Evangelism

“Judgmental Christians” and The Way of Christ for 2005

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I have been thinking quite a bit the last week about why we Christians are being progressively labeled “judgmental.” It is a word that seems to erupt out of the very fabric of society, smothering the voice of Christians in the public square, and offering a sanctuary for those who openly oppose, do not understand, or simply do not care to comprehend Christianity.

This is not a political blog, nor do I like mixing politics and the Christian faith. Too many Christian blogs and Web sites inextricably link the two and I wish to avoid that. Still, since politics is so critical a means of expression for many of those who do not side with Christian thought, it is a necessity to speak about this issue with some level of politics involved.

We live in an age when people are defined by what they are for or against. Nihilistic postmodernism has created an odd human, though, who seems to be more “against” than “for.” This last year drove that point home. Many politically-charged people argued vehemently against some person or issue, but when pressed were unable to articulate what they were actually for, or how to make the reverse of the thing they were against a reality. When the political season had run its course, we saw in those same people a new psychosis labeled “Post-election Stress & Trauma Syndrome” or (amusingly—no matter which side you are on) “PESTS.” This syndrome manifested in those who were largely against many things, but once they had wound up on the losing side of politics were unable to cope with the fact that their “against-ness,” once broken, left them nothing to be for. Their subsequent bout with PESTS being the natural outcome of having no positive ideas apart from their negative ones, they lived solely out of their anger toward what they are against.

When Christians spoke into the public square this year, the “judgmental” label was tossed around with abandon. I cannot ever remember hearing the word “judgmental” attached to Christians more than I did this year. Being a presidential election year surely made some of that true, but I think another force is at work here. It is the force of postmodern nihilism, the very heart of PESTS, and the core of what is left in people who dwell solely on the negative.

2004 will be remembered as the year in which postmodernism reached full flower. With its blooming comes a time when what we are for and against can no longer be assigned values (at least in the minds of proponents of postmodernism.) Relativism, so inherent in postmodern thought, has resulted in this resurgence of nihilism. That bleak outlook on life informed much of the discussion in politics this year. What the new Nietzsches accomplished in 2004’s discourse was to successfully stigmatize anyone who was actually for something, rather than being merely against something.

As a people who are defined by what (and who, especially) we are for, Christians drew the most attacks. Unable to understand that a worldview exists that does not merely state what it is against, postmodern voices in the public square operating solely out of a negative worldview successfully used the “judgmental” tag to label all opponents to their cause, opponents who actually stood for an issue. Nine times out of ten the ones labeled were Christians.

We should recognize this twisting. It is the same force that brands love “hate” and calls truth a “lie.” While this affords us Christians the proof we need that the world is hellbent on our destruction, we should not wear this with pride, but humility. We should not counter this opposition with noses in the air, but should instead become more humble in our recognition that the light of Christ only shows the darkness to be what it is. And we know how Mankind loves darkness.

In 2005 I believe we will see this labeling by those on the other side of Christ intensify. While we recognize the spiritual battle, our response should always be one of Christ the Servant. Our enemies are conquered by the burning coals they heap on themselves when we serve them out of true love. Our reminder for this year is to seek first the way of love while holding true to what is good, noble, and pure. No concession is needed to be what Christ has called us to be, but neither should we forget that the servant heart is what overcomes the world. For this coming year let us remember to always seek the way of servant love so that our enemies have nothing they can hold against us. We may never depart the judgmental label, but our enemies will look all the more foolish for using it.

Blessings for 2005.

The Frankengospel

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The bag of corn chips on the grocery store shelves trumpeted in bold print, "No GMOs! We use only 100% organic corn."

To many consumers, the rush to add the genetic material of jellyfish, mice, and whatever is the hot DNA of the day to our crops cruised in right under their radar. Here in the United States, most people took for granted that when they reached for a tomato at the grocery store they weren't buying a mutant loaded with the genes of something that had four legs and a complete lack of chlorophyll. But Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are now the talk the world over as scientists play God with the very seeds that sprout into what we eat. Those who claim we are going down a slippery path with our tinkerings have labeled foods that no longer contain the DNA the Creator intended "Frankenfood" in honor of Mary Shelley's manmade monstrosity. But those folks in the white lab coats do not like having their ox gored. They will just as quickly note the innocent truth that they are merely striving for better disease resistance, hardiness, and yields.

There is another kind of food that we are turning into a similar crime against the Creator. We in the Church are taking the seed of the Lord's Good News and transmogrifying it into something utterly devoid of life.

Jesus told a parable:

Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.
—Mark 4:3-8 ESV

We in the American Church need to come to grips with one startling fact: The sower's success rate was only 25%. Three-quarters of all the seed that was sown was ultimately lost or proven unfruitful.

But as Americans, we figure we can always improve a process. As Christians, we like to only think positively, too. So in our effort to do better than Jesus' example in His parable, we've formed a few committees and come up with the perfect solution to that atrocious 75% lack of productivity on the part of the seed; we'll modify the kernel altogether. A little genetic tweaking here or there can only help the cause, right?

