Teasing Out the Tensions
Teasing Out the Tensions
Living as Kingdom Christians and American citizens will force us to resist easy resolutions and simplistic identities. The truth is in the tension.
Today I’m working on a book about being a Kingdom Christian in a post-gender-binary world. Does that sound like fun? It can be. It can also be… difficult.
One of the basic questions any writer has to answer is: What is my audience? The easy answer is, of course, “Everyone!!!” In a perfect world, that kind of book would easily sell ten million copies. But any attempt to write it would fall apart somewhere within the first five hundred words.
The book I’m working on is for Christians. But… what kind of Christians? Right now, the Christian community in America is fractured and animated by attitudes and energies that don’t seem compatible.
Some Christians are fighting hard to resurrect the pre-sexual revolution America that started dying half a century ago.
Some Christians are looking for “God’s anointed leader” to elect, hoping they can drain the swamp.
Some Christians are sliding into the emerging ethic of “nearly anything goes” when it comes to sexuality.
Some Christians are genuinely trying to figure out what it means to be an exile community.
Some Christians are trying to take the Seven Mountains.
Some Christians are seeking revival, trusting that a Church fully alive can bring Awakening to the culture.
Some Christians are seeking to embody the saying attributed to St. Francis, “Preach the Gospel. When necessary use words.”
Some Christians are flirting with the “Christian Nationalist” label and feeling the surging passion of puppy love.
Some Christians are adopting the political platform of the DNC or RNC and providing biblical proof texts to support their policy positions.
Some Christians are adopting the ostrich option—head buried in the sand.
The list goes on and on.
It’s impossible to imagine any Christian being equally excited by every one of those descriptors. And it’s troubling to think that any Christian would go “all in” on most of them.
I think my book is going to be for Christians who can feel the tension of this time. We hear one approach to “the issues” and think, “Yeah! That’s it!” But then, we are reminded of another approach and wonder, “But what about this? Isn’t this important too?”
In other words, you look at that list above and most of them are missing something (while a few are totally out of bounds). What’s missing?
Christians are often tempted to resolve ideas that are meant to be held in tension. When we do that, we surrender a BIG TRUTH for a second-rate, synthetic sham.
Just think “the Trinity.” One God. Three Persons. Each Person God. If you try to mess with those truths which—at least in my tiny brain—can’t be fully grasped, you end up in Arianism, Tritheism, Modalism, Docetism, Subordinationism, or one of the other heresies that have infected the Church since its earliest days.
The truth is in the tension.
Just as a kite can only fly if it is anchored to the ground. The beauty and goodness of Kingdom realities come crashing down when we take one idea and trash another. The fractured display of American Christianity can be traced back to this dynamic.
Let’s dial down a bit further. Here are two identity-level truths that must be held with equal passion, despite the tensions that emerge. If we lose one, then we’ll never live into the fullness of our Kingdom identity:
We are called to be AMBASSADORS and CITIZENS
We are Ambassadors of God’s Kingdom, living as witnesses of the Eternal Order that Jesus brought to earth when He came. We are living for heaven here on earth, mediating eternal realities as jars of clay. We are living for the New Heavens and New Earth that are to come. We know that the present world-order will not last. One day, it will burn up in refining fires and be remade (2 Peter 3:10).
At the same time, we are Citizens of the United States. As members of a constitutional republic , we can exercise the rights of American citizens. Which means we have influence. Which means we must steward that influence with integrity and wisdom. Though this present order is bound to end, it has the power to impact people for good and evil.
It only takes a little imagination to see how these two truths can yield a tension. We all have friends who are a little too invested in the political. We probably have others who are so disconnected we wonder, “Dude… wake up. You can’t do EVERYTHING. But at least do something.”
How can we live as Citizens without compromising our call to be Ambassadors?
I’ve been thinking of a few other tension-points:
We are called to LOVE and TRUTH.
We are called to be BOLD INDIVIDUALS and HUMBLE TEAM-MEMBERS.
We are called to INNOCENCE and WISDOM (i.e. doves & snakes).
We are called to HOPE and REALISM.
We are called to be WIDE OPEN and WELL-GUARDED.
None of these truths are ultimately incoherent. But, in real life, they often create tensions and raise questions about the best way forward.
I think many of the fracture-lines in the Body, and our every day relationships, are formed when we forget one aspect of these tension points. Typically, we are temperamentally disposed towards one or another. We tend to value what resonates with our wiring.
Rather than valuing people who lean into the “other side” of the tension—which is a TRUTH that we should value too—we can grow suspicious or impatient. Rather than pausing and seeing what their “lean” challenges in us, we wonder, “Why can’t you be a little more like me?” (even if we’re too polite to admit that’s what we’re thinking).
But we need both sides of the tension.
How in the world can we proclaim and demonstrate the exclusive, expansive, accepting, self-denying, happy, urgent, empowering, humbling reality of the Kingdom in a world that is deeply confused and blazingly confident its fantasies are real? How can we invite people into a Kingdom they’re increasingly conditioned to reject?
Hmmm… A book that helps people do that might sell millions!!! 😉