Think of this as a second daydream from the forlorn sidelines. A year-long battle with mouth cancer has forced me, the quintessential Christian activist, into the contemplative life. Which seems so unfair. I'm a classic Myers Briggs ENFJ personality type. We ENFJs are empathetic souls who inhale the Righteous Cause like addicts in their opium dens - especially in banner years like 2016, when millions wade into quicksand made of fake orange-colored hair mixed with climate change denial. It's as if we're singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" at the outbreak of the bubonic plague.
Yet I now see Christian activism's hazards. The "Christian" may fade until we're just another interest group. I've already written about losing the eternal perspective (religion is the only discipline that wrestles with death and the "hereafter" - no small issue when facing a potentially lethal disease). I also see how legitimate causes can turn on us and swallow us.
To put it in ancient but relevant terms, The Cause mutates into an idol.
Symptoms
Some tell-tale signs of activism gone sour:
- The Almighty Struggle spawns resentment. Cause-centered pastors secretly loathe their congregations because their members sap energy they could be funneling into their cherished movement. They turn snarky. Others see themselves as an enlightened elite: We're for the Just Cause; everyone else is oblivious.
- Real prayer fades. Prayer no longer resembles the description of John of Damascus: "... the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." Prayer now dwells on The Cause and nothing more. Our public prayers become thinly veiled political speeches or cloaks for protest - or even opportunities for logistical litanies ("Oh creator, please help everyone to remember their signs and bring them unto our picket lines ..."). Prayer even becomes a weapon: We'll gather outside an opponent's house or headquarters to "pray" for our adversaries, cameras videoing every movement. We hope an adversarial staff member growls so we can upload the scene on YouTube and claim innocence: "But we were only praying ..." We wonder why God seems ten thousand miles away.
- We barely see our own swelling egos. We'll even resent allied organizations wooing more press and donations.
- We'll tweak our doctrines to fit with sympathetic secular organizations. Christian Democrats may trim the Church's teaching on sexual abstinence until marriage; Christian Republicans may ignore the Bible's teaching on befriending the poor.
Never forget: Our cause remains intrinsically good. By all means, provide for the poor and promulgate policies that lift them from poverty; campaign for unborn babies; alert the public on climate change; push for peace. But remember that God transcends our causes, not vice versa. God is a being, not a yellow brick road to our movement's Holy Grail.
An eye-opening Internet search
The idolization of The Cause came into focus when I typed in "activism and prayer" on Google. I hoped for tips on how to deepen my spirituality even as I pontificate. Instead, I met fatigued, contrived liturgies withering God to a sycophantic wraith, bound to bless the humble advocates and then tip-toe from the room. Ironically, such an imagined god is too small to bless the cause. The genuine Almighty One may withdraw his blessing and leave us kneeling before our idols.
Diminishing our vision of God shrinks our discernment. We're rendered near-sighted. We lose the divine vision and cannot see with God's telescopic eyes. An example: Many pro-lifers fail to see the whole-life panorama as they zero-in on abortion. Their blindness stops them from forging alliances (some anti-abortionists say we should shun climate change because it distracts us from abortion). Another example: "pro-family" advocates see nothing but the "family," their image of which often fades into a black and white photo of suburban white people from the 1950's. Both movements have aligned themselves with the Republican Party despite the GOP's empty anti-abortion promises and adulterous candidates.
Many in the pro-family and pro-life movement pray, but to what God?
More withering
Our own self-concept shrinks when our concept of God shrinks. First Peter 2:9-10 illuminates the biblical concept of who we are:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
And there's Romans 8:37-39:
... in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And Ephesians 1:13-14:
... you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.
The upshot: In prayer, we approach God as repentant kings and queens and priests, focused on the spirit, who has sealed us.
Christian activists cannot afford to shrink their concept of God because the real God has often given us a humanly impossible task. We're called to be agents of God's Kingdom. We bring in Heaven's ways to the Earth. Thus we pray: "Your Kingdom come; your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven."
Heaven's ways demand Heaven's strength, which means we worship the God of Heaven and Earth, not the cause itself.
A truly Christian cause
A truly Christian cause does not try to make God serve it but serves God. At its best, it comes from God and is lifted back up to God in prayer. It is soaked in God's presence, fights with God's armor (see Ephesians 6:14-17: truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, God's word, and prayer in the Spirit), and bears the fruit of the Holy Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). Any cause that displays hatred cannot be of God, even if its issue is "right." It is an orphaned cause and cannot operate under God's power. Perhaps that's why so many Christian causes are languishing.
So how do we prevent our noble causes from turning on us and sapping us? More on that in future installments.