The Vote in the House: Like Most, Waiting (But for What and Whom?) Oct 2

So as I sit in my office waiting for what will happen next as Congress votes on what many people know is some of the most impactful legislation in our lifetime. I am not so focused on how we got to where we are in the States as to how we get out of here. A long hard slog is ahead. So I sit and wait, but for whom?

So as I sit in my office waiting for what will happen next as Congress votes on what many people know is some of the most impactful legislation in our lifetime. I am not so focused on how we got to where we are in the States as to how we get out of here. A long hard slog is ahead. So I sit and wait, but for whom?

Tomorrow I participate in a chapel asking how Christians should engage in this confusing, often distressing culture, when they are part of a community that is not a national (or nationalist) entity and when many fellow Christians outside our borders are asking what is wrong with the faith in North America. I address the same topic in Denver next week at Denver Seminary. Looking at the economic plight we are in (and that is but one problem we have, just one Amaricans are natrually drawn to), rarely have I been so concerned about where our country is, spiritually, socially, and politcally. Our problem is deeper than Dialing for Dollars. I ask this because last week I attended a three day pre-meeting for the Lausanne Movement’s Capetown 2010. I was there with 150 pastors from across the country, many of whose names you would recognize instantly. Also present were a few key Christian leaders from around the world. All the major speakers during the day meetings came from the majority world (This means the Christian communities outside of the USA). Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe were represented and these dear brothers rightly and lovingly challenged us about how many Christians there are here and how little impact we have for the gospel. They raised the question that perhaps we as an evangelical sub-community need to reexamine what we have been doing (too inward, too combative, too divided, too much like the culture, too distracted or self focused to serve our neighbors- which is it or is it all of the above?)

It is a good question to raise.

A part of me, the part that said the Evangelical Manifesto was and is a good thing, says evangelicals, both on the left and right, have gotten off track. Politics has become more important than the gospel or core morality-integrity. Evangelicalism has become to identified with a few specific issues, our own nation, and reaction to a political party [pro or con] whose grade, if we were grading its management effectiveness, would be pretty low. We have tried to meet power with power. Usually when the church and power are played together, power corrupts the church (Just read a history book on this or listen to majority world believers talk to us about our values when it comes to money, consumerism and lifestyle and its impact on them).

Another part of me resonates deeply with the claim that we have gone too far off track as a culture (what the Majority world folk also say to us, as well as folks in our own country rightfully concerned about morality, family values, and life issues). For this moral reason alone, it is no wonder we are struggling.

However, what we have devolved into in the church is trying to choose which evangelical faction is right on these matters, with the automatic assumption the other faction is not only wrong but very wrong. My own take is that both sides are right in what they are affirming, and unless there is more working together across the evangelical spectrum for our culture’s needs (along with working with others who are like minded on such questions), the slide will continue. What the last few weeks have shown is how pervasive the problems in our culture are at every level. Answers will require more than one issue be tackled.The problems are too large and deep for any one group and any one special cause.

In the end, however, all of these fixes do not work at the root problem, the human heart and a need to have a vibrant relationship with God. Those who are in the church especially need to reflect a sense of accountability to Him and His standards, regardless of the political ideological consequences (especially when each choice we have today is a moral mixed bag, biblically speaking). It is not about being conservative or liberal, but seeking to live in the way that honors God, who is above any political affiliation. This is another reason to keep our eye on God and the gospel. In the end, even as we seek to faithfully and graciously engage the culture and even if a bailout comes over time, we know that human institutions are not the ultimate answer; a spiritual renewal of hearts, minds, souls and spirits is.

So as I wait and I pray. I wait on God to direct on how best to reflect Him in a world that obviously stands quite in need of another kind of loan. What am I called to do? I trust that perhaps He may direct another brother or sister to dive in serving in another area that is not my direct calling. Maybe the church does best when it does not seek power (to the left or right) or only zeroes in on specific causes, but seeks to serve concretely across the wide spectrum of needs our culture has, even if it suffers as it does so. The earliest church seems to have got that lesson right, even though it had no votes in the Roman Empire. Maybe the church does best when it trusts that God knows what He is doing, and we do best when we follow Him, each in our own area of presence and involvement.

Best of all, I do not have to wait on or hope for Congress to cast a vote in order to wade in. So I wait and I serve faithfully and graciously in my area of calling. My hope and prayer is that a right kind of service contributes something to help, while knowing that one kind of service cannot solve everything. So I appreciate that others are free and are also called to wade in elsewhere by His leading. Seeing those choices as His, I may not need to take sides. Perhaps I need to join in at His side as He leads, not so I (or we) can regain control. Perhaps He can lead us to serve, to love, and to encourage all who are called to serve Him, whereever that might be. Maybe impact comes through a more uniting effective presence, faithfully representing Him in the place He has called us to serve and affirming others who do likewise.