Reconciliation -- a mandate, not an option

I had the honor of delivering my testimony at church two weeks ago; I had asked to do it in recognition of the birthday celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which officially was the next day, because he initially sparked my interest in the Scriptures. King, of course, was despised in his day in some circles and ignored by most evangelicals for not being sufficiently pious and focusing on "soul-winning."

When I first "encountered" him in the fifth grade, however, I realized that he was onto something. Really, really big that most people that most "religious" people, especially in that day, were missing. And what was that?

The very heart of the gospel -- reconciliation.

Now, most of us evangelicals have believed and taught that the primary focus of the Christian life should be studying the Scriptures and living one's earthly existence as "godly" as possible and, at its end, being accepted into heaven. The trouble is that, in such an atmosphere, faith becomes privatized and cultural and doesn't really cause that much change in the culture.

On the other hand, if you see the Gospel as being about reconciliation, it clearly has all kinds of ramifications for not only the individual Christian but also the church in general and the surrounding culture.

You see, if you focus on reconciliation, you're assuming a breach to be mended, starting with fellowship between man and God broken by man's sin, his inability to do anything about that and being in danger of perdition without a remedy. And this is where we get the first part correct, because Jesus did give His life on the cross so that we could come to God and establish that fellowship that He intended.

But there's more.

You see, that propensity toward sin also leads to a disconnect with other people, whether in or outside the church. Whether a church or denominational split, an over-reliance or lack of focus on theology, a disdain for others for being "less than" or an emphasis on such things of the world as money or political power, there's no shortage of ways in which even God's people can suffer from broken fellowship with each other. One thing of which the church should always be ashamed is that the civil-rights movement, which came out of Southern African-American churches, pitted one set of Christians against another set of Christians, which sabotaged our collective witness. (It's especially galling in light of Jesus' two great commandments, my paraphrase: Worship God with everything you have and do right by others.)

Thing is, God has called us believers in Jesus to belong to one family, one church, one nation under His rule, and that means that we will need to put our differences, pride and anger aside to focus on that spiritual goal. Fortunately, He will help us do that if we allow ourselves to be transformed.

The early church had no choice in that matter because it was a culturally and ethnically diverse underground movement with few friends that was targeted for extinction by the political and religious authorities of that day. Put another way, following Jesus quite literally cost some folks everything, including their lives; thus, they learned to suffer together and became "one in heart and mind." And while it did have to deal with some factionalism in its ranks, still its membership clung to Jesus -- and to each other.

Things, of course, are different today; Americans live in a nation built in part on freedom of worship. But since the church has become part of the "establishment" it has fallen prey to the same fault lines as the rest of the world -- race, economics, social class, ethnicity. That's why we need to focus upon reconciliation -- if all we understand is the way our little clique does things we miss the lessons that other groups, churches, theologies, denominations can teach us about Who God is and His eternal purpose.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela brought out this point in a 1995 speech he made honoring the late Bram Fischer, an anti-apartheid activist of Afrikaner stock who originally believed that black and white should live separately, albeit as "equals." In rebuttal, a veteran member of the African National Congress, Mandela's party, told Fischer, "If you place the races of one country in two camps and cut off contact between them, those in each camp will begin to forget that those in the other are ordinary human beings, that each lives and laughs the same way, that each expresses joy or sorrow, pride or humiliation for the same reasons. Thereby each becomes suspicious of the other and each eventually fears the other, which is the basis of all racism."

We're at that point now. It's time that we allow God to come in and heal the breach, so in His Name, let's reconcile.

Evangelical, Reformed ... and progressive?

When in 1998, after over 20 years away, I temporarily returned to my childhood church where I first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, one of the now-deceased elders immediately extended the "right hand of fellowship." "We know what you believe," he said.

I wish I had thought to say then, "You taught me well."

Indeed, I'm certainly grateful for that background. Even though my current church doesn't subscribe to Reformed theology and I have no plans to leave, I've always considered myself such. The sovereignty of God, irresistible grace and other core doctrines of what is commonly called "Calvinism" just make the most sense to me even after studying other schools of thought.

That said, I have never subscribed to the conservative ideology that often is considered part and parcel of the Reformed faith. Even when I read the Scriptures as a child I could see justifications for a more progressive interpretation of social and political issues, but I never brought them up because the atmosphere I grew up in the 1970s wasn't conducive to such partisanship.

Anyway, we need to remember that all theology is ultimately man-made. If that sounds like an insult, consider that fallible man, despite the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, still doesn't -- indeed, cannot have that much of a handle on Who God is. As I said earlier, I personally believe Reformed theology to be the best, most comprehensive explanation of Scripture; however, it does come with some historical baggage often ignored by its apologists.

