The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God . . . it pleased God through the foolishness of what we preach to save those who believe . . . not many of you were wise according to the flesh, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. (I Cor 1:18, 21, 26-8)
Lord, open our eyes, as those who stand in the righteousness of Christ, to see the power of the gospel that transforms. May we as your church stand and not waver in the task of bringing light to a dark society and salt to an empty people.
The last blog introduced the doctrine of the church and concluded by saying that the church has an obligation to take the gospel to the people. To do this, the church must live where the people live. She is to infiltrate society and rub elbows with the common man. Monkery is not a long-term viable option for the serious Christian. Light does no good under a basket, and salt has no effect until it is rubbed on the decaying meat. Thus, the church traffics in the world. Yet simultaneously the church is not of the world. She lives in the world as a foreigner, and as such, is governed by the priorities and principles of her homeland. She dwells here but is a citizen of another place. In matters with no moral consequence she conforms to the place she lives, but in spiritual and moral issues she stands apart from her culture. In America she may wear jeans and eat burgers. In the Middle East, she may wear a robe and eat hummus, but wherever she is, she does not abort her children or defile the marriage bed. She may live and work in the midst of the world, she may obey local laws, work ordinary occupations, and speak the same language as everyone else, but, ultimately, the church is counterculture. She consists of everyday people living everyday lives in everyday places, but she transcends the everyday.
The church lives in the world, but God has not called her to be like the world. Rather, He wants her to transform the world. Because the church exists to bring Christ to the world, she constantly points the world to something beyond the world. The church is separate from the world and calls the world to a higher standard and power than the world can ever know. She is a lighthouse telling a society where the rocks are. She is a guide pointing a lost troop to the only path home. She is a nurse nursing the wounded back to health. She is counterculture because society wants to sail where the rocks are, travel down the path that leads only to a great morass, and practice those habits that only inflict further wounds.
The church is counterculture because while she points people to what is best, the people shut their eyes and ears to it and want nothing to do with her. The church is laughed at, scorned and mocked for calling the world away from its desires. In most places of the world, she faces persecution. She is beaten, robbed, killed, discriminated against and thrown into slavery, all because she insists on saying that the resurrected Christ is the only way out of the hellhole called self. But the world loves the hellhole. The world is an alcoholic who cannot see that his habits are destroying him. The church is a relative who comes alongside and points the way out. But the alcoholic loves the very thing that is killing him and sees the relative as a threat. So he abuses her. It may be quite safe to never speak to the alcoholic about change, but it is also quite immoral. When the church does her job properly, she will experience backlash.
The church is the only institution on earth that can do deep and lasting good. The Red Cross can help alleviate suffering, but it has nothing to offer the human heart. Political groups may help reform a wicked practice, but they cannot reform the human heart. A father and mother may instill in their children good manners and citizenship, but good manners and citizenship do not change the heart. When we divorce our values from spiritual ultimacy, we become sugarcoated and hollow. Do not misunderstand. These other institutions can do good things. I would prefer to live in a place where wicked practices are reformed and people are polite, but I do not suppose that polite people obeying decent laws is the essence of life. The church is the lone institution that can bring ultimacy to all the other institutions on earth. It is the only institution that can offer something more than redecorating the living room. It can raze the house and build a new one. The church has at its disposal that kind of power. That power is inherent in the gospel through the Spirit. The church merely carries the power and brings it face to face with another person, like a medic who carries life in his bag and brings it to fallen comrades on the front line.
