Hoping for a Vibe Shift in Modern Christendom

There is an issue in conservative Christianity. It is an issue that goes back at least for 100-200 years. I’m sure it has been around in pockets of Christendom through the ages though… When an institution comes under attack from evil or liberalism, conservatives tend to beat a retreat from that institution. They start new institutions. They move.

Take cities, for example. In early Christianity, the cities were the place where Christianity spread. In our times, the cities are the place where Leftism spreads. I grew up in a big city, in Toronto. Over decades, even though the gospel has spread in pockets in the city, at large, the city has been abandoned by Christian conservatives to Leftism and paganism. If I look at my province where I live today, I can imagine that if we don’t go through a shift in mindset, the same thing will happen to Edmonton and Calgary and then eventually Grande Prairie and Lethbridge and Red Deer.

Take denominations. Since the 1800s, the Dutch Reformed and the Presbyterians have been splintering into smaller and smaller segments of Christendom as unbelief and liberalism has taken over larger denominations.

We need a vibe shift.

Part of that vibe shift is in how you read the Bible and finding the exhortations for life in this world in all of Scripture and not just part of Scripture.

There are some who make as their hermeneutical grid for understanding contemporary life and their expectation of the future, verses like Luke 18:8b: “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Of course, Jesus was speaking there to a contemporary audience, with potential implications for His coming in judgment in 70 AD.

There are many more verses that we must consider in the spectrum of the New Testament.

Another thing that you will hear is an emphasis on suffering and tribulation. Jesus warns us in John 16:33: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation…” Yes, but He continues in 33b: “…But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

As a result of a very particular hermeneutical grid, conservative Christians have a vision of history, where the church becomes increasingly smaller and smaller. Soon it is just me and my family and my dog (and maybe a couple neighbors) left reading the Bible in a cabin out in the wilderness, while the whole world goes mad, and you wait for the Lord to come on the clouds of heaven and rescue you just as the police show up on the property to arrest you all to throw you into prison.

This could be a theme among premillenials, pessimistic amillenials. I have even seen this among postmillenials who tell people to abandon the cities and move into colonies in the country-side. It is surprising how many postmillenials have a hopeful theology, but a hopeless outlook.

There is a famous talk from Pastor John MacArthur on eschatology (many people are aware that I enjoy his preaching and also disagree with him here and there), where says: “We don’t win down here. We lose. You ready for that? Oh, you thought because you were a postmillennialist, you thought we’re just going to go waltzing into the kingdom because you took over the world. No, we lose here. Get it?” He is right. We do lose down here. We are persecuted. We are killed. But it is also true that the cross of Jesus Christ is the path to ultimate victory. It true is that “we lose down here.” It is also true that “we win down here.” It’s called paradox.

We need a restoration of the missio Dei or mission of God to our life and doctrine. This means that orthodoxy and orthopraxy come together. This means that we are on mission.

In Acts 1, the church very clearly has a sense of her call to be on mission to bear witness to Christ to the ends of the earth. The church is everywhere throughout the Book of Acts. In the privacy of homes, worshipping in the Temple, speaking in the public square. She gathers and then she goes out to witness to Christ. Her members “gossip the gospel” in the town square, at work, in the prisons, in the business place, everywhere. Her preachers preach a bold message of the Lordship of Christ. Paul shows up before the judgment seat of Festus and Agrippa and finally Caesar himself.

Nowhere in the New Testament is there a perspective of quietistic retreat. There is always advance as God uses various personalities and persons. We do the central thing of bearing testimony to the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, as well as the true history of the world.

The theology of the New Testament is not a loser theology. It has as its entire underpinnings the miraculous growth of the gospel. How else, other than a miracle do we explain the expansion of the gospel to the ends of the earth starting with 12 unlearned men, with a fisherman in the lead? They were all trained by a carpenter, the Son of God and man. Why is it that in the New Testament, even women and children do not fear death, but would rather die, then deny Christ?

We read in 1 Corinthians 15:24–28

“Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘all things are put in subjection,’ it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”

We should not be afraid of winning. We should not be afraid of scoring victories for Christ. We should not be afraid of winning back Canada for Christ. We should not be afraid of winning in the cities and the provinces and the counties. We should not fear winning back denominations that have gone woke & apostate. It would not be the first time in history that we would score victories as Christians, and win cities and nations for Christ.

There seems to also be some form of a psychological barrier to winning in the modern day world. It could be the theological framework of a couple hundred years of pre-dominate premillenialism and pessimistic amillenialism, coupled with wars that destroyed millions. It could be in part the hermeneutical grid of dispensationalism. It could be the fact that over the last 25-50 years we have seen Canada go from bad to worse. Our fights seem futile. It feels easier to accept defeat. Of course, we have also seen the guys who go big and flame out. Fame is deeply dangerous. It goes to a man’s head. It cripples him in his ability to be holy. There are many many factors that give cause for fear of what appears to be “worldly success”.

We should not be naive and ignorant to the Devil and his wiles. The cross comes before the crown, triumph is marked by trial. One of the reasons I believe that the modern day Church does not score many marked triumphs, is because she does not know how to suffer. She has despised suffering. She has chosen instead the flash and lights of the stage, clambering for a seat at the table.

Matthew 16:25 “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

The victory is in the paradox. GK Chesterton writes:

“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”

Christianity is in the grave. By all accounts, the future of Canada is one of destructive multiculturalism and all that Alberta and Quebec want to do is set the clock back a bit to 1900s secularism, which is actually what got us here. But we don’t look upon these matters with the eyes of flesh, rather, we look upon them with the eyes of faith.

We should neither fear suffering nor winning victories. This is because our faith is in Christ and our lives are hidden with God in Christ.

Christianity has a God who knows the way out of the grave. On Him we rely.

Psalm 124:6–8 “Blessed be the LORD, / who has not given us / as prey to their teeth! / We have escaped like a bird / from the snare of the fowlers; / the snare is broken, / and we have escaped! / Our help is in the name of the LORD, / who made heaven and earth.”