The Last Best Hope
By Dr. Chris Seiple on 02 April 2008
Last weekend the Washington Post included an article on the Vatican’s view of the world. The article is best summarized by its concluding sentence: “If you’re trying to understand how the pope sees the world, to get past the religious verbiage to the political kernel within, try not to think of Rome. Think of Brussels.” According to the author, because the Vatican is an institution based in Europe, it will behave in a European manner. The Vatican’s focus on “liberal” causes such as international human rights, poverty eradication, and peacemaking are therefore derivative of European political liberalism.
If only we could just “get past the religious verbiage,” apparently we would see the truth in this argument. Of course, the article makes no reference to the commands of Jesus and the Scriptures to care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow, and to work for peace. Nor does it mention the scriptural command that believers live their lives as personal “ambassadors” of Christ, “as though God were pleading through us … on Christ’s behalf [to] be reconciled to God” (2nd Corinthians 5:20, New King James). While there are many ways to “plead,” one manner is to love our neighbor in an unconditional manner. The pope would undoubtedly insist that his international worldview takes its cues first from these kinds of sources, not “Brussels" (especially this pope, whose emphasis is faith and reason, and who chose the name “Benedict,” in part, to honor St. Benedict of Nursia, co-patron saint of Europe and the embodiment of Europe’s Christian roots).
This conflict over how to interpret the pope’s international policies begs two broader questions. First, does God come from culture or culture from God? For the secular humanist living in Europe, or America, there is a simple answer. Religion is but one part of life, a social construction that at best deserves tolerance amongst other pastimes people choose. But for the person of faith, especially among the Abrahamic traditions, culture is a gift from a sovereign God, a reflection of a humanity made in God’s own image. As such, other views of the world—to include those of the secular humanist—must be treated with respect. Put differently, faith is not a privatized and personalized part of the whole, it is the prism through which the whole is understood. Secular humanists and people of faith will disagree about this most fundamental question, but these humanists, especially elites, need to afford religion more respect, even as people of faith should respect them.
Second, for Christians, regardless of denomination: What does it mean to be the Church? It is one thing to hold a faith-based view of the world, and quite another to live a faith-integrated life. Does the Church prepare its members to live in such a way that our individual actions in the social and political spheres of life are clearly a derivative of the Church’s global and Christ-based culture? Is the Church the Body of Christ, an organism that sometimes meets in buildings to deepen disciples such that they can follow the commands of scripture to love their neighbor? Or is the church a building where people meet on Sunday, a place for spectators to be entertained before returning to their six-day-secularist lives?
The Body is bigger than a building. “We are His house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast” (Hebrews 3:6). If Christians but acted this way—as the living house of God (1 Peter 2:5), providing discipleship to those who believe, and love to those who do not—they would become a threat to the ever present evil that stalks our world.
In writing the “Screwtape Letters,” C.S. Lewis provides insight into how evil views the Church. Paraphrasing a verse from the Song of Solomon (6:10), “Screwtape,” a senior demon, advises his younger demon about the advantages of the Church. “One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempers uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans."
It is here where I fear for much of contemporary Christian culture in the U.S., starting with my own religious tradition, evangelical Protestantism, which in recent decades has been known more for its right-wing political stridency than its love for neighbor and care for the poor. Indeed, too many of us evangelicals daily aid and abet evil by encouraging the church to be divided.
In his widely cited book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite (Oxford, 2007), Michael Lindsay describes an evangelical community divided twice within itself. He describes a fervent evangelical community divided between “cosmopolitan” elites whose work requires them to engage those not like themselves, and a “populist” middle class that is comfortably cocooned from those different from them. (Whether these distinctions are accurate, or useful, only time and more research will tell, but they are disturbing conclusions nonetheless.) Among the cosmopolitan elites, there is a further divide, as some elites do not feel that they can relate to their local church (which is often populist), and thus these elites focus their time and money on “para”-church ministries; i.e., legally registered non-profits that operate separate from any particular church or denomination. (“Para,” incidentally, is a prefix not found in the Bible’s description of the Church.)
Perhaps most telling is the tale not told. In the various stories and analysis that Lindsay presents, there is no discussion of a Christian identity in America that is foremost rooted in the global Church, a Church anchored in eternity, across time and space, with banners terrible unfurled.
American evangelical Christians like to say and think that the local Church is the last best hope for the world. And it is … but what are we doing to make it so? If the Christian identity in the United States is a function of American culture—and totally disconnected from the Church outside our borders—then how can the Church in America equip disciples to live transformed lives that transform the culture as a result? If asked to prove that American evangelicalism is not merely a reflection of our culture, could we do it?
If we can’t, we are vulnerable to the secular categorization that religion comes from culture; if we can’t, we dishonor the sovereign God who created that culture. But if we can—and we must—we demonstrate anew what Jesus encouraged us to remember: “Where I am my servant also will be” (John 12:26). He is a global God and we Christians are His global Church.
Last updated 29 November 1999