Pastor Phil McCutchen

Our wasted social justice opportunity.

As Christ followers what is to be our response to culture? Should we embrace every cultural trend, resist every cultural trend or simply ignore the noise of society? I don’t think there’s a direct answer to these questions. I think the trend of society toward greater sensitivity to race, gender and respect for diversity are noble qualities; we should add our voices to the chorus calling for fair and respectful treatments of all human beings. No matter how blatantly those who trumpet the call to tolerance seem to be intolerant at times, we must nevertheless applaud the principle of tolerance; insomuch that the patient acceptance of others, regardless of their behavior, is what is implied.

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism.” Acts 10:34 (NIV)

Christians however, should get clear on one thing; we don’t get our values and standards from the culture; we get our values and standards by means of divine revelation. Our source of truth is the Holy Spirit, as he speaks God’s word through scripture. When we don’t “know” from the scriptures we are on sinking sand. When we don’t see the church as the community in which we, together, interpret and apply the divine revelation to our lives we are living in the hurricane of constantly changing human opinion.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV)

Christians had an amazing opportunity to be leaders of social justice at the turn of the century and in at least one important respect, we blew it. The revival that birthed one of the greatest church movements of all time begin in 1906 and was led by an African American preacher named A. J. Seymour; it was called the Azusa Street Revival. It lasted for eight years and thousands came to Christ and experienced the infilling of the Holy Spirit. What was most remarkable was the racial diversity and the gender equality that existed; black, white, Hispanic and Asian came to those meetings. Women were allowed to preach and minister. This was at the height of the Jim Crow era of racial desegregation, but everyone worshipped together in perfect harmony.

Several Pentecostal denominations sprung out of that revival including BCC’s parent organization, “The Assemblies of God.” Incredibly, every one of those great church fellowships disinvited the African Americans from their churches. We did that simply because that’s what the culture around us was doing. Restaurants, schools, civic organizations and communities all spurned human beings because of the color of their skin. We had a chance to lead society but instead we followed them into injustice.

I know it’s uncomfortable, but every generation of Christians who wants to get it right will have to call something wrong that the culture calls right and something right that the culture calls wrong. We must not be contrarians but we must be secure enough to be willing to play that role if it’s what true social justice calls for. I am an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God and am certainly proud of my affiliation but I would be prouder if we Caucasian Christians had been the first to stand and lock arms with our black brothers and sisters under the blood stained banner of the Cross. All we had to do was read our bibles. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28. We missed it because we feared men more than God.

Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!” Acts 5:29 (NIV)

I am concerned that Christians are going to once again let public sentiment; political policies and just plain old fear shape their theology. I realize by not addressing specific issues related to Islam, alleged police brutality, welfare reform, Israel and gay marriage I am opening myself up to being misunderstood, but this brief time and space doesn’t afford me the ability to fully develop a position. I refuse to be judged by a sentence or a sound bite. More importantly; getting lost in an issue would take me away from my most important position which is “let’s study our bibles together and never be on the wrong side of history again.” God told His people in Det. 28:13, “I will make you the head and not the tail,” so Christians must be willing to be trendsetters; not mindless trend followers. Furthermore, we must return to the posture that gently but firmly takes its stand on the everlasting wisdom of God.