Not all cultural desperation is created equal. I hope this personal, pastoral take on our collective richness and poverty hits you in the heart, like it does me. – Paul
You don't have to look far to see a sea change in America. Young Millennials, disillusioned with church, are walking away from it. Meanwhile, secular media spotlights extreme Christians—then attacks the one-sided stereotype they've just created. Angry Christians (sometimes with painfully ironic screen names like "peaceBwithU") type hateful screeds in online comments. "Christianity," coming to be seen as little more than a position against evolution, a position against women's reproductive rights, a position against homosexuality. Church planters, trying to cope with the changes are hatching new strategies to engage the culture—"cafe church," "pub church," "bike church." And many Christians, confused, wonder how to respond to it all.
Poor and lukewarm
In Revelation 3, Jesus asks John to tell the believers at Laodicea that they are lukewarm. Because they're neither hot nor cold, he's about to spew them from his mouth. Our first response at the thought that we may be lukewarm is often to become more outspoken about our faith. We may ask ourselves "When was the last time I posted a controversial Christian standpoint on Facebook, or defended Creationism to my colleagues at work? Am I an activist for Christianity? How well could I defend everything I believe?"
But Jesus' entreaty to the Laodiceans is surprising. After calling them lukewarm, he challenges them: "You say, 'I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.' You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked."
Which reminds me of one man's story, told in a Guardian article last Christmas Eve titled, "The people who challenged my atheism most were drug addicts and prostitutes." Chris Arnade shares how as a younger man he prided himself on his education and ability "to look at any ideology or any thought process and expose the inconsistencies." He saw the Bible as "the skinny 85lb weakling for anyone looking to flex their scientific muscles," and loved to take down the arguments of any Christian he met. Then he moved from his office job to work as an inner city photographer, capturing the lives of homeless drug addicts and prostitutes. What amazed him was how these people—who knew real brokenness—clung to God.
He writes,
"In these last three years, out from behind my computers, I have been reminded that life is not rational and that everyone makes mistakes. Or, in Biblical terms, we are all sinners. . . . On the streets the addicts, with their daily battles and proximity to death, have come to understand this viscerally. Many successful people don't. Their sense of entitlement and emotional distance has numbed their understanding of our fallibility. Soon I saw my atheism for what it is: an intellectual belief most accessible to those who have done well."
It may be easy for us to respond with "Yes, those nasty atheists, always coming at us with their science and argumentative spirit. They should see their need for God." But I have to say that his description of his atheism sounded to me like how Christianity in our insulated culture can be too: an intellectual belief accessible to those who have done well.
If we are honest, how much of our "rich" faith is merely in a set of doctrines? In a well-constructed argument? A "successful" church? A pastor who always has a quick answer? Easy access to food, running water, medicine, technology, safety? How does our security, wealth and intellectual strength make us lukewarm, keep us from seeing our nakedness, our deep reliance on God?
Desperate in the crumble
In the U.S. we're seeing Christian cultural institutions and traditions crumble. In response, Christians are getting desperate. You don't have to look farther than the latest online controversy, where sarcastic Christians rage as they watch the disintegration of systems we have come to rely on. But look a little closer and you'll see that the sarcasm and anger masks desperation and fear. I feel it too. Maybe we're feeling desperate because our hope is in our system: having our opinions voiced in the media, knowing people with our beliefs will fill roles of political power, trusting that store clerks will say "Merry Christmas" to us during the holidays.
But is this where our strength truly lies? Somehow the early church got along just fine without cultural power. And has having that kind of power made us say, "I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing?"
The world does not need more anger, more argument, more human force. The world needs permission to acknowledge its humanity. Human beings, especially wealthy ones, need to know it's not shameful to be broken, desperate, inadequate, to sense a need beyond oneself.
Our call, as Christians, is to learn this ourselves. To remember it's blessed to be poor in spirit, to be mournful, meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaking and persecuted. Our call is to see beyond the gloss and comfort of American life to learn how very wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked we are.
The point is not desperation for its own sake but for the sake of seeking True Power. To that end, perhaps we must be willing to lose our influence, our wealth, our connections, our institutions, our technology and everything else that gives us a sense of control, so that we will have nothing else to say but "I need you, God!"
The sooner Christians can learn this kind of desperation, the more help we'll be to this desperate world.
Mandy Smith serves as lead pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is the author of Making a Mess and Meeting God: Unruly Ideas and Everyday Experiments for Worship.