We Protestants recognize the Reformation as a watershed moment in recapturing the original witness of the early church. The trouble was that it has as much to do with power politics as anything else, especially since the Roman Catholic Church in those days was itself in practice also a political entity; thus, that's where the battle was often fought. Even nations that had become Protestant maintained official churches. (This was even the case in what is now the United States; all but one state of the original 13 had a government-recognized sect, and "freedom of worship" as we understand it was a novel concept.)

French theologian John Calvin was the first to introduce "separation of church and state," which meant that the church should operate completely free of political constraints. However, Calvin also introduced the concept of "theonomy," which means that a nation should be governed by Old Testament law and believed -- wrongly, in my estimation -- that the state had the mandate to enforce it. Moreover, the Calvinist mentality of that day meant a destruction of the nobility which, as you could imagine, wouldn't go over too well in the Europe of that day; as a result, Calvinists ended up being run out of most countries.

That's where I part company with my theological heritage. The early church was an insurgent movement that didn't have and never sought political authority; rather, it focused on not simply teaching but also living the Kingdom of God in a culture that was clearly hostile. That made it more able to challenge the status quo, whether passively or actively. When faith becomes part of the "establishment," which conservatism seeks by definition, it almost always becomes watered down to become acceptable to its surroundings but in the process sacrificing the power to change lives. It's no accident, then that the European church is all but dead and the American church is by contrast more vibrant but still struggling; meanwhile, the Holy Spirit seems to have caught fire in much of the Third World where Christianity doesn't have that much hold on institutions there. (I mean, when you have political and economic power, what good is the power of the Spirit?)

So what does this have to do with a "progressive" ideology? Well, consider the immortal words of our LORD, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." That is, if he is suffering from some wrong it should be challenged -- even in the political realm if necessary. And that is where the controversy begins.

My deepest shame as a Reformed Christian surrounded the fight over apartheid in South Africa, which was implemented in 1948, codifying into law what had been custom for centuries -- and the folks who did this were, for the most part, Reformed (in fact, it seemed that the more theologically conservative they were the more committed to the system). The primary justification for that stance had to do with a fear of Communism, which I understand; however, I posit that it was a fear of change were apartheid abolished, which of course it was in the early 1990s. I don't think it was a coincidence that, in the book "Nelson Mandela: In His Own Words," a collection of his speeches, the former political prisoner and first post-apartheid president, who I understand grew up Methodist, gave props to every religious group except the Reformed.

As much as I appreciate theology, I realize that it just can't stay there; at the judgment Jesus is going to ask us not how much we know but what we did with the truth He gave us -- and especially how we used it to make this world resemble His Kingdom. The Christian Gospel, after all, isn't about the "afterlife" so much but what God wants to do here to bring a sense of "shalom" before He returns. In other words, theology is something to be lived, not just studied.

The Gospel according to 'Invictus'

Yesterday I saw the Clint Eastwood-produced and -directed film "Invictus," which takes its title from the poem that protagonist Nelson Mandela quoted in part.

The immediate (and true) story was Mandela's use of the national rugby team, which was playing in the sport's 1995 World Cup, to create a sense of national unity in South Africa, where he had become president the year before and where the tournament was being held. (Mandela, who retired in 1999 and now is a part of "The Elders" diplomatic group, was awarded an ESPY late last year.)

Anyway, unifying the country over a rugby team was no small matter. The "Springboks" in particular were seen as a remnant of apartheid, which had officially collapsed in 1994; indeed, many blacks disdained the sport in general for that reason.

Mandela, to his everlasting credit, saw the need to move away from such polarization after being inaugurated. His first move was to tell government workers, most of them white, that they would be welcome to stay in his administration, and he also hired white security detail -- because they had the experience. (That irritated some of his black aides.) Later he reached out to the captain of the Springboks, who eventually conducted a clinic in a black township. In time his efforts to get the country behind the rugby team succeeded, and it actually won the championship in a major upset. (And remember, this was a true story.)

However, let's not forget that Mandela spent 27 years in prison, ostensibly on legitimate terrorism charges but basically for opposing apartheid, and that experience shaped his philosophy. He mentioned that all of his jailers were Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch, German and French Huguenot settlers that came to that part of the world in the 17th Century and were directly responsible for the race-based system of oppression he was fighting; as he got to know them, however, he realized that they had their own history, language and culture that he learned to respect. Any bitterness that he had harbored toward them had apparently subsided by the time he was released.

And that was the primary point of both the poem -- which he said gave him the strength to maintain his dignity -- and the movie.

No one will deny that apartheid was brutal and unjust; that said, at some point attitudes would have had to change lest the blacks who were now in power become just like the whites they resented for their own misrule.

Isn't that what God calls us Christians to do? Because, after all, "All have sinned and fallen short of [His] glory." And the truth be told, had God not forgiven us He would have every right to wipe us out for failing to meet His standards. But He did through Jesus Christ; therefore, we Christians need to repent of any bitterness that we may harbor toward fellow believers who may have legitimately harmed us.

As Mandela said, "Reconciliation [and] forgiveness [start] here."