Radical Christians, radical churches

The word radical makes many Christians I know very nervous. What is it about being radical that people get nervous about? Is it that radicalism requires action outside of the conservative mold of polite confirmative expectation? Now that’s got to make people uncomfortable. Yet from the stories I continue to read and re-read, that’s the kind of Jesus I encounter. For 2000 years it seems many who proclaim the name of Jesus are trying to pacify him and mold him into an image we’re comfortable with, a nice predictable ‘tuck Jesus in my pocket and take him out when I need him’ Jesus – a Jesus who suits our personal needs.

Tony Campolo writes a compelling foreword in the latest release of Mick Duncan’s ‘Costly Mission – following Jesus into neighbourhoods facing poverty’. While I haven’t read the book yet the foreword at least has grabbed my attention. Here’s a snippet;

“Sadly, Evangelicalism, instead of being defined by those outside the church as a compassionate movement, committed to living out love on a personal level and justice on the social level, has earned the reputation of being anti-gay; anti-environmentalism; anti-women; pro-war; and power hungry triumphalism. Most people in society have a great respect for Jesus, but see little similarity between what he was and taught and what is expressed in contemporary Evangelical Christendom.”

Will we really follow Jesus into places he would go? It’s certainly safer to pacify Jesus then take him with us for our own triumphal, colonialist agendas. Christendom has controlled the Christian tradition for hundreds of years. I have encountered many conversations, authors and speakers who are predicting the end of Christendom is upon us and the Jesus movement is being re-birthed in many diverse and creative ways all of which are attempting to re-engage Christian discipleship through the radical lenses of the Jesus of the Gospels.

Where does a new movement of radical Jesus followers express themselves? Some who are on the edges of the emerging church movement tend to reject the established ‘traditional’ church as the place of such rebirth and belonging. I suggest there need be no other place for it. The way forward for the established church is not to survive but to thrive by embracing this resurrection. We do this not by trying to be relevant but by being the people Jesus calls us to be – radical expressions of a God who wants to pour his heart out for a hurting world.

I can’t wait to see this scattering of a few radicals become a host of radical churches doing everything in their power to be a ‘compassionate movement, living out love on a personal level and justice on a social level’. Just imagine what the church of Christ can look like if we were to embrace the radical seriously.

Shalom
Mark