The Church Meeting in Jesus’ Name
602 Oak Knoll Dr.
San Antonio, TX 78228
Epistle
July 2017
Event Calendar
July 16 – 23 World Evangelism Conference
October 20,21 Men’s meeting
November 26 Thanksgiving meeting, dinner on the grounds
February 2 – 11 Revival Meeting with Corey Riggs
Non-conformity
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12
If we were to consider this verse comprehensively we would have to cover non-conformity, spiritual transformation, renewal of the mind, and the progressively good, acceptable and perfect will of God. But for the constraint of space I will only consider the attitude of not conforming, and its relation with the renewal of the mind.
I grew up in the hippie generation, surrounded by shallow-thinking moonbeams who thought normal was “square,” and preferred “grooves” to ruts, and believed psychedelic drugs like LSD and Mescaline both “mellowed, expanded and blew the mind,” while assuming that any societal convention, like practical clothing and basic grooming was “plastic” or “selling out.” Interacting daily with such balmy blockheads with seemingly no flash however brief of common sense made me think of non-conformity in the most negative light. Non-conforming meant stupidity of the lowest order, slow-witted, sleepy-eyed knuckle-draggers with the intellectual concentration of a house-fly.
However, non-conformity has a long and rich pedigree in religious and political history, and historically has nothing to do with the softheaded, oxymoronic vacancies of my generation. Our nation was established in large part by non-conformist Protestants whose main contentions were logical, Biblical and practical. Neither God nor our heroes of the faith would endorse the modern obsession with weirdness in fashion or grooming, and certainly not “gender non-conformity,” nor the emotional and irrational rejection of civilization itself which styles itself as non-conformity.
Everybody conforms, even hippies. We are all followers. Very few of our thoughts are original, and some of us have never had an original thought. Following is reasonable. Why blaze a new trail if there is a road to where you want to go? Most of our advantages and advances, not to mention food and shelter, come from recognizing someone else’s good idea. There is nothing wrong with conformity in itself.
But God warns us about the world. The world is evil, that is, the way most people think, the things most people want and love, the things that interest most people around us, and often including ourselves, are at odds with what God wants, loves and finds interesting. The world is passing and people don’t consider that when they make decisions. The world is entangling and even believers get trapped. The world is evil but people don’t want to think negatively.
John 7:7 The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
2Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Peter 2:20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
1John 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
So the solution is to not conform. Non-conformity is contrarian. Christians are “against” stuff. If that sounds negative it’s because it is. Negative is not bad. No is not a bad word. The New Testament mind-set is thoroughly negative about the world. And therefore God insists we not conform.
First, not conforming means to not agree. We must think for ourselves, not as a mindless collective, but with our minds saturated with the Bible. Thinking rationally according to the wisdom of the Bible causes us to disagree with the way the world thinks. We disagree with the world’s ideas about sex, drugs (including alcohol) and money. The Bible offers a wealth of wisdom on these things. We disagree with the common perspective on marriage and children. The Bible explains these things root and branch. We find ourselves disagreeing with politicians, economists, scientists, CEO’s, university professors, judges and newsanchors. We don’t necessarily enjoy disagreeing, although some of us might. But we have been called to not conform to the world, so we apply the Bible’s foundational precepts to the world’s ideas, and find ourselves disagreeing. It’s the way it is supposed to be.
But second, not conforming means to not settle. Disagreement is disagreeable. Most of us would rather avoid conflict when at all possible. Finding ourselves in perpetual disagreement with others around us forces us to choose our battles carefully. We are not capable of fighting over everything, so we must prioritize. But this necessarily leaves us acquiescing in innumerable instances. We are like Lot when looking at Zoar, “is it not a little one?” he asks. We adapt ourselves to so many things in this world, not because we agree with them, but because they just don’t seem significant enough to fight over. Most Christians, and most churches, choose two or three issues to take a stand on, and the rest must be almost ignored for practical reasons. When other Christians take up the battle on other issues and ignore these, conflicts between Christians arise. Accusations fly, consciences are strained, rationalizations abound and believers find themselves fighting each other.
