Are you relevant?
I had a half-hour to kill, and nothing kills it like digging through a Christian blogring full of people who consider themselves to be “relevant” Christians.
I’ve ranted before, though about emergent Christians, about how relevant does not mean “steeped in the wider culture,” or even “able to speak to the wider culture.” It means actually speaking to the wider culture. Actually meeting them where they are, like God does; like Jesus did when he hung out with the publicans, sinners, and whores, and freaked out the respectable Pharisees when He did it. Proper Jews don’t hang out with such people. Still don’t.
So I was curious to see if they fit my definition—if they’re actually relevant.
No huge surprise; most of them are members of the blogring because they read Relevant magazine. Should I have been surprised? If I had poked around the Architectural Digest blogring I suppose I would find a lot of their subscribers. I also wouldn’t expect all of them to be architects, though most of them likely studied architecture in school and really find a well-designed building to be aesthetically pleasing. Likewise I shouldn't expect people in the “Relevant” blogring to have done anything more with this culture than studied it from afar and be pleased when someone [else] effectively reaches it for Jesus.
Otherwise they’re all talk. As are most Christians. As am I lately, sad to say; but most of the reason I want to teach in the public schools is because I will be “relevant”—in the correct sense—there. More so than I am in Christian schools.
Here at Bethany University, I am surrounded by Christians and hypocrites, and I can’t do a thing with them. I have nothing to contribute to them. This is not because I literally have nothing; you readers know I can rant nonstop about topic after topic. It’s because the Christians don’t need me; they’re off obeying their Lord. And the hypocrites don’t need to hear me rant any more; all they’ll do with it is nod and say, “Yes, indeed, amen, someone [else] should do something.” And when they gripe about the church, they don’t do it with any sort of attack plan to reform it, as I do; they do it because it’s easier to gripe than to act.
No, I’m not relevant on a Christian campus. I am only relevant if I am off it, ministering. It’s too damned safe around here.
So I ask again: Are you relevant?
Or are you deluding yourself, as I sometimes do, into thinking that interacting with other Christians is doing them any real good?
Or are you likewise thinking that your interaction with non-Christians, in which you never demonstrate Jesus to them, is doing them any good?