Reading these opening verses of second Timothy is a little like reading someone else’s mail. The salutation is warm and intimate—“to Timothy, my beloved child”—and the body of the letter, as it develops, grows yet warmer with affection—“I am grateful to God when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.” The apostle Paul writes to his younger protégé, Timothy, in the language of a father speaking to a beloved son. But what father would write a son without also including a word or two of admonition? Apparently, Timothy, a young pastor, needed a reminder of who he was, whose he was, and what he had been called to do. He was feeling a bit intimidated not only by the challenges of pastoral ministry but by the potential adversities of Christian leadership in a time and culture which was at best apathetic and at worst hostile to the Christian faith and its adherents. Paul reminds him of his “sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now, I am sure, lives in you.” He also reminds him that he has been set aside for the work of pastoral ministry through the laying on of hands, and challenges him: “rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of hands for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and love and self-discipline.” Reading these opening verses feels a bit like reading someone else’s mail, but this isn’t just Timothy’s letter. It’s addressed to you and me also and speaks, I think, especially to the situation of the church in twenty-first century America. Cowardice, such as Timothy was displaying, is born of fear. The fear of failure keeps us sometimes from seeking great or even modest things. The fear of rejection prevents us from being completely ourselves. We hold back and present to others a revised standard version of the real thing. The fear of suffering may even cause us to deny our very identity. Playing it safe is the way to protect and to preserve. Ironically, though, it has been said that it was precisely because the early church, Timothy’s church, did not always play it safe that it grew. Elton Trueblood once wrote: “there is no likelihood whatever that Christianity could have won in the ancient world as religion in general. It survived very largely because it accepted the scandal of particularity. It could not have survived had it not been sufficiently definite to be counted worthy of persecution.” 1 The church was in the world but not of the world. Existing as an outpost of the Kingdom of God in a foreign land, the church pointed to a different reality and a different way of being than that of the world. In the fourth century, though, this “scandal of particularity” was removed. With the stroke of a quill on an imperial decree, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and overnight the church moved from a position on the fringe of secular society to become a powerful institution intimately related to the secular world. There followed sixteen hundred years of marriage between church and state in which the church supported the state and the stated protected the church. Politics and religion were inseparably bound. For American Christians that relationship began to unravel in the 18th century with the adoption of the Constitution of the United States and the legal separation of church and state. Some have referred to this as the first disestablishment of the church in America. What Protestant Christians lost by law, though, was soon regained by the creation of “a Christian America” in which the American ethic and the Protestant Christian ethic were equated. The laws, customs, and institutions of the nation were reshaped along the lines of Protestant moral principles. A second disestablishment of the church occurred sometime in the early 20th century as, through immigration, the numbers of Catholics and Jews swelled in the nation and Protestant Christians had to learn to share the mainstream with them. In the 1960s and 70s, however, a much more significant shift took place in American culture and a third disestablishment was set in motion. It was accomplished sometimes by legal means, such as the prohibition against prayer in public schools, but more by shifts in the American population and cultural ethos. Mosques and Buddhist temples began to share the American landscape with churches and synagogues. A new kind of immigrant began to populate American cities—non-western, non-English speaking people. “Christian America” was coming apart at seams. Anthony Robinson writes: “American culture was on its way to becoming an officially secular, religiously pluralistic, and racially and ethnically heterogeneous society.”2 By the 1990s this third and final disestablishment of the church was complete. 