Christian Engagement with the World

Involvement or retreat?

The other day in a radio interview I spoke about Christ the controversialist. I also mentioned that John Stott had a book by that title. So I just grabbed my copy of it from the shelves and am revisiting it. It first came out in 1970, and I consider it to be a modern Christian classic.

In it the British pastor and theologian looks at a number of contrasting positions, such as: authority: tradition or Scripture; salvation: mercy or merit; and morality: outward or inward. Here I look at chapter 7: “Responsibility: Withdrawal or Involvement?”

Stott begins by noting the contrast between Jesus and the Pharisees. He reminds us that their concerns were based on some good and biblical notions: to be holy, and to be a distinct people of God. But Israel failed to be a holy people and were sent into exile. He notes how the repatriated exiles started heading in a wrong direction:

Misunderstanding the nature of the holiness God required of them, they began to cultivate a false separatism. They forgot the prophetic description of their destiny to be ‘a light to the nations’. Instead, they withdrew from all contact with the nations around them. And so Pharisaism was born. The real parting of the ways arrived when Palestine became absorbed into the far-flung empire of Alexander the Great, and Greek influence started to infiltrate into Judaism. Some Jews surrendered to it (the Hellenists) while others resisted it (the Hasidaeans, from Hasidim or ‘pious ones’). Out of the Hellenists came the Sadducees, out the Hasidaeans the Pharisees.

 

The very word ‘Pharisees’ is an accurate description of them, for it is in fact an Aramaic term for ‘separatists’. The Pharisees were the religious exclusives of their day. In their determination to conform strictly to the law they held aloof from any and every contact that (in their view) might ‘defile’ them. This entailed an avoidance not only of Gentiles, not only of hellenized Jews, but of the ‘common people’ as well, who through ignorance of the law no doubt broke it and as law-breakers, were unclean.

Thus the Pharisees developed a “superior and scornful attitude” towards the common people. They refused to associate with sinners, and sought to remain socially distant from them – quite unlike Jesus:

So the Pharisaic doctrine of holiness, of separation from the world, was a perverted doctrine. Instead of seeking to be holy in thought, word and deed, while retaining relationships of love and care with all men, they withdrew from social contact with ‘sinners’ and despised those who did not follow suit. They became a ‘holy club’ – as the early Methodists were called – a pietistic enclave which virtually contracted out the world. They also became harsh and censorious; they had no pity for people in ignorance, sin or need.

Stott spends a few pages in contrasting the way that Jesus dealt with others. He then writes: “The Pharisees’ first concern was themselves, how to preserve their own purity, whereas Jesus Christ’s first concern was others, how ‘to seek and save the lost.’

He looks at various parables Jesus told to illustrate this way of dealing with the lost, and then says this: “Christ’s fraternization with outcasts was interpreted by the Pharisees as an inexcusable compromise with sin; they did not see it for what it really was, an expression of the divine compassion for sinners.”

Stott then applies this to the church today. He looks at four common attitudes of Pharisees: self-righteousness; fear of contamination; an unbalanced relationship between evangelism and social concern; and laziness and selfishness. I will here dwell on his third point.

He looks at two extreme positions on this. Some evangelicals think we should only proclaim a gospel of salvation of individual souls, and have no concern for the world around us. Liberal Christians can put all their emphasis on making the world a better place with little or no concern about getting people saved. Both positions are wrong and unbiblical. Says Stott:

The kind of evangelicalism which concentrates exclusively on saving individual souls is not true evangelicalism. It is not evangelical because it is not biblical. It forgets that God did not create souls but body-souls called human beings, who are also social beings, and that He cares about their bodies and their society as well as about their relationship with Himself and their eternal destiny. So true Christian love will care for people as people, and will seek to serve them, neglecting neither the soul for the body nor the body for the soul. As a matter of fact, it has not been characteristic of evangelicals in the past to be shy of social action, or even, when necessary, of political action. Perhaps the two most notable examples in England, both of which belong to the last century, are William Wilberforce, whose indefatigable campaign led to the abolition of the slave trade and later of slavery itself; and Anthony Ashley Cooper, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, who introduced legislation to improve the working conditions in factories and mines, of colliers and chimney sweeps. We saw earlier how brightly Christ’s compassion for outcasts shone against the dark background of the Pharisees’ indifference. Still today there are neglected groups of our human society – for example drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally sick, and the elderly – who need what might be termed ‘total care’. They challenge evangelicals to bold experiments which would combine gospel truth and practical service in a balanced expression of love. 

 

The kind of ecumenism which concentrates exclusively on questions of social justice, however, on eliminating racial discrimination, hunger, poverty and war, forgets the Christian saying which is ‘sure and worthy of fall acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’, and forgets also His plain commission to the church to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations.

He finishes the chapter with these words:

Self-righteousness and snobbery, fear of contamination, a distorted perspective of soul and body, and apathy. Underlying these four causes of withdrawal there lurks a false view of God. The God revealed by Jesus Christ is a God who cares. He loves people who do not deserve to be loved. He makes His sun rise on the evil as well as the good, and sends rain on the unjust as well as the just. He made us body-souls and cares for us as body-souls. And He has taken action – sacrificial action – to supply a remedy for our sin. He has got Himself deeply involved in our predicament.

 

So Jesus Christ Himself did not remain aloof, or refuse to get involved, or hide away in the safe immunity of heaven. He entered our world. He assumed our nature. He identified Himself with our humanity. He exposed Himself to our temptations, sorrows and pains. He made friends with outcasts and was nicknamed ‘a friend of tax collectors and sinners’. He humbled Himself to serve people in their need. He washed His disciples’ feet. He never drew back from any demanding situation. He was willing finally to bear our sins and our curse in our place.

 

And now He says to the church: ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you’. The church’s mission reflects the Son’s mission, and both express the character of the Father….

 

The conclusion brings us to one of the great paradoxes of Christian living. The whole church is called (and every member of it) as much to involvement in the world as to separation from it, as much to ‘worldliness’ as to ‘holiness.’ Not to a worldliness which is unholy, nor to a holiness which is unworldly, but to ‘holy worldliness,’ a true separation to God which is lived out in the world – the world which he made and sent His Son to redeem.

 

Only the power of God can deliver us from the grudging, judging attitude of the elder brother, from the false Pharisaic fear of contamination-by-contact and from the aloofness which refuses to get involved. In place of all this we need the compassion of Christ. The Pharisees of today’s church murmur their disapproval if they will, if only they will also say of us (as their ancestors said of our Master): ‘this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

Yes, good words indeed John Stott. Christians today should not be Pharisees nor those who love the world too much but not their Lord enough. Getting the biblical balance right here is crucial.

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