What is the place of the church?

A fundamental shift in my thinking has occurred around the issues surrounding church and society. Growing up in fundamentalism, the church was seen as a retreat from culture, in perpetual conflict with "the world." The battle cry was to uphold moral values against a godless society and "swim against the tide." By the time I left home, I was rather tired of the warfare stance that considered everyone else enemies and drew a clear line between "them" and "us." So I explored different options. A view that is popular in some circles (and advocated by authors like Darryl Hart and Michael Horton) is a theory of "two kingdoms." In this view, a very clear line is drawn between the church as spiritual and culture as secular. It affirms that culture was good (though this is almost invariably used to mean "Western culture") and that Christians should constructively engage it. It insists that the church disengage from politics and society, allowing its members to pursue their lives separately in two places, the church and the world.

About the same time I was studying this theory, I was studying cultural history in college. I read the history of the conquest of the Americas from new eyes. I knew that my faith had been used to not only justify but endorse the Crusades or the Inquisition. But it came home to me as I read some of the words written by religious leaders in the 16th century, arguing that the native peoples of what became Latin America were “barbarians” and somehow less than human. I suddenly became more aware that this was the case throughout history—that my faith had been used time and time again to uphold empire and to oppress.

I also began to realize that this dualistic concept of church and world had been used to support the status quo. For example, the South African Dutch church’s defense of apartheid and the American Presbyterian church’s defense of slavery in the south both appealed to the supposition that the church had no business engaging in cultural issues. The attitude that the church is “spiritual” somehow meant that they had no say in the society at large. I was struck by the insidiousness of this capitulation to cultural evil. Marx critiques Christianity for this;

The social principles of Christianity point to heaven as the compensation for all the crimes that are committed on earth. The social principles of Christianity explain all the viciousness of oppressors as a just punishment either for original sin or other sins, or as trials that the Lord, in infinite wisdom, inflicts on those the Lord has redeemed. The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice…

One of the most influential people in my thinking on this issue has been Gustavo Gutierrez, the Latin American liberation theologian. He insists that there is no neutral ground for the church. A church that refuses to speak against social evil is a church that is allowing social evil to continue unchecked. There is no hiding behind the dualistic Western thinking that spiritual can be separated from social and physical. Indifference, says Miroslav Volf, is far more destructive than hate and Gutierrez castigates a church that will take refuge in the spiritual while ignoring the very real needs of the poor. He insists that “history is one” and Christ’s redemptive works embrace all aspects of existence. The coming kingdom includes real peace and justice and love. The church must stop simply talking about fellowship and Christian unity and work to bring it about in concrete terms. Salvation involves the whole person.

This has radically altered my way of thinking about God and the world. It has opened my eyes to the need to introduce a radical understanding of the imago dei, the inherent worth of every human being and the missio dei, the mission of the church to be the agent of God in the world.