August 31, 2008

Some people imagine that Christianity is a set of well-intentioned rules that don’t work out in real life. It’s all about being a nice person, on one hand, and not having fun on the other. No partying. No sex outside of marriage. Don’t steal. Live a quiet, peaceful life. In short, Christianity provides the theological foundation for traditional middle class values. Work hard. Stay in school. Be a good citizen. Follow the golden rule. That sort of thing.
That can’t be right. I’ll tell you how I know. Because Christians are persecuted in places like China and North Korea. If Christianity were simply about being a nice, decent person, why would these governments put pastors and church leaders in prison or concentration camps? Isn’t this exactly the kind of citizens tyrants want? Nice, moral people who keep their heads down and their noses clean? Of course it is. So why do they perceive Christianity to be such a threat? Because they aren’t stupid. They know how dangerous, how revolutionary the gospel can be. Christians know that God alone is supreme. If Jesus is Lord, then the state isn’t, the party isn’t, the dictator isn’t. Christians are just the kind of people tyrants don’t want: People who know God is bigger than the regime and are unafraid to suffer and even die for their faith. The Bible is full of examples of heroes who stood up to power. Think of Moses standing before Pharaoh, demanding, “Let my people go!” Pharaoh wasn’t accustomed to being addressed in that tone. Think of Daniel and his friends. Daniel didn’t care what the law said; he prayed to God and God alone. As for his friends, they didn’t bend, they didn’t bow, they didn’t burn. Think of Paul, contending for the faith in synagogues and marketplaces, before the intellectual elite of Athens on the Areopagus, and before governors and likely even the emperor. Christians believe in truth. We believe in right and wrong. And we believe in speaking up and doing something about it. What’s the point of the story about Noah? Noah was different from everyone else. He wasn’t afraid to walk the lonely path of faithfulness, even if he had to do it alone. It’s a great lesson in peer pressure.
Tyrants know what most people in America are only beginning to realize: Christianity is dynamite because it makes a difference in how people live. This difference may be welcomed. That was the case in the revivals John Wesley was part of. Certain communities that had been known for violence, broken family life, crime, and other related ills became peaceful, wholesome places. Families began to prosper as husbands
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began saving their income instead of drinking it. Similar reports in our own day have come out of South America. Whole communities have been transformed as large numbers of the inhabitants become Christian. But then again, change brought by the gospel will not always be welcomed. The barkeepers of Wesley’s England and the drug lords of South America may take a different view of things. Ordinary people may take a different view of things.
Here is an ironclad rule: Wherever the gospel is put into practice, it will make a difference. Whenever the gospel makes a difference, controversy is bound to arise sooner or later.
In the context of a Christian society, those who take their faith seriously and try to live it consistently in every area of life will stand out. Devout Christians will be different. Usually this stirs up some kind of trouble. An example that comes to mind is William Wilberforce. You may have seen the movie Amazing Grace. Certainly he lived in a Christian culture—nominally Christian anyway. Yet when he and his friends spoke up against the evils of slavery … well, it was like throwing rocks at a hornets nest. He persisted through years of controversy, even though he was not by nature or preference a confrontational person. Why? He believed he was doing God’s will. He was trying to live his faith.
In the context of a non-Christian culture, Christians don’t even have to try very hard. They simply are different. To the extent that they live their faith publicly, they will stir up some kind of trouble. This is inherent in the order of things. We live, after all, in a fallen world—a world scarred by sin that does not work as it should. Because human hearts are turned away from God, God’s will cuts against the grain of human culture, at least in many ways. God is remarkably merciful, so that we can always find abundant signs of his grace in even the worst of times and places. Still, even in the best of times and places, things are far from ideal. This is why just living the Christian life is likely to get you into trouble.
So what is our context? As I have argued in this series about becoming a missionary church, our context has changed. Not so long ago, it at least paid lip service to Christianity. Now it doesn’t bother. We have moved from a Christian context to a non-Christian context, although some relics and memories of our Christian past persist in American culture. This means people think they know what Christianity is about, although often their perception is based on television or hearsay and not very accurate. If I am right about our culture and I am right about Christianity making a noticeable difference in how people live, then we can expect more and more controversy as we stand out more and more from the crowd. We will be faced with a tough choice.
