We are community makers.
I see this in my daughter all the time. The other day she had a group of friends, a flashlight, a cape, and their imagination. They’d only been playing for about five minutes and already formed a club—the Ghost Hunters. About ten minutes into this little charade community rules developed. They were having the time of their lives and plotting out their ideas for world domination….and then the whole thing blew up.
We are community destroyers.
I assume that somebody called someone else a doody head or tried to grab some power that wasn’t theirs and the whole thing came unglued. Factions started and Ghost Hunters took a few steps backwards. It wasn’t fun anymore. The community was destroyed. Apparently hunting ghosts in the scary crevices of a creepy old church wasn’t a big enough vision to bind them together.
Are adults really any better?
I’m preaching on Proverbs 1:8-19
this Sunday and I cannot help but think this is a tremendously accurate picture of our political engagement. If my Facebook wall is any indication “let us lie in wait for blood” is the modus operandi of political engagement. Wait for the other party to mess up, ambush them, and then take their stuff. Swallow them up like the grave swallows up people. That’s the strategy.
And we form community around this. It’s appealing to us. We like to belong. Every time we share one of those political posts on Facebook we are trying to expand our community and lob grenades at the other one. This is why it feels good whenever we get likes and hearts and shares and retweets on social media. We are forming community.
But it’s a mirage. Ray Ortlund is correct:
“A cause, even a negative cause, provides a group to belong to. It is one way we nurse our grudges, and it feels good. But whenever we gather around grievance rather than Jesus, that is counterfeit community, black-market relationships, and that negativity is on a collision course with reality. It cannot succeed long-term.” –(Ray Ortlund, Proverbs Commentary).
I understand why those who do not have a relationship with Jesus could so easily slip into counterfeit community. It’s all they really have. But what baffles me—and this is true of my own heart—is how we believers who have tasted of the true community of Jesus could so easily be duped into pursuing false community. We gather around grievance rather than Jesus and then blame God for the rancid fruit this produces. We blame him for the church who chose the stew instead of the birthright.
A community who bears the name of Jesus but is gathered around grievance instead of Christ is still a counterfeit community. It won’t hold.
The same thing happens with these communities that happens when you start a friendship based on juicy gossip. A person who gossips to you will someday gossip about you. It’s the same thing with those who lie in wait for another’s blood while promising a shared purse. It’s good now but eventually you are going to be on the other end of that equation. You’ll end up in a ditch. This is why churches which started because of a church split seldom grow and end up splitting over and over again.
This is also why our nation will not ever truly be united while we are stuck in this cycle of greed. A lust for power—even if its to use that power for good ends—will never end well. If you grab power by ungodly means its going to come back on you. You’ve created a culture that is going to swallow you alive.
Our only hope is to step off the cycle and devote ourselves to a community which is increasingly dedicated to Jesus. Only Christ at center is big enough and powerful enough to bind together diverse people. Step away from Christ and you’ve stepped away from the community you so deeply desire.
Actually, conflict is one of the most TEMPORARILY unifying things there is. But when the battle is over the fighting spirit tends to remain and eventually turns inward. These groups that thrive on conflict usually end up cannibalizing themselves.
Unfortunately, there was much of that in the CR. We united and put down our differences except for inerrancy. Once the mods were gone, some of the true warrior types just couldn’t give up the battle. There were some who were just always spoiling for a fight.
I’ve been called a “moderate” for some of the stupidest reasons you can imagine. When the moderates were gone, some of these guys just couldn’t give up the war. One guy who used to comment here called me the biggest liberal in the SBC. I’m an inerrantist, YEC, dispy-leaning, card-carrying conservative, but because I didn’t believe that David Barton’s historical “research” was accurate, I was liberal. Some people just have to have an enemy to fight. That spirit is alive and well in some segments of our Baptist culture where the necessity of conflict is prized and honored.
If there are no liberals they will pick a fight with charismatics (or cessationists), or Calvinists (or Arminians, or non-Calvinists, or Traditionalists, or…), or megas or minis or whoever doesn’t fit the stringent parameters of their club.
Remember the joke about the two guys on the bridge. You know, “Heretic!” It’s too true to be funny!
Just in case someone HASN’T heard that joke (where have you been?), here’s one version of it. Several exist on the internet.
I was walking in San Francisco along the Golden Gate Bridge when I saw a man about to jump off. I tried to dissuade him from committing suicide and told him simply that God loved him. A tear came to his eye.
I then asked him, “Are you a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, or what?”
He said, “I’m a Christian.”
I said, “Me, too, small world. . .Protestant or Catholic?”
He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me, too, what denomination?”
He said, “Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too, Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Baptist.”
I said, “Well, ME TOO, Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
I said, “Well, that’s amazing! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”
I said, “Remarkable! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
I said, “A miracle! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
I said, “DIE, HERETIC!’ and pushed him over the rail.
Source unknown
I think the guy was a discernment blogger?
Is part of the problem that grievance feeds our sense of self-righteousness (or community-righteousness)? *They’re* the ones that are doing wrong, and *we* are the righteous ones who are opposing them. Self-righteousness tends to blind you to your own faults and errors, and, if left alone, will eventually turn you into as much of a monster as you think those you oppose are. Pursuing a cause, even an actually righteous one, without an eye to avoiding slipping into self-righteousness, is rife with problems.
Is this perhaps part of the reason Gal 6:1 says, while restoring a brother, to watch yourselves, lest you too be tempted? Correcting otheres, it seems, always brings a risk to yourself. Doesn’t mean you don’t correct, but you do watch yourself, to avoid the tempations correction brings.
Mike,
Poignant analysis and reminder that we are called to biblical community in and through our churches for the sake of Christ’s kingdom. For the past two to three years I have been on a trajectory to have myself and my church regain that primary focus–away from national political primacy, away from caustic tribalism, and away from complacency.
I guess I’m saying that I’m with you in reaching for the goal of your post. 🙂
Dave,
You crazy liberal. Quit pretending. 😀
Actually, I’ve seen that. Been there. Done that. It’s time to write a better story. It’s time to live a better story.
Oh, and great joke by the way. I don’t recall having heard it before.
Seriously? You haven’t heard that.
Let me tell you another. A priest, a rabbi, and a preacher walk into a bar…
…and each one yelled “ouch”.
That musta hurt.
Great post.
SBs would be well served to concentrate on the positive things that unite us.
Communities built on grievance as you call them hit a size limit and no one else wants any part of them. Great article!
I completely agree with the OP.
On the other hand, as long as we have professional grievance-manufacturers seeking to make a name for themselves, we will have short-lived communities built on grievances.
A grievance community just went out of business: the moderate group Texas Baptists Committed. I would link to the Baptist Press article if I knew how to do so.