The reasoning seems innocent at first. If we can add something to the seed so that it overcomes being eaten by birds, scorched by the sun, and choked by weeds, we will solve the problem of that awful 75% loss. And if that doesn't work, we can always subtract something else if we believe it will accomplish our ultimate purpose.

The problem is that we have tried modifying the truth of Jesus Christ in order to boost its perceived retention rate, succeeding only in creating a "Frankengospel."

We've all seen and heard the Frankengospel. It is characterized by its lack of Jesus, His missing cross, no mention of repentance, and the absence of the Holy Spirit. By these omissions, churches have successfully excised the troublesome parts from the sower's seed. Other churches have tried to overcome the perceived lacks in the seed by adding miraculous marketing techniques, appropriated business seminar know-how, heaps and heaps of weepy-eyed love, and laser lightshows that leave the lost slackjawed at the sheer entertainment value of it all.

If only those slick modifications to the simple seed produced the desired fruit. But it doesn't take a ThD for us to see that the Church in this country has lost its way. The results of our tinkering? Barrenness. Our land is empty, but we refuse to stop sowing our monstrosity.

The simple truth is that we lost faith in the seed itself. We foolishly thought there was something wrong with the whole Gospel. The reality is that Jesus Himself two thousand years ago sowed His seed straight from His own lips and yet it was largely scorned; the birds, sun, and thorns did their evil work. Who are we to think we can improve on our Master? (And let us not forget to give thanks to the Lord for the remaining seed that fell on good soil!)

The only way to counteract the empty, fruitless land that confronts us in America is to sow only the good seed, every part of it, and to sow it with renewed abandon and commitment. We cannot hope to raise the percentage yield beyond what the Lord Himself did, but if each of us shared the whole Gospel of Jesus with enough people, we would each probably need just three of those people coming to salvation in our lifetimes in order to miraculously change the entire world for Christ.

We don't need a Frankengospel. All we need is the true Gospel, the life-giving whole of it, told with joy and enthusiasm, and empowered by the Spirit, to meet the Great Commission.

Calvin Declines

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Excerpted from The Houston Chronicle – 7/21/04:

“As early as this year and certainly, if the projections hold, within the next two years, the majority of American adults will not be Protestants for the first time since the founding of colonial Jamestown,” said Tom W. Smith, director of the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey.

“We were always at least a majority Protestant country, and that is about to change.”

The survey, which was released Tuesday, has studied various aspects of American life, including its religious dimension, for 32 years.

From 1972 to 1993, it found that Protestants constituted 63 percent of the national population. But the total declined to 52 percent in 2002.

The study mirrors results from a recent Harris County survey. Protestants decreased from 56 percent in 1994 to 34 percent in 2004, according to the Houston Area Survey directed by Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor.

One reason for the national decline, Smith said, is a failure to keep youths and young adults within the Protestant fold.

From the ’70s through the early ’90s, Protestant churches retained 90 percent of young people, but that dropped to 83 percent after 1993, he said.

Another reason: Once-nominal Protestants are more open to stating that they are no longer affiliated with any denomination, he said. In the survey, the number of people saying they had no religion grew from 9 percent in 1993 to 14 percent in 2002.

And, some people who once identified themselves as Protestant now call themselves “Christian,” which would put them in the survey’s growing “other” category. Latter-day Saints, Muslims and Eastern religions are also in the “other” category, which grew from 3 percent in 1993 to 7 percent in 2002.

I guess you can say that the Reformation is essentially dead.

Folks are unpacking these numbers various ways. Non-Protestant immigrants are thinning the ranks as the United States struggles to maintain its borders. More Christians are failing to self-identify as “Protestant,” choosing a more generic title of “Christian” (a category that grew slightly.)

But with the rise of Islam in America, as well as the unabated hemorrhage of people who are weighing the Church in the scale and finding it wanting (the “no religion” crowd), there are serious problems the Church in America must face.

The first is obvious: We simply are not leading people to Christ. I believe that if every self-confessed “Protestant” led one person to Christ every five years, we would see those numbers dramatically shift. Just about a dozen people pointed to Jesus in a person’s lifetime. I have to wonder how hard that is to do. The numbers do not lie, though—every measure of Christian life out there shows declining or stagnant numbers. We simply are not leading people to Christ.

Nor are we reproducing. God’s people have been encourage by the Lord Himself to be fruitful, yet our birthrates in the Christian community are hovering in the low single digits, at best. We are barely replacing ourselves. Meanwhile, Muslim families are experiencing birthrates more than twice what ours are. Most futurists are speculating that Islam will overtake Christianity as the primary world religion sometime between 2025 and 2035. And much of that is simply through birth rates.

We have been asleep on our watch. We need to be telling people about Christ and raising Christian children. It is God’s desire that everyone be saved and that none perish. But we have to do something about it.

I understand the family issue is huge one and that not everyone can have a half dozen kids. But there is no reason why we cannot adopt or foster children, raising them in the fear of the Lord.

No reason at all exists, though, to justify why we are not out there bringing people to Christ.

Turn the TV off. Throw out the XBox. Unplug the iPod. Then let’s all get out there and work to bring in the harvest. The laborers already are few; let’s not let them become nonexistent.