DownshoreDrift

How Long Until the Church Effectively Deals With Its Prejudice?

CNN is producing a great series on being "Black in America." Yesterday, they dealt with the issue of race in the church by confronting Why Many Americans Prefer Their Sundays Segregated (HT: Jim West). This is a fascinating article. Here are some excerpts:

• Only 5 percent of our nation's churches are considered racially integrated (at least 20% of a minority race attends)
• Many who want segregated churches are looking for a place of refuge where they don't have to experience racism on Sundays
• Fear of interracial dating may keep churches segregated
• Integrated churches could help heal racial divides in America

I have said a lot about this in the past and I plan to say a good deal more about it in the future. At any rate, I think that it is significant that a secular world looks at the church and takes notice that we are just as segregated as they are, if not more so. Clearly, the Bible teaches that racial distinctions are to fade away in Christ, yet they remain in His Church. How do you think this affects our witness and what can we do about it?

Obviously, repentance and heart change is necessary. Maybe we will start to consider that when we realize that our preferences, beyond just being incompatible with the Gospel, are also destroying our witness in America, the land of multiculturalism.

A God-Sized Vision For Our Communities and Our World

Jesus taught us to pray to God that His Kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9). Would He teach us to pray that if He did not have some intention of it being carried out?

God's Kingdom

What is God's Kingdom? I have been talking about this a lot lately because the Kingdom is the template through which Jesus wants us to understand His purposes for this world. He brought the Kingdom of God into our midst. The Kingdom is nothing less than the reign and rule of God. So, Jesus wants us to pray that His reign and rule would be established on earth as it is in heaven. Prayer here means that we are asking God for His supernatural intervention in the affairs of men. But, since God uses us to do His will, we can also assume that He wants us to be agents of His Kingdom so that we may cooperate with Him in the establishment of His reign and rule. His Kingdom is here and it is forcefully advancing. It is for us to lay hold of it forcefully (Matt. 11:12).

God's Will

What is God's will? It seems that there have been a thousand books written about how we can know God's will for our lives. Does God want me to marry this person? Does He want me to take this job? Does He want me to move to this city? These are valid questions and surely God guides us throughout out our lives, but I find it interesting that we continually pray to know God's personal will for our lives (which is valid), while forgetting to pray for God's will for our communities and our world. Are we only able to think of ourselves? What does God think about the broken homes in your community? What does He think about fatherlessness and poverty? Does Isaiah 1:17 have anything to say to us about our stance regarding fatherlessness?  Jeremiah 29:7 says something amazing to the Israelites in exile in Babylon: "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."  But, weren't the people of God in exile in pagan Babylon? How could they pray for the prosperity of Babylon?  Because God told them to. They were to represent His reign and rule even in the midst of exile. Should we do any less?

On Earth As It Is In Heaven

If we want to know what God's will is, we need look no further than His character. As we get to know God better, we should be reflecting His character in our lives. If we are not displaying compassion for those in need, then we are not reflecting God's character. If we are not living holy lives, then His character is not shining through. God wants to supernaturally transform our lives, our families, our environment, and our communities so that every place that we go we are bringing His Kingdom - His reign and rule. When we see sin, depravity, and brokenness in our cities, how can we run away? How can we harbor dreams of escaping people in need and believe that we are dreaming God's dreams? Does God not love people? Did He not die for the broken, harrassed, and helpless? Is there racial division in heaven? Is there crime and poverty? Are there broken homes, abused people, and people struggling with all types of bondages? Until we begin to understand that we are Christ's ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20), then much of the beauty of the Christian life will be withheld from us because we did not have the faith or awareness to step into God's plan for this world.  God actually wants us to pray that Heaven will break into earth through our influence, be it through our personal witness, our work, our creativity, our families, or our general impact on society.

