Category: Chapter 18

Reconciliation

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Reconciliation

[Bible references: Luke 19:11-27; John 13:34-35; 14:15-31; 16:7-15, 33; Romans 5:1-11]

Keeping in mind that we serve as Christ’s ambassadors to the world with the message of reconciliation, Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice have summarized ten aspects of that reconciliation:[1]

  • Reconciliation is God’s gift to the world. Healing of the world’s deep brokenness does not begin with us and our action, but with God and God’s gift of new creation.
  • Reconciliation is not a theory, achievement, technique, or event, It is a continuous process, a dance if you will, with our fellow image-bearers.
  • The end toward which the journey of reconciliation leads is the shalom of God’s new creation — a future not yet fully realized, but holistic in its transformation of the personal, social, and structural dimensions of life.
  • The journey of reconciliation requires the discipline of lament.
  • In a broken world God is always planting seeds of hope, though often not in the places we expect or even desire.
  • There is no reconciliation without memory, because there is no hope for a peaceful tomorrow that does not seriously engage both the pain of the past and the call to forgive.
  • Reconciliation needs the church, but not as just another social agency or NGO,
  • The ministry of reconciliation requires and calls forth a specific type of leadership that is able to unite a deep vision with the concrete skills, virtues, and habits necessary for the long and often lonesome journey of reconciliation.
  • There is no reconciliation without conversion, the constant journey with God into a future of new people and new loyalties.
  • Imagination and conversion are the very heart and soul of reconciliation.

The heart of reconciliation is love. When we love and reconcile one another with others in the body of Christ, that is, if we can love the people we don’t like and become reconciled, that becomes the visible grace of God that can even be recognized by those outside the church and draws them to that same love and grace of God. Our task from the beginning was to serve the earth. Jesus lived that out, not by growing crops but by healing the sick and loving the outcasts. We continue that task by “Dancing in the Kingdom,” expanding God’s flourishing glory as we respond to Jesus’ call to us to “occupy till I come.”

[1] Katongole, Emmanuel & Rice, Chris. Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace, and Healing Intervarsity Press, 2009

Observe

Read Romans 5:1-11. How do we prepare ourselves for the work of reconciliation?

Principles

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Principles

[Bible references: Genesis 1; Psalm 19:1-4; Isaiah 28:23-29; Romans 1:18-20; 2:14-15; 13:1-2; 1 Peter 2:13]

We cannot establish the kingdom of God nor overcome the powers of evil in our own power. While Jesus has overcome the powers of the world, we do not know when he will return to finish the deed to fully establish his kingdom and fully rid the world of the presence of evil. But we can continue to work on the mandates he gave us at the beginning and rephrased at the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you, which extends from our original directives to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and to subdue it and rule over all the creatures.

From the beginning of the church, we can see that while some people were sent out with the express purpose of spreading the gospel, most people stayed within whatever vocation they had, living in their own communities, sharing their resources, and supporting one another. Those that stayed in their vocations, did not change their vocations although they may have changed the way they pursued their vocations.

Albert Wolters suggests several principles that can help guide the way in which we pursue our vocations:[1]

  • The universe that God created was good.
  • The structures/institutions created by people should reflect God’s character and his wisdom as revealed through creation and his word.
  • The structures/institutions created by people are vested with God’s authority.
  • The universe reveals God’s glory.
  • Wisdom is “ethical conformity to God’s creation.”
  • The will of God for our life can be known through his creation, our conscience, His word, spiritual discernment.
  • Since God’s initial creative activity in forming the universe, God has been creatively developing the universe either directly through his own work or indirectly through his people. Part of that development includes the development of societal and cultural institutions.
  • Even without the fall, people would still be expected to develop the garden and other aspects of civilization as part of our role in stewarding what God has given us
  • When Christ returns, He will restore the earth.[2]

Whether we are directly communicating the gospel in our vocation or not, we may hold the narrative of the gospel as public truth to be shared.[3] The first communicators of the gospel were eyewitnesses who could say, “That which we have seen and heard … we declare to you.” As the church, we are entrusted with the responsibility of sharing that same truth, not in a forceful way but in the way of Jesus and his apostles who affirmed what they knew and invited others to respond in dialog.

