Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight.
I got the feeling that something ain’t right.
I’m so scared, in case I fall off my chair.
And I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
(Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan (1972); performed by Stealers Wheel)
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you (and the rest of humanity), for the world lies between heaven and hell; and that is no coincidence. This world has been created by God as the realm of choice; we can either rise to the good or sink into evil. There is no escaping down an imagined middle road.
This world is also the realm of chaos and confrontation, distraction and discouragement, and potential compromise and conformity. Decisions must be made; progress towards heaven or hell is inescapable. We allow distraction, discouragement, and seemingly acceptable bits of compromise to delay the inevitable.
For those He loves, God creates and uses chaos and confrontation to force us beyond the fork in the road leading to either more conformity or transformation.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2
The will of God is good, acceptable, and perfect; we are to prove it so in our lives. Stuck in the middle between heaven and hell, here with all the clowns and jokers, proving the will of God joins us inextricably to His confrontation with evil. And not just the evil of clowns and jokers.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12
The enemies’ counter to Paul’s warning of warfare has been to make the world a very comfortable prison, thereby hiding its proximity to, and drift toward, hell. The deception has found its way into the church; we have traded our armor for worldly distractions and conveniences.
Living in the world but not of it requires more than passive participation. The agents of God are commissioned as an invading force, to set the captives free. There is a battle to be fought; being strong in the Lord and in the power of His might is not optional (Ephesians 6:10). Negligence with the weapons of our warfare will continue producing great loss. We do not belong to this world, unless we choose to. At a minimum, we must exercise determined and diligent resistance to the world’s incarceration.
Most of you reading this have been called to more than resistance. God has commissioned you to liberate and protect those you now find in your spheres of influence. This matter brings us to Harry Blamires’ second mark of the Christian mind: its awareness of evil.
Stuck in the Middle with Evil
The majority of this section is developed from Part Two – Chapter Two of Harry Blamires’ The Christian Mind (1963), in which he explains the awareness of evil as one of “The Marks of the Christian Mind”. I strongly recommend The Christian Mind to anyone interested in learning how a Christian should think.
There is about the Christian mind a peculiar hardness – a refusal to be surprised at evil and depravity; an inability to be overcome by shock; an expectation that evil will be at large where God is not (Blamires, 1963).
The Christian mind expects evil and is highly suspicious of cultural norms and progress. It will not readily assume secular modes of thought and behavior in order to win the favor of leading or influential groups (Blamires, 1963).
The Christian mind will not adopt worldly judgments of evil – simply because worldly judgments tend to be evil. For example, the Christian mind rejects the redefinition and misapplication of higher values on evil behavior (e.g., the “justified” destruction of property, or the “sincere” sodomite) (Blamires, 1963).
The Christian mind accepts and argues the command of plank before splinter (Matthew 7:3-5) on the grounds of self-judgment and repentance before helping another, not as an excuse to avoid helping a fellow human escape the damage a splinter will cause. Furthermore, the Christian mind judges from the higher values – truth, goodness, beauty, and love – as they are sovereignly defined by God, not by subjective opinion, nor mass polling.
The Christian mind rejects the base values instinctively and does not entertain compromise. The Christian mind recognizes his ethics and judgment will appear outrageous to the secular mind. The Christian mind recognizes pride as the chief sin and humility as the only solution (Blamires, 1963).
The Christian mind resists the urge to judge distant spheres more harshly than those close and comfortable (e.g., their fellowship, community, and country). The Christian mind resists the temptation to judge the down-and-out for their obvious sin at the exclusion of the well-to-do’s excess, greed, bribery, extortion, and oppression (Blamires, 1963).
And finally, the Christian mind learns how to be in the world but not of it – where to enter and where to withdraw – confident and dependent, as our Lord during His earthly visit, in the leading of the Holy Spirit (Blamires, 1963).
How have we been secularized?
