Thoughts from Off the Map Conference

Jim Henderson has this notion that Christians are being marginalized in America. People like our Jesus. Us? Not so much.

There may be good reason for that, I suggested as Jim and I sat on a piano bench at Seattle’s Bethany Community Church discussing these matters during the Off the Map ’09 conference.

Agreed, Jim said.

I have often wondered if God is sorry he made us, and if he is, where does he go to repentant of it?

Jim might be right about Christians being marginalized. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it in that sense but after 9-11, I did notice that we didn’t have a Rev. Peter Marshall or Billy Graham issuing a call for the nation to gather round for  prayer.

Seems like the only thing we could rally around at that point was a good old fashioned boot-kicking. I thought that odd, given that Bush was an evangelical Christian. Where was his faith in action?

Where was ours?

There is no question that Christians have lost credibility. We are looked upon with dubious suspicion.

Some of that we’ve earned, what with our Moral Majority, our strident stances, our “us” and “them” mentality. Some of that lack of credibility comes as a result of an emerging culture that is a respecter of people, celebrities in particular. A culture whose idea of reality is a finely-crafted television show. A culture where more people read PEOPLE magazine than the Holy Scriptures.

Phyllis Tickle’s presentation about the Great Emergence explained a great deal about this growing divide. It left me gobsmacked — the woman is so dang knowledgeable and wise. Tickle said that the current shift to a post-Christendom culture means that we  have to decide an authority for the state and an authority for the church. They will no longer be the same authority.

That’s significant because it means that Christ-followers have to decide how we can live out our faith, a faith that calls us to be evangelical, without igniting civil unrest. Such unrest has the potential for being far more disruptive globally than ever before. As Tickle noted, when someone catches a cold in India now the whole world gets pneumonia. Or SARS. Or H1N1.

Forget about the locust being turned loose. It’s the confrontation between Christians and culture that ought to concern us most. We have to find ways to establish a credible and respectable presence in the communities and the culture in which we live.

The way Rev. Samuel McKinney managed to do.

McKinney served as pastor of Seattle’s Mount Zion Baptist Church for 40 years, from 1958 to 1998. He was also founder of Liberty Bank, the first black-owned bank in Seattle. A leader for Civil Rights, McKinney’s accomplishments within the church, and without, are numerous. His legacy is admirable to believers and non-believers alike.

As one of his Zion Baptist Posse members told conference attendees, “It wasn’t hard to remember what Rev. McKinney said — all we had to do was watch what he did.”

And that’s exactly the point, isn’t it?

People are watching us. How we conduct ourselves matters, not only for us and our families, but for a world in search of a trustworthy authority.

Remember, Tickle said, “We are here to serve God in whatever way God chooses to move.” Let us go forward gratefully, fearfully and prayerfully, she urged.

We ought to live in a way that makes God proud to know us, not sorry he ever made us.