The Rocks Are Crying Out: why the church needs to be born again (again)
Posted by Jim on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
By A few months ago I watched a Bill Moyers interview with Steve Fraser. Fraser has written about the second Gilded Age. The first Gilded Age took place in the late 19th Century when railroad and oil barons made lavish profits while the poor got poorer. On the political front – Congress and the aforementioned business tycoons were essentially in bed together (sound familiar?)
What caught my attention were Fraser’s comments about the part evangelical Christians played in that cultural drama. According to Fraser during the first Gilded Age, evangelicals actually agitated against the rich and advocated for the poor. He even quotes William Jennings Bryant (of Scopes Monkey Trial fame) as saying “we will not allow them (hedge fund operators?) to crucify us on a cross of gold”
The second Gilded Age is WAMU, Bear Stearns, the Bridge to Nowhere, Goldman Sachs, Presidential Debates and Barney Franks. In case you didn’t get the memo, the latest installment payment for the second Gilded Age came due this past week to the tune of $700 Billion.
The difference Fraser notes is that this time Evangelicals are silent. He calls it The Great Silence. If that weren’t enough of an indictment, he also notices that we’re quick to moralize and slow advocate for those who are truly marginalized. Outsiders like Fraser look on and wonder why we’re so busy grabbing power for ourselves. They assume Dr. Dobson speaks for most of us.
Why are we so silent? We come across as being passionately committed to the unborn but practically silent about the living.
As a trained historian, Steve Fraser knows how to read and has discovered that evangelicals have not always been this way. Well known followers of Jesus like William Wilberforce and Dorothy Day blurred the lines between personal and public piety. When it came to practicing what they preached -they knew how to walk and chew gum.
Here’s why we need to be born again - when we (insiders) refuse to critique ourselves God will raise up outsiders to criticize us.
If our own consultants won’t tell us the truth then God will raise up insultants who will.
If we won’t cry out then God will make the rocks cry out.
Learn more at the Born Again Church Tour in Seattle and Denver.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am
Amen.
I find that we Christians have little to say about economic injustice, torture and greed, beyond lip service. We are not actively and forthrightly fighting against these things. Where is the passionate stance for life?
October 1st, 2008 at 8:54 am
Oh, at last someone echos my own anger about what a great fight there is going on for the unborn but where oh where are the fighters for the children that are alive??? The neglected abused hungry…..
Thank you.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:19 am
Mary
I actually think evangelicals have used the abortion issue to make political hay. If you recall our (once hated) ideological enemies the Roman Catholics were advocating for right to life issues long before Dobson got on the band wagon.
That doesn’t mean stopping abortions is not a legitimate moral issue (and one I personally agree with) it does mean that we are cultural copy cats.
We (and I self identify as an evangelical) have not stepped out as spiritual entrepreneurs. In “right to life” we’ve found an issue that provides us moral high ground (to hide behind) without having to respond to the immoralities of greed, war and economic inequities.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:22 am
Jim, you are so right, we haven’t found our prophetic voice in the present age.
So, what are we going to do about it? Wring our hands?
October 1st, 2008 at 9:24 am
“Why are we so silent? We come across as being passionately committed to the unborn but practically silent about the living.”
Are the unborn not alive? Why can’t we have passion for both?
grace and peace.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:30 am
well said Jim.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:13 am
Yes for both - but we are majoring in the side that is unseen and easy to fight over (from either viewpoint) what we are silent about is what is seen.
The problem (as I see it and believe me I’m not the most informed person in the universe) is that as scripture itself argues - “if we can’t love our brother who we do see how can we say we love God who we can’t see.
Is God not real just because he is unseen? We say he is real - in fact more real - nevertheless the scripture itself points us in the direcion of the problems we can see. It doesn’t tell us to abandon one for the other but it does (as I see it) direct us to major in one over the other.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:20 am
Per what should we do beyond wringing our hands
Here is a suggestion- for those who enjoy the political fray - go after your representatives (or run for office yourself) and make them advocate for a national movement for adoption.
Instead of bailing out Wall Street we should subsidize anyone who is willing to adopt children- the more difficult the case the more money.
For the life of me I don’t understand why the church isn’t convicted about this issue. The way it looks to outsiders is that we want the benefit of appearing to care about the unborn but don’t want to pay the price or personally taking the born into our own homes.
As I recall from my church history classes - the early church distinguished itself by doing that very thing- They saw it as their duty to take in the widows and orphans and that’s what made them famous and feared in culture. They were a prophetic people.
The 21st Century church sees it as our duty to attend church and give each other prophecies.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Beautiful article, as usual my friend! Thanks for writing it and for making us all think.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
About a year ans a half ago some friends and I started a (”technically we’re a church”) church, under a bridge, for our friends without houses in downtown Portland. Food, socks, toiletries, cell phones; anything we can get our hands on that our friends might need. We have grown from 10 the first Sunday to 150-200 during that time but our income has remained unchanged. Political action is necessary but many of us in the trenches could use some cold, hard cash.
Cathy Escobar from Denver says, “Our prayer team is full. Send money.”
In all the “action” that is desperately needed, don’t forget the many who have been acting all along. Most of us are broke.
Love,
Ken Homepdx.org
October 1st, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Sometimes I think the church in America doesn’t want to know about the poor, here or abroad, unless it is in their own way of doing so. Most are happy to pray or even take a short-term excursion into poverty but only on their own terms and calendar. Those of us who are following Christ into the darkest areas of need are usually not even looked at by the church as missionaries and, thus, not considered for support of any kind. There’s all kind of poverty and perhaps this spiritual poverty of ignoring the poor is the deepest poverty of all.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Jim wrote:
It would also be great if we could subsidize people who adopt, especially if there’s more subsidy for adopting ‘less wanted’ children.
But not instead of the bailout. Some sort of bailout/intervention needs to happen – it’s not just about saving ‘Wall Street’. If nothing is done no one will lend anymore and the economy will unravel and that will affect lots of ‘ordinary people’ including those who help support ministries like Ken’s and Kathy’s that are out there helping people.
Anyway, I don’t know how so many Christians got so certain abortion is the worst thing in God’s eyes. What if it isn’t?
October 1st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Pure Ken Loyd
October 1st, 2008 at 2:59 pm
BTW - for any interesting point of view on abortion from a young South African Christian watch this short video
October 7th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Jim,
You are so right about the church needing to be born again… again. As a church planter, I have sadly experienced time and time again that so many Christians simply want to be served and have their own needs met. Yes, they will give some money when asked and offer their time for a project periodically - but people with a heart for the lost and a heart that wants to know Jesus more and a heart for the poor/helpless seem so very hard to find. Actually, I’ll take it one step further… pastors with those qualities are not so easy to find either. Yes, we would all agree those things are important on paper, but actually living them out is something quite altogether different. Thanks for your voice on this!