We have allowed the world to turn us into rational machines, flipping the values pyramid upside down (see Repentance Now and Everywhere). The train of our thought processes regularly give first consideration and weight to the lower values. We ask, “What will work?” before asking, “What is good?” or “What is just?” We destroy the beautiful in deference to convenience, functionality, or profit (e.g., “worship” entertainment in banal spaces focused on a stage versus true intimacy with God in sanctuaries architected to draw our attention toward heaven).
It is important to note that the lower values are not evil in themselves. The problem is their distraction and shift of focus from the higher, holy, and sacred. Conformity with the world – even the best it has to offer – comes with consequences.
We have been compromising for so long, we presume we’ve got it right, never challenging our way of thinking, either as individuals or as the church. Progress is king, trumping thoughtful consideration of spiritual dangers and more spiritual alternatives. Like the world, we clamor to replace one failed technological solution with another, not stopping to consider that the failure may be rooted in the evil nature and/or purpose of the inventors or proponents of the technology. Most, if not all, the world has to offer is evil in the sense that it does not promote the constrained path to God.
Consequently, the secular, rational mind has pushed out both the romantic and the mystical. The higher values focus our attention towards the romance and mystery of God. Sadly, we design our spaces and programs to support function, convenience, and comfort at the expense of the higher values. For example, who but a minimalist would say the modern worship space is beautiful? Functional, yes; beautiful, no.
The same objection can be made for modern church programs. How much of modern church programs are directed toward intimacy with God and searching out the mysteries of His kingdom? Well intended individuals develop and/or chose programs based on their entertainment value, so as to keep people coming back in support of the organization.
NOTE: I recognize the harsh judgments presented here and have prayerfully considered them, trying to #justbethepen. Consider yourself blessed if you attend a church fellowship that has not succumbed to worldly approaches to ministry. But, at the same time, don’t allow offense or discomfort to distract you from whatever the Spirit may be saying to you about the dangers of the world’s influence in our faith communities.
Engagement With the World
As Blamires has made clear, few lost souls will understand, much less appreciate, the Christian mind’s awareness of evil – certainly not evil of the supernatural kind. And so how do we engage them in the discussion?
As the church that Jesus Christ is building, we must “turn to the world in judgment, with the utmost clarity and power in our identification of evil, yet in full acceptance of our common guilt – and, finally, with a deeply moving message of hope. For the Christian mind cannot separate from its judgment upon the world and its judgment upon the self, its realization that the world and its inhabitants are nevertheless God’s, by Him created and by Him redeemed (Blamires, 1963).”
It bears repeating: We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. A change of mind (i.e., repentance) here will greatly enable our journey from conformity with the world and its evil ways toward transformation into a people enraptured by the goodness, truth, beauty, and love of God.
Exercising the Christian Mind
We hope to provide examples in Christianly thinking throughout this study series. Please bear in mind, we are learning these disciplines as we go along together. Please comment with any questions the Holy Spirit puts in your mind.
Exercise Two: How do we think of church design and programming using the higher values?
- What is good, beautiful, and true here?
- What is noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy here (Philippians 4:8-9)?
- What do these words (in #1 and #2) mean?
- Does our understanding of justice perfectly and wholistically align with Scripture?
- How does this encourage people to understand and pursue God’s eternal purposes – reign, intimacy, habitation, and glory – in their lives and the life of this fellowship?
- How might the enemy use this to discourage or distract God’s people?
- How does this program enable people to fight the good fight as prescribed – loving natural brother, neighbor, and enemy, while battling against supernatural principalities, powers, and rulers of this dark age?
- Is there any compromise in the leadership of this fellowship?
- When was the last time the people were taught about, and encouraged to oppose, evil in their lives and in their spheres of influence?
- Is everyone in this fellowship responding to Jesus’ commission to make disciples (i.e., rescue souls from the enemy’s camp)?
In closing, it occurs to me that an awareness of evil is great motivation for our journey from conformity with the world to transformation into the very image of the Lord’s glory (2Corinthians 3:18). What the enemy intends for evil, God will turn to good… if we will respond.
God bless you with courage, truth, and power for the journey.
Have a strong day in the Lord,
Rob
#iamjustthepen
Blamires, H. (1963). The Christian Mind. Regent College Publishing; Vancouver, BC