If, however, one understands Jesus’ salvation project in terms of reconciliation of humanity to God and the restoration of your life and my life and our lives to his image and into his fellowship, judgment is no longer just about declaring who’s “in” or “out” in some kind of cosmic juridical process, but rather God “putting things to rights” in us.

I don’t think it’s reasonable for any Christian to live in fear of being “un-reconciled” to God – like my fellow youth group members in high school – but the ongoing judging work of God is a fearful thing because the transformation is painful. But the transformation is also good.

Other churches operate from a grace perspective. These churches tend to leave more room for people to make mistakes = members have more room to grow. They tend to do more sheperding and are more concerned with identity than checkboxes.

While I think we do need a proper fear and respect of the Lord I also think that of the churches I have been around, the healthiest ones were the ones that operated out of grace and not out of fear (1 John 4:18).

Think of the “culture warrior” Christians like Al Mohler and James Dobson. Every time I go to Mohler’s website he writes articles (assuming it’s actually him who writes them and not some FOTF blog jockey) designed to make Christians fear.

Culture warriors ignore the gospel and promote fear because their very message is anti-gospel.

Christian CWs want the laws of America to be conformed to Biblical laws. They want Americans to submit to God’s rule… but without the gospel. Even Rod Parsley is suggesting that adultery should be criminalised (http://www.centerformoralclarity.net/Articles.aspx?page=2007013005).

Why this focus on the law? Why this focus upon obedience? I don’t see in any of the writings of Christian CWs the compulsary enforcement of faith in Christ. Getting people to come to Jesus in repentance and faith is not their focus.

Literally, therefore, the battle is against the world. Sinners and unbelievers are our enemies that need to be put in their place, either by legal or political means, or even by force.

The irony is, of course, that there is nothing in the NT about setting up a Christian state. The NT was written during the reign of the Roman Empire, a most corrupt, miltaristic and pagan state as any that has existed. And yet Peter, Paul, James and the other NT writers have absolutely no message (clear or otherwise) ordering Christians to take over the state for Christ.

God is transforming the world through the gospel and through the church.

On the other hand, among the younger Christians especially I think there is the opposite problem of too much laxity. There seems to be more of a “Yo, God, whatsyup?” attitude. Invoking the fear of God -that is, fear in this context meaning His holiness and seriousness – perhaps this is what could be an antidote to that.

Fear is the opposite of faith, and Christians who lack faith in God will express it through fear. Certainly the church is full of people who lack faith; this is why about 80 percent of us are passive spectators. When we don’t trust God to sort out the evil in the world, we fear it. When we don’t feel it can be overcome by spiritual means, we attempt to do it through political means. When we don’t trust the Holy Spirit to help us overcome temptation and resist the devil, we hide from the devil instead of standing up to him. And when we don’t trust the Holy Spirit to convict the people in our congregations, we try to do the convicting ourselves — and create cults.

That’s the fear I see most often in Christianity; and it is the direct result of not having the fear of God that’s commanded of us.

I think a lot of what I have been sensing is fear of other people, and especially of other Evangelicals. Its because we are so scary! Bleah!

I think there is a lot of anxiety out there, and it is fanned by the media which urges us to play it safe and watch more TV in our relatively safe suburban homes.

I think my first answer is that Evangelicals are afraid because we live in a fearful culture – fear sells.

I believe we are afraid to approach God too closely – because we are afraid of having a Mount Sinai experience rather than a Mount Zion experience. Either experience is rather frightening from a consuming fire point of view. But Mount Zion has a cross – and a heavenly city, and Jesus on it!

We do not believe that we are worthy of being loved first (1 John 4:19) and we do not believe that the “dangerous” people in inner city America, in Iraq, or even in the cubes next to ours are worthy of being loved first.

-Mark

So if people feel America is going to seed perhaps they feel evangelicalism is going to seed? I don’t really know. It might explain why theological conservatives find it compelling to talk about counterculturalism when the term used to be invoked by anti-establishment types. It seems more and more jargon used by the old left has been reappropriated by the religious conservative wing. I say that as a theologically conservative guy whose probably a moderate Republican.