The change in our society has already forced one choice on Christians: As society moves farther from its Christian roots, do we try to stay on the cutting edge of culture
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(even though it means changing Christianity to the point it becomes distorted beyond all recognition) or do we remain faithful to Jesus and his teachings (even if it means we get pushed to the margins of society)? Not every Christian or denomination has answered the same way. That’s why the major denominations are so divided. You have one group pulling one way and another group pulling another way, and most people are in the middle not even sure what’s going on. For me, this question is easy. Faced with a choice, always stick with Jesus and with the faith as it has been lived and taught through the ages.
But for those of us who choose the option of faithfulness, another decision is quickly thrust upon us: How publicly do we live our faith? Do we keep our heads down and avoid trouble at any cost? This has been a wise option for Christians in certain times and places. For example, there has been a small, enduring Christian community in Iraq for centuries. Iraq is a Muslim country. Under Saddam Hussein, the Christians were like everyone else: They kept as low a profile as possible. I am not sure things are much better today. The threat is not from the government now, but from Islamic militants. My point is: Christians in America can afford to be more public and outspoken than Christians in Iraq. I have read in recent years about a church being denied a building permit and of protestors at a Christian youth rally. Christians and Christian beliefs have been lampooned and ridiculed. Those are the kinds of threats we face. On rare occasions churches are burned, but the last time that happened in Alabama, it was just malicious mischief, not anti-Christian activism. We are not likely to be killed, although on very rare occasions, that has happened. Martin Luther King, jr, comes to mind.
If we were in Iraq or North Korea, the answer would be easier. We would keep our heads down and avoid making waves—even the waves that come naturally from living the Christian life—as much as possible. But we are not in those places. We are here. Do we dare to be different? Do we dare to stand out from the crowd? Have we the courage to speak up? Will we stand up for what we believe in?
You know me. You know I am not a rabble-rouser. I never go looking for trouble. Sometimes it finds me. I avoid it whenever possible, unless it involves an issue that demands I take a stand. In that case, I will, even if I do not relish it. The apostle Paul was more forceful and confrontational than I am, but I believe he never went looking for trouble. God had given him a job and laid a burden on his heart. He had to tell people about Jesus. He knew that wherever he went, there would always be those who welcomed his message with joy. And there would always be those eager to shut him up. He persisted, and as we saw in our reading, he stirred up trouble.
I read both these passages because they illustrate well the way a missionary church stirs up trouble. In Acts 17, Paul and Silas are on a missionary journey. They went from city to city, preaching and starting churches. They stayed as long in each place as the
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situation allowed or demanded. Their goal was to leave behind stable churches. In Thessalonica they ran into trouble.
Paul, you remember, was a Jew and a Pharisee. He was an Old Testament kind of guy. Once he met Jesus, he saw Jesus written all over the place in the Old Testament. His strategy when arriving in a new city was to go first to the synagogues. This made sense because the people there already believed in the One True God. They accepted the scriptures. Many were looking for the promised Messiah. So he started there. The typical synagogue in the Roman world had not only ethnic Jews but also many converts, Gentiles who had come to believe in the Jewish faith. There were also a group Luke called “God-fearers.” These were Gentiles attracted to the religious and moral teachings of Judaism, but not ready to fully convert.
What happened in Thessalonica was typical of Paul’s experience. He would go to the synagogue, tell them about Jesus, point to the scriptures, and then … Some people would get very excited and believe in Jesus. Others would not. This caused a rift between the two groups. What happened next depended on who came to believe and how many and a host of other factors. In Thessalonica, things got out of hand.
Some of the Jews believed in Jesus, as did a large number of the God-fearing Gentiles and the leading women, Luke tells us. Some of those who did not believe found this intolerable. They rounded up a gang of thugs from the marketplace and caused a commotion. On another occasion in another place, Paul received a stoning from a mob and was left for dead. That might have happened this time, but they couldn’t find him and Silas. But they found Jason, who was probably one of the new Christians who had opened his house to Paul and the church. Jason and a few other new Christians were hauled before the authorities where Paul and Silas were accused of sedition. As was often the case, the local officials didn’t like this sort of trouble, but they didn’t want to get mixed up in sorting out questions of Jewish-Christian theology. The affair ended with Jason posting bail and Paul and Silas sneaking out of the city by night.
