Who's getting it?

Upon my returning from my week away, my (snail)-mailbox was full to overflowing. In it was my regular copy of The Mennonite. In it was an article about the "secrets of the Kingdom". Using Mark 4:11, the writer, Bert Newton, looked at how well we know the secrets, and how well we are share those secrets with the rest of the world. He used a striking example of it, which I would like to share with you.

Comedy Central's The Daily Show, one of the most popular shows on television, parodies daily news shows, has its own anchor, Jon Stewart, its reporters out in the field and its commentators. Each week it also has a religion segment called "This Week in God."
Once Steven Colbert, the host of the segment, showed actual news footage of a televangelist expressing his support for the president's war on terrorism. The televangelist said, "We've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. I support the president. We need to chase them all over the world, for 10 years, if it takes that long. We need to blow them up in the name of the Lord." At that point, the camera switched back to Colbert, who said, "And in a related story, Jesus has quit."
As an evangelical Christian, what I found interesting about that segment was the response of the secular studio audience. They laughed and clapped robustly. I thought, We evangelical, Anabaptist Christians struggle with much of the rest of the church over whether Jesus is about peace--we spend time working out a theology of peace--and for this secular studio audience there is no struggle at all. They don't have to work out anything. They just assume Jesus is about peace. They assume Jesus would not agree with the televangelist, would not support the president's war on terrorism or talk about blowing people up in the name of the Lord. They get it.

I have struggled with some similar questions about how much theological weight to give to the questions of unbelievers. The viewpoints of "I have the Holy Spirit, they don't" or "I've studied the Bible and they haven't" have their place, but those places aren't good places to have dialogue. Guys I play baseball with have critiques against the church and some very specific church figure heads. Are their complaints valid because they are based on legitimate feelings and actual events, or are they invalid because those scenarios aren't being viewed through a Biblical filter? What made me take non-Christians' perspectives more seriously was other Christians not taking me seriously enough because I don't support war, I don't like the King James, I am irritated by a lot of 'Christian' media and its subculture, or because I think some 'theological' issues are irrelevant (ie. creation/evolution, free will/predestination). I'm not one to cater to the masses, but if 'they' get it, and 'we' don't, where is the disconnect? Has our legacy of theological study and debate crippled our senses? Are we so good at knowing sound doctrine that we have forgotten how to do sound doctrine?

Looking for gospel truth in popular opinion will not be a very fruitful endeavour. I talk to non-believers who applaud my church's peace position. I talk to others who expect the church support the war because certain government leaders are also Christian. I talk to non-Christians who expect the church, by definition, to show compassion to homosexuals. I talk to people on the fringes of religious circles who expect the church, based on key biblical passages to fully oppose homosexual lifestyle. Which one of them gets it? Which group has hidden truth that I should seek out? It turns out that in their principled opinions, when they expect the church to back them up, the church is as divided as mainstream society.

   [ posted by William @ 1:00 PM ]