When I was a child I heard many preachers preach against long hair on men, pants on women, mixed swimming, gambling (or even using cards or dice without gambling), movies, TV, and rock and roll, which they would not define as music. I knew preachers who would not buy anything on Sunday, nor shop at any store that sold alcoholic beverages. And it is impressive that such convictions were possible then, because most places on earth Christians have been in such a minority that some of these convictions would be simply absurd. Mostly these strictures have been abandoned by even the most dedicated Christians and preachers, as unbiblical, impractical or inconsistent. But I don’t think the attitude of non-conformity they had in those days of heady Christian influence should be abandoned. Obviously some worldly things must be avoided like the plague. But even though we can’t fight about everything, we can have the attitude of non-conformity, and hold ourselves personally aloof from things that displease God. Even without making a stink we still can personally and vocally reject worldly music, or beach fashions, or pictures of Jesus, or alcoholic beverages, or gambling, or working on Sunday, or anything else that gives us pause. And that leaves us free to fight fiercer fights, standing, sometimes alone like Shammah, in a field of lentiles, holding forth the word of life.
Thirdly not conforming means to not obey. This can be sorely abused so be careful. But there will come a time when the believer will be forced to disobey government, or judge, or employer, or teacher, or squad leader. When conscientious disobedience becomes impossible to avoid the believer obeys God rather than men. Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were delivered when they obeyed God, and so were Peter and John, but James wasn’t, and Naboth wasn’t, and Stephen wasn’t. Our own relevant spiritual history is replete with examples of people who refused to conform, Huss and Tyndale, Bradford and Cranmer and Bunyan, Corrie Ten Boom and Watchman Nee. Their attitude was non-conformist by conviction. There was no compromise in their soul.
But often things are not so clear. The proverbial rock and a hard place seem to be at every turn of our lives. Where is the line in the sand? America is both the most righteous nation on earth, and the most wicked at the same time. We often don’t know whether to conform to our culture or not. Some believers impale themselves on some conviction that later seems to have been foolish, while others find themselves going along with the culture for lack of clarity and wake up one day neck-deep in spiritual garbage. Taking a stand against entertainment (TV, movies, music, etc.) proved impractical a generation ago, but by acquiescing Hollywood has slowly permeated our lives, corrupted our children’s consciences, and sapped our church’s energy. What do we do now?
I believe there is an answer, at least a partial answer in the scriptural means found right in our text. The means to our objective is “by the renewing of your mind.” Renewing is starting over. In brief, this implies that conformity to the world is an unavoidable inclination we must constantly work against, and that our struggle is a periodical refreshing of our convictions about the world. There is no list of worldly activities we can definitively prohibit or allow, which would make us acceptably non-conformist forever. The battlefield is constantly changing. Christians centuries ago fought against slavery, and liquor, then a generation later they fought against pseudo-science and modernism in Bible translation and Seminary studies, then a generation after that they fought bravely against communism and Hollywood and drugs, and now we find ourselves in a battle over marriage, and gender, and sexuality and even basic common sense.
Healthy Christian non-conformity is a constant renewal of our minds, a never-ending revisiting of the principles we learn from the Bible, and an up-to-date involvement in the battles taking place in society. The world is not a static environment. It is a turbulent tempest of wicked devices and devilish philosophical ramblings rolling beneath us like tidal waves. Our objective is to row against the stream, to keep the bow facing God, and to pull people out of the water. The constant changing of the current, the fickle lusts of society, will constantly be turning us, surprising us, confusing us, but we renew our minds, our objectives, our determination. When we see a failure, we change our behavior and start over. When the world makes headway, we develop new convictions, until we are healed and aimed right again. When our zeal flags, we remind ourselves again of the stakes, our children, our church, our culture. We renew the fight, renew the zeal, renew the intellect, renew the hope, all by renewing our minds. Does this make Christians inconsistent? Maybe. But it has to be worth something that our minds are not conformed.