Transformational Relationships?

 

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Our culture is facing some serious issues right now. Critical Race Theory and gender fluidity are two of the most pervasive issues, but far from the only complex challenges capturing headlines and dividing families. Dissonant voices offer competing opinions on causes and solutions, leading to confusion, especially for people in the church. How do we engage? Can the church find a path forward? Is it too late?

Of one thing I am sure; we’re not going to accomplish anything by arguing. Getting louder won’t improve our effectiveness. Modern psychology confirms what Augustine concluded more than a millennium ago; hearts drive behavior rather than heads. Our best path forward is to engage people at a heart level, with humility and grace.

The question is, how do you do that, especially in our current disconnected culture? If this was an easy question to answer, we would be in a much different place, in American society and the church. Even so, I am captivated by the impact of believers in the early centuries of the church.

Believers in the early days of the church lived in a culture not unlike our own. They dealt with opposition. They chose to live in ways that were very different, bringing scorn, leading to persecution. Ironically enough, one of the complaints against them was that they cared for people, even those for whom they had no obligation. Their actions spoke louder than their words (though they were far from silent), leading to transformations within society that we still appreciate today. In fact, many values that we now consider “universal” can be traced back to the influence of men and women of God living out their faith in the midst of brokenness.

It wasn’t just the early believers who loved their neighbors well. Men and women through the centuries have lived redemptively, looking out “not only for their interests but also for the interests of others” (Phil 2:4) and demonstrating the unique agape love Paul described in 1 Cor 13. Multiple books have been written on the topic. One of my favorites is Dominion by Tom Holland, significant because Holland does not identify as a Christian. In Glen Scrivener’s exceptional new book The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality, he says, “[l]ike air, Christianity is so pervasive that we cannot help depending on it, even as we protest against it” (p. 14). Robert Woodberry has done incredible work measuring the tangible impact of Protestant conversionary missionaries, going so far as to say that they are responsible for the world we live in today.

Despite how Christianity has influenced Western culture, the legacy is waning, past contributions forgotten. Our values and priorities have been usurped, copied, and imitated so that rather than leading the cultural conversation, we’re defensive, struggling to meaningfully engage. It seems like we’ve been frustrated and confused by how the tables have been turned. I know I have been! It also seems like our efforts are more by fear than by faith, as we clamor for what used to be.  

Rather than being driven by frustration or fear, we need to remember that Satan is a liar and all he can offer are counterfeits and imitations. True biblical compassion looks different than what we accept as compassion today. Biblical justice looks different than what we consider “justice” today. Even advocacy is a mere shadow of what true biblical advocacy has historically been.

Galatians 5:19-21 highlights the works of the flesh, which include jealousy, quarreling, fighting, dissension, division, and envy. A few verses earlier, Paul admonishes the Galatians that “if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another” (Gal 5:15, NLT). If that doesn’t describe our current cultural moment, I’m not sure what does?!

Rather than copying the world’s response to increasing incivility, Christians can take a page from an earlier playbook, choosing to engage in increasingly countercultural and attractive (though perhaps confusing) ways. Heather Holleman’s book The Six Conversations: Pathways to Connecting in an Age of Isolation offers some powerful insights. Holleman offers a whole new framework for engaging to be discovered and developed. The potential of the ”Four Mindsets,” “Three Fresh Goals,” and “Six Conversations” is tremendous. It could even be revolutionary...

When I first began the MAGDJ program, Bryant Myers’ more holistic definition of poverty caught my attention. He defines poverty as “the absence of shalom in all of its meaning” characterized by broken and unjust relationships (Walking with the Poor, p. 146). Then, I learned about Tim Keller’s perspective on justice, as primarily about restoring right relationships (from Generous Justice, p. 10-12); dots connected, but it wasn’t until I read Michael Reeves’ book Delighting in the Trinity, where he describes the Trinity as a relationship, that my mind was truly blown. Everything comes down to relationship!

The gift we have, amidst our cultural crisis, is to invest in relationships even with people who hold completely different views than we do. By implementing Holleman’s ”Four Mindsets,” “Three Fresh Goals,” and “Six Conversations,” we can build relationships, and as we do so, we can love like Jesus loved, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Part of loving like Jesus loved, I believe, is to recognize and affirm the dignity and value inherent in each and every person simply by nature of their identity as image bearers.

Though I don’t know for sure, I wonder if, by affirming the value of people from different lifestyles or political persuasions, we won’t have people responding like the woman at the well did, running back to share with everyone about her life-transforming conversation with the Messiah. Or, more importantly, responding like the people of Sychar, and being willing to listen to the words of a completely transformed social outcast? I’d like to think so!