[1] Wolters, Albert M. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, William B. Eerdmans Publishing 1985, 2005. eBook Chapter 2

[2] Wolters, Albert M. “Worldview and Textual Criticism in 2 Peter 3:10” Westminster Theological Journal 49 (1987) 405-413 allofliferedeemed.co.uk/Wolters/AMW2Peter3.pdf

[3] Newbigin, Leslie. . “An Introduction to the Theology of Religions: Biblical, Historical & Contemporary Perspectives” Gospel As Public Truth, Intervarsity Press 2003

Observe

Read Psalm 19:1-4. How can our work reflect the glory of God?

Re-envisioning our inhabited environment

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Re-envisioning our inhabited environment

[Bible references: Exodus 25:1-9; 31:1-11; 35:30-36:7; Isaiah 65:17-25; Revelation 21:24-26]

Within our given environment, we create communities, culture, and institutions to support all that. Our homes, neighborhoods, towns, and cities reflect our potential to create either beauty or corruption. The power we have as bearers of God’s image which provides our God-given ability to transcend our environment, is the source of great good or great sin.

“And decades of persuasive experiments have shown that built environments can be a factor in shaping us in ways that have significant long-term implications, in educational or workplace performance, or our physical and mental health and wellness. The point is that architecture, an integral part of essentially all cultures, is one of many interacting cultural factors—like entertainment and marketing, politics, belief systems, or charismatic individuals, for example—that together, in large and small ways, are involved in shaping behavior and who we are over a lifetime.” [1]

“On the night of May 10, 1941, with one of the last bombs of the last serious raid, our House of Commons was destroyed by the violence of the enemy, and we have now to consider whether we should build it up again, and how, and when. We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”[2]

We possess the abilities to create works of art, some of which are designed simply to be enjoyed or give us cause to think and some of which have practical uses such as buildings we live, work, or play in, the outdoor areas between those buildings that can serve to connect us together, the vehicles which transport us. These practical works of art also require feats of all sorts of engineering, technical and organizational skills.

It is also clear that those same abilities are regularly misused, and our constructions look less like works of art and more like works of neglect and corruption. Instead of works which build us up and add to the flourishing of all, our works sometimes are simply not as helpful as they can be and sometimes even outrightly abuse our environment as well as our fellow humans.[3] Poor building design sped up Covid spread.[4]

 A Christian architect, Dave Greusel, suggests that we should construct our buildings with the attitude that they serve as “gifts to the community,” purposely constructed to advance God’s Kingdom, expressing grace, beauty, justice, creativity.[5] There are many different ways in which we enhance the quality of life not only within the buildings we create, but also the environment around those buildings, designing our spaces with consideration for how we live not only in, but around our buildings.

In the U.S., planning our cityscape around automobiles has seemed natural because of the way that our automotive technology has allowed us to flexibly expand in the large space afforded by our country. Sadly, that type of planning has caused us to sometimes neglect the way that life is normally lived with the communities of the city. Sometimes, it has been after the fact that cities have paid attention to how to better design the city spaces for people to navigate on foot or bicycle and to live in community.

Enacted space is “activated by the people using it.” that is, it is not enough to design particular spaces, but to make them attractive so that people use them. [6]

Additional features that can be considered for our spaces are how we situate housing for people and where they work, how we create enclosed spaces that give a sense of protection and safety, monuments that provide particular spaces with meaning and the thresholds (doorways or openings) between the building interiors and the spaces outside.[7]

“Connectivity is measured by the number of intersections per square mile. One hundred fifty connections per square-mile is considered to be the minimum for a vibrant community.” [8]

[1] Hart, Robert Lamb. “How Buildings Shape Us” Common Edge commonedge.org/how-buildings-shape-us

[2]Churchill, Winston. Made in a speech in the House of Commons on October 28,1943 about replacing the bombed-out House of Commons chamber. Quote given Automated Buildings automatedbuildings.com/news/aug20/articles/lynxspring/200721102909lynxspring.html

