Radicalism

One tension my wife and I discuss frequently is, "If you want a church where people believe something, you're likely to fall into a cult. If you want to avoid a cult, you tend to end up where people don't actually believe anything." I find myself constantly looking for a path between the horns of this dilemma.  

The authors who have most helped me (J. N. Darby, W. Kelly, Watchman Nee, Francis Schaeffer, etc.) have all been "radicals" in the strictest sense of the word. I don't mean they were radicals in the sense of "burn it down" Marxists.  I mean they were were willing to turn their backs on the establishment so that they could follow Christ.

I'm sure I've recounted this story before, but I was in a Bible reading once where we were reading through John 1. One brother commented on John 1:6, "What amazing credentials!" And that was a bit of an epiphany moment for me. I realized that the greatest of the prophets (Matthew 11:11) had no real credentials from a human point of view, but he was given the highest stamp of approval Scripture can give: he was sent from God. And notice this theme carries through the New Testament: John the Baptist (John 1:6), the Lord Himself (John 9:29), Peter and John (Acts 4:13), and sometimes Paul (Galatians 1:1, etc.) were all dismissed because of lack of credentials. But they all came with messages from God, and all had His approval.

Of course we can fall into the ditch on the other side of the road here. There is such a thing as pathological anti-credentialism (which I'm sure isn't a real word) – the veneration of someone precisely because he or she lacks credentials. Notice Scripture doesn't ever do this. Scripture doesn't assume someone who has formal education, or formal training, or human credentials can't bring messages from God. We might point out that Paul and Moses were both highly educated. But we recognized (and they recognized, see Philippians 3:4–7, etc.) that their human credentials really didn't mean a lot when it came to spiritual matters.

So let's recognize that there is a ditch on both sides of the road. But let's also recognize that Scripture uniformly praises those who "live for an audience of One," to quote Os Guinness. The attitude of the believer ought to be neither for or against the establishment, but for Christ and Christ alone. 

We are called to "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Timothy 2:22). Despite preaching I've actually heard on this verse,  it doesn't mean we're to join a party and be faithful to it.  It means we're to be faithful to Christ.