In the World, But Not of It

Chasing an elusive balance.

For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about radical Christianity, the idea that if we really loved Jesus we would do big, impressive things to change the world on his behalf. While my experience has been with the 90s iteration of this ideology, it isn’t a new way of approaching the Christian life. Throughout history forms of radical Christianity have appeared, and they have usually been born out of a reaction against a Christianity that is too safe, too cultural, too comfortable.¹

In fact,

Karen Swallow Prior

writes in The Evangelical Imagination, the development of evangelicalism itself was in part a response to this kind of apathy.² And yet, even in a country so shaped by the evangelical imagination, radical Christianity and the safe Christianity it opposes have somehow found a way to live side by side.

While I grew up with messages swirling around me, from youth conferences, short-term mission trips, and missionary biographies, that I needed to live radically for Jesus, I also felt the pull of what I call “evangelical safety culture.”

If radical Christianity was being “in the world” to effect change for the Kingdom of God, evangelical safety culture was all the ways we were “not of the world” for the sake of our own purity.

I grew up with features of both.

Radical Christianity informed the inspirational biographies I read, the short-term mission trips I went on, and the college degree I pursued.

Evangelical safety culture influenced the media I was allowed to enjoy, the friends I was able to make, the activities I participated in, and the political and theological opinions to which I was exposed. It may have even played a role in where I grew up.

Through the centuries Christians have felt the tension between being in the world as salt and light and being distinct and separate from it. The proverbial pendulum swings between Radical Christianity when we overemphasize the former and evangelical safety culture when we focus on the latter. I don’t know if this tension has been palpable in a unique way in American evangelicalism, but I do know that I have felt myself careening between the two at times. The result is a dizzying disorientation.

As I’ve explored the influences of radical Christianity on my spiritual formation these past few weeks, I’ve realized I need to turn over the coin and examine the other side as well. Over the next few weeks I’ll share my findings.

I’d love to know if you can relate with this tension as well. Has your experience in the church been characterized more by a pull toward radicalism or toward safety?

Beauty in the Desert
The Palo Verde trees are in full bloom here in the springtime desert. I rarely noticed the beauty of the Southwest’s seasons when I was growing up, but now that we’ve been back for three years I am learning the subtle shifts that happen from month to month.

Beauty in Motherhood
This little man turns three this week. Every year after singing “Happy Birthday” we name the gift they are to our family and call out the ways they have grown in their last trip around the sun. M brings to our days the gift of curiosity, the joy of learning new things, and a wealth of imagination that is only compounding by the week. He has also shown great strides in developing impulse control and learning how to play kindly and collaboratively with a little brother who wants to do everything exactly like him.

In pursuit of Beauty,

1. For example, the Reformation, the Puritans, etc.

2. See especially Chapter 3: Conversion.