[3] Rethinking the Future. “Some Examples of Bad Architecture Ideas” Rethinking the Future www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/article/some-examples-of-bad-architecture-ideas; Staczek, David. “Is Bad Architecture Harmful to Our Health” Architizer architizer.com/blog/inspiration/stories/bad-architecture-harmful-to-health; Husock, Howard. “How Public Housing Harms Cities” City Journal Winter 2003 www.city-journal.org/html/how-public-housing-harms-cities-12410.html

[4] Ing, Will. Architects’ Journal 3 Oct 2021; www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/poor-building-design-sped-up-covid-spread-says-academic 2021

[5] Greusel, Dave. “Architecture for Human Flourishing” Denver Institute for Faith and Work 15 Apr 2015 denverinstitute.org/david-greusel-architecture-for-human-flourishing-videos

[6] Jacobsen, Eric O. The Space Between  A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment” Baker Academic, 2012 (p. 17).

[7] Jacobsen, Eric O. The Space Between  A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment” Baker Academic, 2012 (Chapter 2)

[8] Jacobsen, Eric O. The Space Between  A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment” Baker Academic, 2012 (p. 43)

Reflect

As you consider the town or city you live in, what might be done better to make the places we live and work to be a gift to the entire community?

Observe

Read Isaiah 65:17-25. How can we build things that point to our future hope?

Re-envisioning our given environment

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Re-envisioning our given environment

[Bible references: Genesis 1-2]

“An important distinction exists between the concepts of nature and creation. There is no concept of nature in the Old Testament. Nature, derived from the Greek worldview, is by scientific definition a self-sustaining system replete with its own internal laws. Creation, a biblical-theological concept, recognizes that creation is not self-sustaining but is continually dependent on the presence of God.” [1]

In Genesis we explored how God had fashioned the cosmos to be a temple, a place where he would meet with his image-bearing creatures. This cosmos, and in particular, this world that we live in, ultimately belongs to him, for he built it with materials that he provided.

It was his intention, though, to not only share this temple with us, but to give us responsibilities within it. We know the story of how we rebelled against the responsibilities he gave us, and we know of the outpouring of patient love which he has endured and continues to endure as he works out his plan to restore our relationship with him. He still intends the cosmos to be his temple where he meets with us.

The theme of the temple began in the first chapters of the Bible with the temple dedication, the temple sanctuary in the Garden of Eden, and the charge he gave to his image-bearers to be the stewards of his temple and to fill the earth, expanding the sanctuary, the place he meets with us, to fill the entire earth.

The temple theme concludes in the last chapters of the Bible, revealing our intended destination, not just a primeval garden, but a garden with a city. It’s a city he built, for we, in and of ourselves, cannot build a city where there are no tears of sorrow, where there is no rebellion, where we can experience the entire fulness of shalom.

We don’t know when that time will come, but we do know the responsibility he gave us from the beginning, to be the stewards of what he has given us, to nurture, sustain, care for, and protect the world he provided.

[1] Bukus, Russell A. “The Stewardship of Creation” The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2002 www.baylor.edu/ifl/christianreflection/CreationarticleButkus.pdf

Observe

Read Genesis 1:26-30; 2:1-15.  How do we best take care of the space Yahweh provided for us, with his intentions for its flourishing and with our role as stewards of this space?

Re-envisioning our culture

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Re-envisioning our culture

[Bible references: Isaiah 61:1-11; Ezekiel 16:1-19; 1 Peter 3:1-22]

In Culture Care,[1] Fujimura tries to get us to think holistically, in terms of restoring beauty as a means of invigorating culture so that people can thrive. This “Generative Thinking” looks beyond the resources right in front of us and recognizes the transcendence of God in our midst, which then allows us to think and behave generously and then also allows us to think beyond the immediate future and instead think in terms of generations to come. This contrasts with the attitude that resources are scarce and therefore must be handled in utilitarian and economic ways.

