God’s Answer
by J. Ellsworth Kalas
I have mixed feelings about the times in which we live. I’m a deep-dyed optimist but I’m also an honest man. I have seen despair at its ugliest and hope at its beautifully absurd. I grew up during the Great Depression; I remember the family friend who hung himself in his barn when he learned that they were going to sell his farm at a sheriff’s auction. But I, also, remember when President Franklin Roosevelt challenged Congress to work for a world of four essential freedoms, one of which would be “freedom from want.”
I remember World War II, a war that encircled the globe and made tiny islands into household words. But I, also, remember when Roosevelt and Churchill declared in the Atlantic Charter their commitment to “a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries” and then I think of our current mockery of that declaration in Ukraine.
I think especially of the issues of faith and of the struggle for souls. I remember when there were two kinds of Protestants in America, modernists and fundamentalists. I remember, too, when we discovered there were other classifications, such as evangelicals, conservatives, and orthodox. I enjoyed the days when church membership was growing all across America, with new churches in the nation’s suburbs, and with almost every church of any size involved in some sort of building or remodeling program. And I grieve at how we lost that opportunity, that native hunger for God that we tried to satisfy with fellowship and good will that were not too different from the service clubs.
Then there was that remarkable time when the term “born again” was taken out of quotation marks and became part of the common vocabulary; and in the process became diluted to a point where polls showed that fully a third of Americans had experienced some sort of event that they thought could be classified as “born again.” And again, we lost the opportunity.
Now the tide of popular culture is against us. In much of the public mind, evangelicals are one of the subgroups in political analysis. I suspect there are some bright young pagans on the two coasts who have no idea that “evangelical” is a religious category, or if they do they think of it as an oddment of society like snake handlers, ripe for sociological examination.
With all of that, I wish I could have another go at it, another half century to try again to be the Church. I believe what Nicolai Grundtvig wrote in 1837: “Built on the Rock the Church doth stand, / Even when steeples are falling.” And with him I believe that at its best, the Church is “Calling the young and old to rest, / But above all the soul distrest, / Longing for rest everlasting.” I am altogether certain that human souls are as distressed today as ever, perhaps more than ever, but more skilled at covering the distress; and that the Church when it is the Church is God’s answer. Indeed, that we’re the only body with a message that is everlasting. It’s a pity that we’re content for the church to be something else than that, something less.
You and I ought to do something about that. Shall we?
Wonderful article. I appreciate the deep thought you put into everything you write.
Yes.
We shall!
I am committing to plant a church near Minneapolis and am asking for your prayer and financial support. The Church is indeed God’s answer!
Excellent, well said words of wisdom by one of His faithful servants.
In this issue, both you and Dr. Tennent have a decidedly downcast view of the Church – esp., I guess, in the USA. I’m a decade or so younger than you, but I remember, too. And I remember, during some of those same years, people in those growing churches who had very little idea of discipleship, or God’s call on them for lay ministry, or justice, or the breadth of grace, or a real sense of the Kingdom of God on earth. As Rauschenbusch prayed more than 100 years ago, the Church “is set today among the perplexities of a changing order, and face to face with new tasks….” THIS is the world God has given us and called us to. On the eve of another Pentecost, THIS is the world where the Spirit is active – making the kingdoms of this world like the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ. THIS is the Church where a much greater percentage of people have a sense of their own ministry, what they feel called to do in Jesus’ name. THIS is the world where change is perplexing and ever-present and where the Lord has promised to be with us. I don’t know of anything more exciting and fulfilling than proclaiming the Gospel to this age. Let’s avoid a message that implies “the Church is going to hell in a handbasket.” Not much good news in that. I don’t believe that message, and I’m guessing/hoping that you don’t either. The promise of God is that the Spirit is in the Church – now and even in its early years when people were rude at church suppers and diluting their theology and facing schism and one side or another was dead-sure that those unlike them were heretics or hypocrites. Is this a great time to proclaim the Gospel or what?
I fall in the orthodox Lutheran camp. I don’t know as much about what it was like for Mr. Wesley, but I can speak a lot about what it was like for Luther, Melancthon, Bugenhagen, Jonas, and the others. It was a time when it would seem to be a good idea to think back to the good old days or get in line with the new thoughts. Neither was God’s intention because both were out of tune with God’s Divine Kairos. This too is God’s Kairos. We forget that too easily. I follow the news and I am no optimist or pessimist, realist or idealist. I am a Christian. I believe we are currently in the most amazing time to be Christians. Even if we were not, it would be the most important time to be Christian because this is the time in which God has placed you and me. God has a plan for you that does not center around you, but around His Gospel. Your purpose and God’s plan are bigger than your hopes and fears; they are part of His Holy Spirit’s powerful purpose. We can worry about them or try to make the good times last, but if we look at the book of Acts or the Pauline Epistles or even the Gospels we realize that God is on the move and there is no time for pausing. Like the Disciples wanting to linger on the mountain we echo that other Jewish poet and wish to stay in our “Glory Days.”
