BLOG 2/21/13: “THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS”

In my last Blog, I was heralding Shayne Wheeler’s new book, but Shayne and I have been rejoicing together in giving birth to books. Two weeks ago, Wipf and Stock Publishers (Eugene, OR) released my newest contribution to the discussion of the church’s essence and mission under the title: The Church and the Relentless Darkness.

Behind that weird title is my engagement with a dimension of the church’s life that is seldom touched in major writings on the subject, namely, the church’s very real battle with one called Satan. In 2010 there were several international missionary conferences of major portions (Capetown, Edinburgh, and Tokyo). In the reviews of these international gatherings, the reviewers could find little note of the spiritual warfare in which the church is engaged with the powers of this age, of darkness, of Satan.

This seems, to me, incredible. Beginning with Genesis 3 and continuing all the way though the Bible to Revelation 21, the whole story is about a cosmic rebellion against God and God’s good creation, which in time called forth the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The apostle John will succinctly state it: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8).

As if that were not enough to get our full attention, consider that Paul’s “great commission” from the ascended Lord, was: “ … the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God …” (Acts 26:17-18). Or maybe: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12).

Question: How can you ever even begin to comprehend what the gospel of the Kingdom of God (or Lent, or Good Friday, or Easter) is all about without this understanding that Jesus came to storm the gates of hell, and by his life, sufferings, death, and resurrection to destroy the works of the devil? How, for heaven’s sake?

So, in this book of mine, I have engaged a set of insistent young adults who ask me where the church’s “drift and drag” come from that seem to always be enticing the church back into something merely human, back into a religious Christianity (Bonhoeffer), back into comfortable religion devoid of conflict? What seems to continually be seeking to emasculate the church and the gospel from its eschatological calling? What eclipses “the mystery hidden from the ages” which is now made known in Jesus Christ?

I walk with them through the Epistle to the Ephesians, with all of its riches, and come to the abrupt (and what would almost seem a non-sequiter) ending in which Paul says, in essence: “All of this is going to come crashing down on your head unless you put on the whole armor” because of the fact that you are in an ongoing very subtle and sophisticated engagement with the wiles of the devil.

The conclusion is a consensus among my discussion partners and myself about some disciplines necessary as we participate in very real Christian communities where this conflict is ever present. May God be pleased to use this book of mine to encourage and equip a new generation of faithful and well-armed disciples to keep the church vigilant to its true mission.

Peace!