Just Church (19)

Chapter 6: Two Directions

“Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? They eagerly seek you, not in a commendable way, but they want to shut you out so that you will seek them.”

So you’ve had this nice person start to speak up in your church.

This hasn’t happened before. You are, perhaps, an elder, or a leader, or a pastor, or a committee chair, or just a sincere and involved member of the congregation.

Changing Demographics

You are aware that your church is a bit traditional. Maybe it’s one of the more Scots-English or North American patterns set in the 1800s such as a gospel hall or chapel; or maybe it’s one of those post-hippie era evangelical churches, or a “community church”, or even a modern megachurch of some kind. The important thing is that whichever it is, it’s probably based on a pattern set by some sort of Anglo-American heritage.

But you know things have been changing for a while now: not so much in things like order-of-service, schedule and habits of meeting, music or theology, but certainly in demographics. New groups of people are now a regular part of the congregation. In addition to the Anglo folks, lately you’ve got a few Chinese and Korean members. Then there’s that lady who came back from the mission field with an African husband, and the ex-missionary with his Spanish wife, or the couple from Egypt and their kids. After your congregation got interested in helping refugees, a little community of Persians, and when the new school opened, some Indians began to attend faithfully … and from time to time you’ve wondered if all these folks are feeling happy and included as much as you would like them to be. But so far, other than a few accommodations to the new folks’ preferences, there’s been no concerted effort to change things on account of the new arrivals. Things have gone on pretty much as before.

But now you feel a bit concerned. This new nice person who has come into your assembly keeps pointing out things about how group X or Y is being overlooked, and you don’t want that. You know that the Lord commands us to be welcoming to brothers and sisters in Christ, and helpful to those in need, and service-minded toward everyone. Moreover, you’ve heard a lot of talk lately about “racism” or “exclusion” or “marginalization of communities”, or “inequality”, and you don’t want to be the kind of person who participates in things like that, do you?

So you’re becoming increasingly earnest about getting ahead of any such situation. You want to make sure everybody’s going to be welcomed and treated fairly. It bothers you that the nice lady keeps pointing out things that don’t quite seem right, like that many of the new communities don’t join committees, or have not so far been nominated for leadership, or don’t send their kids to the young people’s program. If there’s a reason, and if it can be fixed, you’d be very happy to see that happen.

Maybe there’s a problem here. Maybe it’s time things changed … at least a bit, and at least enough so that nobody’s being excluded or not being well-served by the church, right?

Making the Right Changes

Change is good. But doesn’t change still have to be shaped by the word of God? I mean, there are good changes and there are bad changes, right? What serves as the touchstone of truth for the church? Is it not Christ himself, as revealed through his written word, and as illuminated to us by his indwelling Spirit? Is there any genuine Christian who could think otherwise?

No. Of course not.

So let’s consider carefully how the word of God speaks about God’s plans for us and for our future. Let’s compare them carefully, prayerfully and thoughtfully with any plans any man or woman proposes, so that we truly end up “on the right side of history” when Christ returns.

Fair enough? Okay, let’s go.

Before we launch into changes, let’s remind ourselves of the things that simply do not change, no matter what. These are the permanent features of every church, for all time. They aren’t things we’re free to change at all, actually; rather, they are the things that hold steady while we change, while we make principled, godly changes to whatever it is we are doing. They are the non-negotiables that we must keep in mind so that we can also know all the things that are the negotiables.

Here’s the first: Who owns the church? Who is it for? Who says what pattern we ought to follow, and what we ought not to do? For sure, there’s nothing sacred about some traditional English or North American pattern: but who legitimately decides what the church should look like?

Here’s another: What’s the church supposed to be doing? Is it a social club? Is it a political organization, or maybe a meeting of public activists? Is it an engine of evangelism, a classroom for doctrine, a temple of worship, a fueling station for tired Christians … there are various models that people have opted for: what’s the right one?

Maybe the third question is What’s the relationship between people in the church supposed to be like? How should Christians treat one another? What do they do with each other when they’re together? What responsibilities do they have to each other, and do the individual members also have responsibilities to the local congregation? Who gets the spiritual gifts, and how are they supposed to be used?

