As the 19th century drew to a close, the editors of The London Times solicited essays from many of the famous authors of the day, inviting them to address the ever-pertinent question: “What’s Wrong With The World Today?” They didn’t lack for replies – lots of things going wrong back then, too – but the most intriguing came from celebrated Christian apologist G.K. Chesterton. It was only two words long.
“Dear Sirs,” Chesterton wrote, “I am.”
That’s been rattling around in my head lately, as ‘ve been sifting through conversations with many friends (Evangelical and Catholic), following darkening news reports, and monitoring the general sweep of events … all of which persuade me of three things.
1) In the now semi-post-Covid era, a great many of us are exchanging our fears of the disease for fears of what’s happening in the culture, and coming back to the re-opened churches in droves. We are looking for something.
What do we want? A good weekly concert? A funny, inspirational sermon? Delightful fellowship with a small group of people who will echo back to us what we already think?
A clarion call to bold, evangelical action – or just a little comfortable assurance that everything’s mostly fine, we’ve just got to ride out this brief rough patch in the social tides?
2) Church leaders sense the confused expectations – and see how much Covid has increased church-shopping, church-hopping, and the happy realization that the gist of a service can be sufficiently enjoyed in one’s pajamas, eating pancakes on the couch.
In response, the pastoral teams are running around in circles, trying to gain their own firmer handle on what those bothering to come back really want, really need, and can reasonably expect their leaders to give them. Shepherds no longer know their sheep, and many of our spiritual mentors can’t seem to fathom what “church” is supposed to be, anymore.
3) The wider culture has made up its mind what the church is, though, and they don’t like it. They want us, at the very least, to keep quiet and stay out of the way. Increasingly, they want us gone altogether.
When the Billy Graham Evangelical Association invited Seattle police to a free dinner in their honor this week, at a four-star hotel, as a way of thanking the officers for their service and encouraging them in their increasingly difficult work, the invitation was ... summarily rejected. The Seattle police force doesn’t accept charity from bigots, the BGEA was told.
A survey of college students, asked recently who Christians are, described them as an out-of-touch political party. (Young people are not among those coming back big to church.)
All of which points to our racing toward some massive, head-on collisions – the church with the world, Christians with their leaders, believers with themselves. What are we doing here? What do we want from God? What does God want from us?
Our most “reasonable” service, according to Paul – who lived in his own time of tumult, yet certainly seems to have had a better handle on the Great Expectations than most of us do – is to present ourselves “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God (Romans 12:1-2).” So …
· Apparently, I’m going to have to die to something so important to me that it’s inseparable from who I am.
(A pastor once asked a little boy in his congregation if he knew what “sacrifice” meant. The boy said he did. “It’s when you give up something you can’t live without.”)
Maybe more than one something. Maybe more than one time. (“I die daily,” Paul said.)
I need to be in a church that – amid the songs and devotionals and fellowship – will not let me forget that.
· “And do not be conformed to this world,” Paul says, “but transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Apparently, I’m going to have to think differently – not only from everyone around me in the current culture …
… and not only from everyone in a church culture increasingly indistinguishable in its words and forms and priorities from the hell-bound society screaming around it …
… but differently than I myself am prone to think.
(There are only two rules, the wise man said. Rule No. 1: “Don’t fool yourself.” And Rule No. 2: “You’re the easiest one for you to fool.”)
A church that is not teaching me to stand apart – that’s not taking the lead in embracing cultural non-conformity – is a church that doesn’t understand what the church is.
· “That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
The proving is the only testimony I have for a world that despises what my Savior stands for. Nothing about the Gospel will look good, seem acceptable, strike anyone as perfect, until they see the determined personal sacrifice. Until they run up against a graceful non-conformity.
A church that doesn’t model these qualities has nothing to set it apart from everything else. And nothing to offer anyone.
“There are only two kinds of people worth anything in this world,” John Adams said. “Those with a commitment – and those who require the commitment of others.”
Whether they know it or not, commitment is what those coming back to our churches are hungering for. This is what honest hope looks like.
Whether they believe it or not, the call to commitment is all our spiritual leaders have to give us. It’s what true faith sounds like.
Whether we like it or not, the commitment – marked by sacrifice and set-apartness – is the only thing that will inspire anyone to seek Christ's salvation. This is what grace tastes like. This is what real love is.
Trouble is … I don’t want to make the sacrifice. And I don’t want to change the way I think.
What Is The Problem With The World Today?
I am.
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