Christian Witness After the Culture War
Juxtaposed in my mind at the moment are at least three different impressions: the recent SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage, the astonishing response of Emanuel AME to the Charleston massacre, and the stories I heard at a recent gathering for Lausanne Movement. I am prone to refract my observations through the prism of global urban mission, so allow me to share a couple of thoughts from that vantage point.
One has to do with the North American evangelical church’s strategy in reaching the culture, which has been largely anti-urban. The SCOTUS ruling signaled what would appear to be a stunning victory for the LGBTQ community and sexual revolution, and a resounding defeat for the evangelical church and its agenda for traditional sexual mores. It is not my intention to enter into the fray of how one falls on which side of the line here. Nor do I wish to repeat the observation that should by now be all too obvious — USA is not the homeland of Christendom; it is a mission field. For my present purposes, I simply want to point out that a vital strand in the narrative of the LGBTQ activists’ success, which may go unnoticed, has been their strategic focus on cities, coupled with a long history of the evangelical church’s abandonment of cities.
I noted in passing a couple of years ago, in a blog post arguing for the importance of urban mission, that the city is extremely influential in shaping the hearts and minds of the entire society. The city serves as an access point in a vast global network of resources, relationships, and ideas that connect other cities and their surrounding regions. Gay marriage activists understood this, and harnessed the power of cities to pull off the coup that we are witnessing today. (For more details on this urban strategy, see Emily Badger’s “Gay Marriage and the Power of Cities to Change the Country,” published in March 2013, with the prescient excerpt, “What was once popular opinion — and public policy — in San Francisco could soon be the national norm.” I encourage you to read it.)
Meanwhile, “White Flight” from urban centers that took place in the latter half of 20th century could also be dubbed “white evangelical church flight.” Anti-urban bias and racism were chief among the motivations for this massive demographic shift, and let’s face it — the evangelical church were chief among sinners. The result: hollowed out inner urban cores that, in spite of the valiant struggle of those who were left behind, became plagued with joblessness, poverty, isolation, drug epidemics, and so on.
This is the backdrop for the “gayborhoods” which began to grow and thrive in the unwanted and excluded urban spaces where the marginalized and ostracized could find refuge and solace through the AIDS epidemic and other crises. In time, these urban communities gained acceptance and influence in the larger culture, to the point where the majority of the country came to favor gay marriage — it is now the law of the land.
The SCOTUS ruling, then, is a case of chickens coming home to roost, both for the evangelical church that fled the city and for the gay community that chose to make a home in it. Seen in this light, the way forward for the evangelical church is clear. It needs to take seriously the call of Jeremiah 29:7: “Seek the peace of the city… for if it prospers, then you too will prosper.” Remember, Jeremiah is speaking to exiles in Babylon, not residents of Jerusalem.
Hearing this call must begin with repentance for the sins of racism and anti-urban bias that motivated the church’s collusion with the world’s economic and power structures.
In the last decade or so, urban mission has become cool again among evangelicals. However, how much of this development has been due to an opportunistic grab for a piece of the gentrification pie or a self-promotion service tour among the “less fortunate”? True urban shalom seeking cannot be triumphalistic (“We are going to take back the city,” etc. which are dismissive and deeply offensive to mostly Black churches that have remained and carried the banner through the hard times); instead, it must travel the via dolorosa, by way of confession, repentance, and a humble life of love and service — indeed, joining in solidarity with those who live “outside the gate” (Heb. 13:12). It should be more obvious that a large part of the evangelical church’s failure to captivate the hearts and minds of this society has to do with its love affair with structures of political power, an over-reliance on legislation for morality, and a “trickle-down” approach to spirituality. Will the evangelical church now continue the triumphalistic approach and simply switch venues to urban settings?
On the other hand, if the sins of racism and anti-urban bias remain unacknowledged, the evangelical church will continue in its trajectory, and it will be taken less and less seriously by those who need the message it has been entrusted with. A chastened urban witness may promote chastity in society far better than acrimonious fights over the land’s legislation ever could.
It is in this regard that I am envisioning the second layer of impressions — Charleston and the Lausanne stories. We are familiar with the horrific act of violence and hatred at Emanuel AME. We are also familiar with the uniquely Christian response of the victims’ families, and this act of gospel demonstration is what grabbed the world’s attention and confounded its wisdom. Not pronouncements, denouncements, debates, or skirmishes in the culture war, but genuine, lived out acts of faith carried out before a watching world.
A similarly arresting episode took place a few months ago when 21 Christians were martyred at the hands of ISIS. We who live in the West may have been left with vague feelings of horror and fear at the chaos and violence in that part of the world, not to mention a perverse fascination with the bloody spectacle, but I for one had not heard the fuller account.
At the Lausanne gathering, Ramez Atallah, an Egyptian church leader, shared stories of the aftermath in his country. The martyrdom transfixed the nation, especially the courage and faith of the 21 men, many of whom could be seen praying on film — a consequence unintended by the producers of the video. Families of the executed men suddenly had a national platform on which to share the reason for their hope. (One mother said, in essence, “If my son renounced his faith, I would have taken his life myself!”) A result was the first ever Christmas mass in which an Egyptian president was a participant, a generous giving by Egyptian Muslims towards the building of a church (both events would have been unthinkable in Egypt prior to the martyrdom), and a revival in the faith of Coptic Christians themselves. Atallah told the story of a young woman who said, “We always believed in martyrdom, but we are now actually living through it.” His organization, Bible Society of Egypt, produced a tract featuring a poem about the 21 martyrs, and it was the Society’s most successful publication ever. Christians and Muslims alike shared it with their friends and neighbors.
Lesson for the North American evangelical church at this point in time? Don’t play the martyr; practice authentic marturia (Greek for “witness”). Seek to persuade and convince mainly through your cruciform life of love among unbelieving neighbors and through gospel-shaped care for the most vulnerable and excluded — this gives credibility to your words. Many are warning of coming widespread lawsuits against churches that refuse to perform gay marriages and of battles over the church’s tax-exempt status, and these seem accurate forecasts. However, these warnings have sometimes been used to sound notes of hysteria and to issue a call to arms in the culture war over religious freedom. But let’s gain some perspective; believers in other parts of the world have experienced far worse than loss of privileged positions and comforts. (Former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has said UK and US Christians should stop calling themselves persecuted and “grow up.”)
It may be far better for the church to endure harsh treatments and attacks on it with gospel hope and gracious confidence (as the Charleston families have done) than to respond in kind and fight over who will gain the upper hand. I recall the story of a mom-and-pop establishment, Memories Pizza. The owners had heretofore led a peaceful life and business, but one day were asked to comment on air regarding a controversial religious freedom bill. They stated they would decline requests to cater gay weddings due to their Christian faith (while at the same time promising to serve any patron — gay or straight — who walks in through their door). The backlash was immediate and furious, and included a call to burn the pizza place down. Some gay rights activists were aghast at this response, and spoke out in defense of Memories Pizza. Suffering well will be a key component of Christian witness in this new environment, and it will end up winning sympathizers and those who have ears to hear among those who were formerly hostile to the gospel.
May God’s people not decry this world — it’s always been a mission field — and fall into believing the “righteous” have no choice but to flee to the hills (as in Psalm 11). Instead, may we own our brokenness that necessitated Jesus’ mission of love, and our sentness which calls us to live a humble (and repentant) life of love and service in the forgotten parts of our cities that for too long unbeknownst to us have always been great centers of influence.