Thy Kingdom Come

I don't want to rest until my life is aligned to bring God's Kingdom everywhere I go. Christians should be MORE involved in our communities, not less. We should move into neighborhoods that are struggling and reclaim them. We should rebuild our schools, our neighborhoods, and our workplaces. We should be about the task of rebuilding lives. Isn't this what Isaiah 61:4 says, "They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations." And, Isaiah 58:12 says, "Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings." That should not be a revolutionary thought, but the norm. Instead, we tend to run away when problems arise or we turn our attention inward to our own families or our churches, thinking that if we can fix ourselves, then everything else will take care of itself. God wants us to turn our hearts toward Him and toward others, I believe.

It Is Too Small a Thing . . .

Isaiah 49:6 says, "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Paul and Barnabas repeat this in Acts 13:47 in proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles.  We must move past just a personal vision for happiness in our own lives, or just a vision for our families or even for our church. Our vision must extend as far as God's does - to our communities, our nation, and our world. If we would open our eyes and allow Him to pour His life through us, we would be amazed at how our capacity for life, creativity, and restoration will grow. God will use us to be the light of the world, as Jesus calls us in Matthew 5:14.

What does the world look like without light? Dark, indeed. Perhaps we will stop running and complaining when we begin to see that God wants to use His Church to address the problems in this world. May we plant our feet in our communities and develop a God-sized vision for our world. How can we practically do this, you ask?

I'll get into specifics on this in the next post. But, it is likely that you already know the answer to that question.  It has probably been staring you in the face for some time and you have either not seen it because you did not have eyes to see it, or you saw it and chose to look away and do nothing. Hint: Think about the very thing that you have been complaining about the most and then ask what God might have you do about it. There is a reason that it has been bothering you.  More later.

Russell Moore on Spiritual Warfare, the Family, and the Rule of Appetites

Either the prophetic cry regarding our lifestyle choices and pursuit of the American Dream is getting louder, or I am just paying closer attention. As our economy tanks and our culture declines, I think that more and more Christians will begin to consider how we are living. Russell Moore from Southern Seminary takes aim at Southern Baptists' acquiesance to a culture run amok in materialism and hedonism. He hits this topic much harder than I have over the past few weeks as he talks to Southern Baptists about some timely issues. He says, "both left and right in the American mainstream are captive to the ideology that the appetites are to be indulged; the heart wants what it wants, by whatever system will do it most efficiently."  Moore is at his best in this article when he exposes the spiritual warfare that is taking place in our midst and how we have been deceived as we fall in line with the materialistic pursuit of our culture. He aptly points out that our enemy is not flesh and blood.

Moore's only weakness is that he is writing from a middle-class perspective as he critiques families where both parents are working. This is the reality for many families and there is really nothing that can be done about it. Instead of making families who HAVE to do this to survive feel bad, we should help them and support them as they provide for their families. His focus, however, is rightly placed on those families who could easily make it on one income, but choose to put children in day care to pursue a lifestyle of affluence. That action does require some analysis and alternatives need to be considered.

Overall, however, his take on this subject is timely - especially his comments on spiritual warfare. 

If We Want to Follow Jesus . . .

Americans are clustering more and more into cultural, social, economic, religious, and political enclaves according to Bill Bishop in his new book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. Basically, our affluence has led us to the place that most Americans want to live, work, and play with people just like them. The Homogenous Unit Principle that I spoke of a few posts ago, seems to be alive and well in an increasingly multicultural America. But, instead of becoming a melting pot, we look more like a salad bowl of Balkanized special interests. Of course, we have seen this for years with white-flight and the rise of the suburb, but it is now apparently happening across other areas of life and it has profound social, political, and religious implicatoins.

Beyond the Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP) to a More Holistic Gospel Witness

When I started seminary at Golden Gate in 1997, I took a preaching class my first semester. One day, a representative from Lifeway came in and began sharing with us principles on church growth. One of those principles was the Homogenous Unit Principle, articulated by Donald McGavran.  I had never heard this before, but it explained a lot. The HUP basically says that people most naturally congregate with people who are like them, therefore, church growth should take place among these affinity groups. The boundaries to evangelism are often more sociological than they are theological.  Those boundaries can be removed if the gospel is contextualized to each sub-culture and if churches are formed that affirm those sub-cultures. For example, if I am a middle class white man, then under this way of thinking, I would prefer to congregate with other middle class whites. Therefore, the best way to engage me with the gospel is to tailor ministry toward me in a way that is attractive to a middle class white male.

