When the Church Loses Its Mind
Photo by Radek Kilijanek on Unsplash
I would not be the first person to point out that, as the influence of Christianity has diminished in the West, people have not necessarily become less religious. Rather, other religions have taken its place. In the United States, what has filled the void left by Christianity is, by and large, ideological radicalism, which expresses itself through political advocacy. The church should be a leaven in the culture, a bulwark against attributing eternal significance to temporal things. Instead of our enlightening an increasingly secular culture, however, the culture has benighted us. The influence has moved in the wrong direction. We have allowed the ephemeral to stand in for the eternal. We have allowed political pundits to convince us to throw our gold into the fire as they point at the idols that emerge and exclaim, “Here are your gods!” And we believe them.
The Mind of Christ
The church, or at least large parts of it, has lost its mind. More specifically, we have lost the mind of Christ.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul must reckon with a tradition of highly skilled orators who exemplify the cultural values of their Greco-Roman context. These are educated, generally wealthy males. They demonstrate a cultivated facility in public speaking that translates readily into public honor. Perhaps some of them were even Christian preachers. The problem is, Paul says, this type of speech empties the cross of its power. It appeals to human values, not to God’s. That is, in fact, why those who could demonstrate rhetorical mastery were so popularly appealing. The world rewards its own. Paul, however, offers a contrasting ethos: “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:1-3). Yes, the rhetorical masters are impressive, but they represent the wisdom of this age. The wisdom of God is the wisdom of the cross. Indeed, Paul says, “We have the mind of Christ” (v. 16).
It is a remarkable claim, and this is not the only place he makes it. He exhorts the Philippian Christians to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). What does that look like? The hymn from which he quotes in vv. 6-11 spells it out. Christ emptied himself. He humbled himself, taking the form of a slave, being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. His exaltation results from his humility and obedience. The point of Paul’s instruction was to encourage the Christians in Philippi to follow the example of Christ, to humble themselves, even to regard others as better than themselves.
We have the mind of Christ. Is Paul’s claim descriptive or aspirational? Perhaps it is better to understand it as a potentiality that we sometimes realize but often do not. It’s as if Paul is saying, “We can do better than this. God will form our thinking as a community in ways that are consistent with the mind of Christ, but only if we are willing to give up the value system that we have soaked in from the sinful world around us.”
In Paul’s day, the barriers to the mind of Christ related primarily to honor. Honor and shame were ancient Mediterranean values closely tied to public perception. To have honor was to be acknowledged by others as embodying common cultural values and practices. To depart from these meant shame. The orators in Corinth were honorable according to common standards. Paul, however, reminds the Corinthians that God’s values and human values are not the same. Their concern with honor is obstructing their Christian witness, and it is forming them morally in ways that are inconsistent with the message of the cross. Absent a willingness to surrender these values and allow God to change them, they cannot receive the mind of Christ.
In the postmodern West of the early twenty-first century, it is not honor that entices us to abandon the mind of Christ. Increasingly it is politics. In recent months I have watched many Christians witness boldly, loudly, and with deep conviction. The problem is, they were not witnessing to Christ, but to a political candidate or platform. Undoubtedly politics is important. It has real-world consequences. And yet if we would witness to Christ with the same boldness, moral clarity, and passion that we have to our political favorites, how different the church would be….
One might object that by witnessing for a particular candidate, one is in fact witnessing on behalf of Christ. This candidate clearly represents the values of Christ, while the other clearly does not. But things aren’t that simple.
A Complex Moral Calculus
I recently finished the very insightful book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind. They argue that many people today have adopted certain “Great Untruths” that skew their perception of the world. One of these untruths is, “Life is a battle between good people and evil people.” As Christians, we believe that the world does indeed involve a battle of good vs. evil, but as spiritual realities. People are a mixed bag, laboring under the influence of sin, and striving toward the good by virtue of God’s grace, which we receive in varying degrees and in various ways. Some people have indeed given themselves over entirely to evil. Most people have not. Humans are sinful, but we are more than that. We are recipients of grace. We are fallible bearers of the divine image.
