Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 NET)
What distinguishes the covenant life of following Christ from any other lifestyle? Could we propose a biblical model of culture and social behavior that separates believers from non-believers? There must be something we identify that transcends human culture so that, no matter where Christ’s followers are found, they can identify each other across those human boundaries. We need to work on identifying believers within every cultural context.
I’m convinced that we haven’t done that work. To be more specific, we haven’t bothered to identify the difference between American culture and eternal priorities so that we can ditch things that don’t belong. We keep reading American mores back into the Bible.
I’ve done my best to point out the difference between the West and the ancient Hebrew in terms of epistemology (assumptions about the nature of reality). It’s been a major element of my ministry since the 1970s. It seems to me that only in the past two decades has this effort edged its way into the mainstream consciousness of western Christians. Whatever study there was of such things, the scholarship behind this effort was virtually hidden in obscurity for a long time. Out of the hundreds of ministries that touched my life up through the 1970s, only one preacher brought it to my attention.
The point was never to insist that we must embrace the totality of the ancient Hebrew lifestyle. Any fool can ape another. Humans already have a major problem with that. The real question is to see through the manifestation and recognize the fundamental priorities that shaped ancient Hebrew life within their own context. Given the same divine moral priorities, what would our lives look like in our current context? I’m quite certain we are not even close.
Maybe you are aware that American-based missionaries have struggled with this every time they are sent into a new culture outside the US. There has been plenty of open condemnation of Americans carrying their social habits and expectations as if it were the gospel message of Christ. It’s more of exporting American values than actually sharing the biblical Savior. Our missionaries ended up promoting something that struck the locals as immoral, and too often, rebellious against the government. It’s a major element in the hostility some governments have to Christian missions.
Let me cite a small example. Have you ever heard of the “American lean”? Americans are known for leaning against fixtures, something virtually no other country does. It’s generally regarded as lazy and disrespectful. The CIA has to teach their agents not to do that to avoid standing out.
From what I understand, Christian missionary agencies are very uneven in the level of preparation they offer to their missionaries in training. It’s bad enough that we already have a vast smorgasbord of theologies to muddy the message, but too many missionaries carry their cultural expectations as if such were the gospel. Even the most popular Christian musicians offer songs in which western democratic theories of government are mistaken for the biblical doctrine. And somehow it’s not “worship” if the audience doesn’t act like rabid fans at an American football game.
How many people in other countries have we taught to regard “Christian” as equivalent to America’s debased, materialistic and immoral lifestyle? How much resistance to the gospel message is the product of American missionary activities?
Let me propose something: Christian discipleship could use a measure of CIA type training. Who doesn’t realize that joining the CIA requires one to cease being a mainstream American? In order to do what the CIA does, people must be internally divorced from their social identity, making it just a cover for use in some contexts. Instead, they become part of a clandestine world nobody outside can understand. Of course, they do everything possible to ensure nobody understands.
That would be one of the features that we don’t need. The gospel opens us to a realm the world cannot understand. We don’t want to hide it, but the Devil blinds his captives to the truth Christ shines into our souls. Still, the mission of sharing the gospel does not necessarily require that we stick to simply one cultural style of presentation.
In New Testament times, making a public proclamation in the local public square was the only way to spread something new. The average person might not be able to read, and printing tracts and pamphlets was all but impossible, not to mention awfully expensive. But there were a few parts of the Roman Empire where preaching in the public square would get you killed. In those places the Apostles were careful about how they went about the mission.
Given how much trash has been pasted on the gospel message of Christ, I would suggest we need to invest a lot more time and effort in developing a different approach to missions. To avoid having to deal with false assumptions about our message, we need to come up with a stronger non-verbal expression of our faith. The only path left to us is clandestine behavior patterns. The one thing we can best cadge from the CIA’s operations is the firm intention of changing how the locals perceive our message, while avoiding making it a target for reaction.
How do you imagine Christians operated during Nero’s persecution? Our own American government is edging closer to that kind of persecution of a biblical covenant faith in Christ, never mind governments around the world. Like the CIA, we should be wholly committed to the mission, allowing only the priorities of the gospel itself to limit what we are willing to do. The resistance to the message serves only to shape how we operate in pushing that message into the awareness of the people.
We are spying out Satan’s turf, seeking to undermine his authority over people who long to breathe free in the Holy Spirit.