I was only 22 years old when I heard this principle shared by the man from Lifeway. This made some sense among groups with language barriers in places like India, but it did not really seem to fit what should be happening in a country like America. It sounded strange to me then because I did not see where it was biblical. Even though I was just a young white man from Mississippi, I didn't understand why church was supposed to be all about me. I remember asking a question of the man from Lifeway and my concerns were quickly dismissed as being uninformed. The HUP was presented to us as just the way of things, but for me, it did not seem right.  Wouldn't this perspective actually reinforce negative issues like racism, consumerism, and selfishness?

Chasing the American Dream?

Barna Research Group has some new information out about what constitutes the American Dream in people's minds. I'll jump straight to the polling results and commentary and then provide my thoughts at the end:

What Adults Want Their Future to Include

Desired Outcome	2008	2000	1993	1991
having good physical health	85%	91%	92%	93%
living with a high degree of integrity	85%	81%	n/a	76%
having one marriage partner for life	80%	79%	n/a	n/a
having a clear purpose for living	77%	75%	71%	n/a
having a close relationship with God	75%	70%	74%	72%
having close, personal friendships	74%	75%	79%	73%
having a comfortable lifestyle	70%	61%	72%	59%
having a satisfying sex life with your marriage partner	66%	63%	n/a	n/a
having children	66%	65%	n/a	n/a
living close to your family and relatives	63%	60%	63%	67%
being deeply committed to the Christian faith	59%	53%	n/a	n/a
making a difference in the world	56%	47%	n/a	n/a
having a college degree	46%	51%	n/a	n/a
being personally active in a church	45%	42%	n/a	n/a
traveling throughout the world for pleasure	28%	26%	n/a	n/a
working in a high-paying job	28%	29%	43%	36%
owning a large home	18%	21%	30%	23%
owning the latest household technology/electronics	11%	9%	n/a	n/a
achieving fame or public recognition	7%	6%	10%	10%
survey sample size	1003	1002	1202	1003

The Ideal Life

In commenting on these outcomes, George Barna, who has overseen this tracking research since it originated in 1991, pointed out some of the highlights of the new findings.

"Stability rules," Barna noted. "Out of nineteen factors, only two have seen even a ten-point shift in nearly two decades. That’s rather remarkable consistency. So much in our world is changing, yet people’s dreams for their life hinge on the same, unchanging desires: health, relationships, character, faith and comfort. As our life context changes, so do the ways in which people pursue and realize these dreams, but their desires remain anchored to some fundamental values that seem to weather the changing times."

Barna also indicated that the mainstream media has portrayed American society as changing more radically than it has. "There have been some hugely significant changes in the laws of the land over the past quarter-century. However, when you examine what people want, in essence they are seeking what used to be described as traditional family values: a single marriage for life, a solid family experience, displaying good character, living a life that has meaning and impact, and having an active faith.

"Sometimes the abundant opportunities and challenges of daily life distract or divert people from their commitment to these outcomes," the researcher continued, "but in their hearts they have retained some pretty basic and traditional hope and dreams. Leaders might take note of this and compare their own vision and plans for the future with the ideal life that Americans hope to experience."

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Me: I am beginning to distrust a lot of these polls, because I don't think that people are answering truthfully, or if they are answering truthfully they might just be saying what their aspirations are without taking any real steps to accomplish them. I can say that spiritual growth is a goal in my life, but if I never get up from in front of the television and do anything to grow spiritually, then it really is not a goal. The same can be said about a number of issues. I think that these polls might reveal the things that people think are good in life, but when it comes down to it, our choices show what we really want. For example, only 18% of people say that owning a large home is a value to them? Have you seen the size of new homes recently? How many people that you know are still scrambling to get into bigger and bigger houses?  That might not be happening all over the country, but it is definitely happening where I live. It might be embarrassing to admit that that is a goal, but I think that it remains a goal for a large number of people.  Some of these values just do not match up with how people really live, day in and day out.

