I used to think the biggest problem with American Christianity was that we don’t understand Christianity well enough. Now I’m thinking it might be that we don’t understand America well enough.

Hear me out, please, because what you think I mean probably isn’t what I do mean. I’m certainly not diminishing the importance of Christ and His Word. It’s more like something I still remember saying to our church’s pastor a full 25 years ago. He’d just come home from a national church conference. Our denomination was widely known for its strong global mission sending. He said, “We’re doing great everywhere in the world except North America.” I said, “That’s because everywhere else they know they’re missionaries.”

Maybe America was once a Christian nation with Christian values and a Christian way of looking at life. Or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t even care where you stand on that controversy; the fact is most American churches assumed it was true. The crazy thing is, most American churches still act as if it were true.

We play new songs on different instruments, and we don’t dress up anymore. Otherwise church today is practically indistinguishable from my first memories of church 60 years ago.

In the Mission Field for Real

And it’s killing us. It’s been strangling us slowly for decades. We preach and teach as if we all lived in comfortable Christendom, when we ought to be praying and preaching and training like missionaries in a hostile foreign culture. Because that’s exactly where we are.

All my life I’ve seen churches with signs at their exits reading, “You are now entering the mission field.” It’s time we took that seriously. Better yet, change it to, “You are now entering the foreign mission field.” Our teaching needs to be on how to do mission work in a foreign culture.

Every believer in America who’s ever prayed, “God, please don’t send me off to be a missionary” has had half that prayer answered. God didn’t have to send us away to far-away, unfamiliar places. Your own home town has morphed into that instead. You haven’t moved — the culture has.

Christendom No Longer: This is Cross-Cultural Missions Now

Do I need to prove that to you? Or is it enough just to raise it to your attention? Try this exercise: Watch the evening news tonight on one of the three legacy broadcast networks or on CNN. Write a list of the issues they cover. Ask yourself, “Is there a distinctively Christian viewpoint on this issue? Do people think there’s a Christian viewpoint on it? If so, is it controversial, or do most people agree on it?”

Take gun control, for example. You may or may not think there are biblical reasons to support the Second Amendment. Doesn’t matter. You’re still likely to find yourself looking down the barrel of a challenge like, “You Christians always so you’re so pro-life. So why won’t you do anything about gun violence?”

You can hem and haw your way through half an answer and walk away thinking, “What do they know? I’m still a Christian, and I’m still okay with that.” Imagine an actual missionary being content with that!

Or you can stare your own ignorance in the face, and come out saying, “I don’t know. Maybe they have a point. Maybe this whole American Christian gun freedom thing is just power-hungry politics.” Then you’re left wondering just how much that same mistake spreads over all conservative Christianity. Maybe even wondering whether any of it’s true.

The Challenges Keep Coming … and Coming …

That might be too extreme an outcome for you, but remember, there are many out there who think “Christianity” means “white Christian nationalism.”

And what about your 17-year-old daughter, or your college student son? Or the kids in your church’s youth group? What happens to them (and to you) when the questions keep coming, and coming, and coming … I could have written a long list here, but I think it works better on audio:

Put your teen in front of a barrage like that … or, excuse me, I meant to say, let your teen sit for half a day on social media, and what kind of confidence is he to keep? Plenty! If you’ve prepared them for it. Every single one of those challenges has a good answer. Not one of them amounts to any kind of serious attack on Christianity’s truth.

Knowing that gives you confidence — confidence in God and in His word. Not knowing it will cut it out from under you. And remember: confidence is a synonym for faith. We’re actually talking about stronger and weaker faith here.

The Other Problem

Another problem with misunderstanding America is you might fall into the trap of thinking there’s something necessarily Christian about America, or (worse yet!) something necessarily American about being a Christian. That leads to dozens of problems, one of them being spiritual laziness: I’m an American, so I’m fine, or, I’m American, so God will bless me. Putting it in words that way just about makes me feel sick, but I’ll guarantee you there are some who operate that way. They just don’t put it in words, or they might feel sick about it, too.

I’m not saying there’s no connection between our nation and the Christian faith. Historically and sociologically, that relationship has often been very real. But history is other people’s stories. You can’t enter into this one unless you as an American make an intentional commitment to follow Christ as an American. And sociology is the study of people in groups. It’s not about individuals, except as they represent groups. So you and your church have to commit to making it true for you.

And never forget that even if it’s historically and sociologically true, it’s not theologically true. There is no theology that says America is Christian. Neither is there any that says we can expect, by God’s promise, it will remain even halfway Christian.

I spoke above about “comfortable American Christianity.” Our contented laziness with that is a large part of what’s gotten us into this mess.

The Difference It Makes Knowing You’re a Missionary

So what do we do with this? Open your eyes, for starters. Give up the illusion of comfortable homeland Christianity. Think of your church as a mission outpost, and yourself as a missionary. What do missionaries do? They pray for the people they want to reach. (Yes, this will push your prayer life forward, too.)

They study the Bible, church history, and comparative religion like crazy so they can tell the difference between “Christianity the way I’m used to it,” and “Christianity at its essential core.”

Have you ever noticed how well Jesus knew what really mattered? He adjusted to people’s needs everywhere He went, but when it came to His identity, His message, and His mission, He wouldn’t budge. Not even an inch. You can follow His example and meet people’s needs like crazy, too, but the only way to stay faithful where it matters is to know where it matters.

Missionaries grow in Christ. This is why I’m not worried about this diminishing the spiritual life. This is true motivation. I’ve seen it over and over again. The more you place yourself in situations where you need Jesus, especially for Christian outreach, the more desperately you’ll pursue Him. It extends to every aspect of your Christian life, from prayer to Bible study to fellowship to mercy ministries … .

Teamwork for the Gospel

Missionaries study the challenges their host culture puts up against the faith. They develop answers. You can bet they practice them, too!

They prepare for hostile responses. I have no time here to develop that theme. It’s too big. But I dare not overlook it.

And they work in teams. A preaching missionary doesn’t have to know how to take out a bad appendix, and a medical missionary doesn’t have to know everything the preacher knows. A missionary doctor can do effective work long before he learns the local language. But he’d better be partnered with someone who can explain how this is Christ at work among them.

The point is, it’s not up to every Christian to learn every missionary method and message. But your missionary team had better be up to speed. I’m talking about your church now.

And every member had better be wide-open awake and aware, knowing this is missionary work for real now.

 

Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) is a senior editor with The Stream and the author or editor of six books, including the highly acclaimed Too Good To Be False: How Jesus’ Incomparable Character Reveals His Reality.