Kingdom of God Part 4
Community Shaped by the Kingdom
May 14, 2010
Continued from Part 3
All peoples, institutions, and groups are interested in changing, renewing or transforming society by impressing their core values on the culture. For that matter, we cannot help but to make an impact on our culture. The minute anyone opens his mouth, he is speaking in a particular language, from a particular cultural context, with a particular worldview vision of morality and various definitions of what he believes to be the "true", the "good", and the "beautiful". As such, no one should be led to think that he is not "getting into the public square".
In addressing the question, “Is it the church’s responsibility to embrace or assume the civic responsibility of the state (e.g. education, the poor, social injustice, the arts, etc.)?”, we need to consider the following. The Church does not have any juridical authority in the city/state public square, but that does not mean that the Church ought to stay out in the periphery. The Church does have the responsibility of acts of mercy and to engage our community with acts of social justice (cf. Jas 1.27).[1] Paul states in Galatians 6:10 that “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”[2] He is clearly referring to a deed ministry that should be shared with all people as they have need. James says (1.27) that true religion is this: “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” In other words, it is the church’s responsibility to pursue both public compassion and personal piety. For example, although a failing school system is not the civic responsibility of the church, the church could get involved in “doing good” by perhaps coming along side of the local school in providing after school tutoring.
Unfortunately, some activist or fundamentalist groups have thought that they should either assume the responsibility of the state (whether conservative or liberal) or impede the government’s involvement in the lives of individuals. However, the Gospel calls individuals in the Church to pursue the common good in our culture and to enter into the public square by encouraging and promoting gospel values and by engaging in an incarnational/grassroots strategy for cultural renewal and community development. This is not to suggest that social action, political involvement, or pursuing the common good is a replacement for evangelism.
What does this Gospel response look like? There is to be an integration of faith and vocational calling in bringing cultural renewal. Thus, the Church and its members should cultivate friendships with people in their neighborhoods, join clubs and associations, and partner with organizations that are also involved in acts of mercy, social justice, and other civic, charity or benevolence involvement. In other words, because the ministry of the Gospel is both a ministry of word and deed, we can actually promote the public witness of the Gospel by pursuing the common good and engaging in acts of social justice. “This pattern so contradicts the thinking and practice of the world, that it creates an 'alternate kingdom', an 'alternate city' (Matt.5:14-16) in which there is a complete reversal of the values of the world with regard to power, recognition, status, wealth. The gospel reverses the place of the weak and the strong, the "outsider" and the "insider." It is an advantage, spiritually speaking, to see one's weakness; it is a severe danger, spiritually speaking, to be successful and accomplished. And when we finally understand that we can be saved by sheer grace through Christ, we stop seeking salvation (either that of psychological fulfillment, or of social transformation, or of spiritual blessing, or of all three) in power, status and accomplishment. That destroys their power in our lives. The reversal of the cross, the grace of God, thus liberates us from bondage to other power of material things and worldly status in our lives. We begin to live a new life without much regard to them.”[3]
There are two types of people in every community. First type is an individual who lives in the city and uses his community for his own interests so he does everything to get what he needs out of the city-his credentials, status, education, training, and influence. The other type of person is someone who gets used by the city. His surrounding culture influences and shapes his world and lifeview. However, a third type of individual is a Christian who desires to live counter-culturally to create a new alternate community of God’s kingdom. He is someone who has committed himself to a kingdom program to serve the city and its people to see the reign of Christ coming to bear upon every dimension of human life. To participate in the in-breaking of God’s presence and rule among a people he has claimed as his own, forming them into a radically distinct set apart community that looks forward one day to the total in-breaking of his authority expressed throughout the world.[4]
He refuses to believe that there are only two options in engaging our culture: to either assimilate or separate, to capitulate or evade, to over-contextualize or under-adapt. Jeremiah (29) encourages God’s people not to accommodate the foreign culture, but tells them to move in and get involved in the life of the city economically, culturally, to raise their families, and to get deeply involved in the life of the city. The prophet is asking the people to be spiritually bicultural. They are being called neither to worship the city nor to hate the culture but to love the city. Pray for the city and seek the peace, prosperity, and the multidimensional well-being of the city.
Barry Schwartz says that people are engaged in a psychology of personal autonomy. That is that we have all sorts of goals and expectations and kind of intense desire to reach the heights because we are maximizers who are engaged in social comparison, mixed opportunities, regret, adaptation, trying to meet high expectations. He says that there’s a psychology of personal autonomy which is pursuing our own goals, but there is also another perspective which he calls the ecology of personal autonomy. That is that if we pursue our own psychology of our own ends and it comes in conflict with the ecology of our personal autonomy, that is the ecological structure, then something has to give. This is exactly what John Stewart Mill has said when he said that the only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of their own or impede their efforts to attain it. But the problem is what happens, when my own psychology of personal autonomy comes in conflict with the ecology of personal autonomy? In other words, if I’m pursing my own goal and agenda, but yet if it comes into conflict with the pursuit of the common good, if it’s in conflict with pursuing social justice, then the ecological structure of our humanity and our community gets broken down. Why? Because you can’t pursue your own goals and also support someone else’s when they’re in conflict. So he says it is difficult to pursue the common good or common welfare, when we are driven by self-interest. However, “the gospel thereby creates a 'kingdom community'--a counter-culture, the church--in which we are 'royal priests' showing the world what the future kingdom will look like (1 Peter 2:9-10.) We 'model' how all of life--business practices, race relations, family life, art and culture--are healed and re-woven by the King.”[5]
Kingdom-driven alternative communities will have a healthy balance between “theologically substantial preaching, dynamic evangelism and apologetics, and church growth” and planting of churches that will “emphasize repentance, personal renewal, and holiness of life,” and winsome “engagement with the social structures of ordinary people, and cultural engagement with art, business, scholarship, and government.”[6] The fabric of our communities and the interiority of hearts will continue to be restored and reshaped under the kingly reign of Christ, the head over all of his creation.
© 2010 The Center for Gospel Culture
[1] CS: “Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace…we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, doing good to all, especially to those who belong to the household of God. It therefore inevitably establishes a new community of human life together under God.”
[2] CS: “we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, doing good to all, especially to those who belong to the household of God.”
[3]Darrell Bock, The Kingdom of God.
[4]Theological Vision for Ministry (TVM)
[5]Theological Vision for Ministry (TVM)
[6]Theological Vision for Ministry (TVM)
