Stringent Boundaries

For me, the basic principle is infiltrate, don’t assimilate. We have plenty of examples how various cultural minorities do this: Orthodox Jews, Romany, and in some locations, Muslims. These groups move to different parts of the world and, to varying degrees, refuse to assimilate to the ambient culture, yet engage the laws and economy in order to live.

Why do we not see this with Christians?

I tend to think that it’s because for most of Church History, mainstream organized Christian religion has been inclined to conquest. Not just social and cultural conquest, but political domination. It’s quite overt; they seek to enforce their brand of Christian obedience regardless of any change in hearts. Worse, it’s a brand of Christianity that is not at all biblical.

That’s because it’s a particular cultural milieu with a Christian paint job. It’s actually not Christian at all, but uses that as a cover. The underlying culture of this global conquest movement is pretty much primitive Germanic tribal culture. What began as merely an invasive seizure of land and property has gained the polite excuse of “evangelism.” Eventually the religion was eviscerated into a secularized version of those grouchy demands that the world conform to a certain standard of government and economics. Even then, it was never what the propaganda claimed it was. The democratic social and economic ideals were the mythology told to the people as the means of exposing them to elite domination. This should explain most of Anglo-American history.

The worst thing is that the label “Christianity” has stuck. For most of the world, that imperial drive is the meaning of the word “Christian.” It doesn’t help that virtually all of Christian mission activity presumes “telling them about Jesus” means making them more American than actually Christian. It’s a religion without any actual faith.

What Jesus taught, and what His Apostles tried to build, was certainly different at heart from Judaism, but was not all that different from what Judaism had become in terms of their resistance to cultural assimilation. Churches were very much like synagogues in appearance and behavior. The first generation of churches maintained a very Jewish-like style of separation from the world.

I’m convinced this was God’s ideal. I don’t buy the notion that following Christ can be abstracted from that social model. We need to emulate the basic structure of the synagogue lifestyle. I realize that clothing fashions change, but that certain basic elements are part of God’s definition of holiness.

By the way, I believe Muslims understand this better than Jews do, in their own respective regimens. Jews have a tendency to nail down a certain cultural fashion model from some place and some time, and call it the everlasting command of Moses. The few Christian groups who practice a strenuous withdrawal also have the same tendency. I think they are missing the point. A broad brimmed hat and overalls don’t fit every climate. I realize the difference between what we see in certain models and what I am suggesting is not easy to grasp, but I am convinced there is a difference.

I would hope to escape rules locked in time and space, and adhere to a heart-led moral standard rooted in the Person of Christ. This is something difficult to put into words. However, it should be easy to discern when it’s wrong. Do people copy the pastor’s style of dress? I’ve seen that a lot in churches. That’s missing the point of what holiness means. On the other hand, I don’t think Paul’s admonitions can be dismissed as merely a bias of time and place. He said jewelry and fancy hairstyles were wrong, and I agree. I see a lot of styles worn in churches that indicate folks didn’t get the memo.

But rather than ruling for others how they should dress, I’m trying to find ways to press the moral image of holiness that defy description, yet can be absorbed by example — what I believe “rightly dividing the Word” means. Holiness can’t be reduced via intellectual abstraction. The idea is not uniformity, but a common manifestation working through the hearts of a community.

I’m utterly convinced Western Civilization militates against this. A westernized epistemology will cripple your attempts to follow Christ. Indeed, Western mythology squelches any kind of nonconforming calling. To be Western means varying only in things that don’t matter. It means choosing your flavor of sin, but requiring you to sin in one way or another. You aren’t allowed to vary off into holiness. When the whole point of being nonconformist is the pursuit of holiness, you provoke the wrath of Hell. Western Civilization is particularly friendly to Satan, so I cannot avoid the idea that holiness means ditching your Western identity.

Since this puts me outside any sphere of acceptance in Western society, to include Western churches, it frees me to explore to the fullest all the various ways I can find holiness. What a relief! Being dismissed as a nutcase, I’m free to seek the Lord’s face in simplicity and purity of heart. No one expects me to meet their standards. And while those standards vary all over the map from one context to the next, they all share one thing: They aren’t God’s ideal for me.

How far can I go without damaging my witness? That becomes a primary issue for prayer and contemplation. Your answer will never work for me, so I must find my own. I’m the only human who can know what God requires of me. The most you can do is exclude me from fellowship.

Increasingly, I’m getting comfortable with that. I feel isolated by not alone. So this book that I believe I’m working on will include the kind of thinking that shows up in this post. I’m looking at the kind psychology that I need as basic equipment for handling all of this. Instead of focusing on the trappings of nonconformity, it’s the mindset arising from moral conviction that God is not pleased with the world. Indeed, He is so very displeased that we fail Him if we don’t draw more stringent boundaries so they’ll know.