Following Jesus in Polarized Times: Three Implications
When I taught the course on current social problems at Dayton Christian High School, I would tell my students that anyone who wants to follow Jesus in responding to social problems will find himself on a narrow, slippery path flanked by deep ditches on both sides. It requires great focus to stay on the path, it’s easy to fall into one ditch or the other, and it’s hard to get out of the ditch once you’ve fallen in.
What’s worse, when you do follow the narrow path of Jesus, you find yourself taking shots from people in both ditches. You simply won’t fit into any of the ready-made moral categories that dominate our national conversations about the issues.
Why is this so? Because our civil discourse has become alarmingly uncivil, and our national conversation about social issues has become more polarized than at any other time I can remember. If you’re anything like me, you’ve found yourself asking how Christ-followers can respond to social justice issues without being swept up into the self-righteousness (on the Left and the Right) that is filling the air with rage and vitriol.
Ready-made moral templates
There are Christians on both the Left and the Right who will declare in no uncertain terms what it means to follow Jesus in these troubled times. They have it all figured out. It’s so obvious, in fact, that if you don’t see the Christian agenda precisely as they do, it’s clear that you’ve been corrupted by the Other Side.
I experienced this years ago when I was asked to speak to an adult class at a local liberal church on the subject of fundamentalism. The class had been exploring various branches of Christian faith and practice, and I was invited to explain who the fundamentalists are and what they believe. (To this day, I don’t know whether I was invited to speak as an expert or as a sample.)
I explained where the term “fundamentalism” came from. In the early days of the twentieth century the Protestant church experienced a deep divide, when liberal “modernism” and conservative “fundamentalism” parted ways. The modernists sought to redefine Christian faith in terms of social activism rather than doctrinal purity; they were soft on doctrine, but they were big on helping the marginalized.
Conservative Protestants recoiled at the modernist idea of questioning basic Christian doctrines like the virgin birth of Jesus, the inspiration of Scripture, and the physical resurrection of Christ (some of the “fundamentals” on which there can be no debate).
The two camps withdrew into their enclaves, with modernists surging forward in what was then known as the “social gospel” and the fundamentalists loudly proclaiming their adherence to the historic, orthodox tenets of the faith.
I tried to describe to the class that great schism, which continues in our day, 100 years hence. When Q&A time came at the end, one woman asked me to clarify what I meant: did the fundamentalists really abandon ministry to the outcast to concentrate on doctrine?
That would be a gross oversimplification, of course. Think of the Christian ministries that are working all around the world to help the poor: Mercy Ships, Compassion, World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, just to name a few well-known global ministries.
And think of the local ministries in the Dayton area such as the Gospel Mission and Target Dayton. It’s not an either-or matter for these ministries and for many, many other such ministries throughout the nation: they do good work among the poor and disenfranchised, and they preach the gospel.
But, yes, I explained. In terms of emphasis, fundamentalists have concentrated on protecting vital doctrine while modernists have emphasized helping the poor.
I can still remember the questioner’s response: she broke eye contact with me and muttered under her breath through gritted teeth, fighting back tears, “How can they call themselves Christians?”
She was half right, of course. Care for the poor and disenfranchised is not an optional add-on but an essential component of genuine Christian practice. James said as much when he observed that “religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27, ESV).
But she was wrong if she was trying to reduce the essence of Christian faith and practice to care for the poor.
The narrow way of Jesus in first century Judaism
Think of the many sects and factions that contended for dominance in the first century Jewish world.
The Pharisees believed that Messiah could not come while the people were lax about keeping the Law, so they led the way in Law-keeping as performance art. They were popular but not politically potent.
The Sadducees were the liberal elite of that day: wealthy, aristocratic families associated with the Temple and the priesthood. They controlled the national political conversation, as they sought to maintain the precarious status quo, balancing Jewish restiveness with Roman oppression.
The Zealots were the freedom fighters of their day. In their view, only armed insurrection would oust the hated Romans from the Holy Land.
The Essenes were fed up with the moral laxness of the population and the corruption in Israel’s leaders, so they withdrew to the desert to live in isolated communities.
Which group embraced Jesus as their own? Which group said that Jesus’ message of the arrival of the Kingdom resonated with their agenda?
None of them.
Both the person and the agenda of Jesus were far outside the expectations and hopes of the interest groups in first century Judaism.
The narrow way of Jesus didn’t fit into any of the well-known categories of his day.
The narrow way of Jesus in current social problems
Just as in first century Judaism, the way of Jesus avoids the kind of either/or reductionism that our two major ideologies provide:
For instance, if we prioritized love of neighbor (Jesus’ second greatest commandment) over self-protection, how would our attitude about issues like immigration, health care, and gun control change?
And how would our compassion for the vulnerable in our society (the unborn, people of color, the poor) be different if we mimicked Jesus’ practice of noticing and befriending outsiders?
And if we were modeling our outlook on the narrow way of Jesus, could we find a way to reject the either-or thinking that dominates our discussion of issues like the relationship between law enforcement and minorities (either you believe that “black lives matter” or you “back the blue,” but you can’t have it both ways)?
Because ours is a fallen world, a society composed of corrupt and ruined persons (including us), because things are not yet made right (including us), Christians will always experience a genuine tension in our approach to social problems.
We will ask, for instance, why our two major ideologies should force us to choose between opposing oppression of people of color and opposing the slaughter of unborn lives. We recognize that both the unborn and the dark-skinned are image bearers and ought to be protected by the law and treated with respect, but there is no place in American politics for that biblically-informed perspective.
It’s easier, of course, embrace either of the ready-made orthodoxies that dominate our national conversations. Their vocabulary and moral priorities are well known and widely accepted.
But the narrow way of following Jesus doesn’t fit neatly into either ideology.
What the narrow way of Jesus requires: three implications
The way of Jesus requires us to ally ourselves with an other-worldly political reality, one that owes more to Scripture and the gospel than it does to contemporary ideologies, including the US Constitution.
There are three overlapping implications for Christ-followers who want to contribute to our national conversation on the issues that divide our nation:
1. We must argue for ideas that will work for the common good, even if those ideas come from the other camp. If our primary allegiance is to our party, we will have difficulty embracing good ideas that are generated by the opposing party. But if we are following the narrow way of Jesus, we will be eager to embrace good ideas that will help our neighbors, regardless of who benefits politically.
2. We must be willing to criticize our own tribe when we see that it is veering away from the common good. This follows from the first point: we must be willing to go against the grain within our own group when we see they are wrong. Party loyalty cannot assume idolatrous, all-or-nothing proportions in our thinking.
3. We must be willing to be misunderstood. So long as Jesus and his message could be understood in popular terms (the king who will deliver God’s people from the hated Romans), he and his agenda were popular.
But Jesus knew that his Kingdom message would be rejected, even by his own Jewish countrymen, and misunderstood, even by his own disciples. He knew that the mission chosen for him by his Father would be lonely.
Like him, we must be willing to be misunderstood if we are to follow the narrow way of Jesus in our response to the controversies that are convulsing our nation right now. We might sometimes have to go against the grain of the thinking of those closest to us if we are to follow Jesus in our response to social issues.
Ultimately, how we vote and how we speak to these controversies is a matter of conscience. No Christian should presume to dictate to other believers what their views must be on these matters.
But this does not mean that we can believe and proclaim whatever happens to suit our political bias. Christians must acknowledge that all of us are obligated to submit all our thoughts, including our own personal political and cultural perspectives, to the lordship of our Master, Jesus, before whom “every (Republican and Democratic and Libertarian and Green and Socialist) knee will bow.”
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor