“It’s pointless shining the brass on a sinking ship“
That’s a sentiment that many evangelical Christians have applied to social justice, mercy ministry, racial reconciliation, transformation, upliftment, work and calling, environmental issues and a whole lot of other issues relating to this current world and its inhabitants. The ship is going down so don’t bother. The alternative? Well, just do evangelism, that’s all that really matters – in other words – get people into the life boats. Now based upon the many answers to the first post I must take issue with a philosophy of evangelism only. Surely Christians do not continue their existence in this world simply to evangelize the lost. I think we can see this if we draw an analogy from the previous post.
Many of you gave answers, some of which I might not necessarilly go with, but I’m not here to sort out your doctrine of personal godliness, rather I want to make an analogy. Consider the following answers that were posted:
“We are already righteous before the Lord if we are Christians because of the cross and if that is our status we should be living like God’s holy people, striving to live out our status.”
“God has brought you out of darkness into light: therefore live as children of the day.”
“We are to pursue godliness despite attaining it in this world because (1) it serves as a proof of the initial work God has begun in us; (2) God is in the business of redeeming us now, and while we await our final redemption/salvation, it has been inaugurated in a unique way on the cross and through the resurrection (and by the Spirit)”
“I am just trying to live out the reality of who I am, “in Christ”.”
“I am a child of God, therefore it is my desire to live as a true child, not so I can get a big reward, but purely because it is who I am through the work of Christ.”
“Because the grace of God teaches (instructs or trains) me (with the intent of forming proper habits of behaviour).’(Titus 2:11-12 with additional comments from Louw & Nida). Sometimes I put in very little effort at all, I’m simply being propelled by the good news concerning Jesus.”
There’s a common thread running through those comments. It is the idea of living in the light of future expectation – and its a certain expectation. Be holy because you are holy and you will be made holy. We’re very good at applying this to personal godliness and so, like me, you can probably count off hundreds of sermons that you’ve heard about personal praying, reading your bible and displaying the fruit of the Spirit. Be patient, be joyful, be kind etc. etc. The only time spirituality seems to become other person centered is when the sermon is on evangelism. I’m often left wondering if there isn’t anything more to the picture. Does being gospel-centered equate doing evangelism and personal godliness? Or is it more than that?
What if we were to explore our future expectation and discover that God has more in store than simply making us completely righteous in his sight and whisking us off to heaven? What if God’s plan rather was to institute an entire new creation that exists in complete submission to his lordship? What if this new creation was made certain by the cross? What if Colossians 1:20 really means what it says and that God is in the business of more than just redeeming individual souls? What if we’re leaving out large parts of the gospel?
Residence in the new creation is secured for those who trust in Christ (how that will eventually work out I have no idea), surely that must change how we deal with social justice, mercy ministry, racial reconcilliation, transformation, upliftment, work, enviromental issues and a whole lot of other issues relating to this current world and its inhabitants now. My guess is that as we do this there will be plenty, if not more, opportunities for evangelism and the public proclamation of the gospel which is the only thing by which men are saved as far I’m concerned. But we must do it if we are to live in light of our secured future expectation. We shine the brass in the current creation because we are secured residents of the coming new creation – and so shine we must.
What do you think? Is this a fair analogy?
I think your experiment proves the point. We, the church, have definitely been sucked into western individualistic thinking and living- and it’s preventing us from truly experiencing and displaying the all-encompassing redemptive work of Christ. No wonder we are so weak in areas of justice, social action and transformation. We are making absolutely zero impact in these areas. I think the latter being clearly evident in the recently held ‘Mighty Men’ conference just outside Pietermaritzburg, KZN. Something like 60 000 men were in attendance. Guess what the racial mix was? 98% white. Two of my black friends attended and said it was a case of spot the black man- that’s just unacceptable.
I love it bro, one of the most beautiful things I have read in a while. I heard a pastor use the analogy once that If we are to go to the great banquet of joy and worship one day, but have spent our whole life in misery and bitterness, are we really in heaven? similarly i guess if we’re to be seated next to members of every tribe and tongue and race, but have spent our whole life here on earth with racism in our heart and indifference in our actions, then how does that match up? If the servant is seated next to master and the middle class next to a beggar, but we ignored the poor and did nothing with the things we had, then are we sheep or are we goats?
