A Letter To The American Churches
If the apostle Paul were here today, looking at the American churches, I'm fairly certain we'd be getting a letter.
And it would probably go something like this...
Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the churches in America is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own relative relationship, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of self righteousness, that every one who has faith may be justified in Him.
America, your morality is merely group consensus. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup Poll of the majority opinion. Christians in America give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: “Everybody is doing it, so it must be all right.”
American Christians, I must say to you, as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” As I said to the Philippian Christians, “Ye are a colony of heaven.” This means that although you live in the colony of these times your ultimate allegiance is to the kingdom of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in these times and eternity, both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to the nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will, it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it.
You must never allow the transitory relativistic demands of man-made doctrines to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God. The church is the body of Christ, and when the church is true to its divine nature, it knows neither spiritual division nor disunity. Not uniformity, but unity in One Spirit. God is bigger than all of our denominations. You must come to see that, America. You have allowed the spirit of segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true body of Christ? In Christ there is no longer Greek, or Jew. No longer freeman or slave. No longer male or female. There is no longer white church, or black church, evangelical or queer orientation. There is no longer traditional or contemporary, liberal or conservative. For all of you are one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ you are equally welcome heirs to the promise.
Now that faith has come, you are no longer subject to the law of the disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. So that what was promised through the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. And God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must therefore clothe yourselves with love for God and one another, with tenderhearted mercy, justice, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. This is the unified nature of God's church. The community of believers. This is God's shared cosmic origin that connects all people with each other and with the divine, and it reveals that all people can live in a unified society, rather than divided into different ethnic tribes and geographic communities. Both Jews and non-Jews can be children of Abraham together, now in Christ there is no difference between Jew and gentile, denying the relevance of ethnic, or cultural distinctions because in eternity the forms of this world are passing away. Ultimately all the social factors that create conflict and division is removed and replaced with harmony in Christ's kingdom.
...I imagined this note written to the American churches based upon the writings Paul sent to the congregations of faith he had established while he worked to spread the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. And in many ways the modern American empire mirrors the GrecoRoman pagan world of that age.
Food for thought.