It has been said that you can tell what a person values by looking at their calendar and their checkbook. How we spend our time and our money says way more about us than random polls do. I am glad that 45% of people say that they want to be personally active in a church. But, considering the fact that the most recent polls tell us that average church attendance is actually around 20-25% of the population, it makes you wonder how much difference there is between people's stated desires and their actual behavior. It does seem that many people have decent values, at least according to what they say. Maybe the big problem is that they do not know how to live according to their values, or they do not see how it is possible. Maybe the tyranny of the urgent, selfishness, or weariness keeps them from really pursuing the things that they say they want. We live in a country where 75% of people want to be close to God, 59% of people want to be deeply committed to the Christian faith, and 45% of people want to be personally active in a church, yet church participation is falling throughout America, and every other philosophy is gaining ground. Why is this? Are these desires really genuine, or do people just see God as a means to a happy life?

Maybe this disconnect has something to do with what David Kinnaman has found in his research, also stated on the Barna website in February, 2008 (He also wrote the book unChristian along with Gabe Lyons):

People are expressing more hostility, doubt, frustration and skepticism toward Christianity - and this is particularly true among young people. Their perceptions of Christians are filled with images of judgmentalism, hypocritical lifestyles and political activism. They also believe Christians have singled out homosexuality above all other sins. They conclude that Christianity is old-fashioned, boring and unintelligent, and that Christians are insincere and too focused on getting converts. The followers of the Prince of Peace are thought to be unable to live peaceably among others.

These may sound like harsh statements, but they spring from extensive research we have done with Americans ages 16 to 29. Whatever your impressions, these negative views are front and center in the minds of young people in our culture. In just a decade, the perception of evangelicals has become eight times less favorable among young non-Christians when compared to the image held by Boomer non-Christians.

In fact, one of the most common reactions that young people have about the faith is that present-day Christianity is no longer like Jesus intended . This is where we initially came upon the term "unChristian." In our research with young people, they kept saying things like, "Christians go about things in an unChristian manner."

So, how do the stated aspirations of people in the aforementioned poll jive with the frustrations of emerging generations? Has the Church lost Jesus in our daily lives? Do people take their spiritual search elsewhere because we do not effectively or intentionally display who Christ is to a watching world? Do people want Jesus but not the Church? Or, is it just all their problem? This could be a great wake-up call for us! Perhaps the Church could come in here and do more to display the beauty of the Christian life in community so that people can see that the life that they have wanted is available in Christ. Isn't this why "sinners" flocked to Jesus? Of course, to gain eternal life, you have to lose your life, and that might be the kicker for some people. Repentance is not a popular concept, even among Christians. But, I still think that the Church can and should be the connection point between God and people's daily lives. Maybe we can actually connect people with the good values that we have if we would look to and live for Jesus and display His glory in the community that He has initiated: the Church (Please note that I am not talking about the institution here, I am talking about the ecclesia, the called out ones who come together to live for Christ). It seems like His plan is a pretty good one and if we would sincerely follow it we might be able to connect a generation of truth seekers to Christ.

UPDATE: Read the latest Pew Research Polls on American's diverse beliefs in religion HERE. Here's a preview: 57% of evangelicals say that "they believe many religions can lead to eternal life."  Wow.  I wonder if they even know that this contradicts what the Bible teaches (John 14:6 - "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.").  Compare these beliefs with the theological disaster that is the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), (check THIS out as well) and we see the need for evangelicals to actually know what the Bible teaches.

