“As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest!”
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Matthew 21:1
Old Testament wars were wars of conquest and destruction. When God told Israel to go to war with someone they were to annihilate them. They were to take no plunder, take no prisoners, wipe out everything…scorched earth.
But, the New Testament is a war of insurgency. It’s war to win hearts and minds. It’s a rescue mission behind enemy lines.
When Jesus came Israel had been looking for a warrior -king in the model of David. And, who can blame them? They had been in some form of captivity, exile or oppression for most of their history. The last thing they were looking for was somebody who would free them internally. The very foundation of Hebrew culture was anchored in laws that were based on external circumstances. Jesus came so that people could be free in spite of those circumstances…or, even, in those circumstances.
The Jews tried to turn Jesus into that warrior-king. They wanted to be freed as a nation, not as individuals. They wanted someone astride a great white horse who would wipe out their enemies, trample their oppressors, exact some revenge and make them a mighty nation. To this end they gave Him a parade. They tried to dress Him up as a king disillusioning themselves into believing that He was on a horse. In a warped reversal of “The King with No Clothes” the people tried to pretend that the King was arrayed in splendor, but Jesus knew what the child in the fable knew, that He was naked.
Jesus came as one man healing one person at a time, comforting one person at a time, saving one life to eternity at a time. He was an insurgent behind enemy lines. The nation of Israel wanted to be delivered en masse from all of their enemies in one fell swoop. Jesus came to save them from themselves. They wanted to be a glorious people in spite of their sin; Jesus came to deliver them from their sin. Are we Christians, God’s modern day chosen people any different? We have spent the last few decades pleading with Jesus to vindicate us, to prove that we are right; to lay low our enemies and bring them in droves to fill church pews so that we can revel in the victory of winning some cultural war. In contrast, we have too often retreated to a “circle the wagons” mentality. We lock ourselves inside our church walls in the vein hope that we can whip congregations into a frenzy that will unleash our “inner warrior” hoping to bring vindication for ourselves. On his album, The Soul Cages, the second hand prophet Sting makes a severe, yet completely accurate, observation of why our strategies have been so ineffective. “Men go crazy in congregations, but they only get better one by one.”
And so, we have lost the culture war. Why?
…to be continued.
Please accept my apologies for being absent from the blogosphere for the last few weeks. We have been on the road without access to the “entirenet”. But, while we’ve been away I have begun compiling notes for a new series of blogs. The working title is “Insurgent Love”. You’ll notice that it looks more like a “conventional” blog in that it doesn’t necessarily start with a verse of scripture and then develop a devotional theme. The intention is for this to be challenged, to be scrutinized. Let me have it. Don’t let me get away with any junk. Insurgent Love is something big God has put on my heart and I want to get it right. That will take some “iron sharpening.”
Here’s the intro:
Back in the late 80′s and early 90′s George Barna gave us a snapshot of the financial effectiveness of money spent in ministry: “During the last 8 years, we in the Christian community have spent in excess of $250 billion in domestic ministry and have seen a 0 percent increase in the proportion of born-again adult Christians in this country.” I’m going to leave the definition of what “born-again” means and how to define “Christian community” to Barna (www.barna.org)…he’s much better than I am at it.
I’m fairly confident in saying that not much has changed since then. In the spirit of full disclosure, I haven’t been able to accurately document that not much has changed. But, not for lack of trying mind you. I just didn’t think it was worth a lot of time to nitpick. We’re not discussing fine points here. Think about the numbers for a few minutes.
8 years…$250 billion…0%
Let me put a little perspective on the number $250 billion. The Enron scandal was only $63 billion. The Worldcom debacle: $107 billion. Combined they squandered only $170 billion.
Do we really think our habits have changed that drastically in the time since Mr. Barna reported those numbers? Let’s be conservative and say that we’ve spent just another $250 billion in the last fifteen years. That puts the number at $500 billion.
I think some more perspective is in order. Total TARP money distributed to date is only $300 billion and reports are coming in that some banks want to give back their share. Right now only the War in Iraq has a bigger price tag.
$500 billion dollars…no impact. Not less than 50% impact or less than 25% or even 10% for that matter. Again, we’re not discussing decimal points here so I don’t think documenting minute details will make much of a difference in the discussion. That would be like two emergency room doctors debating whether Advil or Motrin would be better for a javelin catcher who just had his chest impaled.
With numbers like this, why do we yell louder and longer about Enron, Worldcom, TARP and the war in Iraq?
In reality, the impact is less than zero. In some of the most recent studies conducted by the Barna Group we learn that “half of Americans believe the Christian faith no longer has a lock on people’s hearts. Overall, 50% of the adults interviewed agreed that Christianity is no longer the faith that Americans automatically accept as their personal faith, while just 44% disagreed and 6% were not sure.” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/15-christianity-is-no-longer-americans-default-faith.
To pour salt into the wound, not only have we lost ground we evidently don’t seriously try to gain any back. Christianity Today reports that only 1% of its readers have recently shared the Gospel. According to David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in the book “unChristian” 73% of Americans older than 42 “have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important.” 65% of those ages 18-41 fit that description. Of the first group, 48% are “absolutely committed to the Christian faith”; of the latter only 29% are. Finally, of those two percentages only 9% of older segment “possess a biblical worldview” and only 3% of the younger do.
Subjective evidence, as well, shows that Christians have lost the culture (moral) war. The last threads of Christian moral fabric have been ripped from our society. Abortion is just a blip on the edge of the radar screen…same-sex marriage is a foregone conclusion. Pornography has found the perfect incubator on the internet. Even the very perception of a biblical worldview is negative.
Again from “unChristian”, there are roughly 24 million “outsiders” in America who are ages 16-29. 7 million have a negative impression of evangelicals. Another 7 million have no opinion; 10 million have never heard the term “evangelical”. Evidently, no one in America has a favorable view of the term “evangelical.”
We’ve lost the culture war. We didn’t just lose it, we’ve had the snot bombed out of us…suffered defeat on every front. Or, more to the point…we were spanked…we’ve been owned…we’ve been power owned…we’ve been powned.
And when we’ve been presented with prime opportunities to have an impact for the Kingdom we’ve been caught flat-footed. The current generation is the most spiritually sensitive in centuries, yet they have an overwhelming negative perception of Christianity. The phenomenon of “The Purpose Driven Life”…the greatest evangelistic tool in decades evidently didn’t live up to its hype outside of church. Mr. Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ” hasn’t exactly broken any pews. There’s still hope for “Facing the Giants” and “Fireproof”, but I’m not betting on them.
Please don’t think I’m attacking any of these. They’re wonderful. I truly believe God provided them as tools to reach a hurting world. Unfortunately, I think we didn’t use, under-used or misused them.
We’ve also misused other prime opportunities that God may or may not have sent. But, as a Christian I have to acknowledge that nothing comes to us that doesn’t pass through the hand of the Father. People rushed back to church after 9/11. A hurting people of a wounded nation flocked back to church. Yet, church attendance is lower now than in the last several decades. Why? I think that people came back to church and we reminded them why the left in the first place.
Is the current recession another opportunity for His people to share His love and compassion? Is it another gracious gift from God…another chance for us to “get it right?” To not simply win an argument or prove our point of view or swell our numbers, but to be a soothing “balm in Gilead?
Maybe God has us right where he wants us. Not America, but the Church in the United States…American Christians…evangelicals. We tried to win the culture war with “Shock and Awe.” But, throughout history the church has been most effective, and experienced its greatest growth both numerically and spiritually when it’s fought a war of insurgency. One person being rescued at a time…one life impacting one other life…person by person…congregations don’t enter eternity, people do.