In the World
By Thomas A. Langford
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"They are not of the world...I have sent them into the world...I...pray for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one" (John 17).
A study of the Gethsemane prayer of Jesus shows us that although he faced death, he held the highest expectations for the work his disciples would continue to do in the world. He saw them as his agents, continuing the work he had begun. Isaiah had outlined this work in the passage which Jesus read in the synagogue of Nazareth.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18, 19).
The New Testament records how faithfully and effectively those early disciples went into the world to do the work of Jesus. They "went everywhere, preaching the word," healing the wounds of sins and drawing men together under God. As Paul wrote, "We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). Those thousands who received their message became the ecclesia, the "called out." Though still in the world, they were called out of its sin and godlessness and into the koinonia, the community of Christ.
Although the New Testament refers to them as "the church" (Ephesians 1:22), they were not much of a church by modern standards. They had no imposing meeting houses, no prestigious stature in their communities. By current standards, their meetings for worship and training seem rather informal, perhaps lacking in dignity. Their "program" might be unimpressive compared to present day religious activity. But "how they loved each other!" How they turned the world upside down and made their mark
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I write all of this to establish the proper context for a discussion of the church and her challenge today. Though removed two millenniums from our earliest counterparts, we face a world and a mission which are, in their most essential nature, the same. Our world gropes as did theirs for the knowledge of God, and for the purpose such knowledge can give to life.
Would anyone claim that we have always provided that knowledge, that we have been very successful in meeting our challenge? How and where do we differ from those early saints? These questions are especially pertinent to those of us who belong to a movement which seeks to restore the spirit of New Testament Christianity to the modern world.
Perhaps we have not yet seen clearly enough the real issues in today's struggle. We have been so involved in internal matters, in "doctrinal" and ritual concerns (not unimportant things, certainly) that we may have forgotten that the mission of the "called out" is to call out to others. Certainly we "call out," preach the gospel, but in houses to which the world will not come.
Disregarding the changes which the world has undergone in the last fifty years, we are still preoccupied with building buildings, hiring preachers, and developing "programs," whether or not these activities really reach the lost or make any real impact on the world. In many cases we seem to have chosen the route of isolation rather than real involvement with mankind.
As a teacher I am particularly concerned with the younger generation and its attitude toward Christianity. The church is losing many of its finest youth, not because Christianity is no longer valid, but because they see little relevance in the average church program to the real needs of the world today. While a sick world is groping for light and leadership, we have consumed our energies debating the divisive issues of yesteryear. Some of these issues are important, but haven't many of us forgotten that the gospel is the Good News of God's love through Christ, and not negative arguments against doctrinal perversions?
What about the church's responsibility to the poor, the hungry, the widows and orphans? What about the church's response to racial discrimination, prejudice and bigotry? What about our responsibility to teach young men Christ's will for them as regards military combat? What are we doing to touch those in the slums? Are we waiting for them to come to us? Aren't they a part of the world into which Christians are to go with the Good News?
I raise these questions because the times cry out for Christians to get involved. Christ and compassion call upon us to do more than talk about religion, to move into the arenas where life's battles are being fought, to herald the Good News of the kingdom by giving purpose to life on earth.
If the church refuses to be involved and continues to wait for the world to get respectable enough to come to it, it will wither into oblivion in the atrophy of an organ which has lost its proper function. With the candlestick of the Lord removed it will fade into the darkness of history as the relic of another age.
I hasten to say that I speak of the church as we know it, the institution of our childhood, the establishment religious. The real church will never die, for in every age God's saints pursue His work. When the organizational church becomes so phlegmatic and insensitive that it no longer reflects God's will, the called out will do his work in other ways, quietly but faithfully moving in the world which Jesus died to reclaim. From the church on Park Avenue they will turn again to "the church in thy house" of which the scriptures so frequently speak.
Elton Trueblood wrote twenty years ago in his Alternative to Futility that the real hope for our nation might well lie in small groups of Christians, praying, worshipping, working with the intensity of those who have been saved to save others.
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By some means, the real church must find the way of accomplishing God's will for the world. The poet Dante wrote that "in his will is our peace." May we never have peace while we are indifferent to his will and anesthetized by our own comfort and false well-being. We can choose either isolation or involvement. But in only one of these courses can we continue to be Christ's disciples.
(Editor's Note: Dr. Thomas A. Langford is in the English Department at Texas Tech, in Lubbock. He has recently completed a year of special study with the Office of Education in Washington, D.C. The above article first appeared in Christian Appeal, and is reprinted here with permission).