Sorry, I was very ill yesterday, which accounts for the lack of post. As you surely know by know, I’m reading Ronald J. Sider’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? Sider asserts that modern evangelicalism is in the midst of a crisis: many, if not most professing Christians live no differently than the rest of the world. It’s interesting that one of the primary causes of this crisis (coupled with a minimized if not faulty understanding of the Gospel) is the radical individualism that not only permeates our culture but many of our churches.

But the issue lies deeper than just a shift from a sense of community to focus on individuals. There has also been a shift from a sense of self-sacrifice to one of self-fulfillment. While we must be careful of idealizing the past, repeated conversations with grandparents and others have led me to believe that there was a day when people adopted an overall approach of self-sacrifice. People helped their neighbors (they knew their neighbors to start with), they worked hard to acheive goals and often sacrificed for others. Perhaps even deeper, there was a sense of commitment that seems to have diminished.

This understanding has greatly disappeared from our own culture. We’re led to believe that our own personal happiness is the pursuit of the American life, which, after all, is about “life, liberty and my own happiness,” right? We quit school when it becomes difficult. We change jobs when it doesn’t “feel” right. When our spouse doesn’t meet our needs, we’ll find one who does. Churches become dispensible and leaving is an option for everything from song style to the color of the carpet. The self has become the epitome of decision making for many. Sider quotes Peter Gillquist as saying:

“We have become such a nation of self-lovers. Nothing is to sacred to leave - if we feel like it. We leave school if it gets boring or difficult; we leave home and parents if we’re displeased; we leave our jobs, our marriages and our churches.”

Yet, even a cursory glance at Scripture would seem to indicate that such self-centeredness is not acceptable for Christians. I say “seem to indicate,” because even though it is clearly on the pages of Scripture, so many simply ignore such principles. Scripture repeatedly refers to believers as “the people of God,” “the body of Christ,” and by other such names that are communal in nature. The Bible does not leave room for the “Lone Ranger” Christian, yet that is exactly what so many have come to believe they can become.

Believers must strive to overcome these tendencies and reverse the trend, moving from self-fulfillment to self-sacrifice. We must strive to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), “exhort one another” (Hebrews 3:13), so that, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Notice that the author implies that when we are left to our own devices, we are much more prone to be decieved by sin. It is when we know and love one another as we ought that we can resist sin’s deceitfulness. In many counselors there is both safety and victory (Proverbs 11:14 and 24:6).

Scripture’s call to the believer stands in direct opposition to this mantra of self-fulfillment. While our society tells us that our individual needs are our utmost consideration, Scripture tells us to look out for the interests of others, actually considering them as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3-4). While some say that the Gospel may be summarized as self-esteem, Christ says that it is more in line with self-sacrifice. After all, we are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps who laid down His very life for others.

Our churches must regain this sense of community that is to mark the biblical Church. While we are saved as individuals, we are called to live out that salvation in the context of not only a community, but a family. The Church must lovingly, humbly, but boldly stand against the tides of our culture, remember that our lives are powerful apologetics. But communities (and families) are built on self-sacrifice rather than self-fulfillment.When churches begin to live as loving, sacrificial communities, truly bearing one another’s burdens, caring for one another, the world will see something not only different but attractive.

• Read The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? by Ronald J. Sider.

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