As creatures made in the image of our transcendent God, we have been given the capability to detect that transcendence in the form of beauty. As creatures made in the image of our creator God, we have been given the ability to create beautiful artifacts. Beauty is a characteristic that points beyond creation itself, for beauty has no utilitarian value. The beauty we see around us reflects the generous and gratuitous nature of God who intends that we do more than just survive, but rather to flourish in the abundance of His provision. Even more than that, Beauty is a characteristic that encompasses more than what we can look at or hear, but it is enfolded in the spiritual values of justice and morality.

Although, we all have the capacity to create beauty, there are those people who are called to focus on making works of art. Fujimuraviews those artists as the catalysts, leaders that challenge us to think less colloquially but more imaginatively, to look beyond ourselves and our local groups and rather to look to the whole of society. Artists are positioned to do this, because their dispositions usually place them at the fringes of society where they can serve as “border-walkers”[2] allowing them to at once look at their own social group from the fringes and also to connect to other social groups. Fujimura then challenges the rest of society to create an environment for these artists, these “border-walkers,” to be trained in their roles and to thrive. Part of the challenge is to recognize that, for society to flourish, we need the art economy, which by definition is a non-utilitarian economy. Towards this end, artists should be trained to be effective stewards of their gifts and society needs to learn how to be stewards of the artists, by creating environments for art, and Beauty, to flourish. Fujimura proposes that art can even help us create a healing environment in our current culture wars. Participants in culture wars employ language that reduces the enemy to a caricature. Instead, culture should not be handled as a territory to be won or lost but a resource we are called to steward and cultivate. Artists can become known as “citizen artists” who lead in society with their imagination and their work – creating opportunities for genesis moments in culture – moments in which dialogue can happen, caricatures can be discarded, and deeper concerns can be addressed. But for this to happen, we need vision, courage, and perseverance and a focused effort to pay attention to the care and cultivation of the soul.

[1] Fujimura, Makoto. Culture Care: Reconnecting with beauty for our common life.  Intervarsity Press 2014

[2] Also called “mearcstapas” in Beowulf, seventh century

Reflect

We may not all be artists, but we all have some creative capabilities as co-creators with God. We all have the capacity to create beauty: acts of generosity, bringing the life of the Spirit into a spiritually dark place, letting God’s love flow through you to another. How can you bring beauty into the world?

Observe

Read Ezekiel 16:1-19. It is probably not hard to envision the community outside the church as the “adulterous wife.” How can we “clothe” our community?

Reclaiming the institutional church

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Reclaiming the institutional church

[Bible references: Matthew 5:1-16, 38-48; Luke 6:1-49; John 13:1-17, 34-35]

There are many people who claim to love Jesus but not His church (which is his body). But we need to keep in mind that every accusation we may choose to hold against the church is against us personally. The church is comprised of sinful people, and that includes us. The church has done inappropriate things in the past and so have we. As part of our, and the church’s, sinful behavior is the ease with which we focus on the things that have gone wrong while forgetting to examine the “log” in our own eye. A quote from an old cartoon strip is appropriate here, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”[1]

The second thing we need to hold onto is that as Jesus loved the world enough to die for – and redeem – the very people who rejected him. That includes the church – which includes us. If we are commanded to love our enemies, what should our attitudes be towards the group that we are part of? It is normal for us to have higher expectations towards our own family than those who are outside the family. Because of that, it is normal for us to be disappointed by or hurt more easily by people within our family than by anyone else.

Those hurts and disappointments can lead to us overlooking all the ways in which the church has, in its broken way, still managed to fulfill at least some of the intentions God has had for the church. Within the very messiness of church history, the church had not totally neglected its ability to show love to one another and to reach in love to those outside the church. It is through the church that we have the Bible and faithful Christians through the years that created hospitals and orphanages, taken care of the widows and others who need care. It is the church that made it possible for us to hear about the gospel and respond to Christ’s invitation to follow him.

The church is the body of Christ. We serve as the hands and feet, etc. of Christ, doing together what is not possible to do by ourselves. In the apostle Paul’s articulation of the Body of Christ, he notes how we all serve as different parts of the body, helping each other grow by serving in the unique ways God has prepared for us. Furthermore, Christ has told us that we will be recognized as his disciples by how we serve one another in love. This is one of the grand themes of the Bible, God has reached out to us in love, and we can respond by loving him in return; also loving one another. It is through our reflection of his love that others will respond to God in love as well.

