Why We Haven't Changed the World

Diane Singer at The Point, quotes Peter Gillquist, from his book "Why We Haven't Changed the World." (HT - Joe Carter)

"All the evangelism in the world from a church that is not herself holy and righteous will not be worth a hill of beans in world-changing power."

I want to add two things to this.  I haven't read the book so Mr. Gillquist may have touched on these in the book elsewhere.  I would also say that we don't understand grace and we don't practice love.

On the grace thing, it is my experience that most of us still live our Christian lives on a performance basis.  You can find one little vignette on that in the little bit of dialogue I have had with a gentleman named Robert in my post Good Friday Christianity vs. a Christianity that Condemns.  I also think that a quick perusal of the Letters from Leavers blog would reveal a dearth of grace.

Also, Christians just don't love one another.  I have a good friend who pastored a church in my hometown that started great and went down the tubes.  I have caught up with him in recent years and talked with him about what happened.  He says simply "we just stopped loving each other."

John 13:35 says this:

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  

The Holy Bible  : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Jn 13:35

John 17:23 says:

I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.  

The Holy Bible  : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Jn 17:23

In other words, the primary identifying mark of the Christian is not his theology, his convictions, or even his morals - it is his love. And this primary identifying mark is not love for all men in general, it is love for believers in particular.  In other words, if professing Christians don't love one another then the world outside the church has no compelling reason to believe they are truly Christian.

Similarly, John 17:23 makes successful evangelism contingent on the unity of believers.  The proof that Jesus is the one sent from God as the Son of God and savior of sinners is not an apologetic argument- it is the unity of believers.

When I was in high school it was common for people to say "I see Jesus in you," or to exhort others to let people see Jesus in them.  There is some merit to that, we ought to be more Christlike, but I think the passages in John tell us that Jesus is seen primarily in community, not in individuals. 

Thus our witness is primarily contingent on corporate behavior, not individual behavior - and that must be loving behavior.  This also dovetails nicely with Acts 2:42-47 where the Lord was adding daily to the number of believers.  In that situation, the reason that unbelievers were being added to the church daily was that they observed the behavior of believers to one another.  There is nothing in Acts 2:42-47 that is particulary outreach oriented, they were attracted by a certain quality of life they observed within the church (although that statement has to be qualified too - even though Acts 2:42-47 doesn't talk about outreach per se, the believers were practicing their faith out in the public arena where they could talk and converse with those outside the church - we tend to practice our faith in buildings which are separated from the world and set aside for religious purposes, but that's a whole 'nuther discussion).

In other words, changing the world is contingent upon love and unity among believers.

So, I do agree with Mr. Gillquist about why we haven't changed the world, but I think the issues of a lack of grace and a lack of love are even more important.

Related Tags: Religion, Theology, Christian, Christianity, Church, Evangelism

Comments

[Mark Horne]

OK, I just tried to use your trackback URL and got an error message...

[DLE]

David,

Outstanding post.

When we're solid and confident in the Lord, we're able to look outside ourselves and begin to do real ministry.

Unfortunately, here in America, we live our faith based on externals we must keep from decaying rather from an internal faith that finds its sufficiency in Christ and the power He grants us through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I disagree, though, that evangelism necessarily be rooted in community. Individuals are equipped the evangelize and do so better than formalized community outreaches. Where the community comes into play is in discipleship, as the Lord expects the believers to use their gifts to help build well-rounded disciples. Evangelism is just the very small tip of the iceberg and can easily be handle by someone saying, "Here's the story of how Jesus Christ changed me."

All said, though, a lack of grace-filled love for others undermines everything we do as a Church.

[Keith Schooley]

What we really fail to understand is that the mark of being "holy and righteous" is, in fact, to love one another. We keep thinking that holiness and righteousness looks something like what the Pharisees thought it looked like: separation from evil (or "the appearance of evil"), being seen doing overtly righteous acts. When in fact, holiness and righteousness looks like Jesus. The most holy and the most righteous person will be the most loving--not merely by feeling, but loving in action.

[Terry]

David,

I'm not sure how you would measure that we have met this goal. When would the church know that it is loving others. I know that there many flaws in the church, but I'm not as pessimistic that the church has totally failed. I see both high and low points, strengths and weaknesses. In some ways, I see this as parallel to accusation that the church has lost its first love. Yes, it probably has in some way, but is it the way meant in the book of Reveleation when addressed to that church? To say the community needs to be more loving (impling needs to be more effective in change) is an accusation that no matter when leveled against the church would have some sort of truth in it. This is the nature of virtue based morality. The more you strive toward the ideal the more you recognize you have not reached the ideal. Be more loving is a something we all need to take to heart, but is this really the cause of all our woes? In regard to change, I'm not convinced that change would come from merely this virtue. It is Christ's virtue and should be the mark of the church. I should be my mark.

This virtue posed as a solution rather than an end in of itself seems to discount a lot of wisdom, breadth and depth of Scripture. While love is not just extremely important, it is not all that Christ used in his influence in the world. He trained disciples. I think if we did a better job at that we would change the world more. Christ preached to the masses. When we do that we change the world. Christ confronted evil when he saw it. We must use that as a means of evil. Christ showed mercy to those with a physical need such as healing. We need to likewise show compassion. Christ took care of his mother. Faithfulness in caring for our families is likewise and agent of change.

Now Christ did not participate directly in government. He did confront those in government leadership, Jewish leadership and Roman, but it is primarily to be on matters of righteousne ss not policy. I do think the church has gotten way too tied up in policy issues. At the same time we should have men like Joseph, who used his position in the government to estabilish policy that showed wisdom and saved the lives of people. We do need Christians in government. The false solution of grass roots political power weilded by the church is out of synch with reality and the Bible. I would go so far to say that it is another gospel.

I would just say that we usually talk about change in groups in terms of leadership and management. That includes setting the moral tone for the group. Love should be an essetial, non-negotiable componenet of that, however, it is not a silver bullet. Love without wisdom is directionless. Love without courage is frail. Love without action is lifeless. Love without preaching is without perspective. Love without confrontation is confusing. Love without order is neglect.

[David Wayne]

Keith - outstanding point - we often treat love and holiness separately as if they have no intersection. Actually they do - love is an expression of holiness and holiness expresses love - thanks for bringing this up.

Dan - thanks for the kudos. I see we are on the same wavelength but I would still want to say that, at the least, the community is foundational to our witness.

That's what Schaeffer said and that's also my counterpoint to what Terry said. Schaeffer was all about apologetics, and politics and the other things Terry mentioned, and Terry is right about the importance of those things. But Schaeffer said that though we do all that, it is all for naught unless a non-Christian world can see visible unity and observable love amongst the body of Christ.

That's the whole point of Jesus in John 13 and 17 - unless the world can observe our visible love for one another it has no reason to even believe we are Christian. I'm open to correction here but I don't know of another passage where the contingency is stated as clearly as Jesus states it in John 17:23. If the world sees our complete unity, then it will believe that Jesus is the Son of God.