Just got home tonight from our Thursday night large group. I was the speaker understudy for a sick co-worker (get better soon, Jfarm!) and the topic was "Pitfalls of Christian Community." The basic idea: what are we NOT going to be about as an InterVarsity chapter?
I proposed that there was one core pitfall that all Christians wrestle from whence springs all the other pitfalls of Christian community: functional atheism.
A working definition of functional atheism: to proclaim on a Sunday morning (or Thursday night) that Jesus is Lord and that he is good and that he is intimately involved in the world and in all the details of our lives...and then to live the other days of the week as if none of that were true.
Us Christians do this all the time. We sing true and powerful songs about God's goodness and power. We nod our heads in agreement as we hear truth proclaimed that he loves us.
And then we walk out the door and live as if it were all up to us, as if there were no God and we have to do what we have to do to get by, to survive and advance, to scratch and claw our way through life.
We live our lives as functional atheists: professing one thing in a "religious" context and then living completely differently the other six days and 23 hours of our lives.
And tonight as we worked through the "nots" from 1 Corinthians 13 (love does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs) I was in essence trying to call us to put functional atheism behind us.
The Christian life is to be lived with Jesus as Lord. One of my hopes for my students when they graduate is that they'll understand something of what it means for the gospel to shape life in real-time, with real-life situations: angry at a co-worker, tempted to hit porn, an argument with your spouse, raising kids, coaching soccer, angling for a promotion.
Jesus is Lord over all those situations. Part of our work and the work of the Holy Spirit, is to help us to live into that reality in all aspects of our lives.
And if we did that--if we actually repented of our functional atheism and lived into the power of Jesus' Lordship in all aspects of our lives--it would radically and relentlessly and gloriously set us free.
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