On Having Hope And Being Hopeless

The Scriptures assure Christians that they have a living hope. That hope is Jesus who will return. And in this sense, everybody who belongs to Christ should be hopeful about the future--the distant future that is.

And in addition to that hope in the distant future is an assurance that God's sovereignty does limit the suffering we can experience today and in the near future. These two facts must be pillars in the lives of all who trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

But if we care about the world in the way that God loves the world,  then why is the state of this world hopeless and getting worse? There are two reasons for this hopelessness. First, most with wealth and power are insane. John Lennon made this point about our world leaders. If Lennon was alive today, he could most certain say this about both Obama and Putin as they flirt with conflict while being armed with thousands of nuclear weapons.

Those whose wealth is derived from financial conquest and who care not for the welfare of the victims of that conquest should be put into John Lennon's insane leaders category. This is Chris Hedges' point in talking about the cult of the self.



How can one come to any other conclusion when what drove the world into the most devastating and inhumane war in history is being practiced today? This obsession with conquest and dominance in a world, even though today's conquests are mostly financial, where interdependence and an ever advancing and adulterous technology makes all of us more vulnerable shows us to be, as the Scriptures say, like "a dog that returns to its vomit." (see Proverbs 26:11). From this we can easily say that 'never again' was never learned, as was reported by a previous blogpost on this blog (click here).

And though we might not be one of those who search for such economic conquests, we are complicit with such takeovers when we do not object but prefer to ride on the financial coattails of those who seek to conquer. These financial coattails anesthetize us so that we feel neither the pain of others as they lose out nor the destruction of the environment stemming from our exploitation and abuse of the earth and its resources.

For Conservative Christians, part of our complicity is due to the failure of our churches' leadership to properly engage culture. For when it comes to social justice issues, the range of reactions from Conservative Christians is to either not engage or to engage with the intent of advancing a strict Christian agenda.  Their involvement is measured by the charts below with the social justice grid chart being a modification of a new model introduced during Friday's blogpost review of Tim Keller's Center Church model (click here).

Social Justice Grid

Personal Morality Grid

The horizontal axis represents the degree to which a group want society to either be libertarian or controlling through the use of law. So what the two charts together illustrate is this, much of the Conservative Church, the Two Kingdoms and the Transformationists to be specific, invest more in trying to get society to restrict the personal moral behavior of individuals than they do in getting society to control groups or even itself when it comes to social justice issues. This is shown by how both the Two Kingdoms and Transformationists adherents are located to the right on the Personal Morality Grid compared to their positions on the Social Justice Grid. In last Friday's chart, which was named the Social Gospel Grid, the Transformationists were located solely in the second quadrant. But as I thought about it, certain parties in the Transformationist group or model as Keller calls it, do not always push society to legally require the just treatment of others. Instead, they often want society to take a more libertarian approach to social justice issues. Social justice issues could include employees being paid a living wage and having the right to belong to a union, or that everybody has access to affordable healthcare and housing. Social justice issues could also include protection of the environment. 

Part of this overall approach by the Transformationists is due to conservative political values and their apathy or antagonism toward social justice issues. And even where conservative political values do not come into play, there is a tendency to have some kind of objection to legally demanding that people be treated justly or that the environment be protected. Thus there is a mixed record in demanding justice by Transformationists.

In addition, some use the Bible to justify not being involved in the culture and social justice issues. I Timothy 2:2 is often used to justify Christians living "quiet lives" where we does not get involved in the bigger matters of the world. Those who interpret passages like I Timothy 2:2 this way are forgetting the changes in the historical context between when Paul wrote I Timothy and today. Unlike Paul's time, because of the Christianity's influence on Western Civilization, Christianity can be easily associated with some of the injustices practiced in our part of the world. Thus, it becomes mandatory for Christians, not just for the sake of having compassion on others, to be involved at least for the reputation of the Gospel.

The two charts together show that if you are going to sin as an individual, you'll hear about it from most Conservative Christians. But if you participate in the committing of group sins, you will enjoy quite a bit of impunity from Conservative righteous indignation. And with this being true on domestic social issues, how much more true is it with foreign issues such as with the use of sweatshop labor, the use of trade agreements that benefit our businesses while destroying the ability of some countries to feed themselves, or imperial foreign policies and the use of our military in interventions and drone warfare? For those Transformationists who are not prevented by conservative politics to care about these issues, one has to ask, where is your presence on the streets? Do you know that it is strongly desired by those who are both religious and Leftists because it helps confirm part of what they believe Christianity is suppose to be about?

Of course, demanding social justice has a price. It offends many, though not all, who have wealth and power. And such offenses could cost the Conservative Church members and money. In addition, because of an unthinking adherence to the Conservative label, some Conservative Christians have trouble distinguishing religious and political Conservatism so that an attack on one seems like an attack on both. The cost of demanding social justice for such conservatives can mean a very tearing and painful remaking of oneself--something I experienced when I became a political leftist.

