“Us” And “Them” Within The Church
Politics, like war, has developed its own arsenal, and within the boundaries of politics or war, commonly used weapons appear acceptable. We grow accustomed to the idea of guns in war and invectives in politics until such things appear to be part of the scene. To many, invective is part of the spice of a good, rousing political campaign (and who wants an insipid campaign?). We do not assert that this needs to be true, only that it is true.
Tragedy comes when the church, in seeking a model for strategy and conduct, finds its guidelines in politics or war. Too often we find ourselves in the crossfire between factions within the church, and sometimes within our evangelical corner of the church. In seeking a solution for our differences, we resort to “shooting it out.” Or to avoid the model of war because it is too distasteful, we might simply say that we “hurl invectives” at one another.
Confrontation within the church is not new, of course. The Reformation would not have occurred had there been no confrontation with the established Catholic church. More recently, evangelicals and fundamentalists have been in a theological struggle with liberalism for several generations. Not one of us who claims to be a thoroughgoing evangelical would give up the fruits of that struggle. These have been confrontations with clearly marked “we-they” opponents. But these struggles have also taught us some painful lessons about the ugliness of confrontation when the love of Christ is missing from its center.
Struggle between “our” camp and “their” camp has a familiar ring. But recently we have turned a strange corner where “we” are confronting “us” instead of “them.” The guns and invectives are turned inward.
Jack Van Impe’s “tell all” piece, Heart Disease in Christ’s Body, documents the thunderbolts hurled by fundamentalists against other fundamentalists. The Pope is chastising his own Latin American priests for theological faults, and evangelicals have joined in the fight against other evangelicals.
As if there is not enough going on among the elected or appointed religious leaders, self-appointed leaders like Franky Schaeffer have jumped in with guns blazing. In his Bad News for Modern Man he questions Ron Sider’s sanity, calls Senate chaplain Richard Halverson “spineless,” and describes evangelicals generally as “a lot of jellyfish,” floating “with the tide.” Throughout, it is unclear whether Franky is speaking of evangelicals as “we” or “they.”
Somehow we can more easily forgive the “troops” for this awkward behavior than we can the leaders (or self-appointed leaders) of the church. At the higher level, we expect more from our leaders, for they are the models for the troops.
Inevitability Of Modeling
This matter of modeling is at the heart of the problem, for we will be like someone—father, mother, aunt, uncle, teacher, pastor, leader—someone. And others will be like us. It becomes discouraging, then, to see the church reach into politics, or warfare, for its model of confrontation. We in the church should set a Christlike model for conduct and confrontation. The church should set the model for the world, not the world for the church.
Inherent in the political model, and its too-frequent invectives against the other candidate, is the “I-will-make-myself-look-big-by-making-you-look-small” strategy. The not-so-subtle suggestion is, “You must elect me, not because I have greater strengths than my opponent, but because my opponent has greater weaknesses than I.”
With this as a model, Christian leaders make other Christians look bad in order to make themselves look good. This conduct does not square well with Philippians 2, or the advice of Jesus that if we would be chief we must first become servant.
Let the church be the church! Let the church seek its ultimate model in the person of Jesus Christ, and in others who have also sought him as their model. Let the church be the body of Christ united in love, and even confronting one another in love. Let us look for guidelines, principles, ideas, plans, and programs in such fields as politics, education, government, law, or business. But let us not seek, in any of these, our ultimate model in conducting ourselves with one another or with the world about us. The church is unique, and must remain unique, if it is to win the world for Christ without intimidating our brothers and sisters to “do it our way or feel guilty about it.” Ours is not the gospel of intimidation, but the gospel of Christ.
The model of Christ and his church as we present it to the world must reflect Christ’s gospel alive in the church. We must demonstrate a love, as Becky Pippert writes in Out of the Salt Shaker, that, in its outward expression of compassion, identifies with the world. And beyond that, we must show a love that is radically different in the integrity of its expression. It is the distinctive nature of Christian love that the world cannot ignore. Conduct yourselves, wrote the apostle Paul, “in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ; so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Phil. 1:27, NASB).
Striving Together
A political commentator once noted, “The delight of political life is altogether in opposition.” This should not be a commentary on the body of Christ. Misguided, ugly rhetoric simply identifies Christians with the world on the terms set forth in the world’s own gospel, belittling and dividing Christ’s church.
So much demands our attention and leadership. Christians today have a special opportunity to be the salt and light Christ told us to be. Evangelicals have a remarkable chance to set the theological pace for the church. But a divisive spirit, drawn from a mudslinging political model, will distract us from the work we must do.
Invective must never replace disagreement-in-love. When we must confront one another (and occasionally we must), let it be with love, to build our brother or sister at our expense, and never to build self or selfish purposes at the expense of the other person. Let confrontation aim at unifying the body, and in drawing the world to Christ.
In John 17, Christ prayed for unity among believers in order that the world might know that (1) God had sent Christ, (2) that Christ was, therefore, who he said he was, and (3) that God is love, as evidenced in the lives of believers (vv. 20–23).
Lamenting the vitriolic language used during her husband’s presidential campaign against Thomas Jefferson in 1800, Abigail Adams said that enough “abuse and scandal” had been unleashed “to ruin and corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world.”
This is the risk the church runs if it models its conduct after a political campaign instead of after our Lord Jesus Christ.
V. GILBERT BEERS AND HAROLD SMITH