On this side of the second coming of Christ, we all remain broken and so our institutions will remain broken. But that does not mean that Christ is unable to use us (as individuals or as part of an institutional church) for his purposes and that does not mean that the goodness of Christ is unable to be reflected through us as individuals or groups or through the institutions we create as his co-heirs to bring mercy and justice to his image-bearers and the world he has prepared for us.

In formal or informal ways, we create the institutional church to help us more effectively serve one another within the Body of Christ and to serve others outside the Body of Christ. As we take an historical look at the expected mixed record of the Body of Christ’s broken church (and, we must remember, our personal records as well), we need to cling to Christ, His love, His sustenance, and forgiveness us for all the ways we have failed to love each other within the church and outside the church.

[1] Kelly, Walt, From a Pogo strip, 22 Apr 1970 www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/04/we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html

Reflect

Sometimes our church organizations can be hard to love. Nevertheless, we cannot truly love Christ without loving his church. How could you better express love for your local congregation this year?

Observe

Read John 13:1-17. How can we love and serve the church as Jesus showed us?

Reorienting our institutions

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Reorienting our institutions

[Bible references: Jeremiah 29:1-14]

It is normal to organize ourselves to do as a group what we cannot do, or at least do as well, as individuals. Families can undertake the task of running a farm or a ranch better than any one individual. Communities can better protect themselves or do things like barn-raisings to replace a barn that had been destroyed. Communities also allow for the possibility for people with specialized abilities to earn income from the specialty while allowing others to focus on their own businesses more successfully. Businesses are organized to create products or services that could not otherwise be produced. Civic organizations are organized to handle various problems within our society and cultural organizations help our society to flourish. Governments allow communities to pool resources, create infrastructure to support our society and to provide law enforcement to keep the peace within communities.

It is to God’s glory that his image-bearing creatures can create organizations that exemplify our reflections of God’s creativity and transcendence and allow us to do all the sorts of things that help fulfill his intention for us to fill the earth and steward its resources. However, in our fallen world, the very large and pervasive problem with any institution we create is that communities and organizations are made up of people and – we must remember – all people, including ourselves, are sinful.

It then becomes our sinful tendency to dislike organizations, institutions, in general. One of the unfortunate organizations many of us tend to dislike – is the organized church. So, before we address other organizations, we need to address our attitudes towards the institution we call the church.

Emily Rose Gum suggests that it is from the creation narrative that we can see that God wants us to thrive in a way that allows our personal good and the common good to reinforce one another. But we and the institutions we create are fallen and need to be re-oriented toward the common good. Sometimes we need to create new institutions but sometimes we need to reinvigorate and restore fractured ones, such as our public education schools which provide education to our poorest neighbors. [1]

In the larger picture of reclaiming our institutions, Vincent Bacote reminds us of our dependence on the Spirit. It was the Spirit “hovering over the face of the waters” bringing life into creation and it is the Spirit who enables us to carry out the mandates of God, including the building of institutions to carry out those mandates.[2]

“The mandate of creation is central to who Christians are before God. This mandate calls for obedience, yes, but this should not be viewed as a heavy burden. Indeed, in fulfilling this mandate Christian believers become more of who God intends them to be. Importantly, this is not a mandate for a few but for all—all are participants, all are enjoined to participate in ways framed by the revelation of God’s word in the creative and renewing work of world-making and remaking. And it is in the divine nature of this work that vocation is imbued with great dignity. It is, in part, the appeal to every person, regardless of stature, giftedness, achievement, wealth, power, or personality that makes the Gospel so radical. Every person is made in God’s image and every person is offered his grace and, in turn, the opportunity to labor together with God in the creation and recreation of the world.” [3]

As we look beyond the church itself, we see that God has designated other organizations for service as well. Even those of God’s image-bearers who are not of the church may respond to God’s call to all of us to tend to His creation, however they may understand it. And just as God’s own church has a mixed record of accomplishment, these other organizations/institutions will certainly have a mixed record as well. We cannot assume, that despite not completely understanding God’s creation mandate, that within these organizations outside the church there is no good intended by them, and that God is not able to use them.

