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THE RADICAL AND THE LUKEWARM
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 9, 2023 – The devil invented the term “radical Christian” as a derogatory label to denigrate anyone who’s all-in for God, like Jesus was. That’s because the devil wants you to be anything but all-in; he wants you afraid to be labeled a radical lest you catch the attention of the wrong people. But the term “radical Christian” is actually a tautology, like saying you’re a “Christian Christian” or a “radical radical”. You don’t need “radical” to describe “Christian”, if “Christian” is applied as God intends.
There is no such thing as “Christian-lite”.
A passage in Revelation describes a church that is so unpalatably lukewarm, God has no choice but to spew it out of his mouth. His gut reaction is not to swallow but to spew, to unceremoniously get it out of him as quickly as he can. That lukewarm spew of a church has expanded to encompass most of Christianity today. If this weren’t the case, our world would be entirely different from what it is, as Christians are the main conduits (not the only ones, but the main ones) of God’s blessings. If one-quarter of the world’s population really were Christian (as statistics claim), the blessings would be overwhelming; it would be almost like living in Paradise. But we live in a world that is nothing like Paradise and is daily growing worse and worse as genuine followers of Jesus are taken Home and more and more of the lukewarm grow farther and farther away from God.
I am not afraid to be called a radical, however misapplied I consider the term. If I’m not a radical in the eyes of the lukewarm, I’m not doing my job. Jesus was considered a radical for no other reason than he lived his beliefs: He didn’t just mouth them, he lived them. And his beliefs were not radical; they were and are the only beliefs worth holding in this life – put God first; keep the Commandments; love your neighbours and your enemies; preach the Word; and continue doing all this “to the end”. These beliefs are what made him a radical not to the heathens but to his own people. Like the majority of Christians today, most of the children of Israel in Jesus’ day were also lukewarm spew.
I was born-again from atheism, so the concept of “lukewarm” is alien to me. Being a believer, I can’t imagine not believing; and believing, I can’t imagine being lukewarm. How can you be a believer and at the same time lukewarm? By very definition, a believer can’t be lukewarm because a believer lives his or her beliefs. No-one can make unbelievers of believers, as Jesus says: “no-one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand”. Believers can choose to be plucked out by choosing sin (that choice remains open even to believers), but they can’t be plucked out of God’s hand while they’re under God’s protective grace.
So the problem is not that people are choosing to be lukewarm but that they are lukewarm by default because they’re not genuine followers of Jesus. If they were, they wouldn’t be lukewarm: They’d be like Jesus – fiery and “radical”. The solution to this problem is making believers out of the lukewarm.
But how can this be done?
The same passage in Revelation that describes the lukewarm also describes what they must do to become believers before it’s too late for them: they must anoint their eyes with eyesalve so that they see, they must repent, and they must open their heart for God and Jesus to enter in. But first, they need to buy gold that has been tried in God’s fire and white clothing to cover their nakedness. In other words, they need to seek and embrace genuine righteousness and submit themselves entirely to God so that their pride will be broken. Their pride is the main obstacle preventing them from believing. If and when their pride does break, they’ll be able to see their need for God and their need to repent and will do so sincerely. Their cleansed and purified heart will then open wide for God and Jesus to enter in, and they’ll finally believe.
There is no such thing as a radical Christian – there are just believers who are all-in for God, like Jesus was during his time on Earth. These believers may appear radical in comparison to the lukewarm, but the flaw is in comparing believers to what are essentially unbelievers. Thank God there’s a remedy for the lukewarm if they choose to accept it. Pride not only comes before the fall; it blinds people and prevents them from genuinely following Jesus.
EVERYDAY RADICALISM
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 10, 2022 – I’ve been accused on occasion of being a radical Christian.
What my accusers mean is that I am too extreme in the expression and witness of my faith.
But what my accusers are implying is that following Jesus’ example of how to live life is a radical application of Christianity. In which case Jesus himself must have been a radical, by this definition.
But we know that Jesus is just Jesus. There was nothing radical about him during his ministry years, unless you consider his refusal to condone lies and hypocrisy by those who claimed to know God to be radical.
It’s not radical to believe in Truth and to live by that belief.
It’s not radical to keep the realm of Satan (the world) at arm’s length.
It’s not radical to focus your attention on immortal things rather than mortal ones.
It’s not radical to take God at his word to to believe that he means what he says.
Those things are at the core of what it means to be a Christian. You can’t deny Truth, embrace the world, focus on mortal things, doubt God’s Word and still be a Christian, no matter how many crosses you hang off yourself.
The call to radicalism in faith is actually just a call to follow Jesus, to follow the example he set for us during his ministry years. There is nothing radical in this alleged radicalism, but if the world and nominal Christians want to see it as radical, we’ll roll with that. I could care less what people think of me. I care what God thinks of me; I don’t care what people think of me.
*****
Every so often there’s a push for a revival among this or that Christian denomination or a call to “ministry work” in foreign lands. This is a curious phenomenon. However well-intentioned the push is initially, it invariably devolves into little more than a point of pride and a numbers game that eventually devolves even further into a cash grab. The churches then pride themselves on how much more money they’ve been raking in since their alleged revival or expanded ministry or how many more butts-on-seats they have, as if these things are clear evidence of the Spirit moving in their congregation. Eventually, the so-called revival peters out and the denomination returns to its previous state of spiritual life-support.
This is not how Jesus’ ministry proceeded. Whomever Jesus called, he called in Spirit and in Truth, and those who responded were aware they were embarking on a life-long commitment. There is no need for a revival where there is a life-long commitment. There is no reason for pride. This is not a numbers game or a source of cash flow. This is walking the Way of God, carrying our cross, as Jesus walked the Way during his earthly years, carrying his cross. There is nothing radical about followers of Jesus actually following Jesus’ example of how to live. How else can you be a follower of Jesus other than to do as he did, which is what he taught us to do?
It is not radical to follow the path that Jesus forged for us; it’s imperative for us to follow that path, as there’s no other Way to get Home. Following Jesus doesn’t make us radicals; it makes us followers of Jesus.
But let the world and the worldly Christians call us what they will. Let them choose whatever path they want to choose. Their choice is between them and God. As for us, we preach far more by our example than by words that will only be combatted, however well-intentioned we mean them. Our example (that is, our witness) is unique to each of us, as God guides us.
*****
When I was first born-again, I used to attend mass at Catholic churches twice a day. Whenever I entered a church building, I would remove my shoes, as I believed the ground I stood on was holy ground, being God’s House. One day, as I was making my way to a pew, a man called me over and asked me why I take off my shoes. I told him I took them off because I was on holy ground. He said I shouldn’t take off my shoes, because it was an odd thing to do, and we shouldn’t do odd things as a witness, as it would turn people off and drive them away. At the time, I had no response to his concerns (I’d only been born-again for a couple of months and didn’t want to disrespect an elder), but I continued to take off my shoes for three and a half more years until God finally sprang me from Catholicism. My last act, in leaving the Catholic church, was to put my shoes on while I was still in the pew and walk the length of the church with them on, and then out the door forever.
I can only imagine what that man who was offended by me taking off my shoes would have said if he’d seen Isaiah walking around naked for three years.
*****
My witness and my words are not radical in God’s eyes. That’s all that matters to me.
That’s all that should matter to any of us.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 