The outcast’s guide to survival

In previous issues, James Toews argued that the Bible, while complex and ancient, is designed to be understood by ordinary people today. One reason is that it is “postmodern”; another is that it addresses the pressing and contemporary issue of “truth.” Here, in the last of the series, is a third reason we, living in Canada in 2004, can understand the New Testament.

We humans have a deep need to fit in. Long before the infamous teen years we are driven to wear the right clothes, to like the right food and music. Those who don’t know how to pick up the signals defining social norms are soon left to wander the fringes of society.

As Christians, we also long for a world that harmonizes with our deepest values. And our values seem so self-evidently correct: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22–23).

Not only is there no law against such values, it seems sensible that they should be the very basis of our national conduct and even our laws. There was a time when society agreed, at least in principle, that the fruit of the Spirit and the 10 Commandments were God’s universal laws.

The Christians of the first three centuries AD did not live in such a world, nor was the New Testament written with such presuppositions. In fact, in Jesus’ last words to His disciples was a blunt warning: “I have given them your word and the world has hated them . . . They are not of the world, even as I am not of it” (John 17:14–18).

We want to live in a culture in which we feel at home, in which we fit. It does not take long in a Christian’s journey, however, to discover there is a strange dissonance between the fruit of the Spirit and social norms. No one wants an unfaithful spouse but fidelity stories are oddly dull. No one admires a stumbling drunk but a steady diet of beer commercials tell us the king of beers is required for genuine happiness. Child pornography is reviled but only the most prudish question a fashion industry that exploits the sexuality of young teenage girls. And when was the last time you walked out of a movie that crossed the boundaries of biblical decency?

The reality is, humanity is strangely drawn to evil. The dark, the seductive, the proud, the angry, the violent and the depraved, resonate with something deep inside of us, something we will rarely admit to but which we and our society are drawn to like a bird in the steady gaze of a viper.

For the last 1700 years Christendom, in spite of stunning hypocrisy, outwardly acknowledged biblical morality. That outward acknowledgment has now all but collapsed. There are good reasons to mourn the demise of formal Christendom but with it also come opportunities. The opportunity we have discussed in this series is that this collapse allows us to once again read the New Testament in its original context.

The New Testament was not written to people whose faith was part of the dominant culture. It was not written to people who expected that their morality would be understood. It was not even written to people with a hope that God’s law would ever prevail in society at large.

Do you feel like an outcast at work, at school, and even within your family at times? The New Testament is a book you can understand. It was written to people living in a culture hostile to biblical morality. It was written to demonstrate how a biblically moral person is to survive and thrive in such a hostile culture.

Also in this series

• Part 1: Mysterious, ancient, complex – and understandable
• Part 2: The New Testament is postmodern
• Part 3: For skeptics, cynics, Gen-Xers

James Toews is pastor of Neighbourhood Church, Nanaimo, B.C.