The recent attempted assassination of the Presidential candidate Donald Trump stirred up a variety of emotions and memories in me. My mind went back to memories and emotions from 60 years ago. I was 9 to 16 years old from 1963 to 1970.
During these seven years, first JFK, then Malcolm X, next was MLK, and finally RFK were all assassinated. It was also during these turbulent years the race riots burned cities across America. I lived in Flint, Michigan, where we had our share of threats from various perspectives. Women marched for their liberation, which became known as the Women’s Liberation Movement. The United States was engaged in the Viet Nam conflict (war), where tens of thousands of young American servicemen were killed in battles primarily fought because of politically motivated leaders and poor decisions. We were deeply involved in the “Cold War” with Russia, and we lived under the threat they were going to nuke us at any moment. A sexual revolution began in full force during this era, where sex was taken out of the marriage context and “freed up” to any relationship. For the first time, many mind-altering drugs were introduced into the mainstream youth culture. Then, in 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire during a student war protest, killing four students and wounding nine more on a college campus.
They were polarized, volatile, and violent times. Radical change was shaking every fabric of our society and culture.
I recently heard a young pastor share that our nation is more polarized now than it has ever been. I shook my head (internally, of course), for this young man has little grasp of history. In addition to what I describe above, our War for Independence, the Civil War, and both World Wars also experienced significant division within our nation. Let us not form a Pollyanna revised view of our history.
I find it interesting to draw parallels from today to the 1960s because it appears that we haven’t progressed much in the last 60 years. It was a tumultuous time then and it is now with wars, polarized protests, assassinations, gender, and race differences dividing our nation. There are too many similarities to ignore. Every factor of division I shared above from that seven-year period is personified today in a similar fashion. This is not new.
This is why emotions and memories were stirred within me when I heard of the assassination attempt this past week.
I also find it interesting that during the turbulent sixties, the Jesus movement was born. In response to what was happening culturally, politically, relationally, emotionally, and mentally, a radically different expression of the Body of Christ began to emerge. Mary Kay and I both came to center our lives in Christ during this era and movement.
As an excited follower of Christ, I remember going back to the dying church in which I grew up. I had a leader tell me I should not wear jeans to church because Jesus desired my “Sunday best”, which to him was a suit and tie. I told him that Jesus saw him naked in the shower. The conversation ended.
Some of us may want Jesus to radically change our culture as he did with these Jesus people, but I don’t think this is the case for many churchgoers. Just like in the 1960s, many people want to be comfortable with enough Jesus to get them out of hell. I think that is why I watched older churches/leaders respond to the Jesus Movement in very different ways, some in a nostalgic manner, while others in a synchronistic manner.
The first group wanted just to go back to the old times. They refused to accept any responsibility for the condition of our culture and pushed to go back to what it was like in the 40s and 50s. They refused to acknowledge the difference between their cultural norms for the church and Biblical norms. They couldn’t distinguish between Biblical principles and their cultural principles in the areas of clothes, hairstyles, language, musical instruments, songs, and structures that they were accustomed to. These churches rejected most of the amoral cultural changes represented in the Jesus movement. They inevitably locked into formats, styles, and cultural norms of previous decades, which led them to become irrelevant. It took many of these churches forty or fifty years to close, but eventually, most did, or they went the other extreme.
The opposite response was to embrace all the norms, values, or changes and become something totally new. They embraced the culture carte blanche. These churches/leaders were embraced by the younger generation but eventually lost impact due to their lack of transformational power or wisdom. They faded with that cultural norm with little lasting impact. They did, however, experience short-term popularity. These churches left the Biblical truths that produce personal and community transformational change. In so doing, they lost their footing from which they would seek to build disciples who could stand secure in times of significant societal and cultural changes that were only beginning. They lacked what we call an epistemological foundation for truth. There must be an unshakeable foundation that has stood the test of time and culture to build one’s life.
Looking back at the Jesus movement, despite its many drawbacks, it was able to relate to the frustrations of the younger generation while also offering a solid epistemology from which to deal with life’s deeper questions. Their lives were transformed. They were not perfect, but their lives and communities were changed positively forever. They were able to bring about transformation, which only comes from the Spirit through God’s word while not being tied to cultural forms. I am one of the fruits of this movement.
So, what will the Church look like after our current cultural, societal, and political upheaval? Will we see another movement emerge? I am not sure, but I believe we will again need to evaluate the values we live considering Biblical principles and outcomes. No doubt we will see many churches hunker down and eventually die. While others will attempt to accommodate current cultural fads without a solid foundation and thereby lose impact. In Christ and Culture, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a book in 1951 which describes this tension.
The apostle Paul dealt with this tension 2,000 years ago. Across his many letters to various churches in the New Testament he shares how each church could be the expression of God’s redemptive presence, wisdom, power, and love in their own community and culture without compromising their Christlike qualities. Ephesians 4.14-26 is a great passage where he deals with this tension.
If we aren’t worried about who gets the credit or what form the church takes within Biblically appropriate and Spirit-inspired principles, I am convinced that the Spirit can transform the church into something more God-honoring and impactful than we have experienced in our lifetime.
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