From a Different World

Something has shifted in my heart, and I need to share it.

Over the past week I’ve been praying about this shift to emphasizing ministry in the real world versus the virtual world. Most of it was the kind of thing you cannot put into words, so my conscious stream of thought was simply a reflection of something far bigger (Romans 8:26). As you would expect, such prayer often results in things we didn’t have the presence of mind to request.

So this morning I arose to a different sense of awareness about things. It’s one thing to be trained in pastoral ministry professionally, as I was, but quite another thing to have a shepherd’s anointing. And it’s not as if I never had that before, but this morning it was prominent and dominant. Even if we account for character and instincts, this is something new for me. I noticed it when I attempted to comment on Jack’s blog.

He posted something about Bible reading. This brings up an issue I haven’t thought about in years. I realized the whole question had been stood up in a context that I rejected long ago. Of course I want people to read the Bible, and it is a matter of self-discipline, but it’s not at all what most evangelicals make it out to be. So to begin talking about it requires we first strip out all of the cultural background.

Of course, this is true on every question we might discuss. Nothing is a stand-alone issue for us. The Radix Fidem way is not just another culture, but a wholly different world. When people ask me about my political opinions, I just tell them my orientation is from another planet. Sometimes I say things like, “You cannot imagine my fundamental political theory.”

There was a time in my life when I read the Bible obsessively, sometimes for hours at a stretch. It was the need of a season in my spiritual development. I no longer read the Bible every day. But I also don’t pray at every meal. There are whole host of habits that others inserted into my life that I’ve had to trash because it couldn’t follow me into the mission and calling. Reading the Bible has taught me that there is a radical difference between what the world around me is doing versus what He wants me to do.

A whole host of “Christian” stuff reflects the culture to which I don’t belong any more. And a major element in my shepherd’s anointing demands I be ready to help the flock move far out into the wilderness to find forgotten pastures. I’m still struggling with defining the boundary lines for being in the world but not of it. I’m forced by conviction to emphasizing the latter — not of this world — compared to what I’ve seen in my church-boy upbringing.

The same goes with the wider question of defining manhood, which is the ostensible purpose of Jack’s blog. In previous posts, the discussions have been about how to help men be worthy, to find and attract worthy brides, or how to restore worthiness to an existing marriage. The majority of the comments belonged to a different world than the one to which the Lord is calling me. There was a fundamental orientation in those comments that I have long rejected. For me, the question is not what attracts women, or should attract them, but how does all of this contribute to a definitively biblical lifestyle.

It’s not as if the people commenting there don’t have a valid definition of “biblical” in their lives, but that what God has called me to is radically different from theirs. It’s not often I can comment in any useful way, due to the lack of overlap between their paths and mine. Even the more liturgical Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, etc.) are still closer to the evangelicals than any of them are to me.

So, being aware of the radical difference means I’ll expend a lot of energy on the process of filtering. As I focus on ministering to people face to face in the real world, I will need a strong sense of when I can help and when it appears I’ll have to back off and wait for a better moment. That’s what struck me this morning was I prepared to comment on the issue of Bible reading. The whole question stands in a radically different context for me. I’m not going to minister with any assumption of embracing everyone who crosses my path.

This is a major element in the Radix Fidem way: It’s not for everyone. What we do is private, and it would be a major violation of our covenant to aim at establishing public accommodations. The world in which we live is increasingly hostile to genuine faith, and we have no expectation that our influence will affect the wider society. The broad American Churchian assumptions about what a church is supposed to do are not even on the same planet with our assumptions. Sadly, that ends up with us facing hostility from most church folks.

If we take the long view, that what we do is just a passing moment in a very long stream of spiritual revelation in human space, then we rightly regard the current churchian culture as a passing fad. Yes, we are aware that, for the churchians, what they have is the very definition of following Christ. Let them have their ways; their time will pass. Whether we can help any of them is not something that can be programmed into a course of teaching. It’s always a miracle. But then, it’s the same with the rest of the world, and sometimes we can’t tell the difference between churchians and the rest of the world.

And this is all the background against which I awoke this morning to a very fresh shepherd’s anointing. Everything we have to offer is preposterous to everyone but those few called to join us. I’m here to help them, and sometimes that means manifesting faith in a way that might jolt their awareness. That’s the calling for all of us under the Radix Fidem covenant.