7.4 | amiable activism
In Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice, Scott David Allen states:
Whenever a hostile, nonbiblical worldview gains widespread influence in a culture, pressure is exerted on the Bible-believing church. Historically, the church responds in one of three ways:
It conforms itself to the reigning ideology by jettisoning orthodox biblical teaching in an attempt to align itself to the core presuppositions of the emerging ideology. This is typically motivated out of a desire for self-preservation. The belief is that unless we conform to the reigning worldview, the church will be marginalized and weakened.
It accommodates the reigning ideology, often unintentionally. The new ideology changes culture so rapidly that it washes over Christians without their full awareness and begins to infiltrate their thinking. There isn’t necessarily a conscious choice to abandon orthodox Christianity, but over time, as one assumption after another of the new ideology is embraced, biblical orthodoxy slowly erodes.
It resists the reigning ideology. It sees the threat with open eyes and responds by holding fast to orthodox biblical teaching, no matter the cost. In many cases, resistance leads Christians to disengage from the broader culture, particularly when it comes to educating their children. Resistance leads to open confrontation with the broader culture. (Allen, Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice: An Urgent Appeal to Fellow Christians in a Time of Social Crisis (p. 94).
Christianity has been confronted by worldview challenges before. The rise of the Nazis in Germany in the ’20s and ’30s put massive pressure on the Church. Most German churches conformed and accommodated themselves to the Nazi worldview, some going as far as displaying the swastika throughout their churches. The Nazi Party would write messages and sermons for the pastors of these churches to teach, and these pastors taught them. In contrast, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his “Confessing Church” movement resisted openly, paying for their resistance with their lives. Critical Theory, at this point, does not have the same sense of danger that Nazism did 100 years ago. But then again, neither did Nazism before the start of World War II.
There are churches and church movements throughout America who have been more than willing to embrace and accommodate Critical Theory. Some have no doubt unwittingly chosen the second option.
Many pastors and leaders have a tendency to choose the third option: to become inwardly focused and disengage from culture, to respond to activism with silence. This is not what Jesus asks of us.
The Kingdom response is not to escape the world. Make no mistake – this is a war. It has always been. But we must be reminded of who our war is with.
“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” // Ephesians 6:12 NLT
We must embrace this conflict. There is no choice.
“Those who let the culture, a political ideology, popular opinion, or any other extrabiblical source define ‘justice’ for them will soon find that Scripture opposes them. If they are determined to retain a perverted idea of justice, they will therefore have to oppose Scripture.” // John MacArthur
Justice is being defined every day through what we watch, what we learn and what we teach. We don’t have the option to be disengaged. We must embrace Kingdom activism. That’s what Jesus did. We should write laws reflective of Kingdom perspective. We should elect school boards and local, state and federal governments that have a Kingdom worldview. We should campaign for a society that is based on Judeo-Christian ethics. These things will not happen unless we actively participate in the society we are living in and bring our worldview with us.
The Messiah, according to Jewish tradition, was supposed to be a political revolutionary. He was supposed to overthrow the oppression that the Jews found themselves in. His war would not be just a war of words but a war of reform and overthrow.
Jesus himself said in Matthew 10:34-39:
“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword. ‘I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household!’ If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”
We must look at the life of Jesus. How were these words translated into action? He was an activist. He was a revolutionary. Kingdom revolution is not human revolution though. What was the revolution of Jesus? How did he change the world? Love, humility, and self-sacrifice. That’s the sword that divides all of us in two. Giving up our rights to our pain, prejudices, and justifications for the Kingdom. That’s the hardest thing we could ever do, to lose our humanity for the sake of something better.
Jesus brought a war but not the kind of war that people expected. They weren’t freed from oppressors or tyrants or emperors. They were freed from their own humanity. What is a Kingdom war? It’s a war with ourselves. This war starts in our own heads and our own hearts. We must allow God to change our hearts and our thinking. We must become a new creation entirely from the inside out. We must fight within ourselves and give up our life for the cause of Kingdom revolution. We are activated for this cause. We are sent on this mission. We are ambassadors from the Kingdom to the Earth. Unity. Honor. Reconciliation – of all people, back to their Creator and each other.
The state of society does reflect the oppressor. But the oppressor is all of us.
Critical Theory would tell us that this is a zero-sum game. Someone has to win, and someone has to lose. Someone must be oppressed, and someone must be the oppressor. The worldview is hopeless. There is a vicious cycle of oppression and overthrow that never ends. Once the oppressors are overthrown, who becomes the new oppressor? Those who were formerly oppressed.
True change requires heart transformation. We must civically participate. We must advocate for a more fair and just society. But the starting point is the heart. The state of the world reflects us, so we must allow God to fix us. Once we are fixed, we bring a Kingdom revolution: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, humility, and self-sacrifice.
The war against ourselves and the war against the “mighty powers in this dark world” require Kingdom tactics.