We are all being formed by the culture around us. By the news we consume, the social media we scroll, the podcasts we listen to, the voices we give our attention to. And our algorithms are remarkably good at giving us more of what we already think.
They build echo chambers where our assumptions are endlessly reinforced and where people who see the world differently slowly stop being neighbours and start being the enemy.
The danger is that this happens to us without our noticing. Nobody decides to be discipled by their feed. We can be deeply formed by our culture and our media consumption whilst assuming we are the ones doing the thinking.
Claiming to represent Jesus
And as a pastor, here is what concerns me most. Increasingly, I see secular progressivism on one side and right-wing nationalism on the other being baptised and affirmed by voices claiming to represent the way of Jesus.
The gospel is being recruited. Its language is borrowed, its authority is annexed, and it is sent out to fight for a side. But the kingdom of God is not the chaplaincy wing of anybody’s movement. Jesus is nobody’s mascot.
Both temptations work the same way: they ask us to surrender one half of the gospel to keep the other. Left-wing progressivism offers us a form of grace with the truth quietly filed off. Right wing nationalism offers aspects of truth with the grace stripped out.
Radical grace and truth
Either way we end up with something manageable, tribal and useful in an argument. But we are left with something that does not look like Jesus, who came full of grace and truth.
We need to resist the temptation to lean into either extreme. Instead, we need to lean into the radical grace and radical truth of the kingdom of God.
The beautiful picture of the early church in Acts 2 gives us a different way to follow:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42)
Sharing lives
The bible goes out of its way to show how multi-ethnic the early church was. And this mosaic of diversity did meet in the temple, but they also broke bread in their homes. They ate together, prayed together, learned together, shared their lives.
There is something vitally important here about how discipleship actually happens – about how we learn to practise the Way of Jesus. Because the truth is, we are all being discipled by something.
The primary place of Christian formation isn’t our social media feed. It’s the life of the body of Christ.
It’s breaking bread together and breaking open the Word of God together. It’s praying together. Reading the Bible together. Opening our homes. Sharing our lives. Serving alongside others. Listening to people who don’t necessarily see things the way we do.
Brislington Community News 