Sign Language

 The other day I was biking through my neighborhood and noticed a number of signs people had in their front yards highlighting statements that proclaimed the essential things they believed in. Most signs had a clear political message. Nothing wrong with that – especially during these weeks leading up to a major national election. 

As I continued my bike ride, however, I kept thinking to myself if I were to post such a sign, what messages it would contain. I certainly agreed with many of the statements on the signs I had seen, but they also did not capture all the essential truths I had committed myself to as a Christ Follower and Steward of God. So, completing my ride and spending a few minutes in my office with Microsoft Word, this is what I came up with:

As I contemplated what people might think about seeing such a sign in my yard, I also considered adding a statement at the bottom that might say: So who in the world am I supposed to vote for???

All of this has made me reflect on the story in Matthew Chapter 22 when the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to proclaim his political allegiance and trap him into a no-win confrontation. “Teacher,” they said, “what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  If he said “Yes,” then it would be an admission of support for the pagan state of Rome with its incredibly decadent emperor, Tiberius Caesar, as well as a slap in the face of Jewish temple leaders, the self-proclaimed guardians of the God-fearing Jewish faith. But if he said “No,” it might endear him to the priests and surrounding crowds but could very likely put him in mortal danger of reprisal by Roman authorities.

Maybe it’s because of this current season of election fervor in America, but never before have I seen the context of Matthew 22 in such a political light. It was as if Jesus was being pressured by two tremendously powerful and influential political parties. On one hand, the Roman state represented big government, big taxes, social services that were intended to provide equality for all ethic groups (sort of,) and an “open-minded” morality that did not condemn anyone’s sexual preferences. On the other hand, the formalized Jewish religion of the day, guided by the temple high priests, represented local government with freedom and liberty for the Jewish people (at least from Rome,) clear mandated moral principles supposedly based on the God-given Torah, and law and order imposed by temple guards built on long-standing Jewish traditions (like stoning someone caught in the act of adultery.) 

See any parallels to some political viewpoints we have today?

With this new contextual insight, it is all the more remarkable how Jesus answered this trick question. He said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” He sided with neither of the political party choices being presented to him but instead marked a “third way” alternative that set a completely different course based on spiritual insight that seemed to have escaped everyone else. In other words, Jesus did not succumb to a simple binary political choice. He drew his perspective instead from his identity as God’s Son and the ultimate “Citizen of Heaven” (Philippians 3:20) where knowledge and understanding flowed directly from God’s Truth, not man’s biased perspective of reality. In essence, he said to give respect to the governmental authorities that are currently in place regardless of their righteousness. Even Tiberius Cesar, as personally immoral as he might be, presided over a state that had to be credited for a significant measure of social structure and stability. But simultaneous, do not let that respect eclipse a man's obligation to acknowledge and revere his Creator or the divine laws and values He has given mankind. What an amazing synthesis of understanding leading to a clear "third way" of behavior totally beyond the capacity of either political party of the day to contemplate.

So back to my yard sign. Even though I have not actually created and staked such a sign in my front lawn—yet, it does challenge me to think carefully about the binary choices I am being offered this election season. More importantly, it makes me wonder how my “heavenly citizenship” is  guiding me to determine what set of essentials I should be embracing, regardless of whether or not they fit neatly within one or the other of today’s popular political platforms.  Moreover, in the spirit of Jesus’s remarkable reply to the taxation question, what “third way” alternatives does God want me to champion and promote today in the same way his followers championed and promoted his teachings creating the greatest and most powerful movement in human history—totally superseding both Rome and the Jewish temple culture?

I’m not exactly sure what the right answers are to all these questions. But just maybe, I should start with a yard sign.

By the way—what’s on your sign?

Stewarding the End of Christendom . . . Again

 (Note: This is a copy of a blog originally written for the Christian Leadership Alliance "Higher Thinking" blog site. It and other blogs I've written for that site can be found at https://christianleadershipalliance.org/blog/ -- JL)

Christendom, as my mission history textbook explains, was a part of history and a part of the world where nations pushed their political objectives simultaneously with the goal of Christian religious domination. Peaking during the 15^th to 17^th centuries when European colonial powers were advancing their cause around the world, the Christendom era developed a dubious reputation of “percolating a wicked brew of ‘gold, glory, and the gospel.’”[1]

Fortunately, history records the official end of that era occurred three hundred years ago, but I can’t help wondering if we have not seen the rise of a new type of contemporary Christendom with the politically charged partisanship that has marked the last few years in our country. It would be easy to blame the media for labeling evangelical Christians as a biased voting bloc, creating the false assumption that all evangelicals think and behave similarly. The reality is, however, that we Christians have far too often done little to demonstrate that our biblical values demand that we be identified independently from the politics of nationalistic patriotism.

In fact, we actually tend to embrace this identification ourselves when we ring our hands with every new poll and statistic that signals the decline of religious influence in society, the rise of the Nones (those with no religious affiliation), and the acceleration of church closures. Couple all that with the impact of COVID-19 that leads many to question whether regular church attendance will ever recover from its online alternatives, and is it any wonder that many express a corporate depression about the future of Christianity in our country?

Malcolm Muggeridge

I would like to propose, however, that much of this bad news should be associated with the decline of contemporary Christendom, not with Christianity itself. The late Malcolm Muggeridge brilliantly made this delineation in 1972 during a series of lectures presented at the University of Waterloo in Ontario,
Canada.  “Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the incursion of barbarian hordes,” he claimed. “Christendom has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of its own intellectual elite . . . The whole social structure is now tumbling down, dethroning its God, undermining all its certainties.  Christendom is the institutional edifice on which Western civilization rests. It’s dying, but it’s not Christianity.”[2]

So, as God’s agents living today in the middle of whirlpools of political debate, racial tension, and pandemic trauma, how are we to steward this moment of Christendom’s new decline? Here are three suggestions:

       First, remember that we are God’s stewards, not stewards of Christendom. Our mandate is to cultivate what belongs to our Master—His Gospel, His Truth, His people, His image embedded in us, and even His creation. Let us not confuse those things with the promotion of a Christ-centered state, as wonderful as some think that might be.

      Second, if indeed we are seeing historical Christian institutions (churches, colleges, missions, etc.) falling in the flames of cultural upheaval, let us not lose heart, but instead focus on rebuilding communities that God has truly "refined by fire" that are prepared to show the world what faith, hope, and love really look like.

      Third, instead of always embracing whatever political platform has the most bullet points we can agree with, let us clearly define what a biblical platform of social values should be regardless of political bias and begin to articulate them with unity and power. Just maybe, we might begin influencing the traditional ideology on both sides of the political aisle.

Here is Muggeridge again with a great final exhortation:

We should rejoice when empires fall to pieces, when all is confusion and conflict. For it is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming . . .  when in the shivering cold the last stick has been thrown on the fire and . . . every glimmer of light has finally flickered out, it’s then that Christ’s hand reaches out sure and firm. Then Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, then His light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever.[3]

Christendom may rise and fall. To be a faithful steward of Christ’s light is our responsibility, regardless.

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[1]S. Moreau, G. Corwin, G. B. McGee, Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, Second Edition, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 110.

[2] Shayne Looper, Shayne Looper: The Prophet of the Fall of Christendom, https://www.timesreporter.com/article/20140130/NEWS/140139920/10704/OPINION

[3] https://worldandeverything.org/2020/10/les-sillars-the-end-of-christendom/