3 The response of American Protestant Christianity has been diverse. The religious right represented by the Christian coalition and others has sought a return to “Christian America” largely through the exercise of political power. If the radical right has its way the state will enforce nominal “Christian” values in American society by the power of law. That, however, will not make the nation “Christian” anymore than blues laws, which kept stores and businesses closed on Sundays, made the nation Christian. Christian faith and conduct cannot be legislated. By contrast, the religious left has sought to maintain some semblance of relevance to the culture by soft-pedaling the teachings of the Bible and historic Christian doctrine. The left speaks not so much of religion as it does spirituality. We are all spiritual beings, and the important thing in the spiritual quest is to find that truth that feels right to the individual. Consequently people are encouraged to choose from a cafeteria of spiritual offerings—some Christian, some not—to create a spiritual life that is personally satisfying. What works for “me” becomes the operative principle. It may be contemporary and it may even sell well, but it is not Christian. Most of us in the middle have responded to the tremendous cultural shifts in American society affecting the church with a mixture of confusion and denial. Mainline Protestant Churches have lost hundreds of thousands of members decade after decade since the 1960s and the trend continues today. Between 1965 and 2000 the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) experienced a net loss of 40.6 percent of its membership (more than 1,700,000 members). The vast majority of these did not move to more conservative churches but joined the ranks of the growing number of the unchurched. As the cracks in the superstructure multiplied, we never thought to examine the assumptions that formed the foundation upon which we were trying to be the church. We worked harder than ever to be the church of “Christian America,” but “Christian America” no longer existed. What was and still is needed is an adaptive change, that is a radical reorientation of the church’s understanding of its mission and its relationship to the larger culture. Timothy and his church lived in what might be called the pre-Christian era, as we live and serve in what is sometimes called the post-Christian era. We share much in common with our first century mothers and fathers in the faith. Very often when presented with a challenge such as we face today Presbyterians are inclined to appoint a committee to restructure the organization or to present a new program or plan—something that can be taken out of the box and implemented as a solution to a problem. Paul, however, suggests a different approach. “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you.” Start with the basics. Examine your faith, the faith that is surely there, and give it what it needs to flourish. Unless a fire is tended its flame will be extinguished. Unless one’s faith is nurtured it cannot survive. A priority for the church must be to nurture the faith of disciples through worship, Bible study, theological reflection, fellowship, and service to the world. Our calling is not simply to make people into good members of the church but to make them disciples of Jesus Christ. It used to be that evangelism and church growth were primarily matters of cultural assimilation. Joining a church was simply the right thing to do. So, we waited for people to come through the doors and ask to join the church. Today, though, as in Timothy’s day, there is no advantage, from the perspective of secular culture, to being a member of the church and in some places it may even been seen as a disadvantage. An “open door” approach to evangelism is no longer adequate. We cannot wait for people to find us. We must go, find them, and invite them in. Secondly, Paul reminds us of our empowerment for ministry. God has not given us this task to accomplish and left us to do it with our own resources alone. “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice,” he tells us, “but of power and love and self-discipline.” The spirit of cowardice prompts us to give in to our fears, to settle for the way things are, to accommodate our faith to the world. The spirit of power summons us to claim with boldness the “scandal of particularity” that the Gospel places upon us and to live as those whose lives are ordered by a different set of values and priorities and goals than those of the world. Let us proclaim the Gospel with conviction and live the Gospel with boldness. For Christians, though, this power is exercised not by means of intimidation or coercion but in love. Power shaped by love builds up. The power God has given us as his people is the courage to stand up and to be counted, to confront wrongs, to strive for the right, to seek the actualization of the Kingdom of God in human life. Downstairs today in the Mission Fair you will see a number of examples of that love at work in this community. And finally, Paul tells us this spirit of power, which is God’s gift to us is marked by self-discipline. Without self-control or discipline, empowered love is apt to become misdirected love, turning in on ourselves rather than outward toward our neighbor. My prayer is that First Presbyterian Church will be a church that not merely opens the doors to welcome those who might find their way here, but a church whose members actively reach out to friends and strangers alike with the invitation to discipleship. My prayer is that First Presbyterian will be a congregation that emphasizes the nurture of persons in Christian faith through prayer, Bible study, worship, fellowship, and thus prepare ourselves for our discipleship in the world. My prayer is that First Presbyterian Church will embrace the “scandal of particularity” and be the church in the world in a new and exciting way. Jesus told his disciples “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” That was not a judgment on the adequacy or inadequacy of their faith, but a word of encouragement. Even the smallest measure of faith is powerful. Act on it. For Christ’s sake, be who you are and whose you are. J. Dudley Weaver 1Trueblood, Elton, p. 25, The
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