One lady pictured with me is my wife. The other four ladies are my daughters. You can figure it out. We are one family, but we are not the entire family. We are individuals, and we are one family. We think and believe differently; so we subject our words and actions to what it takes to remain one family.
Whether, or not, you celebrate it, the Boston Red Socks won the top place in major league baseball. We can notice individual players and staff and give credit or blame to what someone did as an individual. Or, we can rightly refer to the winners as one entity, a team of players and staff organized as a unit. We can say they are “one.”
This year, I didn’t care which team won. I didn’t really care if the individuals played as “one.” However, that really, really mattered to those involved in the story.
Many people identify as Christian, a label given in the first century AD to those who organized their faith and life after the divine person called Jesus Christ.
This blog, and several to follow, are especially written with such people in view. You may, or may not, identify with the ideas and concepts I will write about; but I ask that you think carefully about the main ideas.
The title of this series, “As We Are One” is taken from the famous prayer that Jesus Christ prayed (see John 17) when he referred to his followers pleading, “Father, may they be one, even as we are one.”
There isn’t another idea regarding the Church that is more consistently emphasized in the New Testament than the repeated instructions that Christ-followers are to get their act together. Together. Check it out; count the references if you don’t believe me.
So this next series of blogs may not be quite as fun as my previous posts. It gets a little more uncomfortable, I’m afraid. Even for me.
I’m tackling it because I see these things as core issues in a time when it’s easy to respond to human concerns in ways that create barriers and distance between equally-devoted Christ-followers. I repeat, equally-devoted. Maybe it seems impossible to turn the tide, but there really is hope.
If you still find this interesting, check out Part 1.
Part 1: The Cause
The Cause that you organize your life around is what produces passion in you. For many in our world, it’s as simple as surviving another day. For those of us who barely give survival a thought, the personal version of The Cause takes many shapes. Often, these personal versions are inspired by urgent, felt needs.
Writers of the New Testament, Paul in particular, often spoke of “The Cross.” Paul used this phrase to describe the essence of his preaching, and of the worldview that separated this new Christian movement from every other religious system.
In Paul’s time, “The Cross” was a type of code. It was a verbal symbol that referred to an entire message. When it was unpacked, this message included the understanding that Jesus Christ was eternally one with God; he was the Creator; the one who willingly gave his life, on the cross, for the world; the one who returned to life; the one who defeated the power of death, injustice, and sin; and by that Cross sets all free to potentially experience the living hope that all things will be restored to beauty, justice, and righteousness—forever.
For the first Church, “The Cross” became The Cause. This Cause, as it is unpacked, became the organizing idea for all Christians. It was the passion that motivated action. It was the basis for justice. It was the very thing that organized unity, and defined belonging. It contained every hope for the future, for a new Kingdom where all will be set right. It was completely worth dying for. Literally.
What has happened to The Cause in 2018, in North America?
A popular, modern version of The Cross is comparatively boring. It doesn’t provide us a compelling Cause when we reduce the message to: “You’re a sinner, going to hell. Pray this prayer. Now you’re all set.” In less than ten minutes, we’ve mostly covered that version of The Cross.
So, in order to bring some hope into an unjust and cruel world, we have adopted other more-exciting causes. The Cause, known to the first Church as The Cross, is no longer a unifying and compelling passion for many North American Christians. A passion for The Cause known as The Cross has been replaced, apparently, with a set of causes that seem more urgent, practical and productive. These are more worthy of life-investments.
These have also become toxically divisive. We’re no longer known for a unified passion for The Cause. We are identified more commonly by our passion for adopted causes, or our hostility toward other causes.
How do I know this?
It’s from what influential Christian spokespersons say. It’s from what we individuals say.
In just the past week, I have seen at least two memes posted on social media that illustrate what may have become a common “Christian Cause.” The Cross is now draped with a national symbol—one national symbol—that sets the Cross in the background.
How do we unpack that message of The Cross? Are observers to think that these two causes are now one and the same, and allegiance to one requires allegiance to the other?
Other memes insist that certain cause-oriented groups are evil. Just evil. If we jump off from there, we can easily combine a polarizing cause with The Cross. That’s powerful. Now we have a moral cause that makes “evil” people destroyable. Wait, that’s happened a few times before in world history, hasn’t it?
What if we would still consider The Cause, defined by The Cross, as an overarching and definitive category of unity and belonging and action?
What if we who wear the Christ-label determined that any other cause, though worthy, is not even remotely capable of destroying the unity by which we pledge allegiance to The Cause?
We Christ-followers will not progress toward the passionate plea of Jesus by organizing our passions around any cause other than The Cause, The Cross. Not by renewing our environment, not by ridding the world of conservatives or liberals, not by raising the moral standards of our culture, not by ensuring freedoms—or even by a simplistic way of escaping hell.
You see, when we who call ourselves Christ-ians are playing separate games, it’s like a baseball team battling a hockey team and asking for prime-time network coverage. No one will pay attention—except to grow more cynical about it all.
Of course, we must have concerns that motivate our communities to humanitarian action, environmental action, social action, and many other critical responses to the urgent needs in our world.
The Big However: The evidence that Christ-followers are actually organized by The Cause is that our practical actions (causes) are designed to be unifying—with the good of others as the goal—under one defining Cause.
“As we are one….” It sounds good; but is it remotely possible?
And what do we do with our passion for causes? Is there any hope that others will appreciate my passion, my cause, and see it my way?
That’s where we go in the next blog post. See you then.