Basic rule: Emphasize common ground.
I’ve seen this problem all over; it’s not just on the Net. I’m hoping the Radix Fidem message doesn’t become tiresome and objectionable. It’s not about being respectable as the world sees it, but we need to find that fine line between telling the hard truth without driving people away. We must establish a hearing by how we manifest the love of Christ before we open our mouths.
This is a matter of practice, not theory. There is a large body of research for this, but I find the best answers come from reading between the lines of Scripture. It’s one thing to know you are among covenant brothers and sisters. It’s another thing to deal with outsiders. Given the nature of our world, it is virtually impossible to restrict your activities to those within your covenant community.
And not all outsiders are the same kind of problem.
In the Old Testament, there was a section of Law that dealt with visitors to the Covenant Lands, and it was all about helping them survive and get through life. We must demonstrate the kind of acceptance that celebrates the way Israel was allowed to live in Goshen and tried to avoid troubling the Egyptians in Joseph’s day. Today, we are the visitors again, and God reserves to Himself the privilege of causing trouble. We are required to avoid provoking where possible.
Thus, this is not a matter of mere human wisdom, but the Word teaches us, if we will listen. In that vein, there has been plenty of wise experience from men who knew how to stand up for the truth. It depends on the boundaries of your domain granted from God.
America is not our domain. It never was, and never will be. For us, we are rather like Israel living in Egypt. At that point in Egyptian history, the Nile Delta was pretty much reserved for those wandering tribal nations, while the core of Egyptian life and productivity was in Faiyum, upriver a ways. During that period the imperial family was centered around the fresh-water lake and the canals that took advantage of the Nile and Faiyum Lake interaction. The Egyptians of that time considered themselves and their forms of agriculture sacred, while the sheep herding grasslands of the Delta were defiled.
The reason Israel came under oppression is that a different ruling dynasty took over with different plans; they wanted more direct use of the Delta for a massive construction project. They still regarded sheep raising as nasty, but they wanted the clay and grass for bricks. God used this political shift to carry out His plans for the Children of Israel. There were other nations in the Delta besides Israel, but He wasn’t focused on them. He took action against Egypt for a very clear purpose within the historical setting.
We have a prophetic message of repentance and heart-led living, but the reason Samuel established a School of Prophets in Israel is because it’s too easy to let the fire burning in your heart become the excuse for ignoring the long history of God’s prophetic message. I can’t count how often I’ve seen young prophets crash and burn because they focused on their inner fire to the exclusion of that history. God has an agenda that crosses vast ages of human history, and we must build on that foundation.
This world is not our home; we are called to be vagabonds. We have no particular goals that the world recognizes. We are looking for those whom the Lord has called, and they don’t yet know it. I’m not referring to whether they are religiously converted. I’m referring to the Elect, those whom the Lord has called to join His Covenant household. Some are already in churches (most of them, even). But it’s not about becoming a “Christian” as defined by organized religion, but becoming an actual follower of Christ and His covenant. That’s two entirely different things.
This is not Replacement Theology. We are not supposed to replace the earthly presence of the Nation of Israel. That covenant ended in terms of its effects on the political landscape of this world. We are no longer a political entity. We ignore political boundaries. There is no such thing as “Christendom” in the Bible. That’s a man-made lie. Our covenant nation is hidden from human perception; it is written in the hearts of God’s family on this earth.
So, we are by default in a dependent position from the human standpoint, in that we wait on God, and He is the one who controls the political scene. Our position is hands-off; it’s not our calling to engage much of anything outside the Covenant Kingdom of Christ. In order to simply exist and make our gospel message known, we must interact with the prevailing political and social order on whatever basis we can, making no attempt to interfere in their plans. That’s the default position. When that changes, we must note the winds of change as He blows on things to suit His whims.
The current situation is that both the politics and economics are being manipulated by forces whom Satan is guiding to destruction. It’s not just our daily situation they afflict, but they are being guided to self-destruction. Their war against the people cannot win, but they don’t realize it. The rulers honestly believe their agenda will work. But they are not attacking our faith at all, just lumping us in with everyone else they identify as their enemies. If we do anything at all about this, we must work to some degree with everyone else.
Just staying alive and sharing our faith requires that we find room to cooperate with non-covenant people. We don’t make common cause with outsiders, but we work on common ground. There is no way their mixed bag of political agendas will serve the gospel calling. Rather, their ambitions simply give us a vehicle, an atmosphere, in which we can manifest divine revelation. We infiltrate. We cannot save them; that is not in our hands. Salvation is a miracle in which someone realizes God has a claim on their lives. We cannot direct God’s hands, but we are standing by to help those who find that our witness speaks to their spiritual condition.
No one of us, nor any of our covenant communities, will reach everyone. God has divided us up into numerous groups for a reason, and if you really want to know, it is addressed in the Tower of Babel narrative. He demands that we form hundreds of thousands of different little communities for reasons we could never comprehend. You cannot understand, but you can obey. In order to operate on common ground, we should avoid picking at minor differences.
Sure, if someone asks, then we can humbly share our sense of where the the boundaries of Biblical Law stand. But in our sharing, we must be careful with the tone. If it reads to someone else as grouchy and harsh, then we should expect it will pollute any common ground we might have tried to share to address the common threat. And if we can’t tell when our expression sounds harsh, then we should enlist the aid of those who do a better job of that. We cannot afford to alienate others when we are working outside of our domain. We should be slow to dismiss others, but show long patience with them. You never know when or how God works behind the scenes.
We should never be surprised at the differences among. We should take it for granted differences will be there, and decide if those differences are more than we can accept. If it’s all about your message, then don’t be surprised when someone objects by offering a different message. Is it really supposed to be a debate forum to address your particular issues? Or is it a forum for discussing something else? Your tone can make a huge difference. If you want to keep participating, don’t make it sound like you can’t tolerate differences with little or no bearing on the subject at hand. It’s not your turf.
We have a lot of problems in common with people outside our non-covenant communities. We have to work with them to handle those problems. There is a hideous ruling class that wants us all dead. If you feel called to lay down and die, do so. But there are plenty of us who are utterly certain that’s not what God wants for us. We are going to find a way to resist the rulers, and we don’t see room for debate on that calling. Take your exclusivity somewhere else. We are walking by our convictions, and your convictions are your problem.
Following Christ is not a question of objective right or wrong. If that’s how you see it, you are already barking up the wrong tree. You have zero hope of finding grounds for cooperation; you need to prepare to work alone facing whatever warfare the ruling elite carries out. There is a fine line between having your say and attacking someone who happens to see things differently. If you want cooperation, then be aware of how others read your expressions of faith.
The Radix Fidem teaching is that God’s household is not a matter of either/or. This world is not black and white; that’s a Plato thing. This world is all black and the only way out of the darkness leads out of this world. Meanwhile, the Lord does pay attention to the path we all take and how far along we are at any given time. At various points, we gain access to new privileges because He says we are ready for them. Thus, our perception of others is that there are family folks, allies, neutrals and enemies. We need to make room for allies who aren’t quite in the same place we are. Don’t address allies as enemies.
And those allies may or may not claim to be Christians, never mind our personal definitions of what it means to be Christian. The reason we have allies is because they are impossible to avoid. God puts them in our lives, so we need to learn how to handle them. Don’t harass them with issues that get in the way of drawing them closer. Sense what they are ready to discuss. Assume they have their own sense of calling and mission, and respect the possibility that God speaks to them, too. None of us are the Truth Police.
Again: Emphasize common ground.
