(Login Reedwood) Forum Owner Posted Jun 5, 2004 4:59 PM
Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World. Lee C. Camp. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003.
24 There is, I must confess, a deep part of me that is embarrassed to advocate a “radical Christianity.” For I find, especially in these recent days of my pilgrimage, that the more I seek to surrender to Christ, the more I discover those idols to which my “old self,” as the apostle Paul calls it, has been desperately clinging. It turns out, of course, that my sins are not all that interesting, but the same as the lot of all humankind: pride, ambition, lust, greed, self-seeking. The more I pursue the light of Christ, the more he illumines the diseases of my heart, the dysfunctions of my soul. I have long desired quick fixes for my thorns in the flesh, my defects, my failings - but Christ has granted me none. But he does, as I walk behind him, alongside him, and alongside others on the Way, grant me daily bread, daily sustenance, his grace being always sufficient for the day.
I also fear speaking of “radical discipleship” because I continue to encounter innumerable souls deeply wounded by moralistic perversions of discipleship, by legalistic religion, good souls burdened with shame, knowing neither the joy nor peace that are born from the Spirit of Christ. I have walked that long, lonely road, too, and have found in it not life, but shame, and anger, and resentment. But this is not following the Master, in spite of its weighty religious veneer, for the true religion, the true life is found in the One who first loved us, even while we were yet self-centeredly rebelling; in the One who forgives us seventy times seven, even before calling us to do so; in the One who was tempted in all ways, like as we are, in order to share our suffering, to know our weakness, so that he might love us even there in our weaknesses.
106 Being church means embodying God's intentions for the world as revealed in Christ. “Church” is not about showing the world how to be “religious,” but showing the world how it is supposed to be a world that reflects the intentions of its creator. The body of Christ, by simply being the church, exhibits to the world “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:9-10). The church embodies the new social order, the new-world-on-the-way; the church exists as an outpost of the coming kingdom.
129-30 The 1991 Gulf War experience of one particular student appears to be representative of a large number of Christians. “I served in the war in Kuwait,” he began, “but I didn't want to be there. I didn't like being there. I disliked the 130 degree temperatures, and I thought being there was wrong. The war was abut money, about oil, and we shouldn't have been there, and we didn't accomplish anything because we still have the same problem. But I went - I did my duty, because I did what I was told to do.” Regardless of the accuracy of his judgment of the reasons for the war, I asked whether he should have done “what he was told to do.” In response, he appeared to have few moral resources for making sense of such a question. That one would defy the will of one's government simply appeared incomprehensible. In order to have those things we value, it was argued, we must rely upon the military to protect us from outside threats. Therefore no one could have such rights as freedom of speech and religion if they did not rely upon the military in order to protect these rights.
This is a great irony of American Christianity: exalting the nation that affords us “freedom of religion,” we set aside the way of Christ in order to preserve the religion we supposedly are free to practice. We kill our alleged enemies in order to “worship” the God who teaches us to love enemies. The most important question about our pledge of allegiance is not whether we pledge allegiance to a flag under “one God,” but to what god we are pledging our allegiance. Perhaps it is, after all, not the God revealed in Jesus Christ we are worshiping, but the god of the nation-state, the god of power and might and wealth.
188 Does not the witness of history and prophecy itself deny your claim that Jesus is the Messiah? No, replied the early church father Justin. The fulfillment of God's purposes has already begun, he claimed, and the evidence of this fact lies in the very ethic and lifestyle of the church. Yes, there are portions of the prophetic proclamations yet to be fulfilled, which await the coming advent of Christ. But in the meanwhile, the church lives and exists as a community that bears witness to the reality of the kingdoms of God having already invaded human history: “We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons, - our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage, - and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”
Justin's mode of apologetics stands in stark contrast to many contemporary models of apologetics. Books on “Christian Evidences,” for example, often proceed upon the assumption that one might appeal to some “objective” court of appeals to demonstrate empirically that Jesus is Lord. But Justin here, at least, employs a different strategy: we claim that Jesus is Lord, and that certain practices accompany that claim, and one may see the truth or falsehood of that claim depending upon the degree to which our lives manifest that claim.
So in his First Apology, Justin cites Isaiah 2:3* as evidence for the Messianic status of Jesus. “That it did so come to pass,” that the Messianic age began with Jesus, “we can convince you,” he boldly asserts: twelve illiterate men went out from Jerusalem, proclaiming by the power of God that they were commissioned to teach the word of God, and “we who were formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.” In other words, Justin asserts that the nonviolent, truth-telling church embodies the new social order foretold by the prophets. You don't believe the new age has come? - asks Justin. Well, just look at the church, and you'll see that all things have begun to be made new.
* Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD , to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
This page is moderated by Johan Maurer as part of the "Evangelism and the Friends Testimonies" project, supported during the academic year 2003-04 by the Ferguson Quaker Fellowship program of Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. Johan has a minute of service from Reedwood Friends Church.
