Guest Blogger: Matt Bell
“Was the shift to Christian emperors the best thing or the worst thing that happened to Christianity? Was it God’s voice or the Devil’s? This shift in the fourth century illuminates a strange tension evident throughout church history; Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.” J4P pg 165
I’m sitting at a Panera-like high wooden table right now at a church in the middle of a field in Ada, Michigan. This is a place where I’ve worked for the last two and half years and so I am fairly ingrained with some of our common language. A phrase that keeps coming to mind this morning is one that our teaching pastor Jeff uses often: “You don’t follow Jesus to get where you’re going…you follow Jesus to get where he’s going.” But what if it wasn’t your decision to follow Jesus in the first place? What if by royal decree or threat of the sword you were forced to follow…forced to believe something you weren’t sold on? Is that even possible – to believe by force?
This is the tension that is spelled out well by Shane and Chris. Did Christianity suffer when it found itself as the mainstream? Did the church lose something when she found that people were not drawn to her beauty, but led by sword point? I would certainly say this would make Letterman’s Top Ten “Ways to Kill A Movement.” Now we sit in a nation where “everyone” is a Christian but finding genuine disciples of Jesus are often hard to come by. I must now quote Dallas Willard, because Shane did:
“Does Jesus only enable me to “make the cut” when I die? Or to know what to protest, or how to vote or agitate and organize? It is good to know that when I die all will be well, but is there any good news for life?”
To give your life to following Jesus. To unreasonably love the people around you. To look for the divine mark on all of humanity. To consume less. To give more. These are marks of a disciple, and no matter the level of force or pressure, no person can become a disciple without choosing it for themselves. Did Christianity suffer when it found itself as the mainstream? I think it still does. I think the church still weeps to be seen for her beauty. Creation still groans to see true sons and daughters of God. Jesus’ voice is still heard saying “Follow Me”- with the second word in that statement as crucial as the first.
Matt Bell is an artist on many levels… his family is a true picture of love, his work as a pastor is sculpted with care and his music is birthed from some of his life experiences that he courageously shares with us. You can listen to Matt’s music here and here.
Filed under: Jesus, Jesus For President, Shane Claiborne, books, church, empire
From an 8th Century law passed by the emperor Charlemagne:
“If any one of the race of the Saxons hereafter concealed among them shall have wished to hide himself unbaptized, and shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a pagan, let him be punished by death.”
I also think he had hundreds of his soldiers forcibly baptized. So yeah. Belief by force. It’s been tried.
There are a few things that I can’t comprehend, one of these things is people who do not want to help other people…not that they are afraid to help (for whatever reason…I understand this since I am afraid of some things too) but literally ‘don’t care’ to help.
I can’t make someone care…but maybe I can ’sell it’? So then I make ‘caring’ a marketing strategy which cheapens caring (but then I say ‘well at least people are being more ‘caring’) are they? Really? Or are they just seeing the benefits to themselves that caring affords that I have convinced them of in my marketing?
I wonder if Church/God/spirituality has been marketed to death?
Faith ,
Yes
A church I know of spent around $20,000 to hire a marketing firm to brand the church (Logo w/ hokie tagline, t-shirts, bumper stickers).
Brent
I don’t get this…I don’t!
If something is worth having/doing, should not the facts speak for themselves? I know that this makes me seem far more naive that I should be at my age, but I don’t get it!!
(Off topic but related): I’m an environmentalist, though I really know very little about science. The religious right is constantly telling me that the reason they think global warming is ‘bunk’ is because they think science is ‘bunk’ …”those scientists don’t know what they are talking about” etc. I say “fine…I’ll go with that” (who knows, maybe they don’t know, who am I do say that they do?)…then I tell them to walk out side and I ask them what they see in the sky and what they smell in the air…what is floating in our river. Answer: smog, fumes, garbage, scum. Do I need science to tell me to look after the environment? NO! I just need my senses. It’s logical, and right in front of my face, daily.
If loving our neighbour improves the world, and in turn our own lives, why not do it?
I want to get sick when I think about how the local poor in the city of that church could have benefited from $20,000 spent on ‘Jesus Junk’, nothing that I know about Jesus tells me that he would approve.
^
ps – I can be a ‘ranter’ when I get going, but I’m really gentler than I may appear in that comment!