unchurched, unredeemed and a willingness to connect with them where they were so that grace and God might work in their lives in community with those of us who were believers. They assured me we were on the same page. They were desperate. There were only eight (yes, that’s right…8!) people left in attendance.

            I got busy, got out into the community and worked hard to get folk coming. We also began to paint and repair things around the church. Downspouts were re-hung, windows replaced, and everywhere paint, paint, and more paint! One day, Brother Y__. stopped by when I was in the midst of painting the metal frames of the basement windows. He asked why I was doing that and seemed mystified when I explained that it would make the place more attractive to outsiders and that, left unrepaired, the building would eventually become less and less useable.

            “Why, Brother,” he said. “Surely you know that the Lord is soon to return and none of this will matter anymore!” When I discovered that he was not joking I was utterly flabbergasted! I had heard of such things but never before personally witnessed them. I had honestly assumed them to be fictitious.

            It seems the Lord was to return so quickly that there would be no time left to disciple the new folk we had gathered in, either. One by one the new ones began to drop out. I pressed hard for a reason and finally had two separate families confess that they were embarrassed. Their embarrassment came from the fact that there were smokers in both families and they had been approached by “the eight” and asked not to come back so long as they still smoked.

            Somewhere among my “treasures” I still have the tape I made (with their knowledge and consent) of our next (and final) board meeting. It went something like this: “What were you people thinking?! Have you never read that “the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost?” I went through the Scriptures demonstrating (with as much gentleness as God could give and I could muster) the error of their ways. But when we got to the end of the meeting, they voted unanimously for two propositions: The first was to reject the newcomers; the second was to retain me as their pastor. I was incredulous to say the least!

            I then and there announced my decision to leave them after giving them one month to secure another pastor, so they held another vote and cut out my handsome salary completely. God more than compensated and I received not less than $500 per week for each of the remaining weeks…not a bad raise, if I do say so.

            But I could not help but wonder what had happened in the twenty years of this church’s separation from their mother church to make her anything but “Evangelical?” How had the minds and hearts of these (otherwise) nice people been brought to a place where they thought that the only way to please God was to violate His most explicit command…to evangelize the lost? “They had a name that they lived but were dead.” For these folk the evangel had ceased to be about connecting the lost in a loving relationship with the Savior and had become all about keeping those rough people from contaminating Jesus and His house.

            Something very nearly like this happened to us throughout the Evangelical movement from the ‘50’s to the ‘80’s. We had to keep Jesus abnormally clean and to do so meant that (for lots and lots of regular evangelical folk) we had to keep away from justice issues lest His way be called “too political”. We had to keep certain folk from attending our churches lest we be thought to be letting down our standards of morality. We had to make everything fairly Republican so folk wouldn’t assume that Jesus is “liberal.” We forgot the lessons exemplified in the first Jerusalem Council as recorded in Acts 15. We got busy getting between Jesus and the people who so desperately needed Him until we had a church we could be proud of…but one over which He would grieve as He once grieved over Jerusalem!

            In the end, it seems, that in matters of social concern the Evangelical movement has neglected to uphold its duty to effectively bring the Good News to bear on the various maladies of the day. Our “first love” in this regard has grown cold. Passion turned to complacency and complacency to indifference. And – at the pew-level – indifference still holds sway over the sleeping giant of Evangelicalism.

            The question must be asked: In the tale of the Good Samaritan, who did Jesus portray as the most guilty culprits? The thieves who created the problem? Or those charged with the religious duty to assist the defenseless who, instead, indifferently pass him by? Can any sin be worse than the sin of indifference? Repentance of this sin must surely be the first step up the path of healing for our schizophrenic world-view.

            The Evangelical mind, though presently fractured and functioning only in what seems to be spiritual, (thus “neglecting the weightier matters of the law”), can be united by reversing the process that has given us our present double vision. And there are certain welcome (if embryonic!) signs that our dualism has begun to be healed. Some of these are documented in an article on the ‘ColorLines’ web site at http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story5_1_02.html. I am thankful for the indications of life and hope that they document.

            There is, within the genre of Evangelical thought, a sanctified optimism that we should consult. Its principles will serve to guide us back to the life that is Biblically coherent in all its expressions and connected with God’s purposes for His church on earth. Among those helpful Evangelical concepts which have the power to heal Evangelical schizophrenia I offer the following:

            The world God made and called “good” is still good despite being damaged by the Fall.

            There is really just one spiritual law: “Follow Me!” This has life-long (and life-wide!) implications.

            Life is never a solo performance; for us, it will always have a cast of billions.

            Live the present with the future in mind and thus be freed from making fleeting popularity our chief ambition.

            There is a life so engaged in the Lord’s purposes, so abundant with His presence that its final act can be a smile and its last prayer a simple “Thank you!”

            “Sacred” is more than a label. It is a way of life.

             We must tell the world that Heaven’s Lord and Earth’s Redeemer has a smiling face, a loving heart and wide-open arms! 

            The God who is God has chosen to reveal Himself to the whole world in the word “Father” and the place we now call “Heaven” all His children will one day call “home.”

            And what we know about Father and “home” is worth our investing our lives in others so they may know both Him and it!

THE WAY AHEAD 

            Someone has said something to the effect that “the seeds of its destruction are present from the moment of every organization’s birth.”[12] It may be so. It need not be so. Maybe this is true, however: the seeds of rebirth are present from the moment of an organization’s birth. That what made us vibrant and thriving when we first set out, may serve to rejuvenate and inform us now.

            Maybe our future lies in our past. Maybe in recovering that sense of wonder about ourselves and our world we will recover a passionate worship of the One Who made both us and it.

            Maybe, in an increasingly diverse culture, we can begin to appreciate godly diversity…and the God Who created us to be so.

            Maybe we can have churches with different styles of worship without forgetting that we are worshipping the same Lord.

            Maybe we can learn to enjoy the exercise of each other’s gift without having to own that gift ourselves (ala 1 Corinthians 12).

            Maybe we can “hear” God’s praise in Bluegrass and Blues, in Jazz and Zydeco, in Orchestral movements and the Dance, in paint and in pious practice.

            Maybe we vote for candidates of a different political party than our sister or brother…without either one of us forgetting that we are siblings, nonetheless.

            Maybe it isn’t so much about what governments do as what the governed do; or that the greatest thing will be found, not in what Christianity does, but in what the Christians do.

            Maybe “one size” doesn’t fit all; we were uniquely created to fulfill unique destinies.

            Maybe “sacred space” can be again, what it was for Abraham…the place where our foot is standing at the moment, or what it was for the disciples…the place where Jesus is, rather than a piece of ground we visit only once a week.

            Maybe “conversion” will begin to describe a committed, continuous process more than a one-time, initiatory event.

            Maybe we can reclaim our old radical spirit – the warrior’s heart – which once made all hell to tremble and had the pagans screaming from stadiums “Look! How they love one another! Look! How they love one another! (Tertullian, Apology [39.6])”

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Drury, Keith. The Wonder of Worship. Nappanee, Indiana: Evangel Press, 2002

Eldredge, John. Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001

Keen, Sam. Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man. New York: Bantam Books, 1992

Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism 1870 – 1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980

Murrow, David. Why Men Hate Going to Church. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005

Noll, Mark A. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994

Podles, Leon J. The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity. Dallas: Spence Publishing Company, 1999

Schaeffer, Franky. Addicted to Mediocrity: 20^th Century Christians and the Arts. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1985

Sider, Ronald J. The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005

Toulouse, Mark G. Journal of Church & State; Spring93, Vol. 35 Issue 2, p241, 44p.

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