These “outside” organizations may include government, civic, cultural, and social organizations and are part of the ways in which God’s image-bearers are fulfilling his purpose for his creation. Humans cannot create institutions without some basis in faith, even if they try to ignore it. What we can do as Christians is bring to those institutions the sensibilities that are based on our faith.[4] While we cannot make these institutions perfect (after all, even we are not yet perfect) we can help instill grace, mercy, and justice in whatever capacity we can.

Institutions sometimes try to re-organize their structure to make themselves better in some fashion, but structure cannot override the character of the people within the organization. In whatever capacity we have, if we are present in an organization, we can be the “salt” that preserves and adds spiritual taste to the organization.

[1] Gum, Emily Rose. “Recovering an Institutional Imagination” Comment Magazine comment.org/recovering-an-institutional-imagination p.28

[2] Bacote, Vincent. “The Spirit and Institution Building” Comment Magazine, Sept 2005, comment.org/the-spirit-and-institution-building

[3] Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World  Oxford University Press 2010

[4] Chaplin, Jonathan. “Loving Faithful Institutions: Building Blocks of a Just Global Society” The Other Journal 15 Mar 2010 theotherjournal.com/2010/04/15/loving-faithful-institutions-building-blocks-of-a-just-global-society/Chechowich

Observe

Read Jeremiah 29:1-14. How should we try to influence the organizations in which we work?

vocational stewardship

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Vocational stewardship

[Bible references: Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:1-17]

In-between those basic strategies, the question we all need to discover is, within the context we find ourselves in, what are the practical ways for us to use the gifts and talents God has equipped us with. For some of us, we can find ways to use our gifts and talents directly within the church. But all work, whether done in the church or outside can be done as unto the Lord. For others, Amy Sherman has identified four different strategies outside the church itself for us to consider.[1]

  • Promote the kingdom in and through your daily work
  • Volunteer your skills to an agency outside your employer.
  • Launch your own social enterprise
  • Participate in your church’s targeted initiative.

Whatever strategy we use, the goal is to bring hope to the world around us by bringing in Kingdom values of justice, righteousness, and peace.[2]

We do have to consider the reality that many of us have jobs that consign workers to demeaning labor: either doing tasks that treat workers as if they were biological robots on an assembly line doing repetitive tasks, or just doing unskilled tasks that require no creativity and that fail to regard the humanity of those workers.[3] Then sometimes, we simply find ourselves in a job which could easily be more meaningful if we were appreciated. What should we do then? Dorothy Sayers’ position is that we should have the same attitude as given to us in Genesis 2, we should serve the work. We can hope that the work was designed to serve the community, so that in serving the work we serve the community.

“The only true way of serving the community is to be truly in sympathy with the community, to be oneself part of the community and then to serve the work without giving the community another thought. Then the work will endure, because it will be true to itself. It is the work that serves the community; the business of the worker is to serve the work.”[4]

[1] Sherman, Amy. Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good. Intervarsity Press, 2011 eBook Chapters 9-13

[2] Sherman, Amy. Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good. Intervarsity Press, 2011 eBook Chapter 1

[3] Smith, James K.A. “The Beauty of Work, the Injustice of Toil” Comment comment.org/the-beauty-of-work-the-injustice-of-toil/

[4] Sayers, Dorothy. “Why Work” in Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine Villanova University www1.villanova.edu/content/dam/villanova/mission/faith/Why%20Work%20by%20Dorothy%20Sayers.pdf

Reflect

How might you use your vocational stewardship?

Observe

Read Ephesians 6:5-9. How do we serve “as unto the Lord” at whatever our vocation is?

Top-down strategy

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Top-down strategy

[Bible references: Numbers 22-24; Deuteronomy 8; Psalm 27; Nehemiah 1-2; 1 Timothy 4:3; stories of King David and Solomon (2 Samuel; 1 Kings 1-11)]

The top-down strategy tries to reach individuals by affecting the culture. Even if people don’t respond to the cultural change, God can be glorified by the display of his kingdom values in society.

