"Amazing grace," the classic hymn goes, but author Philip Yancey hears that sweet sound fading in a cacophony of grace-less and harsh Christian voices. Is the church in today's culture losing the very quality that defines us as followers of Jesus? It's a question explored in Yancey's latest book, Vanishing Grace: What Ever Happened to the Good News? (Zondervan, 2014).
Leadership Journal associate editor Paul J. Pastor joins Yancey for a conversation about why grace is vanishing—and what we can do about it.
You see grace in the church vanishing. What's happening?
The Barna Group has documented that ordinary Americans, especially the "nones" who have no religious commitment, view Christians much less favorably than they did even 20 years ago. Books like unChristian spell out why. Outsiders to the faith see Christians as judgmental, self-righteous, right-wing, and anti—anti-gay, anti-science, anti-sex—the usual stereotypes.
I'll leave that field to the pollsters and sociologists. As a Christian, I'm more interested in how we in the church contribute to a crisis of grace. To me, much of the problem stems from the uncomfortable reality that American culture has moved away from having a solid Christian consensus at its core. Certainly a strong majority of people believe in God, and a strong minority attend church on a semi-regular basis, but the culture has grown increasingly secular compared to the recent past.
How do we respond?
Recently I heard the writer Amy Sherman describe three possible approaches: fortification, accommodation, and domination. Fortification: some Christians hunker down in a defensive posture, insulating themselves against the broader culture, creating a bubble around the subculture. Accommodation: some follow the script of the world, watering down the message so that it no longer offends. Domination: some fight to "get our country back!" by electing Christian politicians and working to pass laws that reflect the moral values they cherish.
So how did the early Christians respond? As a tiny minority, they showed a watching world a different way to be human.
Each of these approaches involves pitfalls, as Amy Sherman pointed out. Fortification? Jesus sent out his followers as "sheep among wolves," not as sheep locked safely in the barn. Accommodation? Jesus never watered down the gospel message and its implications for how we should live. Domination? One of the main reasons for a decline of faith in Europe traces back to the days when church and state worked together to dominate culture; though a coercive approach may work for a while, inevitably it produces a backlash.
For a better model I look back to the early Christians, who were seeking to live out their faith in a culture far more hostile and arguably more immoral than our own. We think NFL football is violent; Romans watched gladiatorial murder for sport. Abortion is bad enough; in the cruelest form of birth control, the Romans abandoned their full-term infants to wild animals. Homosexuality? Sophisticated Romans practiced same-sex pederasty with children.
So how did the early Christians respond? As a tiny minority, they showed a watching world a different way to be human. They adopted those abandoned infants and nursed them back to health. Risking their own lives, they stayed behind to nurse plague victims whose families had fled. They lived out a new standard of sexual purity.
As anyone knows who cruises the Internet, watches television, or votes in elections, our culture is becoming increasingly polarized. I look for models of how to bring grace back to a society in dire need of it. American Christians have been spoiled, in a way, with our religious heritage. Historically, we're the outlier. More often the church faces situations like the early Christians faced in Rome—or like the church in China and the Middle East faces today. With our strong infrastructure of missions, education, and service organizations, I hope we in the U.S. church can demonstrate to the rest of the world a new model, of pioneer settlements showing the world a different way to live, a bright contrast to the violent, competitive, self-indulgent culture around us.
Are western cultures losing grace for Christianity, too?
Oh, sure. People who ask that question are usually thinking of hostile reactions: universities barring InterVarsity from campus, the ACLU opposing prayers at sports events, television comics mocking Christians, city councils removing Christmas displays. Popular culture highlights the bad parts of Christian history (the Crusades, the Inquisition) rather than its contributions in areas such as human rights, education, and health care.
As an exercise, I try to put myself in my opponents' shoes and see the world from their perspective. Why should we expect grace from western culture? Politics is an adversary sport, not a grace fest. History focuses on winners, not losers. It's perfectly natural to create a celebrity culture that extravagantly rewards supermodels, superior athletic specimens, and ruthless multimillionaires. The natural world gives few examples of anything resembling grace. It's a dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest world.
