A Plea to the Disillusioned

To those of you with your hands on the evangelical doorknob, on your way out the door for the last time: please wait a moment longer; please listen to one more plea before you leave.

To those of you already outside, those who have turned your backs for what you decided was forever: please return for a moment; please come back and listen to one more plea before it is too late.

And to those of you already far away, already shaking our dust from your feet: please, pause a moment and incline your ear; please listen to one more plea before you continue on your way.

I know you are hurting. I feel your pain – and even if I feel one small fraction of what you feel, I am devastated, ravaged by it, and cannot imagine feeling anything close to the pain you feel. It would wither me completely. But please, wait and listen, just for a moment.

We need you to stay. I need you to stay. Those of us who are working hard to change our direction, to change our priorities, to make ourselves look more like Christ need you to stay. You, who see the problems and care enough to come up with solutions – we need you.

Because if you all leave – if we all leave, we who see the flaws in the system – she will never become what she can be. She will never change, never grow, never blossom. And the Universal Church will suffer for it. Because we are one unit. There is only one Church – one new wineskin, containing one outpouring of wine. There will be no casting it off and seeking another. That's been done, once for all, and it is this one Church that will suffer from your departure.

It's not that the evangelical church and the Church are one and the same, but that the evangelical church is a part of the Church. Any damage done to evangelicalism, and any misguided patterns she upholds, hinder the Church as a whole.

Your departure, then, does no service to the Church, does not benefit her King. It only strengthens the resolve of the evangelical church to remain as it always has been.

And perhaps you have been calling out for change for years, seeing no results, and cannot endure another moment of failure. I beg you, stay and wait.

Perhaps she has burned you too many times and you have no flesh that remains un-singed. I plead with you, remain.

Do not stay for my sake. Do not stay – or leave – merely for your own. Do not let guilt keep you here, or fear, or comfort. Remain for the Church and for her King.

If you have to leave, we will come to understand. If your King is calling you elsewhere, to use your passion and your desire to change other corners of His Church, so be it. We will endeavor to carry on without your gifts.

But if you're willing to reconsider, if you're willing to forgive us and join me in hoping for improvement, let the words of C.S. Lewis encourage you as they encourage me:

"A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble – because the Christ-life is inside him." (Mere Christianity)

Oh how much truer that is for the Body of believers – a conglomeration of souls filled with the Christ-life, greater than the sum of the parts. We can repair ourselves, not because we are reparable, or because we are great fixers, but because – no matter how broken and lost we have become – we will not be abandoned by our King. 

 Indeed, it is this King – He who pulled me from the mire and removed from me all guilt for my sin – who is daily sanctifying His Church. I strive to believe He will repair us – for that is what He does with broken things.

A Letter to the Beloved

Beloved,

Allow me a moment to firmly affix the lens of His love for you to my eyes. I should never endeavor to address you without it, and if ever I do, I beg your forgiveness, and His. I must begin with a brief glimpse into the perplexing reality that your Savior loves you, that He finds you worthwhile, that He makes you ever more wonderful, and that He has made you ultimately perfect. I pray that His love for you will make mine stronger, that I would someday see you through His eyes.

With that unwavering truth firmly in place, I will say very briefly and very vaguely what must be said before I carry on. It is something I was recently too hasty to state, but something I now dread divulging. The second truth is this: that we, as a collective Church, in our public arenas where all eyes can behold us, are not living up to our potential.

Our wars and our words do not reflect the love that so shockingly redeemed us all – the love with which our Savior has sought us out, each and every one.

But there is always enough grace for repentance. There is a tomorrow – I hope – for us to rectify our mistakes.

So get up, Beloved! Stand with me as we right our wrongs, embrace the souls we will spend all of eternity with, and apologize to them for making them adversaries.

And then let us move forward into a future paved with love.

When we speak truth, let us speak it so that those who need to hear it continue listening.

When we are the majority voice, let us speak softly so the minority may be heard.

And when we are the minority, the oppressed, the wronged, we must keep a hand firmly on our tongue, that it might not steer us into hateful waters.

For there is no middle ground where love is concerned: speech is either loving or it is of the devil (1 Jn 3:10). A thing cannot be both light and dark, both truth and error, both life and death; so a word cannot be both hateful and of God. If it is not loving, it is not from Him.

And there is no exception clause for brothers whom we deem wrong; wrong or right, they are brothers, and to hate them is not a thing of the Father (1 Jn 3:10).

There is no way to undo all disagreements. There will never be an earthly day when we all see eye to eye and are happy under one roof.

But it is time to stop the internal war. We must bury our hatchets, lower our weapons, call off the dogs. This war we fight is not against brother, but against the devil who would claim our brother as his own. Let us not allow him to do so. Let us weed him out from our ranks and solidify ourselves against him. In solidarity. In love.

Beloved, your name is ever in my prayers. I plead for mercy on your behalf – and on mine, for my complicity. I yearn for large-scale revolution, for redemption to right the sinking ship. I beg for shepherds who have the Father's heart. And I pray that despite the enemy's greatest efforts to disunite the flock, God would instead add daily to our number.

As I hope in the sanctifying power of the blood, a picture emerges: a picture of who we could still become. This is a picture, not of division or uniformity, but of unity and diversity. It is a picture of a flock of souls who speak life into every dead corner and cast off every chain. It is a picture of love – true, breathtaking love. A soul, washed with blood, emerging holy.

You see, Beloved, you are already holy. You have no blemish untouched by the blood. Your brother has no blemish untouched by the blood. Your sister has no blemish untouched by the blood. Blemishes there may be – but do not forget that they are temporary, and that their removal was purchased at great cost. Do not belittle His sacrifice by imagining it was insufficient; do not suggest that more is required.

Instead, embrace your new-found holiness! Embody every facet of your redemption! Hold truth with one hand and love with the other – acknowledging that your hands must be empty of earthly treasures for this to be accomplished. Affirm your brother's redemption while encouraging him on to deeper sanctification. Establish the infallibility of Scripture while acknowledging your own human potential for error – and plead with the Spirit day in and day out to show you where you have gone wrong. Wrestle with perceived falsehoods, join your brother as he wrestles with his, but never turn on him in the battle, for he is not your enemy.

You can rediscover unity. You can rediscover holiness. You can rediscover truth that walks hand-in-hand with love. Today's the day to rise up, go out, and seek it fervently.