It seems to me that there are at least two very different ideas as to what Christians ought to be doing and how Churches ought to be conducting themselves. I think there are Christians and Churches that believe the work of the Church is to help Christian people make it through this world. The other way is for Christians and the Church to talk about a whole different society and to change this one.
The first group believes that the world is here and that Jesus and the faith are to help us live better, to be able to handle the stress and the challenges of this life better, to meet the needs of people as they try to live happily and successfully. The program life of these churches focuses on those things that will make it easier for the Christian members to handle their problems. They have child care programs. They have AA programs. They have yoga programs. They have sport programs for the member. They have financial planning program and estate planning programs. The understanding is that Jesus came so that we might love each other and live better in this society. These church do have a lot of social service programs like can food for the needy, collections of clothing, even rent help.
One of the most obvious type of this church is the Prosperity Gospel which claims that God wants all of us to be successful, rich, happy and blessed. That with faith in God and the claiming of the promise that God has a blessing for you, that blessing will come and it will usually be in the form of a blessing that the world will recognize: a promotion, a bigger pay check, a new car, a lottery win, a new wife, health babies, or some other blessing that is a blessing as defined by the culture in which we live.
The other way of looking at the work of Christians and the Church is to speak the word that this world is not the kingdom of God. That Christ came to show us a new alternative, a different society, a whole other way of living. The Church is suppose, in this view, to be the yeast that is at work changing the world. That Jesus offers us a new blue print of the world in the Beatitudes. The work of the Church is to be witnesses to the different way in which life can be lived in faith. Mother Teresa creates a community of care for the untouchables. Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu show us what forgiveness can do. Dr. King lead the way of changing the racial restriction in our society. Pope France is calling for a new economic justice, calling for changes in the way we live to protect the environment and to distribute the resources of the world better. These church do not want to help members succeed in the current culture but invites them to live in the new reality of the Kingdom of God and to be at work in struggle to change the culture.
One group of Christians sees the Church as an agent of helping members cope with the present work and even to help the needy to cope with the world as it is. They give food to the homeless. The other group of Christians sees the Church as an agent for the transformation of the world, calls its members to the adventure of the struggle against the powers of this world. It asks the questions why are the homeless still homeless and how can be reality be changed. One group say that the square peg sinners need to be sanded round to fit in the round holes of the society. The other group is convinced that when square peg sinners get sanded there is no limit to the shapes they may take and the round hole world needs to be radically redone.
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