James Hunter examined how culture changes and saw the mixed results of the bottom-up approach. He saw that some small groups of people (e.g., gays, Jews) have had a relatively large impact on the culture while larger groups (e.g., evangelicals) are losing their impact on the culture. Hunter discovered that cultures usually are changed from the top-down, most influenced by elites who are somewhat outside the center of influence but having a network of connections to other elites and who can withstand the resistance from the centers of influence.

Culture is about how societies define reality—what is good, bad, right, wrong, real, unreal, important, unimportant, and so on. This capacity is not evenly distributed in a society but is concentrated in certain institutions and among certain leadership groups and that cultural change is most enduring when it penetrates the structure of our imagination, frameworks of knowledge and discussion, the perception of everyday reality.[1]

Very few Christians are in a position to exercise a top-down strategy. The few people who do have such influence are typically subject to the temptations that come with such power, and all too often succumb to sin and become disqualified or become abusive in the exercise of such power.

[1] Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Oxford University Press 2010

Observe

Read Nehemiah 1-2. What factors were involved in Nehemiah’s influence on King Artaxerxes?

Bottom-up strategy

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Bottom-up strategy

[Bible references: Romans 5:1-11; 10:11-15; 1 Corinthians 13; 2 Corinthians 8:1-14; 1 John 4:21]

There are two strands of strategy that can be seen in attempts of Christians to influence culture. In the bottom-up type of strategy, Christians reach out to individuals, with the thought that “transformed people transform cultures.”

“Discipled leaders transform cultures through their own transformed lives” [1]

But the evidence shows mixed results. For example, in America, as late as 2015, 89 percent of the people believed in God, but in government, academia, popular entertainment, were in process of becoming increasingly materialistic and secular. On the other hand, we see that Jews, who have never comprised more than 3.5 percent of the population, have had very strong contributions to many areas such as science, literature, music, and film.[2]

“The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still remarkably high by comparison with other advanced industrial countries, has declined modestly, from approximately 92% to 89%, since Pew Research Center conducted its first Landscape Study in 2007” [3]

We should keep in mind that historical records are not good at showing how the quiet contributions of individual Christians have made a difference in lives of other individuals who were not in positions of power, nor how such combined contributions may have impacted parts of society until such changes affect those in power. That does not mean that bottom-up transformation is without merit.

We certainly should not forget the importance of conventional methods of evangelism and missions which focus on outreach to individuals at all levels of society. After all, the change we most want to see are the hearts of individuals changed in direct response to the gospel message. In that regard, we are more concerned about heart transformations than the cultural transformation that should result from heart transformations.

Another bottom-up strategy in that regard is for a local church to “preach” to the culture around it by simply living as a Christian community, drawing individuals who respond to seeing how the Christian life can be lived out.

[1] Poore, Preston. “Transforming Culture through a Transformed Life” Preston Poore and Associates, 31 May 2020 prestonpoore.com/transforming-culture-through-a-transformed-life

[2] Hollinger, David. Science Jews, and Secular Culture Princeton University Press, 1996

[3] Pew Research Center. “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious”3 Nov 2015 www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious

Observe

Read Romans 5:1-11. How can the Christian life impact those who see it?

Occupy Till I Come

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Occupy Till I Come

[Bible references: Jeremiah 29; Luke 19:11-27]

On His way to Jerusalem the last time before His triumphal entry, Jesus knew the kind of expectations the people had about how the Kingdom of God would appear. To prepare them for the long wait between His resurrection and His return to fully restore the Kingdom of God, He told them a parable about a nobleman who would, before going into a far country, give his servants some money with instructions to engage in business while he was gone. The parable ended with rewards given to those who made profits and penalties for those who did not.

This then is our instruction, to make use of what God has given each of us to ‘engage in business,’ (KJV “Occupy Till I Come”) that is, we are called to help advance the kingdom until He returns.

When Jesus came two thousand years ago, he announced the beginning of a new age, “The Kingdom is here … The Kingdom of heaven is near … The Kingdom of God has come.” As disciples of Jesus we can say, “The Kingdom of God is within us.” Then, with our hearts changed by Jesus, we are charged to go and make disciples, to do justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

As we then join Jesus in bringing His kingdom into the world, we need to remember our humble estate …We cannot even change our own hearts, never mind the hearts of others. Certainly, we cannot change our culture. It is up to our Savior to change our hearts, and even more so to change the culture around us.

