Starting to Wrap Up

I’m ready to begin wrapping up this series, “Re-learning Christian Faith.” I think I have roughed out the changes in the situation of Christianity in America enough to suggest ways in which we, people still holding to and being held by the faith, need to be changed in our thinking, our self-perceptions, our attitudes toward this world and its people, and our ways of seeking to be united with Jesus the Christ in his representing God in, to, and for this world. I do not take a negative view of the changes I believe we are now called to make. We are not accommodating a bad situation by compromising our faith and lessening our hopes. Rather, I believe, the waning of Christendom and decline of the traditional Protestant churches opens a door for those who remain and more who will come – an opportunity to find anew the course for faith and life upon which Jesus set his followers before the Roman emperors transformed Christianity into an imperial and often imperious religion of power and glory. It is not my intention or desire to offer programs, methods, or any step-by-step procedure for being transformed. My concern is with the nature of the changes I believe need to be made in us and not only as individuals but as churches, too.

I am not looking for church growth programs or strategies. I hold neither hope nor desire for a rebirth of the popular cultural Christianity of the 1950’s and early 60’s when people, almost automatically, were born into Christian identity, too often without much deep thought or vital challenge to their prejudices and ways of life. That time has passed, and we need to leave it behind. But even worse than returning to some form of automatic Christianity would be replacing it with a belligerent Christianity of identity politics and culture that, falsely in the name of Christ, would champion the inflamed bigotries of our present political situation. It is high time to take the way of the Servant and walk humbly with our God. It is high time to come to a humbling yet strengthening knowledge of ourselves as sent with the Servant, in his way, to represent God in the world as he, the Servant Christ, makes God known to us.

What we need is a change of heart, understanding “heart” in the ancient Hebraic, biblical way as it represents, not sentiment, but desire, will, intelligence for choosing, and commitment. My remaining posts in this series will ask about the nature of this change of heart and what kind of people it would make us, not merely for our own sake or the church’s, but for the sake of this world God loves, this world into which and for which Christ calls us to walk with him.