The Restless Church in a Divided World
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to miss the poignancy of this moment. The world is on fire, and the Spirit is stirring the Church.
How should the Christian respond to protest and social unrest of the type we’ve seen unfolding in our world, and that is likely only to increase in the coming days and weeks and months? How are we responding as a church community?
The Christian is certainly justified in participating in protest. It is an opportunity and a mode of bearing witness to the brokenness of the world, and groaning for the healing God promises is soon to come; joining in deepest sympathy with the mysterious, providential movements through which the Spirit has shaped our unfolding history in new and unexpected directions.
Indeed, the Christian IS a protester by virtue of his profession of the Christian faith, by his allegiance to Jesus as Lord. But he protests, not as the world protests: not in the common meaning of the term as rage against, but in the original and etymological sense of putting forth. His protest is a positive one: he puts forth Jesus, and the vision of his Kingdom of righteousness, justice and peace. And though this at times leads to his martyrdom, the martyrdom is not the point: the peace and hope and love he advocates is.
At Reconciliation Anglican Church, we have sensed the leading of the Spirit to emphasize Jesus’s call to peace, justice, and reconciliation.
We have allowed this moment to become baked into our DNA: to give us shape and direction, that we may not have otherwise chosen for ourselves.
That said, we recognize also that the Christian is justified in standing back from such protests and critiquing them, recognizing it is only in God’s accomplished Kingdom that we will find our ultimate satisfaction and peace. And there will always be room for critique: every human movement is born from finite and sinful human hearts, so even the best and broadest movement will have its blindspots and outsides.
But most important is this:
Regardless of where we stand or whether we stand on this issue or on that issue; this cause or that cause, with this party or that party, the Gospel creates space for us to grow in engaging one another with gentleness and grace across those differences. This is the secret of the Kingdom. It works because there are no real heroes, and there is only one savior, who is God made flesh. We are all helplessly and hopelessly broken, each in our own different way, each of us trying our best to get our poop in a pile, while struggling with and within the spiritual dominions of our age. And God comes to us in the midst of our mess. He lifts our dirty faces to see him and see one another anew, as we are cleansed and recreated in his body and blood.
We can’t do reconciliation by ourselves. It is a collaborative process that necessarily involves those with whom we disagree — indeed, those with whom we have irreconcilable differences.
We have been reconciled to God through Christ, and through Christ, been made ambassadors of that reconciliation. We, now, must live into that among ourselves, within our differences and disagreements. This is the task before us in our age, and this is the task that we are committed to creatively pursuing as a community, as Reconciliation Anglican Church. Lord, have mercy!
