Fraternizing with the Enemy | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

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Christianity Today, May, 2011

Who's Next

Fraternizing with the Enemy

Paul Louis Metzger engages those outside the faith.

Cornelia Seigneur | posted 5/13/2011 10:07AM

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Paul Louis Metzger knows what it means to feel shunned. Sometimes mocked for his faith in his youth, he now says, "I have often felt like an outsider. And I've seen my wife, a native of Japan, treated as an outsider."

Breaking down walls is at the heart of Metzger's work as professor of theology and culture at Multnomah Biblical Seminary—and especially as founder and director of the seminary's Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins. He wants to see "authentic expressions of holistic faith lived out" in a diverse culture, and pursues that by engaging various faith groups and secular organizations in conversation. Metzger, author of several books, including Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church, is also passionate about racial reconciliation.

Evangelical civil-rights leader John M. Perkins says that in a divided society, "God is creating a post-racist people who are loving God first and sharing his love, and Paul is one of them."

Question & Answer

What is New Wine, New Wineskins?

We host conferences and forums that include leaders from various sides of today's issues. Topics have included the culture wars, same-sex marriage, racism, and HIV/AIDS. We want to bring the community to our campus, and we want to go out to the community. Friday Night Franks, which my interns lead, is one example, where New Wine faithful gather on 82nd Avenue to share a meal and conversation with diverse people near the bus stop and train. There are drug dealers and prostitutes on 82nd Avenue. One man told one of our interns, "When you're out here, we feel safer."

How are you breaking down barriers?

We're finding common ground where there hasn't been common ground before, dialoguing with those whom we historically have considered our enemies, and I'm sharing my faith. We've brought Unitarian Universalists, Buddhists, and gays onto campus to share our respective views.

Such activities probably aren't popular with everyone.

I've been called a heretic by the Right for befriending gays, Unitarian Universalists, and Buddhists, and a religious bigot by the Left for holding firmly to biblical truth.

Do you want to change the church?

No, I want God to change the church and me. So often, church and theology are shaped by gaining and maintaining power, which is what the "take back America" thinking is often about. We have a lot of things to repent of. In American Christianity, power brokering often replaces brokenness. If we are going to break through divisions, we need to listen to people on the other side first. Why should they listen to us if we don't listen to them?

More: ConsumingJesus.org, New-Wineskins.org

Hometown: Portland, Oregon

Age: 46

Family: Mariko (wife); Christopher, 15, Julianne, 9 (children)

Church: Imago Dei Community

Reading now: Les Misérables

Your hero: John M. Perkins

Favorite movie: As Good as It Gets; To End All Wars

Favorite Bible verse: verse Romans 8:37-39

Hobbies: Reading, listening to the blues, traveling

Related Elsewhere:

Previous "Who's Next" sections featured Amena Brown, David Cunningham, Timothy Dalrymple, John Sowers, Alissa Wilkinson, Jamie Tworkowski, Bryan Jennings, L. L. Barkat, Robert Gelinas, Nicole Baker Fulgham, Gideon Strauss, W. David O. Taylor, Crystal Renaud, Eve Nunez, Adam Taylor, Matthew Lee Anderson, Margaret Feinberg, and Jonathan Merritt.

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May 2011, Vol. 55, No. 5, Page 96

Comments (12)

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Displaying 1–5 of 12 comments

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Richard Edwards

May 24, 2011 4:13pm

As I read the article (and others with the same message), I "feel my heart strangely warmed" (apologies to John Wesley!). Where is Jesus? On 82nd Avenue. Grace, such grace!

Ephraiyim ben Yisrael

May 20, 2011 1:55am

I understood exactly what the title meant. Whether stated or not the reality in most churches is that we do not associate with certain types which means, like it or not, we are treating them as enemies. How many would go out with work associates to a bar. You don't have to drink ya know. Just be a friend. "Oh what would my church think if someone saw me there?" Why do you care? Who is your Master? He hung out in bars. What makes you any different. Remember the wine he made. Each Jar held 50 gallons. Those folk were already drunk. He gave them even more. Buy a friend a drink in the bar. By a homeless person a good meal or better yet give em a few bucks. Next time your church has a clothing drive or a food pantry collection go out and buy better than what you would buy for yourself. Buy new clothes to give to the mission buy T-Bones to donate. Do something that shows the radical love your saviour has for all men no matter what their current station in life. Don't be hypocrites!

k tra

May 17, 2011 6:38pm

And the pharisees said look at him he eats with harlots and tax collectors!!! Wow! It really hurts when the true followers do as Jesus did. The truth will set you free.., "as world hates me so they will hate you. Don't think I've come to bring peace, no I come to bring fire, and i wish it were kindled already, from now on there will be division, father against son, mother against daughter, in-law against in-law." Boy I guess Metzger is doing the right thing. We should all be this way.

Patrick Gann

May 16, 2011 10:13am

Agreed with all who question the article's title. But take note of Metzger's statement within the article: "We're finding common ground where there hasn't been common ground before, dialoguing with those whom we historically have considered our enemies, and I'm sharing my faith." In the 'culture wars,' conservative evangelical protestants have set up these other groups as the de facto 'enemy,' and Metzger is pushing past that paradigm. Beatrice, clearly Metzger isn't the one who gave this article the title. To the commenters who said the article title should have the word Enemy in quotes... yeah, that's probably the best fix I can think of. Please try to be a little more responsible and a little less provocative, CT! :)

oun Kwon

May 14, 2011 11:00pm

To Beatrice. The phrase 'with the enemies' is a tricky one. Like the Pauline phrase 'while we were God's enemies'. It is not that God has us as His enemies. No, it's opposite. We had God as our enemy, by having turned away from Him. The 6 billion people are not 'our enemies'. They have us as their enemies, or at least that's the way they project the image of us, rhetorically speaking.

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