Who are we?

As Christians it at times is difficult for one to articulate what it is that makes one a follower of Jesus Christ. How can ones identity be found in Christ, as Paul says 'we are now clothed in Christ', when those who profess no faith appear to be identical in lifestyle and profession to what we have christened 'Christian' in America. How can our identity be found solely in Christ when our day to day interactions, business dealings, appetites and words appear to have nothing in common with Christ? Jesus said that the ways in narrow, that disciples will be known to the world by the fruit that they produce (Mt 7:16-20), love,joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, (Gal 5:22-25) not only for themselves, but for others as well. The protestant church in America by and large has been motivated by seeker sensitivity, a tactic to get more people saved, to tell as many people as possible the Gospel message so that they will have a personal relationship with Jesus. There are many problems with this model, but the primary problem in my opinion is that we have been tempted to do such a large number of programs, services, and actions that we have been forced to do everything poorly. We never get the chance to catch our breath and focus upon what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Rather we busy ourselves with our own views of what God is doing in our churches and lives so that we may become better on a personal level. They have become merely self-awareness and self-help centers where they empower individuals to become even more individualistic, but now they have the right to place the label Christian upon their particular lifestyle, churches have been almost entirely comodified and colonized by our culture. The church, the body of Christ which is to be the presence of Christ in the world just as Jesus was the presence of God has turned from a outwardly focused people of service to an inwardly focused people of privilege. How can we make the difficult transition from the self interested seeker to the other interested disciple? It is no wonder that there is a crisis of faith in America, we have forgotten what it means to be a disciple for we now are encouraged to have a faith in Christ that truly costs us nothing. If the way is narrow, if our example is Jesus, then what are we doing? We pursue careers so that we can be comfortable, we are blissfully ignorant that we can afford to be comfortable at the behest of others. We have created a culture that cannot grieve or that is unwilling to grieve, we pretend that the suffering in the world isn't true and that someone else will take care of it, but we have lost the power and pathos of the early followers of Jesus who knew that Jesus was calling them to be the Answer to some of their own prayers. Example, when we say Lord please be with the homeless tonight, keep them warm, feed them and bless them. Yet at the same time in our very own homes have extra rooms that our warm, our cupboards are filled with our extra food, we possess the very blessings that they need, the very blessings that we are praying for them to have, yet it doesn't occur to our American minds to be the answer to our prayers, that we could answer this prayer if we simply prayed with our feet and our own hands. Jesus described his followers as people who were generous, people who clothed the naked, who befriended the stranger and the foreigner, people who loved their enemies, people who fed the hungry and gave water to the thirsty, people who gave their time, and their money and their resources to make this world a more beautiful place with every simple small action of kindness in the name of Christ. And yet with all the words and deeds of Christ that we recount over and over from the scriptures in our churches daily, we still find our identity primarily in our beliefs about Christ rather than in our imitation of Christ. Christianity has been infected. Much of what we have been told in Sunday schools and youth group services, Church services and pot-lucks, has been infected by the ways of the world and the wrath of empire. Though it may look holy but it must be tested by the spirit, it must be show to produce fruit, if not I saw we need to take a stand, to realize that we have been taught and told in many ways and for many reasons are untrue, not found in the scriptures and far to closely associated with the American dream rather than with Christ our savior. Over and over again in history the dominate culture in the world has infected the church and every time this happens Christians go to the margins of society to re-think what it means to be a disciple of Christ. With the new Monastic movement that is sweeping across America it is obvious that something is terribly wrong with the institutional churches of our day, and we must be ever vigilant so that we too may not be deceived. If we are not the salt of the earth, if we are not the light to the nations, then we are nothing. As when Jesus spoke with the Pharisees the clash came about not because he believed in justification by faith alone while they believed in justification by works alone, but because the kingdom agenda that God had for Israel demanded that Israel leave its frantic and paranoid self defense, that reinforced by the ancestral codes, and embrace instead the vocation to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth. Again, the church must be re-imagined, everything must change not for the sake of being relevant to the world but for the sake of discipleship, for the sake of the Gospel. It is not the reputation of the American Church that is on the line, but the reputation of Jesus Himself. So now what? Where do we go from here? That my friends is what needs to be re-imagined, how can we be faithful Christians, honest theologians and followers of Christ in this dark world? That is for communities of faith to decide with the spirits guiding, but together another world is possible, and we may yet share in the days of peace.

thanks

J