In a discussion with Canadians, Krish Kandiah and Tom Newman, on the unbelievable Podcast with Justin Brierley (Agnostic ‘trying on’ church talks to a Christian – Tom Newman & Krish Kandiah), the conversation turned to the fact that Christians are a minority in Canadian and British society. The agnostic, Tom Newman, discussed his “experiment” with Christianity that was the subject of his own podcast. He found that Christians bring value to society, because Christians are particularly motivated to do good things. This led to an interesting dialogue.

Krish Kandiah, a pastor, observed that the temptation of Christians as minorities in society is to go private, turn inward, and become cloistered. Doing that, however, is not How Jesus instructed Christians to act.  Jesus says you don’t light a candle to put it under a bushel. So, Krish Kandiah says,

“It becomes the obligation of the Christian minority to serve and bless the majority.”

What a difficult statement for an American Christian to hear! It almost doesn’t register. Did he really just say that? (I note that the interviewees ware both Canadian, and the host is British. Canada and Great Britain are decidedly post-Christian.)

The United States is heading that way too, though we don’t like to admit it.

Interestingly, Christianity is growing in other parts of the world like Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Muslim world, and Oceania. Christianity is noticeably declining in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the “western” world.

I think about these things in the context of the cultural wars that are raging in the United States. Christians are desperately fighting to hold on to a Christian consensus that was once called the “Moral Majority”, but Christians have been losing ground. American society is incrementally moving the other way, and the movement is gaining momentum despite the efforts of the most ardent culture warriors.

How do we deal with that? In a classic American Christian way, I wonder, “What would Jesus do?” More poignantly, I wonder what God is saying to us (American Christians) in this day and age?

I have often thought, in recent times, that the cultural war we (Christians) are waging does more collateral damage than good. We present the gospel like it’s a moral code and ground to be fought over in political and cultural arenas. Increasingly, I fear, however, that the good news Jesus preached to the poor is getting lost in the smoke that hangs over the bloodied turf.

I fear that Christians in United States are not following in the example of Jesus in the desperation to hold on and gain back ground that we fear we are losing. (And we are!)

At the same time, I am struck by the realization that the Gospel is not advanced by the tools of political and cultural combat. I fear we have unwittingly been waging war over an earthly kingdom, rather than a heavenly one.

Like the First Century descendants of Abraham hoped for a messiah who would free them from Roman control and re-establish a Davidic kingdom on the soil God promised Abraham, we fight to hold onto control of a democratic “kingdom” in the United States in which Christians once dominated more clearly then we do now.

I think back to the ancestors of those First Century Jews, back to Abraham. Abraham “made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country”. (Hebrews 11:9 NIV) Not just Abraham, but all the great people of faith lived that way because they were looking for a “heavenly country”. (Hebrews 11:16)

Abraham understood that God was promising something far greater than soil and terrain and an earthly kingdom. He lived in tents, “For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10 NIV)

I think of Jesus, who didn’t take up with the First Century Zealots win their campaign to overthrow the Roman government and establish a Davidic throne in its place. Jesus took up with the fishermen, the tax collectors, the prostitutes and other people on the fringes of society. These were not influential people Jesus chose as his followers. Paul was blunt and to the point when he said that not many people who are called are wise in the ways of the world; not many are called who are influential or of privileged (noble) birth.” (1 Corinthians 1:26)

Jesus was purposeful in calling people on the fringes, and he didn’t promise them a return to an earthly Eden. He promised them something far greater.

Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God, not a man made theocracy (or Democracy) on the futile plains of tares and wheat grown by greedy men, superintended by heavy-handed power brokers exercising control over the masses of humanity who live in various stages of oppression, indifference, and rebellion. Jesus came preaching a different Kingdom, a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom in which a city is built with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Not man)

The economy of that kingdom is upside down. The first will be last. The greatest are servants of all.

I can’t help but think that God is not in our attempt to hold onto power and fight for position. Even if our effort succeeds in maintaining or regaining political and cultural control, we lose our grasp on the kingdom of God in the very process. The effort, itself, is a failure to follow in the way Jesus taught.

Jesus enlisted all of his followers in the Great Commission, which is to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20) He did not enlist followers in an effort to seize control of earthly kingdoms.

Jesus said, “Follow me.” Jesus said, “First, you need to pick up your cross, and I will show you the way.” Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself”.” He even said, “Love your enemy.” His way is radically different.

True Abrahamic faith isn’t taking the “promised land”, holding on to it, and defending it from all comers. True Abrahamic faith trusts that Jesus made room for us in His kingdom. His kingdom is nothing that we conquer and defend. The entry is by way of the cross, and followers in that way are cross-bearers who walk in the way of Jesus and invite their enemies to join them.

In this realization I can only hope that, as the United States follows the way of the rest of the western world and becomes decidedly post-Christian, perhaps we can let go of the illusion, and delusion, that God’s kingdom is anything we can establish in this world by military, political or cultural fiat and fury. I can hope that our focus will decidedly turn more to God’s business of making disciples, and baptizing people who embrace God’s kingdom, wherever they come from … even if they come to us.

Maybe we can begin to see that God’s kingdom is so much greater than any human government we can establish by our own devices. Maybe we can begin to see that we can afford to lose the cultural battles, knowing that God wins the war. And in ceding the political and cultural battleground, maybe we can also get out of God’s way at the same time, turning battlegrounds into growing fields and seeding those fields that are ripe unto harvest.

It’s not really so far-fetched. This is how God works in his last shall become first way.

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Thank you to my friend, Ted Wright, for this timely quotation by a man who “became troubled by the church’s connection to the state” (in Germany in the early twentieth century) and saw that there was a different, better way:

“In the midst of the increasing violence, injustice, cruelty, and cold-heartedness of our time, love must be revealed: a love that towers above all earth’s mountains, that shines more purely and brightly than all the stars in the sky, that is mightier than all earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, that is greater than all world powers and rulers, that works more powerfully in history than all catastrophes, wars, and revolutions, that is more alive than all life and natural forces in creation. Above everything in nature and within all history, love shows itself to be the ultimate power of the Almighty, the ultimate greatness of His heart, the ultimate revelation of His spirit.”

By Eberhard Arnold (Inwardness in a Distracted Age, 1933)