ECUMENICAL POLITICS...by Phil Johnson

Charles Colson and co-author Anne Morse returned to "The Back Page" column in August's Christianity Today. They picked up right where they left off in the April issue—hammering Colson's favorite theme: "engaging contemporary culture."

"Engaging the culture" is Colson's pet euphemism for ecumenical political activism. He has been campaigning for years to persuade evangelicals to tone down or set aside what makes us evangelical, because he wants us to join hands in the public arena with an interfaith posse of political cobelligerents (including devout Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and other religious traditionalists)—to lobby for reforming society's values through legislation.

That seems to be the only strategy Colson is willing to consider as a remedy for the moral rot of postmodern culture. He is convinced that those who don't share his commitment to ecumenical politics cannot possibly "engage the culture" in any meaningful sense. In other words, he clearly does not believe the gospel itself can transform culture. As a result, Colson doesn't seem to hear the actual concerns of evangelicals who are hesitant to join the ranks of his ecumenical moral crusade. He recounts how one "confused" pastor recently asked him, "Won't engaging the culture this way interfere with fulfilling the Great Commission?"

The question seems fair enough. "Engaging the culture" by Colson's preferred strategy demands, for example, that we downplay or silence the message of justification by faith alone—or risk alienating Colson's Roman Catholic allies in the culture war.

Of course, historic evangelicalism has always regarded the principle of sola fide as the very essence of the gospel message. That's what the Protestant Reformation was all about.

But if the very notion of "saving faith" must now be relegated to questionable or secondary status in order to keep peace in the religious right, how does that not "interfere with fulfilling the Great Commission"?The more cobelligerents Colson embraces, the bigger the problem becomes. As his circle of allies grows broader, the movement becomes less and less tolerant of gospel distinctives. You simply cannot solicit the support and partnership of Jewish leaders in a moral crusade if you're clearly and forcefully declaring the exclusivity of Christ. Colson's broad ecumenism is simply incompatible with the politically incorrect (but biblical, and essential) truth that explicit faith in Christ is the only way of salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). As we pointed out in this column a few months ago, Colson himself has already endorsed Catholic apologist Peter Kreeft's call for Christian culture warriors to forge alliances with Muslims, Hindus, Confucians, and others who defend "traditional values" for religious reasons. How much will the Christian message need to be toned down in order to hold that kind of coalition together?

Will the price of membership in the religious right ultimately require Christians to cease mentioning the name of Christ completely for the sake of political appeasement? Are any of the moral issues on the agenda of the "religious right" (or even all of them combined) worth that kind of compromise? We think the pastor who challenged Colson was raising a perfectly valid question.

But Colson just doesn't get it. "That people still raise this question surprised me," he writes. In his view, the Great Commission is only half of the church's mission. Here's how he says he answered the anonymous pastor's question: "Of course we're called to fulfill the Great Commission," I replied. "But we're also called to fulfill the cultural commission." Christians are agents of God's saving grace—bringing others to Christ, I explained—but we are also agents of his common grace: sustaining and renewing his creation, defending the created institutions of family and society, critiquing false worldviews.

Colson goes on. He alludes to Genesis 1:28 as the biblical basis for a "cultural commission" ("Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.")

"When we are redeemed," he says, "we are both freed from sin and restored to do what God designed us to do: Create culture." Of course, we don't deny that Christianity ought to shape culture, as it has, historically, whenever the gospel has been preached effectively. But we think it's a bit of a stretch to find a "cultural mandate" for political activism in Genesis 1:28. And we certainly don't see any model for the sort of political activism Colson favors anywhere in the biblical record of apostolic activity. If Colson's strategy is the right one, why didn't the apostles forge political alliances with the Pharisees and the Zealots—not to mention the Stoics, who championed high ethical values and opposed the moral decay of Roman society?

What we really object to in Colson's rhetoric is his assumption that preaching the gospel and "engaging culture" are two distinct activities. Although he says he believes the Great Commission and the "cultural commission" are "inseparable," he clearly regards these as disparate endeavors, with completely different aims. He treats "redeeming people and redeeming culture" as two discrete projects, the former to be accomplished by evangelism and the latter to be accomplished by political means. That is a serious mistake. There is no mandate anywhere for the church to "redeem culture" through the apparatus of democracy. The gospel is the only message of redemption (Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 1:17-25), and pagan societies are transformed for the better only as individuals respond to the gospel and experience the new birth. It is no part of our calling to cultivate a higher standard of external morality among pagans. Colson misses the point completely when he writes, "If we're tempted to ignore the great moral issues of our day, or dismiss them as 'just politics,' we are betraying our biblical mandate and our own heritage."

No one is arguing that Christians ought to "ignore the great moral issues of our day." What we're saying is that there are no effective political remedies for sin. The gospel is the only true answer to "alien philosophies" and worldviews that are hostile to righteousness. The proper way for Christians to "engage" and refute the wisdom of this world is by preaching "Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). Colson quotes part of 2 Corinthians 10:5 to make the point that we need to apply Christian thinking to all of life. Bingo. But Colson misses the real significance of the text. The verse is Paul's prescription for spiritual warfare against false doctrines, and it gives the method he employed for the defense of the gospel: "casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." That strategy, rightly understood, would keep us from setting aside major gospel truths in order to gain non-Christian compatriots in an ill-advised political campaign for mere moral rearmament.

If we lose sight of the fact that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Corinthians 3:19)— including the "wisdom" of conservative politics and religious moralists—we have already capitulated in the culture war. If we silence parts of the gospel in order to gain lobbying clout in the political arena, we will forfeit the only message that can "redeem the culture."

Colson comes close to the truth when he writes, "Real Christianity invariably provides a healthy influence on society." That's certainly true. So why not devote our best energies to evangelism, the only legitimate means of spreading "real Christianity"? At one point in his article, Colson writes, "I wish we had the courage of some of our Catholic brethren who've threatened to withhold Communion (and implicitly, votes) from those who flout biblical teaching."

Admittedly, we find it hard to work up much enthusiasm over what (so far) have been pretty much empty threats. Meanwhile, we wish Colson and his evangelical companions had the courage (and confidence in the power of God's Word) shown by those first-century Christians whose preaching and evangelism "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6)

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