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Each day this Lent we’re looking at major “turning points” in Christian history – moments or seasons in which the story of God’s people took an important and often unexpected turn.
The sneaky thing about history is that it’s always happening.
It may feel entirely safe to curl up in a comfortable chair with a good book that describes the heroes and villains of the past – the men and women whose wisdom or foolishness, courage or cowardice, faith or faithlessness, made all the difference in the shaping of our world.
But as soon as we close that book, we’re faced with the reality that the Great Play isn’t over.
We’re the ones who are now on the stage, called to say our few lines and required to play our small parts, even if we’re quite uncertain where the story is supposed to go next. Only the Director knows for sure.
What we do know is that this is a compelling moment. Regardless of our political convictions, we can all know we’re alive during a time in which the foundations of American life are being seriously shaken.
Will these changes bring about greater happiness, greater turbulence, or something in between? Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was once asked about the impact of the French revolution (1789-1815). He memorably replied, “It is too soon to say.”
Likewise, those who trust that God alone rules the cosmos are free to take the long view of things.
But what about the present moment? As our Lenten series comes to an end, what does it mean to be faithful at this hinge point in history?
It can safely be said that modernity (and its close cousin, secularism) remains Christianity’s greatest challenge. Modernity has brought incredible blessings. It’s hard to imagine the average church without indoor plumbing, electric lights, and printed bulletins. Instead of merely reciting Andy and Red’s conversation about hope in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, the preacher can press a button and show the film clip on a big screen. That’s powerful.
Years ago I saw a poll that asked church attenders, “What would you rather have – an interesting sermon or air conditioning?” Eighty percent chose air conditioning. Having experienced the blessings of modernity, it’s not easy to let them go.
But modernity has also inflicted grievous wounds on Christianity.
It’s hard to live in a modern culture and not be seduced by its emphasis on impressions instead of substance. Secular societies tend to over-value speed and efficiency. Noise crowds out the kind of quiet contemplation that is crucial for spiritual growth. Modernity is confident that success can always be measured – it can’t – and acts as if reality can usually be reduced to a set of principles – a bankrupt idea if there ever was one.
Most challenging of all, the modern West has concluded that believing in God is now entirely optional. Multiple versions of the Good Life compete in the marketplace of ideas, and belief in an invisible world is no longer required to pursue truth, meaning, relationships, sexual fulfillment, or purpose in life.
Christendom, in other words, is so far gone you can’t even see it in the rear view mirror.
How should followers of Jesus respond to a culture that seems increasingly secularized? History suggests there are four options.
Withdraw. This was the choice of the Desert Fathers in the third and fourth centuries after Christ. Men and women seeking spiritual integrity retreated to the wilderness in order to avoid the pollution of a sinful world. For a long while, withdrawal was also the choice of most American fundamentalists. Just 20 years ago, a movement called Christian Exodus attempted to take over the state of South Carolina, one town at a time, until a critical mass of voters could approve seceding from the Union. The state would then have become a separate Christian nation.
Withdrawal always sounds redemptive until it’s actually tried. There’s a reason Jesus calls his disciples in John 17 to stay in the world, not abandon it.
Compromise. If we can’t beat them, we can always join them – or at least modify our beliefs and lower our expectations. This was the pathway of many mainline Protestants in the 20th century. Denominational leaders discarded the uniqueness of Jesus and demystified the Bible.
Theologian H. Richard Niebuhr aptly summarized this revised Gospel: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” Unsurprisingly, mainline Protestants have been steadily declining in number since the 1960s.
Dominate. This was strategy of the medieval church. Christians, for the good of society, should exert temporal power. An updated version in America might be legislate. Those on the Left or the Right should elect enough of their own tribe to ensure that the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and 50 statehouses pass and enforce laws that mandate compliance with their perspectives on every aspect of human life.
Suffice it to say that current efforts to live out this option have not endeared most people to Christianity.
Jesus may still be popular. But those attempting politics in his name have not inspired admiration.
Why is there so much pain and polarization in a culture that used to cherish at least a marginal respect for the religion associated with Christ?
In his 2011 book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, journalist Ross Douthat suggests that what used to be a vibrant Center of institutional Christianity – both Catholic and Protestant – has now become weak and fractured. Christians gradually stopped believing in the basics of the Apostles Creed, or never learned those basics in the first place.
That’s why Oprah Winfrey can look like a spiritual giant by promoting self-help books, and why film director James Cameron can make a splash by announcing the discovery of the bones of Jesus – a claim quickly dismissed by every archeologist on the planet. When the Center is weak and fails to hold, fringe religious options begin to look normal.
That leaves us with the fourth option in responding to our modern, secularized culture. Where do we go from here?
We Live Faithfully as Resident Aliens. We take seriously, in other words, the fact that we have dual citizenship. As God’s daughters and sons, we belong to this world. We must not abandon it, make compromises with its frailties, or try to control everything that happens. If the history of Christianity has taught us anything, it’s that each of these strategies is seriously flawed.
But because of our trust in Jesus, we carry another passport. We are members of a kingdom that can only be found (at least for now) in human hearts. The New Testament describes this reality as living in the world while not being of the world.
With God’s help, we can choose to have a visionary identity – serving the God who is actively working to heal this broken world – rather than a reactionary identity – trying to reclaim some version of the past that can never again become the present.
Do Christians need a voice to help call people to life with Jesus in our culture? Yes.
But do we need to recreate a favored status in order to make that happen? We do not – for the simple reason that we already have everything we need.
At the height of the Reformation, Martin Luther was moved by the opening verses of Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.”
Was there a way for his congregation to sing those truths?
Luther ultimately penned one of history’s most famous hymns, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”
As you reflect on the turning points in your own history – the ones that lie behind and whatever ones still lie ahead – may God remind you who has always given you the strength and security to face every one of them.
All along, it’s been Him.