So it is easier for the Conservative Church to stress the future hope we have because of our faith in Jesus because such provides an escape from having to make certain choices. The tragedy here is that our real hope is used to escape reality rather than to give one strength to face a present but temporary reality. And this desire to escape reality is based on combining a consumer culture to faith where one is more willing to live in comfort rather than bear the fruit of the Spirit in the face of injustice.

How tragically ironic it is that the hope of the world has become a reason for hopelessness in today's perilous times.

When Tribalism Becomes A Victim Of Collateral Damage

Back in March, a blogpost (click here) was published here asking for a partial peace and synthesis between the two predominant Reformed views of how the Church should interact with culture. In the one corner stood the Transformation Theology team with its insistence that, due to a low level of common grace in society, the Church needs to try to change culture to make it more amenable to life, God's Kingdom, and hearing the Gospel. In the other corner was the 2 Kingdom Theology (2KT) team which believed that, for the most part, Christians should push for equality for all in society rather for than a privileged position for Christian values in maintenance of society. One reason for the difference in their beliefs was due to different perceptions of the level of God's common grace that is present in society.

Though some handled the conflict in a civil manner, others were so loyal to their theological camps that wars of words often broke out with committed Reformed Christian accusing fellow committed Reformed Christian of compromising the Scriptures. Such was inexcusable. 

Reformed theologians do not have a monopoly over the conflict of how Christians should interact with culture. And thus, Tim Keller answered my request 2 years before it was made (click here). An important part of both listening to Keller's talk and following what is written here involves becoming familiar with the chart that gives a picture of Keller's model of thought (click here). The chart and model of thought comes from Tim Keller's book, Center Church, a book that was wrongly marketed almost exclusively to church leaders and seminary students. This book should have been marketed to the whole church because of its invaluable reference material as well as Keller's analysis of how today's churches are interacting with culture.

You might think from what has been written thus far that I am a big fan of Keller's work here. The answer would be yes and no. The answer would be yes because of his intent, skill, and wisdom at presenting a model that builds bridges across church divides. But the answer is also no because, as with all models of thought, there are more than enough errors--we should note that his model never promised us a rose garden anyway. Still, what Keller's model offers is a way for some Christians to reconcile over their differences. His model provides a way to build bridges and overcome schisms. 

How does Keller's model apply to the title of this blogpost? Divisiveness often results from tribalism. And since the tribalism being exhibited is occurring within the Christian Church, we could call it intramural and thus count it as totally unnecessary, though not unexpected. Tribalism is an extreme loyalty to a group regardless of the focus of that group. In tribalism, we see people being more loyal to a group than they are committed to principles and morals. Thus, in tribalism what is right and wrong depends more on who does what to whom rather than what is being done or said.

What part of Keller's model is battling tribalism? It is the part of the chart called "Blended Insights." With these insights, Keller is telling us that each church group has both something to offer to the other church groups as well as has less to offer than it can learn from rest of the groups combined. So nothing undoes the kind of loyalty that builds tribalism like realizing the deficiencies of one's own group in addition to learning about what other groups have to offer. And as it turns out, each group is strong in an area that the other groups are deficient.

We should also note with Keller's Blended Insights is that his approach was taken before by Martin Luther King Jr. as he tried to reconcile the different philosophies and theologies he encountered in life. King described this process of reconciling different schools of thought as synthesis. Here, King would both filter out what was objectionable in each school of thought and highlight what was positive and thus he showed how different schools of thought could learn from each other. An classic example of such a synthesis can be found when King compares Marxism with Capitalism (click here and start on page 92).

By this time, you should be looking at the chart linked to above which shows Keller's model of thought. His chart consists of 4 quadrants, each representing a different group or set of church approaches to interacting with culture. The x axis measures the degrees of involvement different schools of thought and churches show in interacting with culture with least involvement to the left and the most to the right. The y axis measures the level of common grace each school of though and set of churches perceive to exist in today's society. Those that see a lot of common grace at work in society are placed at the top of the axis and those who see a little to no common grace are located at the bottom of the axis.

Thus, in quadrant one, you have the schools of thought and churches that are both highly involved in working with culture and they already see a significant degree of common grace at work in society. Thus they tend to work more hand in hand with society. The group in quadrant 1 is called the Relevance group. In quadrant 2, you have the schools of thought and churches that are highly involved in changing culture and believe there is less than a sufficient amount of common grace at work in society. The group in quadrant 2 are called Transformationists (I guess the name Transformers was already taken). In quadrant 3, you have those who withdraw from culture because they see very little, if anything at all, that is redeemable in our society and they believe God is calling them to be separate and not involved. And in quadrant 4, you have 2 flavors 2KT followers, the already described reformed group and those who follow Martin Luther's version of 2KT.

And though his model is certainly not perfect, it also needs to be supplemented by additional models to guide the Church in how it should interact with culture. However, Keller does deserve the Universal Church's Nobel Peace Prize for developing a model that enables even Christians to at least partially reconcile with their brothers and sisters of different stripes over the issue of cultural engagement.

