How does the church change society?
by Robert Krumrey
“Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” This Martin Luther King Jr. quote has been repeated time and time again and is absolutely true. Though the diversity of churches in the US is better than it has been in the past it is still true that most churches are made up of one race. This is why I mentioned in Part 1 of this series of articles and in last Sunday’s (6/7/20) sermon (watch / listen) that we at MERCYhouse have an incredible opportunity to lean in to further become a congregation that continues to look more and more like heaven (Revelation 7:9-12) - a people who have been saved by Jesus who are from every race/culture from around the globe. This will require us to be absolutely grounded in gospel truth, believing that all of us are Saints and Siblings, who are called to consistently live out a life of sacrificial Service toward one another. This takes a tremendous amount of work even to merely get to know each other well much less learn about how to carve out a life-giving community for everyone in our church family.
While this kind of talk will get an attaboy from most of our congregation, the next part is a bit more complicated. What cost needs to be paid by Christians, specifically Christians at MH, to cure racism in our society? Even in the secular world we see the unity around what we should do to solve the problem of racism breaking down. One of the big news stories today is the call by seven out of nine Minneapolis council members to defund their police department. This, at least the way it sounds, is quite controversial and now people who were once shouting in unison at yesterday’s protest are today disagreeing about the actual steps that can and should be taken to ensure justice for all people in our society. We know how this works itself out in the world (advocacy, debates, voting, legislation . . . ), but how does this work itself out in the church? We can all agree that when there are racist attitudes (explicit and implicit) and racist practices in our society that we should stand against them and do our best to guarantee that those who are vulnerable to racial injustice are protected. But what does the church actually “do” to change society?
How Does the Church Change Society?
We, the church, bring about change in society by first commending the gospel to all people so that they can be saved from sin and transformed into disciples who follow Jesus. This following of Jesus includes a call to obey Scriptural truth that pertains to life in the church and in the world. We seek to bind the consciences of our members to clear scriptural mandates and then exhort those members to follow their own consciences or convictions in areas where there are no clear mandates about the particulars.
This is not easy and I don’t want to make it out to be. Churches in the civil rights era tried to use freedom of conscience arguments and appeals to unity as a way to turn a blind eye to segregation in society and in the church. We rightly condemn those actions which were displayed on a wide scale in our very own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. That said, we do have to engage in honest discussion of the particulars while not binding people to things that are not clearly commanded in Scripture.
We as a church have not tried to bind people’s conscience to specific political action unless those issues are expressly regulated in scripture. Jonathan Leeman in his book How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Politics in a Divided Age, uses the language of “straight line” issues versus “crooked line” issues to help clarify this. In a lecture I attended last Spring, Leeman used the examples of universal health care and abortion to illustrate these two concepts. It is good and right to do everything possible to make sure that Americans have health care and can live in a country that wisely facilitates this area of life so our citizens can thrive. That said, it is not possible to draw a straight line from the Bible to the policy of universal health care. We might think it is the best of all possible options. We might think that it is the wisest way to accomplish these stated goals, but we can’t pull out a Bible verse or two and insist that this policy decision is straight from God. This is what Leeman calls a crooked line issue. There is a line that can be drawn from the Bible to the issue, meaning there are biblical principles that inform a stance on health care, but there is no way to come up with a slam dunk verse from the Bible to show a straight line to one’s stance on health care.
The issue of abortion is different. If we believe that unborn babies are human, which the Bible seems to indicate (see Psalm 139 for starters), then the aborting of a baby is murder. The Bible is clear that murder is wrong which makes this a straight line issue. Because of this, we as a church, can bind people’s consciences to a particular stance on this issue. This also means that if we are going to advocate for the ending of abortion in our country that we need to be ready to deal with all the mommies and babies that will need our assistance in the aftermath. This too would be something that Scripture would speak to, that of taking care of the vulnerable in society (see James 1:27) though this could be carried out in many different ways according to one’s convictions.
So what about the issue of racism? How do the Saints/Siblings/Servants of the church participate in accomplishing societal change in this area? It depends. In straight line issues where there is a clear injustice, either occasional or systemic, we should stand together in condemning it. In crooked line issues regarding how to right the wrongs that have occurred throughout our history, we need to speak honestly to one another about our ideas but allow for freedom of conscience in one’s opinions on these matters. Things in this category are who to vote for, what government programs to support or not support, whether or not to defund the police, to name a few. The gospel gives us a foundation to lovingly interact around these issues just like any others. We keep the good news of what Jesus has done for us central and work out the implications of that good news as it relates to racial justice in 2020. There are several issues that have to be sorted out like this. Not only is there racism but homelessness, sex slavery, the opioid epidemic, harmful attitudes toward women, and the list doesn’t stop there!
What this means is that the individual members of the congregation must root themselves in the gospel and then go and live out the implications of that same gospel in the world as they are called to do so. Some will protest and post. Others will give money to assist organizations who bring about economic change. Still others will volunteer to tutor kids in failing schools. As a church, we will seek to preach the gospel and bind people’s consciences to Scripture and then leave freedom for application of those truths just like we would with other less controversial topics like prayer and Bible reading. This part of discipleship is definitely not just an individual experience. As we live our callings out in the world and live in community with each other, we influence one another with our words and actions. Things that we weren’t that passionate about 5 years ago become something that we sacrifice for today because of the influence of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Again, this is not easy, but this is something that we hope creates an environment at MH where Christians from diverse backgrounds can gather under the banner of Jesus Christ. As we’ve lived in community under that banner, we regularly influence each other in how we think about all kinds of things. I myself have certainly been influenced by particular views held by our congregation members about racial justice and a whole host of other topics as well. It’s also caused me to sink my roots down even deeper in the gospel because I know it is the only thing that can hold us together as family as we work all of this out.
So what has God called you pay to cure racism? My hope is that you wouldn’t use this blog post to take the pressure off but instead to put the pressure on. It’s too easy to signal your support through a few social media posts and go on with business as usual. Continue to further educate yourself by making yourself more aware of what is going on in our society and what God’s word has to say about the topic. Then ask God (and your fellow church members) how to be a part of the change that is needed.