Ever since Augustine penned the classic City of God, City of Man, the Church has wrestled with the question of how to be the Church in the world. Throughout the ages, the pendulum swings along a predictable trajectory. At one end, what might be called the Antithetical Church stresses that the Church is to be separate from the world. “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins,” says John in Revelation 18:4. At the other end, the Engaging Church, living under an obligation to advance the Kingdom of God as a tangible, “this-world” reality, seeks that God’s will be done personally, socially, politically, and intellectually “on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is an inescapable question with which every churchman must grapple: what is my congregation’s posture towards the world that they occupy six days out of the week? Am I to load my sermons with warnings from Scripture about the necessity of holiness and how dangerous it is to come in contact with the patterns of this world? Or, am I to embrace the church’s necessary “missional” charter by constantly pushing my people into the world to engage them with the transformational power of the Gospel? Are we about personal piety or cultural transformation?

Of course it is foolish to assume that a pastor should have to choose between the two. But inevitably, over time, our churches take on an “air,” a corporate identity that is most easily noticed in what we harp on, with what we are continually preoccupied.

David Kinnaman believes we are doing a poor job at both, and though he offers precious little solutions to the age-old problem, his analysis of the extent of American evangelicalism’s confusion on this question is as disturbing as it is interesting.

Writing his first book (unChristian) as president of The Barna Group, Kinnaman focuses his research on Mosaics (born between 1984 and 2002) and the Busters (born between 1965 and 1983). He began his research as a way of looking into the reputation of evangelicals to “outsiders” after the turn of the century, a sort of “Report Card from the World” on how the Body of Christ is being received by those she has come to evangelize.

Speaking from my experience as a campus minister for the last 14 years, I contend that the results are telling, but not surprising. First, Kinnaman reports that “outsiders” view Christians as hypocritical. Should we be surprised by this? After all, does anyone like to be told that they are helpless, hopeless sinners in need of a rescuing savior? On the other hand, Kinnaman accurately exposes the lingering problem in much Christian discipleship, namely, the tendency to define faith by my spiritual accomplishments and not by my dependency upon Jesus alone. This means that Christians are to lead with their limps (to borrow Dan Allender’s phrase) and not with their superiority.

Second, Kinnaman helpfully identifies that evangelism-as-technique is growing less and less compelling to the next generation. Evangelism and discipleship cannot be so easily distinguished (nor, I would argue, does it need to be) in the kind of ministry the next generation really needs. In its place, he argues, there needs to be an evangelism that is wrapped up in community (where someone has a chance to receive multiple exposures to the Gospel) and service (where ministry of Word and deed go hand in hand).

Kinnaman goes on to explain that the world sees Christians as homophobic. He is absolutely correct about this. There have been fewer trends that have been more unsettling to me than how much my religious beliefs on homosexuality create or close open doors within the lost in the campus community (and this coming from perhaps one of the most socially conservative campuses in the southeastern US!). Questions concerning homosexuality as a viable sexual alternative are utterly taboo. One can hardly mention the topic without adding the culturally enshrined Seinfeld-ian line, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that….”

However, it is in his chapter on how the world defines the church as “sheltered” that Kinnaman stumbles upon the complexity of his thesis. “Outsiders,” he explains, need to see that Christians can get involved with them in the world, while at the same time maintaining a “balance” between “proximity and purity.” Kinamman quotes Mike Metzger of the Clapham Institute:
Being salt and light demands two things: we practice purity in the midst of a fallen world and yet we live in proximity to this fallen world. If you don’t hold up both truths in tension, you invariably become useless and separated from the world God loves. For example, if you only practice purity apart from proximity to the culture, you inevitably become pietistic, separatist, and conceited. If you live in close proximity to the culture without also living in a holy manner, you become indistinguishable from fallen culture and useless in God’s kingdom.

The problem with this analysis is that it simply does not answer the question. That a Christian needs to live in the world but not of the world is not in question. How he is to do so remains ellusive to this generation of believing people.

Kinnaman’s answer to this question throughout the rest of the book (chapters follow on how Christians are too politically minded and, finally, too judgmental) amount to little else than a simple charge of “can’t we just be a bit nicer.”

I, however, would like to argue that what is needed is a new model for defining how a Christian sees himself in the world. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus unfolds two great spheres of Christian activity. The Kingdom of God is the new realm of which he is king and his people are his vice-regents. God’s people are called to advance his lordship into every area of life.

The impetus for this charge is the Church, against which the gates of hell cannot withstand. That is, a people, called to be holy and distinct from the world, gathered together worshipping and praising their God, constitute the empowering means of God’s assault on the world. Here, the Word of God stands absolute and immovable.

Taken together, Christians are called to stand firm as the Church, giving themselves to her purity and life. They are equally called to take the Kingdom truths gleaned from their fellowship together and behave as salt and light to a dying world. For the Church, the Christian has great zeal and certainty. For the Kingdom, she allows freedom of conscience for those to pursue the advancement of God’s purposes in means that seem suitable to them.

O. Palmer Robertson, principle of the African Bible College in Uganda, Africa put it this way: “The Church is the impetus for the Kingdom.” Which means, among other things, that a large part of Christian responsibility throughout the ages consists of the Church ranging wide in her declarations about the necessity of advancing God’s Kingdom. While at the same time, the Church must humbly withdraw from areas in which she has merely generalized expertise.

Kinnaman wants to sound the alarm that the world dislikes Christians, and that some of those reasons are legitimate. No kidding. But there is something far more foundational for the Reformed among us to consider in our generation: how are we to be the Church in the world?