Russell Moore on Interracial Adoption

Russell Moore, Academic Dean at Southern Seminary, nails it on the subject of interracial adoption. Excellent. Toward the end of the article he says some very interesting things about the gospel witness of the church on this subject:

The Dangers of Really Bad Christian Culture

Hannah Rosin from Slate.com takes on the "Deep Contradictions of Christian Pop Culture." Here are some excerpts:

At this point in history, American evangelicals resemble the Israelites at various dangerous moments in the Old Testament: They are blending into the surrounding heathen culture, and having ever more trouble figuring out where it ends and they begin. In politics, and in business, they've mostly gone ahead and joined the existing networks. With pop culture, they've instead created their own enormous "parallel universe,"

             

What does commercializing do to the substance of belief, and what does an infusion of belief do to the product? When you make loving Christ sound just like loving your boyfriend, you can do damage to both your faith and your ballad. That's true when you create a sanitized version of bands like Nirvana or artists like Jay-Z, too: You shoehorn a message that's essentially about obeying authority into a genre that's rebellious and nihilistic, and the result can be ugly, fake, or just limp.

                                                                                                                

A young Christian can get the idea that her religion is a tinny, desperate thing that can't compete with the secular culture. A Christian friend who'd grown up totally sheltered once wrote to me that the first time he heard a Top 40 station he was horrified, and not because of the racy lyrics: "Suddenly, my lifelong suspicions became crystal clear," he wrote. "Christian subculture was nothing but a commercialized rip-off of the mainstream, done with wretched quality and an apocryphal insistence on the sanitization of reality."

I'll let the article speak for itself.

A Forgotten Slavery

Marty Duren has a very thought provoking post up about a book review that he was a part of regarding Douglas A. Blackmon's Slavery By Another Name. Blackmon tells the story of the continual slavery of blacks in the South AFTER the Civil War through the unjust penal system. The Atlanta Journal Constitution hosted the forum and described the book this way: businessmen got rich by enslaving thousands of black men for decades after emancipation. The process was simple and evil: Black men were arrested on a pretext, shunted through a rigged system and then chained like animals and sent to work off their sentences or debts in coal mines and steel mills and on plantations.

This happened in the "Bible Belt" South. How? How Christian was the South, really?  How are we still affected by the blind spots of the past? By siding with evil? I think that exploring the answers to these questions could put us on a path to solve a lot of the problems in our churches today.

40 Years Later . . . The Tarnished Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Among Southern Whites

Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When I was growing up in a still racist South (1980's and 90's), I heard about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but not always in a positive way. When I asked about him, I remember being told by my elders on more than one occasion that he was a trouble maker who brought in outside agitators to disrupt the tranquility of the South. I was told that he was a Communist and Un-American (I later learned that was untrue).  I was told that the blacks were doing fine until he came along and started filling their heads with ideas and disrupting the peace - also untrue, obviously. Later, when I became interested in theology and the ministry as a Southern Baptist, I was told that he was liberal theologically and was an adherent of the Social Gospel, which all good Southern conservatives knew was rank heresy. That description was used to discount all that he ever said about God and the Bible, because everyone knew that you don't listen to liberals on anything. I also heard about how he was influenced by Northern liberal elites and how he had some moral failures.

Basically, I heard everything bad about him and almost nothing good. I was a little amazed at how much my elders knew about Martin Luther King from a negative perspective. I silently wondered why the rest of America didn't how much was wrong with him.  I recall watching one episode of the Cosby Show as a child when they remembered Dr. King and the March on Washington in 1963. They played his I Have a Dream Speech and sat around talking about how wonderful those days were. I was confused. What was so great about this man? Wasn't he just trying to get hand-outs for blacks? Didn't they have enough? That is what I had been told. I thank God that I never really incorporated those views into my own heart, but I still had to work through them with questions and investigation of my own. Children believe what they are told, or at least they have to work through it.

It wasn't until I got to college and began reading the true story that I realized exactly what happened in my native South. Over the past ten years or so, I have read quite a bit of Dr. King's speeches and writings. I have worked through biographies like Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters.  I have lived in Montgomery, AL where Dr. King started his ministry at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and have talked with people who were here when the Bus Boycott took place. I now have a VERY different view of Martin Luther King, Jr. than the one I was given growing up.  I also see our past differently and recognize that "the good old days" of the 1950's that we talk about so much were not very good at all. How could they be when we supported injustice on the level that we did, either through outright support or through silence? I recognize that that was a simpler time and there was much good during those days, but a whitewashed view of our history does not profit any of us.