Is Your Church Countercultural?

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Trevin Wax
Chris, we know that the church is meant to be called out people to be countercultural people to no matter the era, we are to look different than the world around us. The church isn’t the only community and society of course, there are plenty of people that are engaged involved in all sorts of communities built around all sorts of different aspirations and aims and hobbies and interests. What is it specifically about the church that would mark us out from other kinds of communities that exist in our society?

Christopher Watkin
That’s an incredibly important question, isn’t it? I, I guess the New Testament gives us a pretty clear steer on that, you know, we can’t make up an answer to that we can we given the answer to that? You know, so there’s the John 13 principle. By this will all people know that you’re my disciples, if you love one another. Pretty clear, that’s going to be a distinctive, the way that we relate to each other in love. I think, you know, John 17, Jesus high priestly prayer, he praised that his followers may be one that the world may know that You sent Me, I think our unity should be a distinctive, and you know, we often have to hang our heads in shame, don’t with that, that isn’t a Christian distinctive, but it should be in Jesus praise that it would be. And I think that the, as we show those, we will also distinguish ourselves from other communities in society by being neither of the two things that everybody is sort of sucked towards these days. So society is sort of resolving itself, I think, into either state organizations, political organizations, or corporate organizations, and everything that’s not either political or corporate feels the pull of those two, sort of suns around which our planet, our culture orbits. And so you know, churches feel the need to sort of reinvent themselves as political organizations, as activist organizations are campaigning organizations, and churches, you know, feel a pull to take on ideas and the ethos of the business world and to reinvent themselves as, as companies. And I think increasingly, one way that we can show that the love and the unity that Jesus commands us to have, as New Testament believers is to resist both of those polls and say, No, we’re not a political organization. First and foremost, we’re not an arm of government, we’re not an activist campaigning organization. And we’re not for profit, and we’re not going to remake ourselves in the image of a for profit organization, either we’re something different and distinctive, that often looks flabby and inefficient, to a mindset that sees everything, either as an arm of government or as part of the corporate sector. But that’s, that’s what we are. That’s what we need to seek to remain in being faithful to, to Christ.

Trevin Wax
i It’s interesting. I mean, there’s been a lot of conversation in recent years about the loss of mediating institutions, you know, the institutions that are not the state, neither are they just they individual, family unit, and the church being in some sense, something that it’s good for the culture, when there is a buffer, when there is something that’s not all politics all the time, or not all business, but it’s actually there for something else, but it is difficult to resist the pull in those two areas around those two sons, in part because we want to be good stewards of resources. So we do we do we want to eliminate certain inefficiencies that we might be able to, at some level, even though that’s not the logic that should be driving us. And at the same time, there is a, you know, activism is one of the evangelical impulses, you know, one of the four major characteristics of evangelicals, we’ve always had something of a political presence. So how can we, you know, adopt some of what we see is good in this world, and the other without necessarily being, like you said, just sucked into losing our ability to stand out? Yeah.

Christopher Watkin
I think, perhaps the question that we need to ask ourselves, and I’ll pass that we need to ask others about ourselves, because we’re often the very worst judge of ourselves, aren’t we? And it’s our own blind spots, that we don’t see it with the younger, I’m not in any danger of being sucked in by, you know, this sort of state mentality, or the corporate mentality, probably around as many as you are, you know, you watch out. So perhaps the question we need to ask other people is, is are these things filling our horizon? As Christians? Are they the language and the logic that we speak and that we pray in and that we were using sort of, you know, church board meetings, or however churches are organized? Because as you said, you know, it’s not that Christians should completely shun anything that’s ever been anywhere near a management book, and, you know, Heaven forfend all that we should you know, never seek to work for the peace and prosperity of society in ways that are, you know, political, not at all. But I think is when those fill our horizon when those become the motivating force, and the reason for the existence of the community, or the thing that the community spends its time thinking about when he meets together, then the alarm bells should be going off,

Trevin Wax
there is another kind of community that we should stand out from that I would just throw out there. And I wonder if you agree with us, but there, there are communities today that are neither corporate communities or the state that are gathering around particular interests that are all for the realization of individual self fulfillment, or self actualization. You know, whether it be communities around working out, or around certain kinds of diet programs, or exercise programs, or certain kinds of almost quasi pseudo religious type communities. I just wonder, I wonder if a lot of people see the church as just another one of those like, you know, to help you, I guess, be the best kind of person, you can be morally or the, to achieve your, you know, an inner peace that you’re looking for. And, and, of course, the church should form us morally, and the church should give us peace and rest. And there are aspects that I would say, yes, that is an important aspect of what the church does offer. But almost coming at it again, from an individualistic standpoint, where it’s all about my, my expressing myself, my finding myself in the church just helps me to do that. And so that’s why I am there. How can the church, how does the church recognize that that is one of the needs that might bring people into a congregation, but also move people beyond that as being the filling of the horizon? As you say,

Christopher Watkin
Yeah, I think this is in Ephesians, three question. Because you’re right, the church isn’t just another interest group. But there’s a sense in which it is a very particular sort of interest group, it’s just that the interest isn’t ours. It is the community that gathers for God’s interests, and to glorify Him. So it’s, it’s not that it’s devoid of all interest. But the thing that that is amazing about Ephesians three, isn’t it, that Paul has gone, you know, Ephesians, one, Ephesians, two, these huge, overarching theological sort of eulogies of how how God before the creation of the world chose us and how we saved by grace, and then it sort of narrows down in Ephesians. Three, and he’s, he’s saying to the church, you should basically get on with one another, so that the powers and authorities in the heavenly realms know that God is wise, and he’s sort of reading your Bible anything. How does that work? And I think what he’s saying is that church communities are not gathered around a common interest and not gathered, just because I like being with these people. In fact, there might be people in this community that I profoundly do not like being around. But it’s precisely because I love those people, that the powers and authorities namely, mounds go, wow, God is doing something amazing here. So I think that that’s the difference. Like if I’m part of the local squash club, and I don’t like the people there, then I got to find a new one. But if I’m part of a church, and there are people who are just not like me, I don’t have a lot in common with them, then I rejoice and I stay there, because that is how God demonstrates His wisdom in the last days. And so there’s a very different dynamic. So why we gathered and what we do when that gathering is awkward as well.

Trevin Wax
And the irony is, because of that difference in that that difference in logic, and that distance of even understanding why we’re there, the irony is though, that that is how God actually does form us and make us the person that he wants us to be. So he is forming us individually, through sometimes being in community with those that that are challenging sometimes to be with.

Christopher Watkin
That’s a really profound coming. I mean, you don’t you don’t grow a lot if you’re always around people just like you do. I think that’s one thing that marriage, but not only marriage, or close relationships teach you, you know, you find that when you’re sort of rubbing up against each other, that’s when you’re going to grow that’s when you’re going to learn things about yourself that you find uncomfortable, but that it’s incredibly important to learn. And, you know, if I was always with people who simply reflected me back to myself, I’d never find that. And so there’s a there’s a deep and yet awkward blessing in church communities.

Trevin Wax
And that’s one of the things that makes it countercultural. Yeah,