We are continuing to reflect on N. T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God
The impact of Wright’s teaching on the Churches of Christ and the church in America, regardless of denomination, should be simple and yet profound.
Like many American Protestant denominations, our preaching has been heavily weighted toward soteriology (salvation theology). That is, we preach the Five Steps of Salvation on Sunday night to a crowd all of whom have already been saved.
We are very focused on atonement theology (how salvation happens) and ecclesiology (how to do church, that is, worship and organization).
We have a very weak eschatology (theology of the Second Coming and afterlife) and our ethics (how to live as Christians) are heavily ruled based, with little connection between ethics and salvation or the afterlife. In fact, we sometimes seem to think that doctrinal purity makes up for any shortcoming in how we live. You see, there are just these rules about going to church, giving weekly, and being good moral people without tattoos or mixed bathing (what we called swimming in a pool or the Gulf of Mexico with the opposite sex).
But everything changes when you realize that it’s all about Jesus as Messiah. At the Second Coming, he’ll perfect his rule, destroying all enemies — even death — and purging all wickedness and all that adulterates God’s good creation.
And so now we live in the in-between times. The assault on Satan and the powers has begun and victory is assured, but the war still has to be fought.
Jesus and God are on a mission to rescue humanity from the fallenness and brokenness of this world. In fact, the creation itself is being rescued from the Fall.
And we Christians are Jesus-people, called to participate in God’s mission of rescue and redemption. And we do this by becoming like Jesus so we can live like Jesus. And so we become a community that works together toward this end.
As a result, our loyalty is no longer to the Democratic and Republican Parties and not to a nation-state. It’s to Jesus. Period. As followers of Jesus, we are to be good citizens (consistent with being like Jesus), but we are good, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens because God calls us to do this, and so our loyalty to God causes us to honor the local laws. But our loyalty is first and only to God. When our loyalty to God conflicts with the demands of the government, well, God prevails every single time.
As a result, in the First Century, when the government demanded that Roman citizens offer worship to the Emperor, the Christians refused and suffered horribly for their perceived disloyalty. But they would bow but to one King.
In contemporary terms, this means that we have no loyalty to the powers that dominate today’s news cycle. We expect no redemption and no salvation from either party, from the president, or from Rush Limbaugh or the New York Times. Jesus saves, and no one else. This next election will not redeem the world and will not save us from the powers that seek to destroy us. Greed, corruption, and poverty will not be defeated by a political party or a candidate.
Therefore, when we agonize over the tribulations in Ferguson, Missouri, we don’t turn to the governor, the chief of police, or Jesse Jackson for a solution. Only Jesus saves, and Jesus is indeed the answer.
And so the answer isn’t found in a better baptismal theology or properly ordained deacons. It’s not about having the right number of acts of worship. It’s about knowing what our confession means: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” That is, “You are the King to whom we bow, come from God, who is alive and active in this world!”
Whether or not we understood it, that’s what we said before we were baptized. And if Jesus truly is King, and God truly is living, then the problem in Ferguson, and countless other cities, is ultimately a failure of the church to live its confession.
We are the people where —
(Gal 3:28 ESV) 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
— except we deny this truth every time we assemble in segregated congregations, listening to sermons preached by someone of our own race speaking only what we want to hear. As long as our churches are segregated, we live in rebellion against our King.
The church unites all sorts of people because Jesus treats them all the same and because we’ll all be together with Jesus forever. There will be no segregated lunch tables in afterlife.
If God really is the Living God, then we can count on God to equip us to do the work of God. And this includes, at a dead minimum, ending racial segregation within his church — so that the kingdom today becomes more like the kingdom in heaven. So that God’s will is done on earth as it is heaven.
And if Jesus is King, and if our loyalties run toward him and him only, then we’ll honor his commands —
(Joh 13:34-35 ESV) 34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
And we can’t colorably claim to love people we refuse to worship beside.
Now, there are those who argue that the racial problem is bigger than this and that urging the end of church segregation isn’t nearly enough. And it’s not.
But it’s an essential first step. Racial reconciliation comes from God and only God, and therefore it is impossible while God’s people organize and worship contrary to God’s will.
But if the church becomes an alternative society, marked by love, unity, and holiness — which obviously includes the end of racial segregation — a nation that is a majority Christian nation will be changed.
I don’t know what the second step is. But I know that we cannot skip the first one. The church has to get its heart right before it can influence the surrounding society as salt and light.
It’s as simple as this. We Christians have to decide that racial and social segregation in the church is abhorrent. Repugnant. And the time to change is now. Indeed, we should be on our faces — prostrate before God — begging forgiveness for taking so long to figure this out.
