IN THE 1939 CLASSIC MOVIE The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds herself transported via a Kansan twister to the magical, technicolor land of Oz – a place full of wonder, yellow brick, merriment, and the occasional wicked witch. Dorothy’s experience in Oz, though at times frightening, is generally filled with the joys of friendship and hope. In 1984, when Walt Disney Pictures decided to produce a sequel to the much-loved children’s fantasy, the Oz it constructed was far darker and more sinister. Hope gave way to oppression. Companionship was impersonal and detached. The Return to Oz presented a bleak place no child would ever want to visit.
Today, many Christians in America feel as though they have been dropped via a cultural tornado into some strange, chaotic Oz. The place they call home just doesn’t feel familiar anymore. In fact, it feels almost foreign. Like exiles taken to an unfamiliar and hostile nation, American Christians sense that they are now aliens in this place. Truth is now subjective or irrelevant. Sexual ethics are Corinthian at best. Civility and decorum in broader public life (and especially in electoral politics) have been thrown by the wayside. Racial tensions appear to be continually on the rise. Religious liberty is in jeopardy.
Though many would like to find a pair of ruby red slippers to make their way back to a more comfortable place, that is impossible. The cultural and religious shifts evident in our nation have been slowly but steadily forming over the course of decades. There will be no quick return to Christian influence in American culture and society. In fact, we need to accept the reality that America will never be anything like what people envision it was in the 1950s or 1980s. Those two decades of the second half of the twentieth century most represent the ideal for many conservative, Christian Americans. They were periods of simultaneous economic expansion, national unity, and church growth.
However, ultimately, both of those decades led to seasons of disillusionment in the years that followed, especially among young people. The reason being: in neither of those decades did deep, authentic spiritual awakening occur in America. Though churches were growing in both periods, so was consumerism. In the 1950s racism was endemic and injustice was commonplace. As the Cold War continued, the 1980s fostered an uncritical nationalism among many Americans that led some Christians to increasingly place country before God in their allegiances.
“Kansas” was never as utopic as we remember it. That is not to say that one period may not have been more influenced by Christianity than another, it is simply to point out that in every era since the rebellion in the Garden, idolatry of some kind has held sway over every culture and every nation. This is why the New Testament regularly uses the metaphor of exile to describe the experience of God’s people. This place was never meant to be our home or feel like our home.
As the writer of Hebrews wrote of the great men and women of the faith, “they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). This world was foreign and unfamiliar to them. The word “exile” in the Greek means resident alien – a person who lives in one nation but holds citizenship elsewhere. And that is true of every Christian; though we happen to live in some nation on earth, our citizenship is in the kingdom of heaven (Philippians 3:20). As Christians in America, we have always been resident aliens. It is just that in recent days that fact has become more and more clear.
I know many of you feel discouraged by what you see happening within our culture and how that is affecting people in our churches. Though I, too, am concerned by what I see, I am also hopeful because the Lord continues to remind me of two things. First, he has been bringing to memory some of the historical periods of the Church that were also characterized by hostility from the broader culture. The first three centuries of the Church in the Roman Empire were absolutely representative of this. During that time, the Lord not only sustained his people, but “grew their number and, ultimately, their influence.” Second, the Lord continues to point me to truth from Scripture that settles my anxious heart. Maybe Jesus’ words to Peter are most relevant: “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Regardless of how bad things get, the Church will not only endure, but will prevail.
I have written 30 Days in Exile: Living for Christ with Courage and Expectancy in the West with the hope that after spending a month studying some key texts of Scripture you will have greater clarity in your calling as a Christian exile and deeper encouragement to live faithfully for Christ. May the Lord use this devotional study to strengthen your witness and intensify your love for Jesus and your neighbors.
On the journey with you,
Roger Sappington