Over the last four years, the following two questions have become pressing to me.
First, how have many Christians become so comfortable resenting reasonable* laws and rules designed to restrain the use of power to harm others and God’s earth?
And second, how do Christians continue to make up such a large percentage of President Trump’s supporters when his value system seems to be based more on Ayn Rand than Jesus Christ?
One example of President Trump’s bridling at restrictions is his firing of four inspector generals in short order. He also has a long history of working to weaken laws designed to protect people and God’s earth.
All of these actions echo the larger, unmistakable pattern of his presidency – the despising and resenting of restrictions and rebuke. The free exercise of personal and corporate power, even at the expense of justice and compassion, is clearly his highest good.
St. John the Baptist rebuking Herod by Giovanni Fattori. Herod imprisoned and ultimately beheaded John the Baptist because John rebuked Herod and Herodias for breaking laws.
This is not a Biblical approach to life. It is the celebration of power and the pursuit of individual prosperity over love, of valuing money over God. And prominent Christians, like Vice President Mike Pence, are going along.
How did we get to this point?
I believe part of the answer is that American Christianity tends to be incomplete.
The underlying assumption of this blog is my conviction that the Christian faith-life is both simple – life-changing faith in Jesus – and multi-faceted. Our goal is to have a whole faith-life that, over time, transforms how we think, how we feel, and how we act. Missing key ingredients of that whole faith-life is comparable to the impact on our body of not getting the right levels of iron or vitamin C. It causes our faith-life to be weak and sick. And that causes us to fall short of what God desires from us. It also causes us to mar the attractiveness of the Christian faith for others.
Here are three ways in which the faith-life of American Christians tends to lack key “nutrients:”
Christians tend to associate salvation only with the promise of life after death.
In Acts 5:17-20, we read of the apostles being arrested for spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, and an then angel releasing them. Read the passage below and consider the instructions the angel gives them:
Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people all about this new life.”
Christian faith and discipleship leads to new life. Now.
Check out the meaning of “eternal life” in John 3:16 here.
Second, Christians generally don’t read the Bible.
And it is my sense that we tend to particularly avoid the Old Testament, despite the value of doing so. The Old Testament provides important “nutrients’ and “vitamins” for our our faith-lives.
One of the unmistakable messages of the prophets, for example, is that a symptom of a nation’s turning away from God is cruelty and injustice towards the poor and vulnerable.
Third, churches don’t comprehensively train people to go from believers to disciples.
In Beginning Well: Christian Conversion and Authentic Transformation, Gordon T. Smith rights:
The work of Christ makes conversion possible; even more, the actual focus and dynamic of conversion is that an individual comes to faith in Christ Jesus. Conversion is the act of believing in Jesus, choosing to follow Jesus and being united with Jesus as Lord and Savior. To be converted is to become a Christ-ian. And the purpose of conversion is that we may ultimately be transformed into the image of Christ Jesus.
Conversion is about justification and sanctification. But with a focus only on justification bringing the promise of heaven, Christians can be Christian without being transformed over time. They can have a Christian gloss even as they live as they’ve always lived. They can feel good about being “saved” even as they otherwise are carried along by values and culture that are incompatible with Jesus Christ.
Churches should instead train Christians in the Christian life. Some have.
God intends for every element of our life and being to be made whole and holy.
This is not easy. It means restraining ourselves for the sake of Jesus. It means having a heart that actually welcomes restraint and rebuke when they come out of good motivations. And it will put us on a collision course with princes and principalities motivated by different values and who, above all, hate the idea of restrictions on their use of power.
Early Christianity found itself at odds with the Roman Empire, which was built on a culture of power. Yet, the early church grew exponentially. What does that tell us?
* I want to be clear that not all laws are well-designed and reasonable. Governments can have a tendency to overextend their own power so that creativity and local autonomy are overly limited. The powerful can also craft laws that protect their interests.
