The Individual Christian

"Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it."
-Soren Kierkegaard.
Christianity is harmed by the incessant attempts to yolk it with "us, them, we" or any personal pronoun other than "I".
It invariably leads not to closer brotherhood among believers, but to sectarianism, pride and judgment.
As an individual, a Christian is more likely than most to be humble, peaceful and understanding.
As a collective, or as a demographic, we can tend to be proud (of our Christianity), hostile (to anyone or thing perceived to be hostile to us as Christians) and judgmental (to anyone who does not hold our values).
As the individual Christian, we have a better sense of who we are in relation to world, and to God himself.
As "Christendom", we tend to find safety in numbers, establish insular subcultures, and hide behind our own theologians and teachers.
Christians lose something of the peculiar shame of the Cross when Christianity becomes accepted, respectable, a movement or even, God forbid, official.
We become quite at home in the world, and even begin to claim portions of it as our own. And become quite defensive and even combative when we feel that holy ground is being invaded.

I have disliked the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" almost from the moment I first heard it. With it's militaristic mustering and calls for spiritual battle, it seemed to echo the trumpets of  the ill-fated and advised Crusades of the Middle Ages., However my distaste needed educating and said more about the Christian culture that caused me to misunderstand actual christian militancy than the lyrics themselves.
The culture I'm referring to is the religiously Christian, politically conservative culture. Pairing politics with Christianity is hardly new, but the increasing willingness of one major party to let the other claim it is disturbing, not because politics and religion should go hand in hand (in fact, I intend to argue otherwise) but because Christianity itself is rightly or wrongly being found to be incompatible with progressive political views and reprioritized or outright abandoned. What is more disturbing still is the increasing  confidence of that other major party that they are, in fact, the rightful defenders and claimants of Christianity.
It's not that it's not contradictory to be a Christian and support abortion, or that it's not consistent for and incumbent upon a Christian to beg for the life of an unborn child, but that defending innocent life does not contribute to one's own personal Christianity.
It's not that it is consistent with Christianity to be a homosexual activist, but that it is not "Christian" to be a heterosexual.
It's not that an assault upon the traditional family should be ignored, but that it is unnecessary and even unhelpful to claim a mandate from Christ while defending it.
It's not that Christians should not be involved in social causes, but that involvement in such causes should not be understood to make one more of a Christian.
Onward Christian Soldiers, in today's context, could just as easily conjure up images of marshalling to defeat the designs of the Left as images of giving a cup of cold water or forgiveness. The war that a christian fights FOR Jesus is more likely to be against one's own self than against a liberal or a Muslim.
Christianity is subject to a lot of add-ons, and none is as injurious to it's integrity and efficacy as politics/activism.
It takes many different forms, often seemingly contradictory, unless one looks at where the plots were likely hatched.
Years ago I learned about the the damage that well-meaning advocates of social reform had done to Christianity. This particular corruption was given a significant boost by one Charles Sheldon, the author of In His Steps, a work of fiction in which numerous characters began to change the face of their community and eventually the nation by their application of Christian discipleship to their everyday life. All well and good so far as it goes, except that social reform was never exactly the aim of the Cross.
But the movement Sheldon assisted with his well known book took on a significance that can be understood in one way by looking at the rise of Christian socialism via the Social Gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch in following decades. It indirectly influenced, for example, the liberation theology preached by one Rev Jeremiah Wright, if you remember him. Over the years, Sheldon's helpful admonition to ask What Would Jesus Do directly and indirectly became the platform for many political forces that often even stood in opposition to one another.
Christ has been invoked in many good causes, and many bad ones, but there is one in particular that I'm concerned with today.
If I haven't sufficiently made the case that Christ did not come to reform society, then at least maybe I can establish that being little christs is not accomplished by advocacy of American culture as the best vehicle for the preservation of His Gospel.
And yet this is exactly the claim we hear from many Christian conservatives when we question the fairly recent focus on the immigration issue. The immigration issue itself is obviously no new problem, particularly illegal immigration. But the recent obsession with immigration has featured many activists expressing their concerns that even legal immigration is a problem because the influx will change the political makeup of the country.
And that, I've been told by some, is a problem particularly because of the supremacy of Christian American culture. There is apparently a danger that Christianity itself will suffer irreparable damage with the fall from power of, well......Republicans.
There is irony in spades here, along with a misplaced focus on political salvation that borders on idolatry.
And the danger of placing such hope in a political cause should be obvious. But in case it isn't, we can become blind to the faults and limited scope of any cause other than sharing Christ; or if not blind, become comfortable with closing our eyes when spectacular problems appear, and when, as has become the case that the spectacular problems are so many, we are opening and shutting our eyes so rapidly at the troubling issues that we appear to be winking at them.
Christians belong everywhere, but our primary purpose is to carry the Gospel to everyone, not to defend it from being attacked, or to perpetuate our understanding of it by keeping people away from us.
And finally, enjoy fellowship with other Christians.
Help and be helped by other Christians.
But please avoid fortifying Christendom against the onslaught of evil.
After all, we are the invaders.