Related to this, there’s another question: What’s the relationship between the local church and the surrounding world? Is it strictly evangelistic, or does it include some sort of public service or general social improvement of things? Can the church be political, or should it stay right out of public affairs? What about its relationship to things like education, or tax law, or government regulation of gatherings? Who sets the rules for those things? What sorts of ministries should a local church be involved in, and which should they not?

Setting the Bar

Let’s square these things away.

The one who owns the church is Christ. Nobody else has a right to say what it is for, and what we should be doing.

The church is to be a gathering of the body of Christ. Its primary function is edification, the “building up” of the Lord’s people in knowing and loving him together. This includes four primary functions, which are worship, fellowship, teaching and prayer.

The relationship between people in the church is covered in the previous chapter. It is to be one of mutual fellowship in Christ. We are all members of him, all gifted to the church and personally gifted in some way, and all live only to him. Whatever other markers of identity the world may want us to recognize, they are irrelevant. They will not persist in the kingdom of God.

Now, the relationship between the local church and the surrounding world is one of distinctiveness, not similarity. The church is not to be an expression of the values and assumptions of the culture in which it is found, or continuous with it at all; but rather a radically different place, the holy congregation of those called out for relationship with God and eternal service in his kingdom.

Thus, it does not at all follow that if the world is having a particular problem, the church is duty bound to share it or to take some position in the larger, political realm to address the world’s problems. Racism is a problem of the world, not of the Lord’s people. They are to think about each other differently, as spiritually equal in value, even if different in age, role, culture, language, color, economics or sex. The problems that plague the larger world are not to be perpetuated in the company of the Lord’s people; and if they appear, they are to be evicted immediately, not entertained.

Knowing the Difference

With that groundwork of understanding in place, I’m thinking it might be useful for us to clarify what’s really at stake in the choice between Social Justice and Christianity. Is it really the case that the two are so different? Can’t some measure of the goals and understandings we get from Social Justice perhaps be useful in mobilizing Christians to social action? What would be the harm in allowing that? Do we have to choose one or the other, or can we find a way for the new ideology to integrate with the existing theology and practices of the church in helpful ways?

The answer to this sort of question is that it depends on what you’re willing to give up. Social Justice demands the maximization of certain values and attitudes, and these are not all compatible with Christian values. When you see what they are, you may even have justified concerns that they would change the very nature of church and of our theology quite radically. If you’re a leader, teacher or other influencer in the local church, I think you have a right to make the choice with your eyes wide open as to the package you’re getting into, don’t you?

Is There a Compromise?

How is Social Justice different from the Christian ideal of the community of believers? They both have an interest in seeing people treated fairly, in fighting racism or other forms of exclusion. Both believe in the sharing of benefits, and even the redistribution of worldly goods to some extent. Both come off as compassionate — at least at first blush; doesn’t God want us to be concerned for the welfare of the poor, the forgotten, the abused and rejected, the excluded, the underprivileged and the marginalized? What kind of a Christian community would we be if we didn’t have a concern for these things? Superficially, at least, there seem to be some points upon which Christian and Social Justice values might be able to align; what’s wrong with opting for a little bit of both?

That’s a good question. It accounts for the “niceness” of the “nice lady”. She appears nice to us because she is actually pointing to some values that Christians have and ought to have, and which we would rightly feel guilty about if we failed to have. She is, in some ways, singing a Christian tune. Her claims don’t always miss the mark when she says that people can feel excluded, less valued or put down, even in the context of so inclusive a community as the church. We all fall short of our ideals, after all; and it isn’t unreasonable to realize we’ve got some work to do before we, in the church, reach the goals of fairness toward others that God has set for us. All that is fair enough, surely.

However, we should also consider carefully the terms upon which she is promoting these things. Are the attitudes and strategies to which she is calling the church the kinds of attitudes and strategies the church can morally adopt? Should we want what she is offering on the terms on which she is offering it, or is there something troubling, something somehow unchristian about what she is asking us to buy into, and what she is telling us to become?

Her morals may sound good; but what is involved in her methods? Is there anything to which we are opening the door that should rightly make Christians hesitant?