BLOG 1/24/17. DURING POLITICAL AND SOCIAL UNREST, CONSIDER DANIEL LIVING IN BABYLON

BLOG 1/24/17. DURING POLITICAL AND SOCIAL UNCERTAINTIES, CONSIDER DANIEL LIVING IN BABYLON.

These are crazy days of political, economic, and social uncertainties and unrest. The question comes as to how we keep our personal perspective and our integrity during it all. Well, for starts, it helps a bit to realize that peace and order and justice are hardly the dominant social order anywhere. We live in a world of unrest, of questionable governments, of great economic disparity, of prejudice and ethnic rivalries, … so, what’s new? We’ve too often lived with the illusion that this is a Christian nation, but that is highly questionable. Many of the founding fathers were deists, or much more influenced by economic factors than by the Christian faith (though the influence of the Hebrew-Christian traditions of the western world was significant).

It may help to look at the Biblical account of the young prophet Daniel (and his three Jewish friends: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—their Babylonian names). The Babylonian empire had the practice of taking the most gifted of their conquered people and making them servants of the emperor. These four are described as: “of royal family and of nobility, youth without blemish, of good appearance, and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace …” What we soon find out is that they were also those deeply committed to their Jewish faith and the disciplines it required, who suffered no alternative gods. And there they were, uprooted from their homes and traditions and suddenly inhabiting the royal palace of their conqueror in Babylon. Their Babylonian counterparts were ethnically jealous of them and sought clandestine ways to destroy them. They were tempted with all the perks of the palace in food and pleasures. But they maintained their purity and disciplines, which were quite obvious to the other courtiers, and ultimately the source of destructive jealousy.

What did they do? First of all, they were very self-conscious of who they were, and that Babylon was not their home country, though it was for them at that point the inescapable place of their incarnation. But they didn’t belong to Babylon—they were the servants of Yahweh, the God of Israel. Then they lived out their faith and engaged in their daily ministries to the court with such amazing skill that they were being recognized and given increasing responsibilities by the emperor. Their lives were different, and observable and only explainable by God and God’s power. And, … they recognized the idols of that culture and refused to be lured by them (which earned them, due to the malice of others in the court, a fiery furnace and a lion’s den). Ultimately they were vindicated and exalted by the emperor, and they made their mark.

Do you see the lesson? In today’s world, most Christian people live in social and political cultures that are hostile to the Christian faith. Ostensibly, the largest Christian community in the world is in China, though much of it must exist ‘underground’ and in opposition to the regime. There are growing, but clandestine communities in Islamic and Hindu and totalitarian cultures. It is more the norm than the exception. (Yes, and there are Christian communities among the sixty-three million refugees who are homeless in the tragic world!)

Our calling is to live as those who are so formed into the image of Christ that our hostile, or irreligious, or whatever, neighbors will observe our good deeds and be curious and ask questions. We do not live in a political, economic, or social setting that is neutral or congenial to the radical demands of God New Creation. We are the servants of our God and of his Christ right in the midst of this confusing darkness, and as the children of the light. We are to be, like Daniel, God’s instruments of peace, and the demonstration of his divine nature in the most confusing, perhaps hostile, and continually difficult contexts. We have a different center, a different authority, a different creative source, a different guiding line, and a different final goal that those of our Babylonian neighbors, …and we engage this calling with God’s joy. Always sojourners and exiles in whatever our context.

What do we do? We take heart, claim our true identity, and live out our New Humanity faithfully in the realities of our present context. This is a high calling. We live always in confrontation with the principalities and power of this age. Hallowed be Thy Name.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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