In But Not Of

"Blessed are those who speak in cliche for they shall be called evangelical..."

This is not an actual quote from Jesus' well known Sermon on the Mount (beginning in Matthew 5) but in the minds of many of us who call ourselves Evangelical Christians it might as well be. We love such statements as:

"God helps those who help themselves" (really?)
"...we've always done it that way, thats why!"
"Eternity...Smoking or Non?" (wow)
"It was Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve..." (true but maybe a tad abrasive)
"With all eyes in the room closed, If you prayed that prayer today raise your hand"

All of those statements might not fall into the "cliche" category, though some are available as bumper stickers, but many times I as a Christian will ascribe validity to a statement that sounds great but might not hold water. A phrase that is often heard as frequently as those above is: "Christians are to be in the world but not of it." Now this may have attained cliche frequency but actually does originate in the Bible - both Jesus and Paul talk a lot on this topic.

The question then is what does this truth (not cliche) mean?

Does it mean I can only listen to radio stations whose call number is preceded by "Spirit" "Way" or "Dove?"
Does it mean I have to trade in my mainstream breath freshening products for TestaMINTS?
Do I pull out of society and simply xerox the cultural things I need and "Christianize" them? (see local Christian bookstore for example)
How am I to engage those outside the church?
How do I demonstrate the hope I have within me without being flat out weird?

Or should I be weirder? I mean that seriously. Where is the line drawn on being the village idiot? You look at a guy like Noah - called to build a prehistoric cruise ship in a place where there were no major bodies of water and in a world that had not yet experienced rain - and you wonder if anyone at all who knew him thought the word "normal" and "Noah" could be mentioned together. Maybe thats the problem - maybe I look too much like the world - that is entirely possible but all I am asking is for us to think about it, to question. Before we wear the WWJD bracelet lets stop and think and read and REALLY find out what Jesus did - what he looked and acted like - before we wear something that reminds us to do that.

If you haven't seen The Village (2004), a movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, Lady in the Water) rent it when you're done reading this even though I spoil the ending. The movie revolves around this isolated village of townspeople who are very closely knit due to their commitment to never stray outside the village into the surrounding woods. One does not stray outside the village, especially after nightfall, because of this mythical sort of creature cloaked in a crimson robe that will overtake you. The people continually hear that evil lies outside the village, evil lies outside the village. However as disapperances begin to increase, people get curious and eventually someone discovers the crimson cloak hidden away somewhere - the creature did not exist but was an apparatus wielded by the powers that be; indeed there was evil outside the village but not just outside the village, it also lay on the inside - in the townleaders plan of deception - as well.

The world is full of increasing wickedness and evil and the above is not a perfect illustration nor is this a call for us to partake of what the world offers indiscriminately but we must understand the evil does not lie "outside" our Christian villages/bookstores/bands/conferences/etc. Evil lies in the human heart, and if you are a human and if you have a heart it is inside our camp. We have been redeemed from it but we have not yet been completely purged of it - that day is coming but is not yet here. As Luther notes we are simultaneously saints and sinners. So understanding we are a redeemed community of decreasingly evil people who have been given a new nature, living in an increasingly evil world - we are in it but not of it - what does this look like?