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How Christianity Transforms People and Society: The Highest Priority for Engaging Our Culture
Many believers are disturbed by the decline in their country (e.g. America, England, Germany) of an interest in Christianity or even in living healthy constructive lives. People seem to less able to form healthy relationships and don’t seem to seriously seek a transcendent life. This situation is not too different from what the Christians faced in the first three centuries of the Church.
The early Christians did not take an adversarial approach to their society. Sometimes Christian writers would point out the sinfulness of their culture but they did not focus on this. Instead, they focused on living the Christian life. In other words, they had a different spiritual theology concerning social engagement. Perhaps one could refer to their approach as “magnetic engagement”: the Church focused on drawing people by living attractive lives.
A few believers were evangelists, but the rest did their “evangelism” by being Christlike members of a community.
The lack of solid spiritual theology has prevented the modern church from transforming people and society as it did in the first few centuries of its existence. Doctrine by itself did not open the Roman Empire up to the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus. It was practice not doctrine that opened people’s hearts to the gospel. The preaching of the gospel itself has power to convert but how far would that go unless the Roman world could see Sermon on the Mount lifestyles? The early church conquered the Roman Empire by living out its calling and vocation as a kingdom community and loving all people especially its enemies. There are many stories of pagans affected by the unusual love of Christians, sometimes even while they were being martyred.
The Church’s doctrine was not the primary channel of growth. The idea that a Jew (!) from Galilee (!) was God in the flesh (!) and did great miracles like raising the dead (!) and then was executed by the Roman governor as a criminal (very shameful!) and then rose bodily from the dead (!) is somehow the savior of all humankind would have sounded ludicrous to the great majority of the population of the Roman Empire.
It would be impossible for such a story to be embraced on a large scale unless the followers had unusual character as well as signs and wonders. How many Romans would have followed a religion that doesn’t allow indulging the senses just for the benefit of occasional signs and wonders when the basic story is so absurd? In addition they have to reject emperor worship, risk persecution and live on the margins of society. It must be that the lives of the believers were the lights of the world.
Gary Thomas, in his book Holy Available (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2009) states: ”…what really drew people to the Christian faith in the first century was the way of life modeled by its adherents—the reality of the presence of God in Christian lives.” (p. 29). He goes on to quote Church historian Dr. Aaron Milavec (former Professor of Church History and Historical Theology with the Lay Pastoral Program at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West in Cincinnati.):
“In truth, potential members assessed the movement not so much on the basis of claims made on behalf of Jesus who was absent, but on the basis of their experience of the way of life of members who were very much present to them. (p.29)”
The lesson for us today is to engage people primarily by showing them and inviting them into a healthy loving community of people growing in Christlikeness. This seems to be the foundation for biblical engagement. If we aren’t doing this then does it make sense to engage in other missional activities?
This blog is based on the chapter in the book Flourish titled: “Reuniting Spiritual Theology with Doctrinal Theology, or Why Church Can Be Boring or Hurtful”. The book Fourish : A Guide to Your Growth in God’s Community can be found on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Flourish-Growth-Community-Living-Gospel/dp/0986382302 .
