US Babylon?

Our loyalties as divided citizens, of the Kingdom of Heaven and as US citizens, often does / can put us in positions were we have to choose. Choose to follow Jesus and where His morality would tell us to go; or to march as a citizen of the United States which can be in the opposite direction of Jesus. This is the position that the Israelites faced in their exile in Babylon. This dichotomy is seen in the story of Shadrach , Meshach ,and Abednego . (You can read about them and the dilemma that they faced in Daniel 3:1 - 30.)


In The Dangerous Act of Worship by Mark Labberton he says:

"The New Testament sees exile qualities as being descriptive of the church's life as well.

...We are in but not of the world. ... It is here in the world, precisely where Jesus prayed we would be, that we are to live 'worthy of the gospel' and 'work out (our) own salvation' (Philippians 1:27; 2:12). ...

We give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God (Matthew 22:21). Only in humble community do we have some chance of successfully distinguishing one from the other. We are to live as God's "peculiar" people, showing in our daily lives that dual citizenship that is ours. Like Israel, however, we usually fail to do this.

It's no great stretch to suggest that the American church is in exile in its own contemporary Babylon. Whether conservative or liberal, the church mostly looks like the culture around us. We are lost for the most part indistinguishable. We have decided to enjoy our Babylon while nodding to the God we say we worship. The life of the American church provides a type of religious window dressing for our culture. Most mainstream Christians quietly reject the strident tactics of culture war advocated by fundamentalists while also quietly living out the desire to not stand out at all. We just seek our own welfare and call it God's blessing, trying to offend as few people as possible along the way.

While we are highly attuned to avoid a faithful peculiarity that might offend, we also avoid a faithful peculiarity that might redeem. While we run from what might cause cultural or personal offense, we opt for benign acceptance of so many things that grieve our Lord Jesus Christ. The power that defines us is not the power of God we meet and know through worship; it's the social power of being 'normal', accepted, popular, tolerant. We are defined by the economic power of our acumen, our education, our track record, or our capacity to increase the bottom line. We are defined by Babylon, not the cross."

In the book The Dangerous Act of Worship Mark Laberton is making the point that Christians need to live the life that they advocate as they worship. In the process of making that point he accurately describes the condition of many of the Christian churches in the US and the people who sit in the pews of those churches. The cure for that dichotomy is simple; act in a way that mirrors our words. Those acts may be frightening, and stressful but it begs the question: "Are we who we say we are?" I realize that by making these points I put myself "on the spot", even if no one else reads this for God knows what I have said. There is, however, a cure for this problem. Prayer. Pray for courage and direction.