what DO you do?

How could I expect anything different? We are getting ready to step into an election year and already, I’m hearing the potential candidates wax lengthy on the evils and ills of their opponents. Vote for me because I am not he. Do the political wannabes not realize that we can tell that they don’t have any more answers than the next guy, but can identify the same problems the incumbents identified but have failed to fix?
This same phenomenon trickles into our subculture as well. This little bubble that above all others, should be identified positively (by what it is), is also identified by what we don’t do. All it is is what it’s not. Don’t drink, don’t smoke? What do you do?
You don’t have to worry about what you might hear on the radio. It’s guaranteed safe for the whole family. We don’t play all that questionable material that the other stations play. Christian radio actually has commercials that advertise that they are not selling anything. They spend sixty seconds telling that they aren’t spending sixty seconds selling. Now I’m not saying that we should do the things we are bragging about not doing. I just don’t think it’s a great idea to brag about it, and a worse idea to let it define who we are.
How are we to impact society when we are only known by what we avoid? Don’t drink don’t chew, don’t go out with girls who do. In probably the least legalistic Christian subculture in history, we’ve ceased to be about the dissemination of the gospel and have taken up segregation and self-protection. When the most important thing that Christians can proclaim is that they’re inoffensive to one another, we are more than implying that this is for us. We are taking care of our own. Of course, we could be about reaching the culture, and that would probably result in broadcasts that are inoffensive to Christians, but our priorities are askew, and we’re more worried about ourselves.
In a single year’s time, Wheaton’s alcohol policy and first dance make national news. This can only be news if it is nationally known that we didn’t used to do what are now doing. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t appear ‘set apart’, I’m saying that what sets us apart should be what we do and who we are, not what we don’t do and who we’re not. I’m afraid the bottom line is that who we are is no longer different enough to be noticed.
Now we are set apart only by abstinence, defensive stance, protection, and disassociation. We’ve announced to the world that this is what defines a Christian. No wonder they chuckle when one of us messes up.

©2003 rod lewis