Nations like Zimbabwe or the Congo break loose from the grip of racism and colonialism only to sink into economic collapse, political corruption, and civil war. New economies, or a new Europe, perpetuate old injustices or succumb to ancient ethnic tensions. In the grip of this anxiety people of faith are tempted. On the one hand, there is the temptation to surrender to a functional atheism. This person may still believe in God, still attend church, still serve on boards and committees, still give to good church causes.
Old loyalties die hard.
But there may be little of the faith that God is somehow intimately involved in our lives, little of the confidence that the future bends toward the horizon of God's rule and reign. On the other hand, the anxiety that things may happen for no real reason at all lures others to a kind of fundamentalism that desperately tries to attach God to everything that happens in life, right down to whether we find an empty parking space or get our kids into the college of their choice. God is the blessing machine, as available to us as our local money machine, accessible if we have the right card and the right codes, the right biblical interpretations, the right spiritual practices or the right theological formulae. Folks like this often leave our churches in search of congregations that appear to offer a more structured and comforting view of the universe where God is predictable, either in judgment or blessing, where good deeds are ultimately rewarded, in this life or the next, and where Jesus, if not in our pocket, certainly is a friend who rarely pushes us beyond our comfort zone. Both are a challenge to our ministry, and both groups are and will be part of our ministry.