Living the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, christian faith, spirituality

About a hundred years ago, God began moving among young Chinese, many with a British or American missionary upbringing. Some, like Henry Nee (later Watchman Nee), were from third or fourth-generation Christian families. Once they began to follow Christ as teenagers and young adults, they asked, as young Christians do everywhere, "Why are there so many competing 'churches'?" and "Why are God's people so inert?"

Nee and his coworkers, primarily Witness Lee by the late 1930s, were used of God to recover a church life and practice that was nearly unknown among Western Christians, and remains very little known today. The local church life, based on oneness in any locality, on the indwelling Spirit of Christ, and on the vital actions of every member, produce a revolution among Christians in China and throughout the Far East since the 1920s, and in America and Western Europe since the 1950s.

Historically, the difficulty with retaining the freshness of any move of God centers on the lukewarmness that enters with the third or fourth generation. The first generation can often gain their children in large numbers, but the generations following gradually lose the first love, and the sad history of Ephesus is repeated: God warned them in "Second Ephesians", found in Revelation 2, that they were at risk of losing the lampstand, the testimony. God's testimony requires love. Ephesus did lose their testimony, and the city exists no longer.

I entered the local church life in 1972, and have since participated in the second, third, and fourth generations of its expression in the United States. That fourth generation is embodied in the grandchildren of my generation, and their condition is very sad. Fresh love for the Lord is very scarce. They find "church" boring. We are at risk of becoming just another denomination.

We once thought we would be the generation that saw the Lord's return. Now we are not so sure. I have sometimes asked myself and others, "If the Lord sets us aside and turns to others, what will it look like, and how will we know?" Privately (and now publicly, since you are reading this), I believe that from our side it looks like what we see around us in the local churches I know. There are wonderful things happening in a few localities, and there is much joy among us who have known one another for so many years, but we see the darkness falling.

From others' side, what it looks like just may be the experiences presented by Shane Claiborne in The Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical. These people are at a stage similar to the young Chinese brothers in the 1920s, and the church life I experienced in the 1970s in California. At that same time, however, there was a lot of activity called at the time "The Jesus Movement," which came to nothing. I hope these folks do better than that.

When I got the book, I didn't notice the Zondervan imprint. I wasn't actually expecting a Christian testimony, it was just strange enough to be my "wild card" book this time around. What I got was a breath of fresh air. People of God everywhere are casting deadness aside and trying out the dangerous freshess of living what they see in Acts and the Epistles. God likes that.

Oh, I could quibble with some of the author's interpretations. I'll just mention one, because this understanding and the vision that accompanied it were largely responsible for the turn I made in 1972. Most believers think the parables in Matthew about the mustard tree and about the leaven in the dough are positive, something to do with the growth of the faith. The saints in L.A. helped me see, by showing me the mustard on the hillsides, and its use as a salad herb, that the great tree grows contrary to its nature. The "fowls" nesting in it represent evil things coming in as a result. Thus, this parable and the one following, of the leaven, predict the damage the so-called Church will do as it grows in power rather than life. The evil birds and the sinful rebellion and pride (leaven) contaminate the testimony of Christ (the gentle herb and the fine flour). This is important to me, but God can use someone regardless how they interpret these particular parables.

Author Claiborne and his companions in Christ are, as my companions and I did thirty years ago, "being the church" and "doing the church". Read the book, then read more at the simple way. If you dare, visit the Kensington area of Philadelphia and see for yourself.