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Reconciliation as Christian ----------By Efrem Smith Reconciliation as Christian FormationEfrem Smith "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 The Evangelical Covenant Church – of which the church I pastor is a member – has made multi-ethnic ministry development a priority. The denomination has encouraged leaders to read “Divided by Faith” by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith, developed a “Five-Fold Ministry Test for Multi-Ethnic Ministry”, and placed a seminar on racial righteousness within the department of Christian Formation. The latter move is a major step in a direction the body of Christ should move in gaining a more biblical and holistic understanding of reconciliation. For years, many Christians have seen the reconciliation movement as mainly a social movement. Evangelicals in particular have at times written off reconciliation as mere sociology. Some proponents of reconciliation studies on Christian college campuses have been labeled socialist by conservative Old and New Testament professors. This out-of-touch fear limits some colleges from preparing students to impact today’s society for the kingdom. The Church must wrestle with what it means to equip the saints to advance the kingdom of God in an ever-increasing multi-ethnic and multicultural world. In order for this to happen, pastors and ministry leaders must begin by seeing reconciliation as theology and Christian formation. Reconciliation must be seen as spiritual discipline on the same level as prayer, fasting and stewardship. The birth, earthly life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is where reconciliation begins. Through sin, humanity is separated from God. No matter what we do, we cannot, in our own power, fulfill the covenant of God given to Moses in the Old Testament. In fact, all Old Testament covenants lead us to the new covenant in Christ, by which we receive the free gift of salvation. Jesus is the reconciler par excellence who brings us into intimate relationship with God through being the atonement of our sins and making way for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Reconciliation then moves to right relationship with one another across class, ethnicity and race within the body of Christ. One of the major issues that we still struggle with in the body Christ is racial segregation. There still exists a belief among many church leaders that a homogenous church model is the best for church development and growth. Within an ever-increasing multi-ethnic and multicultural society, when sociologists want to prove that there is yet a racial divide, many look no further than the Church to make this point. The Church, when at all possible, ought to be a sneak preview of heaven where there are people represented “from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9). Reconciliation is rooted in God’s pursuit of us through Christ in us. It then moves to righteous relationship with one another by Christ working through us that we might “be brought to complete unity” (John 17:23) that the world might come to know the authentic Christ. Reconciliation next moves to how Christians engage culture. In many postmodern church discussions the issue of race and reconciliation is not even dealt with in a meaningful manner. I don’t understand how we can discuss the Church bringing the ancient message of the Gospel into postmodern culture without wrestling with the reality that this culture cannot be separated from its subcultures of hip-hop, multiculturalism and urbanization. The Church is trapped and irrelevant if it either paints culture primarily as the enemy to the Church, or brings only an updated White mindset into the shaping of cultural engagement. Reconciliation as Christian formation allows us to develop a theological framework for cultural engagement centered in forgiveness, love, honesty, justice and transparency. Reconciliation begins with salvation, but also must move to being a kingdom force in a multicultural world. This cannot happen without reconciliation being included in our preaching and teaching. We cannot truly be a reconciling Church if we are not willing to be a prophetic voice in the midst of continued class and racial disparities. We must work for the continued development of multi-ethnic and multicultural churches and other ministries. This in turn empowers us as God’s children to be salt and light no matter where we are. It also allows us to pass something down to our children that will equip them to be kingdom builders for years to come. |
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