Here’s a one-sentence overview of several streams of thought and practice that have given shape to the landscape in which we’re called to live on mission:
We live in a world influenced by (1) the Enlightenment Story that shrinks God and the transcendent to something personal and private; (2) a world where the Romantic Story of expressive individualism is just common sense; and (3) a world where the Consumer Story gives birth to practices and choices that reinforce a flattened, disenchanted view of life, turn the gospel into a commodity, and relegate the church to little more than an association based primarily on preference.
There’s a lot more that could be said about those three stories and how they shape our common life together. But I believe they represent the three most dominant cultural narratives in the West today. It’s important to identify them so we can reduce the likelihood of the church being seduced by the world and so we can better understand the outlook of our friends and neighbors who need the gospel.
Standing Out
Whenever we talk about cultural narratives and stories that grip the imagination of people in our time, it’s easy to wonder if we can get to a clear picture of faithfulness. Is it possible we’re just too infected with these worldly ways of seeing the world? Can we expect to stand out in a culture when we can’t escape cultural influences? Who are we really? What time is it? How does our when affect our who?
At times, the task of standing out seems too enormous. There’s always a temptation to try to retreat from the modern world. But this would be a kind of unfaithfulness on par with syncretism and compromise.
What we need is radical holiness. We’re to remain in the world, just as Jesus prayed—not that we’d be removed from the world but that we’d be faithful here. We’re to be a prophetic witness that resists some of the worldly currents that would sweep us away. We don’t do this out of resentment. We don’t do this out of selfishness. We do it out of love. We believe God wants to work through us to bring salvation to the world, and the best way we can stand out in the world is by conforming ourselves to Jesus Christ and inviting others to join us in following his way.
Purify Your Hearts
Once we’ve looked up to God and his Word, and once we’ve looked around at the world where we’re called to serve, we’re well equipped to look inside ourselves, to root out areas of compromise and rediscover a renewed sense of spiritual purpose.
In his sermons, Augustine urged his congregation this way: “Purify your habits again and again, with the help of God, to whom you make your confession.” In Augustine and the Cure of Souls by Paul Kolbet, we see a picture of Augustine as a pastor, a man who advised his people to engage in spiritual exercises every day, starting with seeing God’s Word as “our daily food on this earth” and always within the context of a community that gathered to worship the one true God. Augustine would speak in terms of “training ourselves” for faithfulness:
Brothers and sisters, what calls for all our efforts in this life is the healing of the eyes of our hearts, with which God is to be seen. It is for this that the holy mysteries are celebrated, for this that the word of God is preached, to this that the Church’s moral exhortations are directed, those, that is, that are concerned with the correction of our carnal desires, the improvement of our habits, the renunciation of the world, not only in words but in a change of life. Whatever points God’s holy scriptures make, this is their ultimate point, to help us purge that inner faculty of ours from that thing that prevents us from beholding God.
“Remind yourselves what you are,” Augustine would tell his listeners.
Four Apologetic Questions from Augustine
Josh Chatraw and Mark Allen have laid out four apologetic questions that arise from Augustine’s approach:
1. What are you ultimately seeking?
2. Who do you trust to deliver it?
3. How’s that going for you?
4. How will it make you whole?
Here’s another way of putting it, based on how Augustine often spoke in terms of medicine and cure for the soul:
1. What will make you whole?
2. What physician are you trusting?
3. What are the current results?
4. What’s the long-term prognosis?
This is just a start, not only for looking into our own hearts but for knowing how to engage others with the gospel.
Christ Over Time
As we fulfill the call to be transformed, not conformed to this world that’s passing away, we must learn to discern our times properly in order to have a missionary encounter that shines light on the gospel that proclaims Jesus Christ as the hope of the world. This missionary encounter is the proclamation of hope—true hope in a world of myths.
Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” We could add to that famous phrase: “There is not a split second in the whole history of our cosmos over which Christ, who is sovereign over time, does not cry, Mine!” Christ—sovereign over every acre, sovereign over every hour—redeems the time and confronts any cultural story that would displace his cross and resurrection from the center of history.
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