The gospel is, frankly, offensive to modern civilization. It asks us to care about the most vulnerable, who drag on the wheels of progress
Outside my home in the Rocky Mountains I observe a clear pattern: big animals eat little animals. That's natural. The underlying narrative of modern culture is, of course, the evolutionary narrative based on competition and selfishness. It takes revelation to come up with something like the Beatitudes, which elevate the poor, the persecuted, the losers.
Nietzsche was one of the first moderns to articulate an ethic based on strength and will, scorning Christianity as a religion for slaves and the weak. In the book I quote the late Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, who said, "The greatest idiot and yahoo can be saved, the doctrine goes, because Christ loves him as much as he loves Albert Einstein. I don't think that is true. I think that civilization—life—has a different place for the intelligent people who try to pull us a little further out of the primal ooze than it has for the boobs who just trot along behind, dragging on the wheels."
The gospel is, frankly, offensive to modern civilization. It asks us to care about the most vulnerable, who drag on the wheels of progress ; to give serial sinners another chance; to love rather than hate our enemies; to devote precious resources to children born with genetic defects and elderly facing the end of life. It asks us to properly order desires rather than exploit them; to stay married in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till death do us part. How well is the broader culture following that script?
Grace is a free gift of God, who causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the evil as well as the righteous, who loves the prodigal every bit as much as the obedient older brother. We shouldn't expect the broader culture to understand grace, much less practice it. It's up to Jesus-followers to demonstrate in flesh the better way of grace, as Jesus himself did, setting loose its power. And we know what happened to him …
In the book, you outline three types of effective "grace-dispensers": pilgrims (ordinary, humble people of faith), activists (change-agents working for the common good), and artists (creatives working to illuminate the world with their faith). How can pastors empower each of those groups?
We can empower pilgrims by resisting the tendency to pontificate and create a class of super-spirituals as the Pharisees did. The evangelical church honors pilgrims fairly well, in my opinion. We encourage small groups, open our facilities to AA and recovery groups, and teach Bible study and conversational prayer—all of which empower ordinary pilgrims. More recently we've come to value spiritual disciplines including the practice of having a spiritual director, which can add a level of guidance to the pilgrim experience.
Of the three types of grace-dispensers, artists may need the most encouragement. Formerly the font of great art, the church, is now seen by many as the censor, the boycotter.
The church has also taken up the activist role. A hundred years ago the fundamentalist movement defined itself against liberalism in part by emphasizing evangelism over social concern. Now churches ecumenically join hands in relief and development work and also in lobbying important issues. We proclaim a "visible apologetic," as John Stott once put it. Here be dragons, though, as the medieval maps used to say: the more Christians take up a political cause, the more tempting it is to operate by adversarial rules, to scream at and denigrate rather than love our enemies.
Of the three types of grace-dispensers, artists may need the most encouragement. Formerly the font of great art, the church, is now seen by many as the censor, the boycotter. For a lot of reasons, we've forfeited leadership in the arts. Yet to the post-Christian, art may be the most effective evangelist of all. It comes alongside, awakening thirst, summoning up unexpected responses. Think of the enduring impact of a work of art like Les Misérables, which centuries after its creation still communicates the message of grace to a thirsty world.
What qualities make up a grace-filled church?
Diversity is one of the best. The church I attended in Chicago sat midway between the city's wealthiest zip code and its poorest. Street people would wander in on a cold Sunday and stretch out on the pews to sleep. An AA group met downstairs. My wife ran a program for senior citizens, most of them African-Americans receiving government assistance, and they came to the church out of loyalty even though I'm sure the worship service was boring compared to what they were accustomed to. Yuppies wanted modern praise music; classicists and seniors wanted hymns they recognized.
It takes no grace to be among people who look like you, think like you, and act like you. The rubber meets the road when you're around people who irritate you, and perhaps morally offend you.
In short, what a great place to exercise grace! It takes no grace to be among people who look like you, think like you, and act like you. The rubber meets the road when you're around people who irritate you, and perhaps morally offend you. I now live in the hills of Colorado where diversity is scarcer. Even here, though, we have diversity of age and education and economic status. One Sunday I sat next to an elderly man whose oxygen tank was puffing softly throughout the service. On the other side, a mother was breastfeeding her newborn, who made sucking sounds much like the oxygen valve. What other group brings together such diversity?