Before I get into the nuts and bolts of my statement, let me tell you a little about myself. I am part of a generation that has seen more blatant walking away from the faith than has been seen in any time before the middle ages in the West. I have seen my two best friends step away from the faith. I have watched as political parties distance themselves from the Christendom model (which may be good or bad, but the use of Scripture as a norming norm was helpful in dialogue). I have watched as people do not just question truth in the postmodern sense (something good and sensible), but be consumed with radical skepticism that is totally illogical. I have been a part of a generation that has seen an actual choice. It has been put on the corporate “anxious seat” and decided that public acquiescence was not good enough. All of this has forced a crisis and the church has to answer it with obedience to the Gospel or obedience to self.
Perhaps no one has put this better than C.S. Lewis in an article entitled “The Decline of Religion” for the collection of essays: “God in the Dock.” Lewis states:
The ‘decline of religion’ so often lamented (or welcomed) is held to be shown by empty chapels. Now it is quite true that chapels which were full in 1900 are empty in 1946. But this change was not gradual. It occurred at the precise moment when chapel ceased to be compulsory. It was not in fact a decline; it was a precipice. The sixty men who had come because chapel was a little later than ‘rollers’ 1 (its only alternative) came no more; the five Christians remained. The withdrawal of compulsion did not create a new religious situation, but only revealed the situation which had long existed. And this is typical of the ‘decline in religion’ all over England.
Lewis, C. S. (2014-05-20). God in the Dock (pp. 218-219). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
We now know where everyone stands. Gone are the days when we could just muddle through like some “C” student who could expect to pass just because. Gone are the delusions of Laodicea where the church can be lukewarm. (Revelation 3:14-22) Now the church is defined. As one leader of one of the denominations which I am part of commented, “Now we have clarity.” For so long we have been able to equivocate and allow equivocation in our midst as if the big tent church were the only church. Now, we have clarity.
This is not a time of sadness, remorse, or timidity. This is a time of joy and hope. Now, instead of in our parents’ time, we know where everyone stands. We can say clearly, as we have not in so long, you are for Jesus or not at all. We can see the hurting world as it is honestly and authentically, not in some pharisaical bandages. The world needs the Gospel and is like the wounded man on the side of the road (Luke 10:25-37). Will we be part of God’s great adventure or will we be like the rest of the world without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). As Moses said in a mighty voice to God’s children throughout the aeons,”19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, 20 by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) I leave with this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich (2011-05-10). Letters Papers from Prison (pp. 16-18). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
I was just having a similar conversation this morning with a friend. In fact, I have had, been a part of, or overheard many similar conversations as of late. A lot of lamenting is going on of the good-ole-days. I think that so many of us spend a lot of time…maybe too much time, lamenting and diagnosing the problems in churches today, without addressing the real question, as you ended your post with, “Shall we do something about it?” My question is then, “what shall we do about it?” I don’t know what the answer is, other than seek to be faithful, and avoid cynicism and pessimism about the future of the Church. Steeples may fall, as you said, but God never does. What will church look like when I am your age (quite a few years away, I may add)? I don’t know. Will my church even last into the next decade? My denomination is certainly iffy… But God, God will prove faithful. God has a plan. We need only listen and act!
Thanks for responding. I think my “text” is 2 Tim. 2:17 – something about not having a “spirit of fear.” Across the USA (maybe the “the West”), we speak and act as if “God has left the house.” That applies to our political malaise as well as our Church malaise. And, worse yet, I think the malaise is so virulent that it becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you talk that way long enough, many more people believe it, and it actually comes true. At ATS in the ‘tumultuous ’60s, I learned to think grandly, to expect God’s surprises, to recognize that the Kingdom was always bigger than I thought it was, and to have faith that God was working his purposes out. Joy and I look back at the ’60s and remember how so many people thought the USA and the world were coming apart at the seams. And, surprise-surprise, God was in the mess. This era is like that. (Maybe you and Dr. Tennent should play “good cop – bad cop” together, but don’t do it in the same issue! 🙂
Thanks.
By the way, I’m 70. At this age, 15 or so years matter a bit less!
Thank you Dr Kalas for your word of wisdom and spiritual insight. We need prophets like you to challenge the missional church to stand firm against the spirit of secularism which is pushing the comfortable Sunday pulpit instead of reflecting into the Acts of the Apostle Gospel beyond the four walls. Secularized Christianity have lost the vision of missional Gospel. It is time the American Church to revert back to the old religion of revival moments of inspired prophetic messages.
With and by God’s grace, I will answer the challenge Dr. Kalas! Blessings on you and the movement of Christ in the world!