THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

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May 3, 2003

Want to refine some thinking this time. Several weeks ago, I wrote that the church had to embrace the war with Iraq. A few days after the fall of Baghdad, an article appeared clearly showing how the church had missed that particular boat. I am not terribly surprised the church missed this boat, but I do mourn the fact.

The important question is why did the church blow this. I think a related question is why is the church succeeding so strongly in the third world, and not in ours. The answer is, I believe relatively simple – purity of mission.

In the third world the church has only one goal – "to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified." In our society, the church has all sorts of hats to wear. Preeminently, in our society, the church has to fill the role of moral authority. I am currently reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin and never has this fact been more plain to me.

Consider for a minute the corruption of "the Church" throughout the Old Testament. Here church and government were inseparable. There is nothing like the truth in a cliché, in this case, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." America has attempted to free the church from the corruption that results from being a political power, by the separation clause.

Now here, is where the real rub arrives. In recent years, the roles between governmental authority and moral authority have blurred significantly. I think it began when the government became the primary provider of "compassion," instead of the church. Once this line was blurred, the church was reduced from a role of moral authority to a leading group, among many groups advocating some moral stance for the governmental authority.

The fault for this loss of moral authority lies squarely on the church’s shoulders. The church failed to respond adequately when it’s mission of compassion was most necessary and there was little choice but for the government to step. The church fails now by working as an advocate for a moral position rather than reclaiming the authority already granted it.

So how does the church reclaim its authority? If people would quit reading scripture on a verse by verse basis and read the thing as a book, the answer to this question is so obvious. The entire scope of the history of God and His people is one where God continually reasserts that fact that He and He alone is the authority. He did it time and again in the Old Testament and then when they still didn’t get the message, He put on a people suit and came down here and told us directly.

In other words, the best way for the church to reclaim its role of moral authority in our society is to rediscover the purity of mission that it has in the third world. We must learn "to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Just do it.

 

With Love,