Jesus and his disciples lived more as servants or slaves within the Roman Empire. They had no political influence. But as the disciples lived transformed lives, living as well as preaching the Gospel, and showed the power of sacrificial love, their Spirit empowered lives opened the way for the Spirit of God to change the hearts of many throughout the Roman Empire, eventually moving the heart of a Roman Emperor, Constantine.

History has shown the mixed results of combining the power of state and church, but the teachings of Jesus have penetrated even our secular postmodern culture in ways that are not widely recognized as such. Despite the church’s own history of abusing and misusing power, Jesus’ concepts of using power to serve others, even one’s enemies still managed to occasionally penetrate the halls of power – in imperfect form to be sure, just as the ideas expressed in the Enlightenment imperfectly expressed ideas from Christianity.

“Reparations let’s say for slavery or in New Zealand reparations to the Māori or in Australia reparations to the Aboriginal even for native indigenous American Indians. And this language is actually not a historic language. This is a language since Jesus. See, because Genghis Khan never worried about reparations. He never felt he had any moral responsibility to somehow make it right for all the women he raped and all the men he killed and all the families destroyed and all the villages he burned down. We have Caesar or Alexander, they never really had remorse for anything they conquered or anything they destroyed or any people whose lives they overthrew. This concept of justice of using power well is a concept that only emerges because Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. He revolutionized the entire understanding of power. The idea that a government should actually care about its citizens is really, it’s not a historic human concept. This concept is infused by the ethics that Jesus brought to the understanding of power that it says when Jesus had all power and all authority, he ties a towel around his waist and he washes his disciples’ feet. This is a reinvention of power. … if you go back to World War II … when you look at the American response to conquering Germany and conquering Japan, and how within a decade or two, both of them became two of the greatest economies in the world … You get to see what happens when you’re conquered from a Christian mindset world with West Germany. You realize that Japan becomes one of our greatest allies. That doesn’t happen historically. You do not conquer a nation and then rebuild it to feel a moral obligation to re-establish that country better than it was before. Even what we’ve done historically has been informed by a Christian worldview. I’m not saying that England or United States or any Western nation is a Christian nation. What I’m saying is the conversations we’re having are informed by Jesus’s revolutionary, brilliant genius thoughts about power.” [1]

There are debates on the ideas expressed above, often fraught with ideas of self-interest[2] and ideology, about how to provide for populations that have experienced oppression or how to manage the after-effects of war. But these ideas and other expressions of compassion and justice – like hospitals, orphanages, the concept of “war crimes,” or the many ways to carry out “social justice” (that is, God’s expression of compassion and justice) – are ideas not found in history until God introduced them first to his chosen people, Israel, and then through the person of Jesus to His Body. As God’s image-bearers

Unfortunately. the church often abused its privilege, often succumbing to the worldly temptations of power and ignoring its mandate to steward God’s world with compassion and justice. But even though the church has stumbled, it has still managed to live out, admittedly imperfectly, its mandate of compassion and justice. And the world has noticed. Bu interestingly, many have adopted those same values even though they choose to ignore the source of our mandate.

[1] Mcmanus, Erwin. Interview with Carey Nieuwhof, CNLP 452: Erwin McManus on the Future of the Church, How to do Evangelism More Effectively, Authenticity and Reflections on Being Labeled a Heretic Carey Nieuwhof careynieuwhof.com/episode452

[2] Niebuhr, Reinhold.  “Editorial Notes” republished as Christianity and Crisis Magazine providencemag.com/2022/06/christian-realism-enlightened-self-interest-marshall-plan-emerges-reinhold-niebuhr/ 17 Jun 2022

Reflect

In what ways have you lived out a sacrificial love?

Observe

Read Jeremiah 29; Luke 19:11-27. What do we need to do to live transformed lives, living and preaching the Gospel, and show the power of sacrificial love with Spirit empowered lives?