You don’t have to spend long at Christian conferences or in the online Christian world to find calls for the church to take something more seriously. Theological education, social deprivation, environmentalism, racial diversity, disability access and inclusion, children’s discipleship, apologetics, abortion, arts, politics… and the list could get longer. All these things matter. And each individual calling for the church to take something seriously is committed to this area, seeing how Christ impacts this area of life.
So it is good to be reminded of the many ways that the good news of Jesus, reconciling us to God and then empowering us to represent God in the world, should change us. But I’ve a sneaking suspicion that when someone says the church needs to take “something seriously”, they mean something unrealistic. For a church to take something seriously in their eyes would mean their particular area was one everyone in church actively got involved in and probably all took the same position on.
So a Christian will say that Christians need to get more involved in politics. But often what they really mean is Christians ought to get involved in their brand of politics- Christians who are on the other side of politics are compromising the gospel by their involvement in politics. And if all the Christians in a church are active in politics, assuming normal work, family and church involvement, they don’t have energy for world missions, or arts, or theological education.
The church, a community of disciples of Jesus, forgiven and adopted into God’s family by his grace, shouldn’t look like a single issue campaign group- unless the issue is Jesus and his gospel. When everyone in a church community shares the same activities or views on everything, one of four things is happening, and only the first two are healthy.
Everyone in a church does/ believes the same things because:
a) This is just common-sense/ how to function in society (e.g. everyone needs a bank account)
b) This is just basic core Christianity (e.g. it is good to read the Bible daily)
c) Everyone in the church has absorbed society’s views and not been challenged by the Bible
d) A perspective on an aspect of life has been made central to church community
Many of those arguing for the church to take “something seriously” worry that the church is stuck in c). But there is a danger that the standard for taking “something seriously” is d). Everyone in church must think and act the same on something that is a perspective on an area of life. So you have a church where everyone is signed up to a particular social justice issue. A church where everyone’s child is in a private Christian school (or all in local state school or all homeschool). A church where everyone has solar panels and electric cars.
But saying an area of life is important for Christians to consider is not the same as saying everyone ought to do the same thing about it. It means everyone needs to think in their own situation and understanding how to live out the new life of Christ in this aspect of life. For one person, creation care may be focused on litter picking the local street, for another living a simpler life, for another financially supporting a nature reserve, for another campaigning for legislation, for another encouraging renewable energy. For one person, politics should be focused on justice, for another on economic growth, for another redistribution of wealth- and all of these have biblical warrant.
So a church taking an area seriously does not mean everyone thinking and doing the same. Where that happens, there is a real danger of adding something to the gospel, adding something to Christ. To be part of this church community you need to trust Jesus and join a protest/ fund this theological college/ support this political party etc.
To add to the challenge, no individual can give the same time and thought to every aspect of life. The average person has work, family responsibilities, and, if they are Christian, basic church involvement. Their remaining time and headspace is limited. So one person gets involved in a local arts group, encouraging others to come and be creative, and seeking to make art for public spaces. That person can’t give the same energy to environmentalism, politics, social issues as they give to art- because they don’t have enough time. They will hopefully recognise these other areas are important, and that it is good others get involved in them, rather than believing everyone should really join the art group if they are taking our God-given creativity seriously. They will hopefully let aspects of these issues affect how they run their home and their art activities. But they can’t take every issue full-time seriously.
So a church taking “something seriously” should not look like a single issue church. Instead, it will be a church which encourages people to focus and unite in Jesus. And then encourages everyone to think about what being renewed in Jesus means in every area of life. Different people will focus more on different areas at different times. Different people may have different priorities and approaches to how to address these areas, based on situation and perspectives.
And just to clarify- if one area of living for Jesus is your passion, feel free to share that and encourage other Christians and churches to think about it. But make it clear that you will gladly be in church with people with different perspectives on how to live for Jesus in this area, and with people who focus on other areas. Jesus unites diverse people, and it is as a body with diverse people that we can take all the different issues seriously.
Jots and Scribbles 