How do Christ-followers put this into practice?
In my experience there are two different approaches. In the first approach, one attempts to control the world and culture, turning it into a "Christian" culture that reflect Christian values. In the second approach, one attempts to live as a "stranger", a citizen of heaven in a nonChristian system, recognizing that the cultural and political system will always be opposed to God, and not expecting otherwise. In this second system, we minister individually, being part of the "yeast" within the bread of society.
The Old Testament, with its emphasis on the kingdom of Israel, is an attempt at the first method. As the Old Testament itself makes clear, the process of creating a nation controlled by God, was a complete failure.
In the New Testament, the emphasis is very different. In the New Testament, the followers of the Messiah, led by the promised Holy Spirit, "turn the world upside down." But the political system was unchanged and, as the apostle John makes clear, the World is still very opposed to the Messiah.
Anyone who attempts to force their culture and country to become "Christian" has misread the New Testament. There is no Biblical concept of a "Christian country".
I know quite a lot about this -- I have paid my dues here. Let me tell you what not to do!
When I was President of Citizens for Decency
Long ago, in the 1980s, I got involved in the "moral majority." I bought into the belief (promoted by one particular political party) that one could wage a culture war for Christianity. I became active in the local chapter of Citizens for Decency (CFD), eventually becoming president. With this organization, I fought a "war" against pornography in my community. (Among other things, I successfully waged a campaign to have softporn magazines removed from the campus bookstore. Here is a link to a campus newspaper article about the group I led. Unmentioned in the article is the threat by a university VP that if he had his way, I would be fired from the university.)CFD accomplished a lot. We met with, and received support from the local DA. Most local stores which had originally sold soft porn magazines and/or rented hard porn videos eventually took these items from their shelves. At the high point of our work, we printed, once a month, 4000 bulletin inserts and delivered these inserts to local churches which then distributed them to their congregants. These inserts described research on the dangers of pornography. It also rated local stores on their products, outing those stores that still sold pornography and praising stores that no longer did.
We accomplished a lot politically. But we did a lot of damage to the cause of Christ. I regret my identification in this group as "Christian".
I don't want to downplay the cultural impact and dangers of pornography. But to accomplish what we did, we bullied local store owners. Mom-and-pop stores that sold Playboy magazine or had a backshelf of x-rated video rentals were threatened by our "Christian" demands. They could support our "Christian" values or not -- but their livelihood depended on their response.
As our group became more powerful, the calls for compliance became more strident. The problems of the "culture war" became clearer. Some in our group wanted to ban R-rated rentals from the community. Many churches supported our boycott attitude, but few church attenders rewarded stores that announced themselves a "family friendly." Other Christians were happy to see us attack "those bad guys", but few went out of their way to reward stores that caved in to our commands.
One local couple ran a small video store about half-a-mile from my house. They endorsed our political activism and they removed the adult movies from their collection. We then promoted their video store regularly in our monthly bulletin inserts. I dropped by several times a month to chat and to rent videos for my children. As I chatted with these "good guys", I watched their rental sales quickly drop off. (College students weren't visiting them anymore). They tried to put a good face on their new "family values" but after a year, they closed.
I don't regret the political activism. I regret that it was identified as Christian. Regardless of the official stance of our organization, the community heard, "If you are Christian, you don't own or visit these stores". That easily translated into, "If you own or visit these stores, you cannot be (or become) a Christian."
We identified Eternity with local business decisions!
Jesus died for these store owners. He did not die so that they could have shelves clean of porn. By identifying our actions as "Christian" we made pornography a priority over the gospel.
As our group became more powerful and as some members made more strident boycott demands, I began to feel uncomfortable with my work. I eventually stepped down as president. After a little time, the group collapsed. Once I had backed away a bit from my leadership in this group, I was able to see its work more objectively and I could observe more closely its many failures among its successes.
Years later, one Sunday morning, my pastor arrived at church with three dozen donuts just purchased from a local donut shop.
"We should not be buying donuts from [that shop]," said one of our lay leaders. "We should boycott them."
This man went on to explain. "That chain of donut shops is owned by Waldenbooks. Waldenbooks sells pornography. We should send a message that we are opposed to pornography by boycotting any store owned by Waldenbooks." (See this related news article about the Waldenbooks boycott.)
I quickly objected. Every week our pastor visited this local store, chatted with the owner and clerks, and purchased several dozen donuts. Our church was identified as supporting this small business. We were appreciated by the owner. This appreciation was a (small) result of our love for others in our community. Let us not ruin the gospel by becoming a "Christian bully"!
Our practice should follow our theology. As the New Testament confronts the world system, it does so by changing hearts, by changing souls. Politics is incapable of doing that.
Tomorrow, in another blog, we begin working our way through the Book of Revelation, the final book in the Bible. It will have a lot to say about Christians and the world system!
