on radicals

I once talked to a person. I’ll call him Bob. A Mennonite, no doubt. Close to my own age. Had grown up in a relatively conservative Anabaptist home, somewhat similar to my own.

“Bob” told me about a time he had been given the opportunity to speak to a group of people in a setting he and I were both familiar with. He described with some pleasure how he had used specially chosen words and topics in his speech to “wake them up a bit” and “get their attention”. He noted how he had dropped this word here and that word there and had taken such and such a radical stance on this controversy and that one.

Not that he was really like that, of course.

He then came to the punch line of his story. One of the older ladies in his audience, whom we both knew, had actually gone to the trouble of pulling him aside afterwards, concerned about what he had said! Could I believe it? She actually thought he had a problem! How superficial! Couldn’t she see his heart?

I was supposed to laugh. I didn’t.

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It’s all about being radical.

About moving things. About shaking things up. About getting old geezers out of their stick-in-the-mud ways and teaching them a little lesson about life, and freshness, and flexibility in the Christian walk.

And so we use a few grungy words now and then. Like a kid saying something dirty, then quickly peeping at his parents to see if he gets a reaction, we “let slip” the fact that we know “that” song or we went to “that” movie. We casually mention how we were “there” Friday night with “them”––grateful that our actions or the company we keep doesn’t define us, and that people don’t “judge” us by them. They know our character is different. Or at least they should.

If they don’t, that’s their problem.

After all, we come from a long line of radicals. I don’t even have to tell you about those “rascally scoundrels” (summary of the words of an endeared professor of mine) in the Old Testament (their exploits seem to be a much more favored topic of conversation on many Christian college campuses then their faith). And of course no one can deny that Jesus was a radical. Wasn’t he like, a total feminist or something? And didn’t he injure people with a whip?

And you can’t forget the Anabaptist fathers. Grebel was a daredevil. Blaurock was a hothead. Sattler, at his own trial, made the court secretary so mad the secretary was ready to kill him in the courtroom! There’s a reason they were called the “Radical Reformers”. These guys were the “bad boys” of their day. Nobody told them what to do.

I go to a radical Anabaptist college. They’re so counter-cultural. They’re always pushing the limits. They’ve got that edge.

I don’t buy it.

I don’t think they’re radical at all. I don’t think they’re counter-cultural, I think they’re very … cultural.

I think they obey and submit to the dictates of secular American culture.

Interesting to note that in keeping with the large feminist push that has started and is continuing in our culture, my college has also strongly pushed for feminism in the church, just like its surrounding culture.

As our world has become increasingly global and multicultural, my college has followed suit and pushed multicultural experience as well, even to the point of encouraging attaining knowledge of other cultures as a virtue in and of itself, and taking pride, even spiritual pride, in the diversity displayed on its campus…just as its surrounding culture does.

Just as in its surrounding culture, the prevailing ethic on my campus is tolerance: tolerance of other people’s lifestyle, their morality, and their religion, even to the point of eternal detriment and harm to these very same people!

My college applauds those who do humanitarian causes and holds them on a high pedestal, even if––and sometimes it seems especially if––they fail to bring them the gospel of Jesus Christ; they fail to address the most pressing issue of sin and biblical redemption, just like the world around it.

My college is very environmentally-friendly to the point of making it an ethic by itself––just like its surrounding culture.

My college discourages “getting in other people’s faces” about any kind of moral choice or “preference of truth” they might have, just like the surrounding culture.

My college presses for interfaith dialogue and coexistence between religions. Just like its surrounding culture.

And, most recently, my college has pressed for the legitimization and normalization of same-sex marriage over and above what I see as the very clear biblical witness otherwise.

Just. Like. The. World. Around. It.

So forgive me if I find it hard to see the difference between “worldly” radicalism and “Christian” radicalism. How does the ethic of radicalism that seems to be pushed today in Christian circles differ from the ethic of radicalism found in the world?

I fear in the Anabaptist circles we have made the gospel a gospel of radicalism. A gospel where being radical is a virtue simply for the sake of being radical. And, I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we’d have to admit that we don’t mind being radical, really. It feels good to be on the cutting edge. It feels good to be “in the know”, to “get it”, to be “ahead” of the historical curve.

Is there pride to be found in being radical?

I wonder about a different idea of radicalism. I rather think that the reason so many of our godly predecessors were seen as radical was not because radicalism was a virtue they possessed, but because their commitment to Christ and their submission to God led them to be different than the world around them.

Their gospel was not to be radical; their gospel made them radical in contrast to their surroundings. I think this type of radical looks a lot different than the type we see espoused today.

Do you want to be radical in your faith to Jesus Christ? Do you want to shake people, to surprise them, to convict them?

Then obey.

Obey the word of God. Simple, yet hard words.

A Christian that obeys is a radical like none other. A Christian that obeys will convict others through his life in ways far more powerful than any radical cause can do.

It’s easy to promote the latest humanitarian effort on Facebook––you can even look good doing it. It’s hard to deal with pride in your life.

It’s easy to sit down and blog about the latest injustice or discrimination (hmm… sounds like what I’m doing). It’s hard to obey a rule in the Bible that makes your friends, even close friends, think less of you or talk about you behind your back.

It’s easy to sing loudly and worship at a Christian concert. It’s hard to set aside time to worship privately each day.

I wonder if that’s something of what Samuel thought when King Saul met him after his successful victory over the Amalekites. It was impressive. It looked good. “I went on the mission the Lord gave me,” Saul said. “I brought back Agag, king of Amalek, and I completely destroyed the Amalekites. The troops took sheep and cattle from the plunder––the best of what was set apart for destruction––to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal” (1 Samuel 15:20-21).

God, speaking through Samuel, was not impressed. “Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? Look: to obey is better than sacrifice; to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.”

Sacrifice is very public. It looks good on the outside. Like radicalism.

Obedience, though its results may show publicly, is private. It happens in the human heart.

And God takes pleasure in it. Far more than any public display of commitment.

Perhaps the real radical is the elder who takes seriously the command in Titus 1:9 to be “holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.” Rather than looking to find something new and exciting in his doctrine––rather than looking for a fresh, radical theological twist, he quietly holds fast.

Perhaps the real radical is the wife who looks seriously into passages like 1 Corinthians 11 or 1 Timothy 2, and is quietly willing to graciously submit to her husband.

I am not promoting these as the key virtues of the Christian life, and I’m not saying that those who do them are more spiritual than those who don’t.

But are they not far more different from the world around them than those Christians who are wrapped up in being radical?

Are they not actually far more radical?

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“Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught, either by our message or by our letter.” – 2 Thessalonians 2:15