One of the most disheartening things,
when you listen to non-believers talk about why they are not followers of
Jesus, is to hear things like, “My boss is a Christian and he’s the meanest
person I know,” or “Our neighbors are Christians but they are just as screwed
up as we are, why would I want to join them?”
One thing that’s clear when we look at
the early church is the fact that they were living radically different lives
from the Jews and pagans around them. It was the curiosity such living provoked
that drew the majority of early converts towards the “Jesus way of life”.
Early Christians did not pass out
printed tracts about salvation, they did not market their religion, and
everyone knew that to join them meant becoming an outcast within the culture,
possibly even arrested and put to death because of aligning oneself with
Christ.
Yet the early church grew by leaps and
bounds.Hundreds of thousands of people gave up their lives to follow this
Jesus, in spite of the lack of evangelistic crusades and the threat of
persecution. Why is that? Many scholars are convinced that the lifestyle of
those first and second century disciples was, in itself, the main reason. Some
even suggest that their
lives of service to the poor and their
inclusive nature was as important as the miracles performed in their midst by
the Apostles, perhaps even more important. Historian Henry Chadwick, for
example, attributes the practical application of Christian charity as the “most
potent single cause of Christian success in the ancient world” and German
theologian George Krestschmar has said that it was not so much the miraculous
signs and wonders that followed the early church but the unbelievable conduct
of the Christians that had such an impact on the world of its day. He calls
this, “the propaganda of the deed” where the generosity of the early church
spoke louder than the word of doctrine or the healing of the infirmed. It was
the overwhelmingly generous lifestyle of those early believers that transformed
the world and overcame the threat of horrific persecution. Their lives
demonstrated that Christ was more than powerful enough to change their hearts
and the evidence of this power was their ongoing care for others.
The sad truth is that, in our day,
especially here in America, the line separating the pagan and the
selfproclaimed Christian is difficult to see. You don’t have to read too many
Barna or
Gallup polls to see that attending
church services and proclaiming oneself to be “Born Again” doesn’t
automatically make any noticeable difference in the sort of life you may live
on a daily basis. Many experts on Church Growth and Evangelism see a direct
correlation between the lower ethical standards of those who claim to be
Christian and the kind of evangelism we’ve been practicing for the last
century. “They’ve simply believed the story we told them,” says Todd Hunter,
President of ALPHA Ministries USA. “We’ve made the story of the Gospel
reductive in the absurd,” he says.
“It’s like that old bumper sticker that says, ‘Christians aren’t perfect, just
forgiven’. Is that all we are? Just Forgiven? What about living a life of
radical transformation where we are learning to live our lives like Jesus?”
Granted, the sound-byte culture we
live in has encouraged the Church to present a watered-down version of the
Gospel to the world around us. Most have heard our story over and over again
and have decided that it doesn’t work. The real question is what sort of
Christianity are we calling people to? Are we really calling people to
surrender their lives to Christ? Do we even really know what we mean when we
say this?
Sadly, most of us do not think of
conversion as a surrendered life to Jesus as our Lord and our Savior. Most of
us think of salvation as the answer to the question, “If you died tonight do
you know you’d be in heaven tomorrow?” and perhaps the better question we
should ask is, “If you knew you’d be alive tomorrow (and most of us will be),
then whom would you follow
and how would you live your life?”
Christianity is a way of life. Jesus
calls us to die to ourselves in order to walk in this path. Maybe we’re asking
the wrong questions? If so, we’re offering the wrong answers too. This would
explain why the majority of people,
both inside and outside the Church, misunderstand what it means to be a
follower of Jesus. Nothing illustrates this better than a comment made by the
son of former President Ronald Reagan after the death of his famous father. In
a New York Times exclusive interview, Ronald Reagan Jr. was asked about his
outspokenly Christian father and his own opinion of Christianity in general. Here’s
what he said:
Q: Now that the country is awash in
Reagan nostalgia, some observers are predicting that you will enter politics.
Would you like to be president of the United States?
RRJ: I would be unelectable. I’m an
atheist. As we all know, that is something people won’t accept.
Q: Do you ever go to church?
RRJ: No. I visit my wife’s sangha.
Q: So you sometimes practice Buddhism?
RRJ: I don’t claim anything. But my
sympathies would be in that direction. I admire the fact that the central core
of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion. ... One thing that Buddhism
teaches you is that every moment is an opportunity to change. The sad truth is
that, in the private life of his Christian father, Ron Jr. saw nothing about Christianity
that felt real to him, or relevant. Furthermore, he didn’t think of
Christianity as a religion that promoted compassion or loving kindness.
While we might blame the first part on
Ron Junior’s parents, we have to take the blame for the second part ourselves.
It would have been virtually impossible for an unbeliever living in those first
three hundred years of Church History to ever reject Christianity on the
grounds that it lacked compassionate people or failed to teach loving kindness.
In fact, we have testimony from many of the most hostile pagans who lived
during the first three hundred years of Christianity who were put to shame
because of the overwhelming generosity of the Church.
Julian, the Apostate wrote of this
frustrating situation when he said, “the godless Galileans feed not only their
poor, but ours also.”
Christian philosopher Aristides (125
AD) wrote about the radical charity of the early Church also, recording the
fact that, “…if there is among them a man that is poor and needy and they have
not an abundance of necessities, they fast for three days that they may supply
the needy with their necessary food.”
Radical compassion indeed. Where have
we gone wrong? Perhaps we’ve forgotten that our first and greatest command was
to love?
One quote which has always haunted me
comes from a great man of peace named Mohatmas Gandhi who said this about Jesus
Christ; “(He was) a man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a
sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom
of the world. It was a perfect act.”
As encouraging as those words may be
however, Gandhi had little good to say about those who call themselves the
followers of Jesus. “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your
Christians are so unlike your Christ.
If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found
in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.”
Have we missed our opportunity to
change a nation for Christ because of our inability to live out the Gospel on a
daily basis? Can we afford to miss another opportunity like this?
Ministries, uses a great illustration
of our modern evangelistic efforts when he describes the Church as a great castle
that, out of guilt, lowers the drawbridge annually to embark on an evangelistic
crusade. Traveling in large groups, (for safety), we pass out tracts, launch
“Bible Bombs” at people, play Christian music or perform pre-recorded puppet
shows
for those poor, lost people. Somehow,
by sheer luck, we manage to convince one or two of them to pray a prayer and
join us inside the castle where we raise the drawbridge and begin to teach them
our quirky “Christianese” so that, a year later when we launch out again, they
can’t talk to non-Christians either. It may be funny, in some ways, but it’s
the sad truth. We have to change the way we think of non- Christians and we
have to start changing our approach now.
First, I believe we need to lose the
“drawbridge” mentality. The Church in current times desperately needs to stop
treating non-believers as if they have social leprosy. We need to lower our
defenses and learn to express the love
of Jesus in practical ways to those in need. Secondly, we need to expand our concept
of evangelism to include an intentional discipleship to
this person known as Jesus. As long as
discipleship is optional, all our efforts at evangelism will lack the necessary
proof that the kind of life Jesus offers is worth a dime.
Finally, we have to take the calling
to love others personally. It’s not “The Church” that needs to have a
reformation of the heart, it’s you and I- because you and I are the Church. We
are the Body of Christ.If we want to change the way “The Church” behaves, we
can only effect change in our own hearts and minds.
