Waking Up from the American Dream

A hotly debated issue these days is the relevance of the church in post-modern society. On one side of that argument, there’s a new movement that purports fitting seamlessly in with the world in the name of evangelism. Folk who believe that perspective cite the Apostle Paul as the foremost promoter of relevance, but clearly, Paul never promoted living worldly lifestyles in the name of evangelism. He merely said, more or less, "when you're eating with a heathen eat what the heathen eats."

I see no liberty to translate that into "watch what they watch," "buy what they buy," "pursue what they pursue," "do what they do." No, we're called to be different than the world. If our lifestyle looks like the unbelievers around us, it’s not a good sign-- it means were in sync with the world and out of sync with God. His ways are not mankind's ways, so Christians need to make His ways their ways rather than the world's! 

If our manner of life and our aspirations look in all practical measures just like the unbelieving world around us, why would any of them buy into the gospel we promote? In that case, they already live exactly the same way that we do but without the hassle of religion. What point would there be in adding religious trappings that don't actually make a difference to their lifestyle? The long and short of it: Christians ought to stand out from the world even while they're living in it--different values, different activities, different dreams. 

The difference is what, in fact, makes evangelism attractive to the world. The hope we have must strike a different chord than the hope they have or they won't be puzzled enough by ours to ask us about it. They won't find our dream intriguing in the least. If we're serious about bringing people to a life-saving, life-transforming faith in Christ, we're going to have to wake up from the American dream and start living God’s.