It’s fascinating, sometimes, what you find without looking.
Looking for something else this week, I found these paragraphs … as good a description of any of what’s happening – of what’s not happening – in so many of our nation’s churches today:
“In deep disappointment,” the writer says, “I have wept over the laxity of the church. My tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
“Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
“There was a time when the church was very powerful – in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.
“Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were ‘a colony of heaven,’ called to obey God rather than man.
“Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘astronomically intimidated.’ By their effort and example, they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
“Things are different now. So often, the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often, it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent – and often, even vocal – sanction of things as they are.
“But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century.”
Kind of wish I’d written that. But writing that, at the time it was written, required going to jail. Interesting, how many of the greatest insights are written under duress, under stress, out of the boldness reserved for those who care enough about others to embrace the dangers of defiance and the risks of retaliation. Ask the Apostle Paul, who seemed to find his own greatest eloquence while scribbling in a prison cell.
The writer quoted above, you may have noted, was rightly concerned about the church of the 20th century; my own lamentations are for the one that followed. It doesn’t really seem like much has changed, does it? Oh, the specifics have, sure … but a fundamental cowardice or laziness, a paralyzing apathy or self-absorption, lingers on.
Sixty years after Dr. Martin Luther King wrote those lines in the margins of a dirty newspaper taken off the floor of his Birmingham jail cell floor, the church he grieved for still drifts, still hides, still embraces a policy of non-interference with what’s going on in the culture around it.
Too many of us are not particularly interested in speaking out against the killing of babies, or the grooming of our children, or the brainwashing of our youth, or the corruption of our culture. We object to these things – we abhor these things – we murmur in safe places about the price of these things.
But we don’t want to talk about these evils in church. Our congregations don’t want to hear about them from the pulpit. Our pastors don’t want to preach them from the pulpit. None of us really want to become part of the Resistance … much less play a role in creating it.
Yes, we wish our society took God more seriously. But we don’t care to take Him too seriously ourselves. We don’t like the mass redefinition of biology. But we’re not going to go to a school board meeting to protest it. We don’t think same-sex marriage is right. But we don’t want to initiate any conversations that might offend – or alienate – our children.
We want our country to be more like it was, in the good old days. We’d like better leaders, better candidates, more freedom from government intrusion and oppression, less to fear from out-of-control prosecutors and judges under somebody’s thumb.
But we’re not going to spend any time praying about it. We’re certainly not going to say or do anything that might call attention to ourselves. We’re not going to risk a lawsuit – much less jail time.
And, of course, we’d love for more people to become Christians. But we’re not going to call out sin. Or urge repentance. Or share the Gospel. Or offer an invitation.
There are churches, here and there, wading into their community frays. But the frays have long since become cultural battles, and the battles have long since become an all-out spiritual war for the soul of a nation. And the souls – the eternal destiny – of its people.
I look, I listen, I pray for signs that God’s people are rising, with His courage, to embrace “the good fight.” That we are studying His harder truths, bracing for real sacrifices, preparing thoughtfully for the coming persecutions. That we’re reaching out, with growing passion, to bring the lost to Christ.
But sad to say, like Dr. King … ‘m not seeing it.
It’s heartbreaking, what you don’t find, when you’re looking.
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