A movement may have the best ideas, the best strategies, the best tactics, and even some of the best personnel available; however, if it has no courage it is going nowhere. The Church is replete with notable scholars and activists whose goals are to defend and advocate Christian (biblical) values and concerns. We have numerous para-church organizations resembling an alphabet soup (ADF, FRC, AFA, ARP, ACLJ, etc.) of experts who work under the broad banner of “faith, family and freedom” for various political and legal concerns. Yet with all this spiritual and intellectual firepower at our disposal, we are not only no closer to recapturing where we once were as a nation with regards to biblical worldview, but a case can be made we are moving backwards. We find ourselves on too many occasions defending our values rather than advancing our values.
Contemporary Church Issues
Rebuilding Block 4: Preparing For Pain (Endurance)
“Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: “How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers has given you?”
Joshua 18:3 NKJV
The children of Israel had become war-weary. They were called to possess the whole land which God had given to them, but between time and pain, it was getting long and hard, so much so, they were beginning to negotiate treaties. That was the reason for Joshua’s rebuke. They had only secured a part of the land…not the whole land. “But hey…some is better than nothing right? It’s not what God told us to do, but this conquering mandate is long and painful and since it’s a little better than what we had then let’s just call it quits here”…
REBUILDING BLOCK 3: Finding and Raising Biblical Worldview Leadership
“Everything rises and falls with leadership”
– John Maxwell
I don’t agree with everything leadership expert John Maxwell espouses, but his statement concerning the nature of leadership is spot-on. Leadership is one of the key components to rebuilding a Christian civilization. This in no way diminishes the place of the saints of God, grassroots activism, or the energy of the individual believer. The key in my analysis is that leadership, whether it be pastors or civic leaders, is the catalyst which will bring theory into reality. But therein lies the challenge. It is difficult to find leaders in either category which have the basic foundational understandings of biblical worldview and comprehensive Christianity. Hence, the regular frustration we feel when it comes to candidate selection and election. We (evangelical, conservative, Christians) accept the every election cycle testimony of numerous candidates who promise to be attentive and concerned about our values, but then find ourselves with elector’s remorse as those same candidates forget us and our priorities when they occupy the office. It’s analogous to the girl who gives herself away to the boy in the back seat of the car on the promise that he loves her and will make her his bride, only to find out later she was simply used for his own selfish purposes. Conservative Christians have been “used” by the political right for almost a generation now. It is time we woke up to the fact that no one is really taking us seriously.
REBUILDING BLOCK 2: Developing Long Term Mentality
I was a pastor of a local church when two significant moments in church history took place that exposed Christian’s mentality about the future. The first was the release of Edgar Whisenant’s book, “88 Reasons Christ will Come in 1988”. The second was Y2K (The proposed computer blackout transitioning from 1999 to 2000 on the calendar.). Both of these events had similar fruit as they exploited people’s eschatology and their fears of the future. The stories I could tell of people’s panic would both amuse and sadden the reader. I watched as people made decisions that were not only foolish, but actually devastating to their families, bank accounts, and personal credibility. Normally smart people were putting their lives on “hold” as they were paralyzed by the thought of the impending disasters just around the corner. Of course, the hype of these two events made the authors of books concerning these apocalyptic moments incredible amounts of money and it embarrassed hundreds of believers. More importantly, it revealed that one of the Achilles heals of the evangelical church is the fact that our view of the future is all too tentative. We are easily convinced that our time on earth is short and any long term planning is futile with regards to reformation and cultural change.
Rebuilding Block 1: A Vision For The Future
I have found that to suggest and use the phrase “rebuilding a Christian civilization” causes no small degree of consternation in secularists, religionists, and even sincere believers of Jesus Christ. The general populace has been so thoroughly indoctrinated by Babylonian education and media with popular myths like “separation of church and state”, “civic neutrality” or “theocracy” that to conceive of a civic government honoring God and implementing His precepts specifically given for civic rulership is incomprehensible. A recent conversation with a well-meaning, Christian political activist underscores this very dynamic. While discussing current political philosophy with regards to elections I suggested that Scripture might have a template for us to follow in order to select better candidates for office; after all, if the Bible is a revealed book from God outlining His thoughts for all of life then it should not be a fantastic leap to think that a voting precept might be tucked inside of its pages. My statement sounded incredulous to this activist who by their own admission fervently maintained that the Bible was their sole authority in life. Their incredulity was rooted in the thought that I was trying to establish a “theocracy” (as defined by secularists) and that was unacceptable. If this is the response of evangelical Christians to a simple step in restoring America to her Christian roots, then the reader can understand why the Church has been ineffective for years concerning the direction of government and the culture. We have no vision for what we are longing for, in fact, we are double-minded. We say Jesus is Lord of ALL, but really have no idea how that might look or be expressed in civic government.