Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. - The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, Verses 11-12.
What an abused pair of sentences!
I've been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the odd - and oddly common - evangelical delight in the label of "fanatic". I can still remember grade school - 4th grade, was it? - when DC Talk came out with their CCM single Jesus Freak, and every cool Christian kid (alliteration!), it seemed, had the CD playing in their parents' minivan, Walkman, tape deck, etc. While the band, I'm guessing, had a higher purpose for their lyrics - talking about social alienation for the sake of Jesus, a thoroughly Scriptural topic - I experienced the preteen culture immediately around me using the song as the evangelical Smells Like Teen Spirit, essentially co-opting early-90s grunge culture with a Christian twist: using the purported fringe outsiderness of Christianity "under-attack" (via the apparently [?] incisive epithet of "Jesus Freak") as excuse to latch onto the coolness of Seattle circa 1993.
Now, Jesus Freak the song - and this general embrace of evangelical radicalism, at least in one sense of the word - has a point. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not to be muted or watered-down; and it is a theological, historical, sociological fact that truly living a life that imitates and follows the life of Jesus Christ is going to lead to ostracism, persecution, objectification, and more. The way of the Cross is the way of self-sacrifice; of truly considering others as better than oneself and choosing to serve rather than to be served. To follow Jesus Christ is to receive Grace - infinite, unrepayable, impossible Grace - and to respond by giving others that same Grace. To be answer the call of God the Father through the Holy Spirit is to reject the things that used to bring cheap pleasure, and instead to assert the incredible value of life lived in the will of God. This is all immensely counter to the values and loves of this world and our societies; and so it is not wrong to label the Christian life as radical.
But the point grows murky when two subtly distinct - but wholly different - versions of radicalism get pushed together and confused. On the one hand, there is the Way of the Cross: of humble service and sacrifice, desiring that the life of Christ might be shared with others because it is normal. Normal, as defined by Chinese theologian Watchman Nee in his The Normal Christian Life, is the life that should be lived. Yes, this life is radical, but it is not glorious because it is radical; it is glorious because it is right and worthy.
To repeat the point, I mean: being radical is not what makes the Christian life worth living. Being fitting is what makes the Christian life (by which I mean, the life wholly surrendered to God and His love and loving will) worth living - and living to its utmost, most radical, most thorough form.
On the other hand, there is a form of radical Christianity that seems to take radicalism as its goal. In this form of Christianity, the "Christ" is de-emphasized, and the "radical" takes center stage: it seems less important that the one whom we are following is Jesus Christ, and more important that we are following to the extreme, or radically. This impulse towards radicalization seems an inborn trait: and it makes sense, given that we are born to live wholly given over to the will of God.
But we are also born to take great joy in sex, in food, in exercise. And all these can be taken overboard: the sex addict, the glutton, the steroid abuser. They go too far when a part of normal human functioning is mistaken for its end. And similarly, the human drive to radicalization can be taken too far: and the radical surrender that is a proper part of our worship of God becomes the goal of worship. It is enjoyable to be radical; it is easy to be radical.
After all, if we believe we are justified in our radicalization, that means that we never have to listen to anyone who says otherwise! You - I - we have all engaged, at one time or another, with someone who revels in their fanatacism: the aggressive atheist for whom every form of spirituality is a mindless crutch; the socialist who sneers at callous decentralized government; the Linux user who simply will not admit that a Windows computer can be useful. And, I suspect, such arguments (errr... discussions) find their conclusion when you threw up your hands, saying "fine! if all my reasoning and thoughtfully-constructed arguments have absolutely no purchase in your mind - just believe whatever you want to!" And we walk away, shaking our heads, while the other thinks to herself, "well, i just showed him!"
Of course, no such thing is true. But to the self-justified radical of this sort, that doesn't matter! What matters is that his radicalism continues to be self-sustaining, enjoyable, distinguishing him from you or me.
Some of you may have heard of - or even seen - a film called Jesus Camp (if you haven't... don't? Do? It will likely be disturbing.), where a documentary crew goes to various evangelical Christian children's summer camps and films the activities and talks there. Whether through tricks of editing, or the simple truth of the material, it's an absolute image nightmare for the Gospel. Children are given toy swords (representing the Word of God?), lectured on fighting the "culture wars," and the whole thing is generally presented by the (very partisan, I'm sure) filmmakers as a Western equivalent of a Middle Eastern terrorist training camp: indoctrination, self-justification, and radicalization.
Yes, most Christians aren't going to be strapping up with C4 and blowing a hole in the local supermarket. Thank God, middle America isn't the Gaza Strip.
But, lest we forget, men claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus Christ have committed terrorist violence on American soil. And the case isn't helped by, for example, the unfortunate lyric in DC Talk's Jesus Freak that goes "Kamikaze, my death is gain". Yes, DC Talk is probably referencing the point where Paul says: for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But to have the absolute ignorance to go ahead and connect Paul's words with Japanese suicide bombers from World War II is ludicrous. To die is gain - but we don't go to that death with a self-satisfied smirk on our faces; and the harvest we reap is not the bodies of enemies, but a bounty of grace, peace, and mercy.
This is not the sort of radicalism that Jesus Christ preached, either in the testimony of His words or in His life. The sort of radical God that we follow looked at the people slandering, persecuting, and murdering Him with tears running down His face and salvation in His heart: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Wow!
This is the kind of radicalization that we are supposed to undergo, as Christians: a transformation from the ways of the world to the way of radical love (as [a] Francis Chan and [b] Beyonce would say, Crazy Love). It is a radicalization that can never become self-satisfied, because being pushed to the fringes is not cause for celebration (oh look! I'm so misunderstood!), but grief - grief that the love we have will not be returned by its desired object, those who are pushing us out.
We the Church exist in this world not to condemn it, but to love it. Yes, we will be blessed when people insult, persecute, and slander us - but that blessing is not ours to seize by force of will, but rather to be received in gentleness and thanksgiving from the hand of God. Judgment is neither our privilege nor prerogative; mercy, love, and service are.
Amen?