I just returned from Canada, where I spoke at an inner-city church reminiscent of the one I attended in Chicago. As I signed books for that motley group of people, I thought to myself, There's not a single other "club" in this city that would welcome all of these. Not the Rotarians, the Kiwanis, or any private club. Only the church holds out its arms to embrace all who come.
I heard of a church that tries to seat people by affinity groups: a young married section, a senior citizen section, etc. I understand their desire to build community, but it seems to me such a plan risks one of the church's main contributions. It puts us together with people unlike us. And then asks us to go out and serve others who are even more unlike us.
A grace-filled church has more tolerance of deviance. It respects different opinions on the issues. It seems to have more time for the troubled and the hurting. It offers a safe place for those who need more light. It looks for ways to minister to the community and the world.
It seems like it's easy to self-deceive oneself about grace. How can we discover our own blind spots here?
A trusted community of fellow-pilgrims represents the best way to discover blind spots. I think of the accountability groups that John Wesley started in Britain. They met weekly to support one another and, yes, to point out what needed improvement. I don't see much of that happening today. Small groups exist to support and encourage—very important to be sure—but shouldn't greater intimacy open up the potential for greater accountability? Earlier, I mentioned spiritual directors, and they can be a way to help identify blind spots as well.
"For me, the goal is to begin to see others through "grace-healed eyes."
Actually, anyone can discover blind spots by joining a group that challenges grace. I read a book by a Christian [Leadership Journal managing editor Drew Dyck] who started attending an atheist club (in Wheaton, Illinois, of all places). Eventually he told them about his own beliefs, and got a good dose of the ungraceful reputation of Christians they had encountered.
Volunteer for the church nursery, a hospice, or a prison ministry. Spend time in a homeless shelter or immigrant resettlement program. Give time to an alternative pregnancy center, and you'll learn more compassion, more grace, for women who are considering the abortion option. I support a ministry in Chicago that reaches out to male prostitutes, and it completely changed my stereotypes. Few of them are homosexual; rather they are lonely young men, most of who have a history of family abuse, who turn to prostitution out of desperation in order to support addictions or simply to survive.
For me, the goal in each case is to begin to see others through what I call "grace-healed eyes."
How do we balance prophetic cultural engagement with grace-filled neighborliness? (I'm not implying that grace isn't prophetic.)
God's grace takes various forms. I keep writing about it because grace is far more than "niceness." It's a powerful force, the force of forgiveness and reconciliation and transformation.
1 Peter 4:10 says, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." Not everyone will answer that question the same way. I've just finished reading Strange Glory, Charles Marsh's biography of Bonheoffer, which depicts one pastor's changing approach to society as the broader culture changed around him. You could say that Bonheoffer moved from an emphasis on community toward a prophetic cultural engagement as the Nazi threat became more extreme.
Some will use their gifts to struggle with the academic and ethical issues behind laws governing our society. Some will work on the front lines of justice and activism, such as Prison Fellowship International and International Justice Mission. Some may risk their lives, as Martin Luther King Jr. did here in our country and many Christians do today in hostile parts of the world. Even in those circumstances, though, we should use different weapons, the "weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury and courage," as King described them in his Nobel Peace Prize address.
Admittedly, most of us will be challenged by grace on a smaller, community scale. How do we treat the lesbian couple down the street? What do we offer the single mother who is trying to care for an Alzheimer's-afflicted parent? What about her young son, who has no male role model? And what about our own prodigal children, who embarrass and shame us, and keep making self-destructive choices?
God's grace takes various forms. I keep writing about it because grace is far more than "niceness." It's a powerful force, the force of forgiveness and reconciliation and transformation. As a journalist I have seen the power of grace at work all over the world, transforming individuals, communities, and entire societies. When I was working on this book I came across a command in Hebrews 12:15 that became a kind of motto: "See to it that no one misses the grace of God." We in the church won't clean up society, won't vanquish all evil, and won't convert everyone. We can, however, take on the challenge of seeing that no one misses God's grace.
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