Intriguing thoughts, Stephen. I’m not sure if the analogy works though. Although the redemption of creation was secured at the cross, and is bound up with our salvation, there seems to be a kind of “time lag”. For example, we are obliged to no longer live according to the sinful nature (Ro 8:12) but the rest of creation does not have that choice. Instead it is subjected to frustration, waiting for the day when the sons of God are revealed and creation is liberated from bondage to decay(8:19-21). That liberation seems to be future tense, linked to our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies. So as we polish the brass on the sinking ships of our mortal lives, we do so representatively on behalf of creation. But can we polish creation’s brass as well? Why would we?
None of this discounts your greater point which is to call evangelicals to go beyond privatised religion with regular quiet times, a serene disposition and talking about Jesus. I think the reason why we’ve fallen into this error is that we have reduced the gospel to its relevance to US – to our salvation and faith and relationship with God. The relevance of the gospel to the whole of God’s creation is seldom mentioned.
Recently I’ve been wondering about the Clapham Sect. What was their pastor preaching that got them off their comfortable evangelical butts and out into the slums, poorhouses, brothels and slaveships? Would the same message move us?
I enjoyed the point you made when you highlighted that the only time godliness becomes more outward focussed it when you address it to evangelism.
In the new testament, Paul spends little time encouraging his listeners to do evangelism, or even praising them for doing “just evangelism”. He is more often exhorting them to pursue Righteousness and Holiness and praising them for growing _as a unit_ in Godliness and Righteousness.
The reason I think is because the overall goal as he saw it is to grow in Godliness and Righteousness as a body, i.e. that meant growing the body, both internally and externally, and for them, you could not have one without the other.
As for your analogy, it is accurate, but with Susan’s appropriate caveat. We need to remember that this world will be recreated. We could easily swing all the way and start striving to make heaveh here.
A very tricky subject, but what is critical is to recognise the importance of both elements: inward renewal and outward working. I’ve found the church to be polarised on these two issues and most struggle to see the middle ground. The book of James points out that the outworking is evidence of the faith, and the book of Hebrews says that without the faith itself you cannot please God. Then we read that the righteous are justified by faith and not by works. Put all the pieces together and we realise that one cannot live without the other.
Undoubtedly salvation is more important and if I had a straight choice between evangelism and good works I would have to choose the former, but you cannot read Isaiah 58 with an open heart and not be compelled to extend the other hand to achieve something tangible. For this reason the early church consisted of both the apostles and elders for serving spiritual needs and the deacons for serving practical needs.
May we not abandon ship altogether, but continue rowing and bilging water if need be, if only for a little while. A professor recently told me: “We must look at others as being the image of God. The question is not ‘are they in the image of God or not,’ but rather ‘are they a redeemed image, or still a broken image.’” This as greatly impacted my interpersonal relationships with believers and non-believers alike.
Secondly, the concept of cosmic redemption has rocked my world as of late. Check out Wolter’s “Creation Regained”- an amazing book. I wrote about it here: http://reverendrockstar.com/2008/02/25/creation-regained/
Susan – I know there are difficulties with the details if you draw the analogy too tightly. My main point was the life lived in response to a secured future expectation. One of the key reasons for personal godliness is the living in light of an eschatological reality. We don’t polish the brass because it will keep the ship up (mind you we don’t polish the brass of our personal godliness to keep the ship up either) – we polish it because of the nature of who we are in the eschaton. We are citizens of the new creation therefore we behave like citizens of the new creation. How else do we make sense of passages like Jeremiah 29:7 where the exiles are told to seek the prosperity of a city that God will later crush – God can’t be telling them to seek the prosperity of the city so that it won’t be crushed by him. Rather he gives the exilic community this command in expectation of the posperity they will enjoy (and that is promised throughout the OT) when they are rescued and live in light of their rescue. So yes I still think we should polish creations brass and I hope I’ve answered the ‘why?’.
Yes indeed! As the gospel transforms us and the communities we touch, life on earth should look more like it will in the new creation. I was being pedantic about the analogy because you asked “is it fair?” The Jeremiah reference is spot on; thanks for that.
Stephen,
I agree with you and being a huge Lesslie Newbigin fan I think it only fair to let him have his say here. Newbigin often spoke of the church being the “sign, foretaste and firstfruit of God’s purposes for that place” (A Word in Season: 1994: p36). And he offers a less individualistic understanding of hope when he says, “…what the gospel offers is not just hope for the individual but hope for the world. Concretely I think this means that the congregation must be so deeply and intimately involved in the secular concerns of the neighbourhood that is becomes clear to all that no one and nothing is outside the range of God’s love in Jesus Christ.” (as above, p 43)