The other episode, in Acts 19, involved a full-scale riot. Ephesus was home to the great temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. A meteorite had fallen in the distant past and was considered a gift from and image of the Greek goddess Artemis. Naturally this temple meant big business to the local economy, including artisans who made little models of the temple to sell for souvenirs or religious purposes.
After Paul went to the synagogue, he always went to the marketplace and preached about Jesus to the general population. This did not make him odd. In that day, teachers, philosophers, and preachers set up shop in the marketplace. They didn’t have television, so one of the things they did was go down to the market and listen to people who had something to say. Paul was following the usual custom. He must have found
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a receptive audience in Ephesus because he started a very successful church there. In fact, the gospel made such an impact, the local silversmiths noticed a drop in sales. For some reason, people were not buying those little temples they way they used to. Why? It was Paul and those bothersome Christians with their talk about One True God who made heaven and earth and doesn’t live in temples made by hands.
The artisans started a riot. This sort of thing always draws a crowd, and Luke says half the people didn’t even know what they were rioting about, but everyone loves a good riot. It ended in the amphitheater with the crowd chanting for two solid hours. Finally a local official broke it up before violence broke out. It’s a good thing Paul’s friends wouldn’t let him go try to speak.
You see how this works. What was Paul doing? He was telling people about Jesus, starting churches, teaching the Bible. What was the result? Mobs and riots and a whole list of similar experiences we don’t have time to go into. Was Paul a trouble maker? No, in that he didn’t try to stir up trouble. That was not his intent. But yes, in that his message was controversial, the Christian faith and life were controversial, and so trouble followed him the way a little child follows an older sibling. Everywhere he went, there it was.
Question: Should we expect things to be different for us if we are serious about living and proclaiming the gospel? Not if we are realistic. Is our faith controversial? Are our moral values controversial? You bet they are!
I’ll give you just a few examples. In 2004, Guillermo Gonzalez wrote a book called The Privileged Planet, in which he did not argue for the existence of God; he merely suggested the order of the cosmos shows evidence of purpose. Purpose implies an intelligent creator. For violating the canons of scientific materialism, he was denied tenure at Iwo State University. They didn’t fault his science, just the philosophical assumptions behind it. Many Christian professors keep quiet about their faith until they are securely tenured. The academy can be a particularly hostile environment in which to be a Christian. Tom Wright tells of a student in the arts who did not explain that the inspiration for his graduate project came from Christian iconography, because he knew it would be rejected for that reason. He kept quiet, got glowing reviews, graduated, and then explained how his art expressed his faith.
In 2006, the state of Massachusetts told the Catholic Church that the state had redefined marriage and it was no longer limited to one man and one woman and therefore Catholic charities had to begin placing adopted children with same-sex parents. The church refused. It gave up the adoption business altogether. The same thing is happening in England right now, except there the Catholic Church is fighting a legal battle they know they will lose because they want everyone to see that the government forced them out of the adoption business.
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What about here? Do things like this happen in the Bible belt? Certainly they do. They are perhaps more subtle here, but Christianity encounters opposition all the time. When we live our faith publicly and stand up for what we believe in, we are bound to run into it. And that’s OK. Victor Shepherd, a wonderful pastor, once said, “The alternative to a dangerous church is a dead church.”
I think he’s right. My philosophy is: Never stir up trouble intentionally or needlessly. Don’t be obnoxious and then portray yourself as a victim. It was poor old Paul who wrote, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” [Rom 12.18]. But of course it isn’t always possible. We have to live our faith openly and publicly. We have to stand up for what we believe in. But we do not have to fear controversy or run from trouble.
These days it is becoming increasingly important for us to take a stand, but inside and outside the church. By inside the church I mean the witness we give within our denomination—at presbytery for example. Our session has not shied away from taking a stand on controversial issues. It’s not because we want to be difficult, but because we feel we must speak. So we have to live and proclaim the gospel both inside and outside the church. If that causes problems … well, as Paul would tell you, God is bigger than our problems. … Amen.
rev_mauldin@yahoo.com