The Church "In the World" But Not "of the World"

Blessing to you!

Today I will like to introduce a discussion on the place of the Church in society.
There are always been a split position among Christian believers about the place of the Church in society. For some the Church is a total different and separate divine institution that has nothing to do with its surrounding environment, except to preach to Gospel and save the maximum of the lost and bring them into the Kingdom of God. According to this view, once a person become a believer in Jesus Christ, he should remove himself from all his past relations and become an exclusive member of a new community, namely the Church. The Church in this context is an isolate community where believer is confined and totally separated from his surrounding environment, spending his time only in things that are totally spiritual such as prayer, bible reading, worship services, evangelism, waiting on the return of Christ. He cannot be involved in things such as watching TVs, going to movies, reading of secular books or newspaper, visiting with former friends, or even unconverted relatives. Some missionaries who advocated this view in the past, went even so far to forbid Christians to send their children to school which is consider as a powerhouse of the devil. In recent years, advocates of this view will not send their children in public or secular schools and will prefer to have home schools for their children or send them in expensive private Christian schools.
The opposite view sees the Church as both a divine and human institution with a double connection. As a divine institution the Church is a separate institution whose main goal is to preach the Gospel and help in the expansion of the Kingdom of God. But the church in this view is also a human or social institution which deeply rooted in its social context and must acts decisively to impact its surrounding environment with the values of the Kingdom such as justice, love, and peace. In this view the one who become a believer in Christ, should not remove himself from his social context and relationship, but a beacon of light in the darkness of this world, impacting in society with the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church in this context is the salt of the world, improving and giving taste to a decaying world that otherwise will be the exclusive domain of the evil one. Here the Kingdom of God become a countering force that is struggling with the forces of evil to take back this world under the authority and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we envision the Church as struggling relentlessly so that the Lord's prayer that ask for the Kingdom of God to come down and His will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven will be become a reality.
As you can see the two positions are quite divergent. While the first position has led the Church in the past to withdraw itself from the dirty realty of this world through practice such as monastic life, complete separation of state and Church, the second position call upon the Church to remain closely involved in the daily struggle of social commitment and transformation. The first is an easy and safe position. The second is difficult and unsafe since it requires the Church to come down and get itself in human struggle, share in the pains and suffering of a fallen world, and sometimes receive blows from a world that does not always understand its mission and appreciate its actions. Now let me ask you, it is not what the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ is all about? God could have stayed in heaven and send from there a magic potion to solve all our human problems. He has the power to do so. But instead He decided to become one of us, live among us, go trough all our human struggles and limitations, and even suffer and die like us, in order to save us and make us His children! What mission did Jesus Christ left to His disciples? Did he asked them to remove themselves from the world and live seclusive holy life in a Christian cocoon? Of course not. He sent back them into the world, to spread His world of salvation into the world, to remain in the midst of the world and be a model of the message of love, justice and reconciliation they will be preaching. That is why in the prayer for His church in John 17, He said to His Father, "I am not asking You to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the world." What the Church need is not a removal from the world but a protection from the world so that as it keeps struggling in the world for the salvation and the control of this world, it will not be affected and infected by the evil that is prevalent in this fallen world. The nature of our divine mission requires us to remain involved in this world and be light that lighten the darkness of this world, and the salt that prevent a complete decay of the human society and make it a sustainable of our fellow humans till the glorious return of Lord Jesus Christ who will return all creation to intended divine purpose. This is why Romans 8 says that creation itself is groaning for the revelation of the sons of God since it has been submitted to vanity since the fall of the human race into sin.

God bless you!
Feel free to share your feedback's and opinion about this article.

With love
Rev Alex Tah-Bi Makarios,
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA.

agapekingdom.org