Christians (and most other people, for that matter) tend to deploy a kind of ethical calculus when thinking about political issues. The matters we have to consider are complex, and simple solutions are elusive. For many Christian voters, abortion is an issue on a par with slavery in its moral significance. It will weigh heavily in their decision-making process. Even though they may not like everything about a pro-life candidate, his or her defense of the unborn may override these other concerns. For other Christians, the central issue in determining their vote may be racial justice. They want a more comprehensive policy to address police brutality, particularly toward African-Americans. They want immigration reform. They believe that racist attitudes and practices are embedded in many of our institutions. Even if candidates don’t represent all of their values, the value of racial justice is so important to them that it will supersede many other issues in importance.
Both of these concerns--the opposition to abortion and the desire for racial justice--arise out of a deeply Christian impulse: a desire to protect life, and particularly vulnerable populations. We may disagree with the way in which some voters assess and weigh the various concerns before them, but we should at least acknowledge that these are legitimate concerns for Christians to hold. We should also acknowledge that there are myriad Christians who care about both protecting the unborn and matters of racial justice. If we have internalized a Christian anthropology, both matters will be important for us, and so will many others. The world of Twitter and Facebook--which are the primary media through which most people express their political views today--does not easily accommodate nuance.
Christians should vote in ways that best approximate our values. For some people, this may mean voting for third-party candidates. Evangelical writer and professor Karen Swallow Prior has on more than one occasion given voice to a Christian rationale for third-party voting. Others feel they must support a candidate of one of the two major parties; the stakes are simply too high to do otherwise. Yet in virtually every case, we cast our vote with the awareness that our doing so ties us to practices and people, the values of which cannot be reconciled with life in Christ. Bishop Willimon’s recent blog post mocking Christians who voted for Trump (under the guise of calling them to repentance) misses this point. We are resident aliens, as he so ably articulated over two decades ago. We necessarily participate in fallen political systems, and our involvement in them--any of them--compels our repentance. If we do not acknowledge this, if we lose that prophetic sense that causes us to acknowledge the wrong not just in others, but ourselves, we submit our intellect and wills to a moral arbiter other than the God who came to us in Jesus Christ. We thus become idolaters.
The Lordship of Christ
Politicians cannot save us. They are simply people we have selected in the hopes that they will accomplish certain political ends. The systems in which they operate are typically human--an admixture of good and evil, sometimes facilitating human flourishing, and at other times inhibiting it. I have deep disagreement with the theological framework of Walter Wink’s famous Powers trilogy, but I agree with him entirely on this point: institutions have a spirituality of their own, and they can tend toward good or evil. We see a biblical example of this in the two beasts of Revelation 13, which are often interpreted as representative of Rome and the imperial cult. This interpretation, however, is rather flat-footed. The two beasts receive their power from the dragon, who is Satan. They are mythic, poetic representations of the spiritual power and evil that is manifest in the Roman Empire and the “gods” whom its citizens were expected to revere. Yes, there was a Pax Romana, ostensibly a time of peace. It was, however, a peace wrought through fear and death, and thus only a poor imitation of the peace that God will restore in the age to come. John is pointing us to the spiritual realities of Rome and the imperial cult, and he is warning those with eyes to see.
The lordship of Christ does not depend upon his agreement with a political agenda. If it did, he would not be Lord. We can accept Christ or reject him. There are no other options. If we accept him, we allow him to shape us to his will, regardless of how counterintuitive, and even painful, that may be. Yet we may indeed reject him, even as we give nominal assent to his name and his church. Too often we take this second option. It is, after all, just so easy. Wouldn’t it be great if Christ agreed with everything we do? Wouldn't it be comforting if Christ simply spoke to us in smooth words? We claim to follow Christ as we twist his teachings and misappropriate his authority in the vain attempt to make him follow us.
Christians: you don’t fit. You can’t fit, at least not entirely, in the moral world of a single political party, or, for that matter, any institution outside of the church. The ends of our political parties are not to advance God’s kingdom, but to achieve particular ideological and economic goals. Because you don’t fit, the world will not love you. And if you proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ in its fullness, you will be hated. So be it. Kierkegaard wrote, “Woe to him… who preaches Christianity without the possibility of offense. Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commendingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity!” Woe indeed to those who reject the mind of Christ.
If your candidate won, rejoice. If your candidate lost, lament. Elections have consequences. But if you have given your mind over to one person, one party, one platform, then it is time not to rejoice or lament, but to repent. God graciously offers us the mind of Christ, but just as those in first-century Corinth, we must decide whether or not we are willing to receive it.
David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.