Now, even if Keller's model had neither flaw nor inconsistency, it would be inadequate to provide the Church with guidance as to how to engage in culture. Why? It is because Keller's model offers an inside-out view of Christianity's involvement with culture. What is also needed is an outside-in perspective. Why? Because as Christianity has engaged in culture in the past, it has developed a track record. This track record consists of both commendations for the faith as well as stumbling blocks to those who would listen to us preach the Gospel. 

Here, we will focus on how to recognize the stumbling blocks in the Church's track record in dealing with society. A vintage example of why we should study the Church's track record can be found in the context of the French Revolution. Before the Revolution, the Church too often sided with those who had wealth and status in France's Parliament. The result was that the peasants suffered while the church was more than taken care of. Thus, the Revolutionaries perceived the Church as not just a threat but as a mortal enemy. And the behavior of France's Church merited this analysis. At the same time, the Revolution suffered because there was no moderating influence of a true church in their movement. The bloody results are history and testimony to the Church's track record.

Before identifying stumbling blocks we should note that there are at least 3 kinds. The first kind of stumbling block is one we can't do anything about. The offense is found in the message regardless of how it is stated or lived out. The second kind of stumbling is when what the Christian has said or done is fine but we need to be more careful in how we communicate. The third kind of stumbling block is the fault of the Christian. This is where the Christian has preached something that is untrue or has preached truth in an unloving way or has lived in sin.

The model I am proposing to help identify stumbling blocks will be at least as error-proned and incomplete as Keller's model. And my model is not intended to take the place of Keller's model; rather, it is being proposed to supplement Keller's model. Plus, the model I am proposing is a work in progress. With what I am proposing, we will modify Keller's model only in ways that reflect how nonChristians perceive us and add to it in order to include another dimension. 

To represent another dimension, we will add a second grid . Both grids will consist of the same elements and axes.  But one will help show the stumbling blocks that can occur when Christians engage in culture over personal morality issues while the second will help show the stumbling blocks that can occur when Christians engage in Social Gospel issues (click here for Social Gospel Issues).

In addition to adding another grid, I changed the axes labels for the grids according to how what is measured might appear to the nonChristian. So instead of measuring the degree of involvement on the x-axis, my model will measure the degree of control of society sought by Christians as perceived by nonChristians. And instead of measuring the degree of common grace at work which is perceived by the Christian, my y-axis will measure the degree to which the amount of perceived common grace causes the Christian to approach the nonChristian as either a fellow sinner or as a moral inferior. Thus, the model being proposed here is represented by the grids below.

Social Gospel Grid

Personal Morals Grid

Before commenting on the stumbling blocks which this model can help us identify, we should note the change in the chart position for both the Relevance and Two Kingdoms groups. Note that the Social Gospel Grid places the groups in the same quadrants as Keller's model does. But things change in the Personal Morality Grid as the Relevance group shows a libertarian bend with regard to pushing for Christian personal morals in society. In addition, the Two Kingdoms group straddles the y-axis here indicating that how libertarian or authoritarian they are depends on the moral issue involved. For example, the same-sex marriage issue saw at least some 2KT proponents act as authoritarians in prohibiting such marriages.

Now for the stumbling blocks. If nonChristians detect any degree of moral superiority in our attitudes, then we will be viewed as being arrogant and feeling superior to them (check these attitudes with Romans 3: 9, 27). Their reaction to that perception will intensify if they see us come across as authoritarians in pushing our personal morals and views of justice on society. In addition, conservative authoritarianism is often, and sometimes with good reason, associated with anti-intellectualism. But if we are libertarian in approaching our Social Gospel and personal morals, then our apparent air of moral superiority will be less offensive and thus we might be relegated to being irrelevant. In addition, leaning away from the anti-intellectualism of conservative authoritarianism buys some tolerance from non-conservative nonbelievers. Such preferential treatment shows favoritism by non-conservative unbelievers. 

At the same time, those who are libertarian in advancing Social Gospel morals might also be seen as uncaring for those in need. But that depends on the political-social values of the nonChristian. Those nonChristians who lean to the Left will be offended by a lack of concern in advancing Social Gospel morals while those nonChristians leaning to the Right will not. The opposite is true with regard to personal moral issues. As to which group of nonChristians will be offended by depends on to which side of the political spectrum a Church group leans. This is why the political-economic leanings of the Relevance and Transformationists groups are stated as they are.

Another possible stumbling block can occur when Conservative nonChristians observe what could appear as hypocrisy by those in the Relevance group as they come across as fellow sinners while proceeding to act in an authoritarian manner in advancing their Social Gospel values. 

Certainly not all stumbling blocks were identified and this model is a work in progress. But by identifying stumbling blocks, we have more information to work with when combined with what we can gain from Keller's model to determine how we should engage in culture. And we should note that more and/or better models could be created to inform us of the tradeoffs involved in how we relate to culture.

Finally, understanding the stumbling blocks that our groups create can help prevent us from developing the kind of group loyalty that lends itself to tribalism. For the more Christians exhibit tribalism whether it be intramural or in our relationships with nonChristians, the more unnecessary stumbling blocks we create and the less faithful we are to our knowledge of ourselves as sinners and our faith in Christ. Also, since even if the model presented here was a completed and well-thought out work, feedback and corrections are warmly welcomed.