By: Justin Anderson
Future Church: Part 12
Better Answers
This will be the last installment of our Future Church series. I hope it’s been helpful. I intend these emails to be 50% insight, 50% provocation, and 5% entertainment. I want us to think hard and well about what it means to be the church in these strange times.
Every generation thinks it is living through historic times, but it sure does feel like we have a lot going on. Political unrest, the rise of AI, historically low trust in leaders and each other, the attempted redefining of basic human experiences like gender and consciousness, and a pervasive online world that touches (and ruins) nearly every part of life—this may not be the craziest time in world history, but it’s got to be in the Top 10.
Regardless of where this time ranks, we can acknowledge that things are a mess, and it’s our job as leaders to wade through it for and with our people. That’s my hope for these emails—that they will help you wade through the mess so that you can lead your people through it as well.
For the final installment of this series, I’d like to lean a little more into the provocative side of the equation. Go out with a bang, right?
I got into church planting in 2004, and I thought things were wild then. We didn’t have social media yet, but we had the proliferation of the internet and, with it, pornography, podcasts, and video campuses. This was really the beginning of the rise of the LGBT movement (remember, even the Democrats rejected same-sex marriage until much later). We were talking about Postmodernism because it was the new thing shaping how everyone thought, and there was sharp disagreement about how to address it.
In those early days, I cared about two camps. On one side was the Emergent Movement (remember that??), and on the other was the Young, Restless, and Reformed (YRR). There were more groups, I’m sure, but those were the two interesting ones to me at the time.
Both groups were trying to answer the questions that culture was posing, and they were right to do it. Postmodernism asked important questions about the nature of power and truth, as well as existential ones about what it means to be a person at all.
Thinkers from both sides were engaging culture in proactive and creative ways. It was an exciting time to be doing ministry. It felt like we were on the cusp of something—maybe a new paradigm for doing ministry, maybe a second reformation.
The difference between the two groups, of course, was that the Emergent folks shifted their commitment to the scriptures and allowed postmodern language and worldview to set the parameters of the discussion. They gave postmodern philosophers far too much credit, which led them quickly to theological liberalism and, in the end—as theological liberalism always does—to irrelevance.
YRR generally, and the leaders of Acts 29 specifically, took on the same questions, but instead of letting the Postmodernists dictate terms, they reached backward into history (and their Bibles) to find answers rooted in Reformed theology and the apologetic approach of John Frame, C.S. Lewis, St. Augustine, John Stott, Richard Lovelace, and Tim Keller.
We came to different conclusions and offered different answers, and our churches thrived.
We face a similar moment today, with a slightly different shape. American elite culture has continued to move left and has continued to ask questions, some better than others. In fact, I’d argue that the cultural elite isn’t asking questions so much as asserting ideas with little to no basis in reality. The nonsense that is being taught about gender boggles the mind and is a legitimate crisis.
We have a weekly opportunity to set the record straight and give a compelling and logically coherent vision for all of life. The left’s vision is predicated on identity politics and divisiveness. It can only drive us away from each other. The Biblical vision is far more emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and socially satisfying, and we have to work hard to make our case week after week.
Giving the people in our city better answers and a better story than the Left is only one of our challenges. We face similar challenges to our Right.
Recently, more of my thought life and energy has been spent considering those to my right, those often known as Christian Nationalists or The Woke Right. Sometimes I wonder whether this should be the case. Aren’t the liberals espousing their dangerous ideologies far more dangerous? Ultimately, I think they are, so why do I think so much more about the CN crowd?
Both groups are engaging the questions that our culture is posing, and I think both are giving the wrong answers. What bothers me about those to my right is that it feels like we should be on the same side, but we are not. I don’t expect liberals to agree with me; I’m not a liberal, and our worldviews are very different.
But those to my right claim to trust the Bible, preach the gospel, and, in some cases, were part of the larger evangelical movement until very recently. It feels like my friends and allies have gone off to fight the war by establishing a new front and declaring me one of the enemies.
I don’t want to get distracted by that story. What I want to do is call us, as Acts 29 pastors, to engage the questions (and assertions) of our culture and give better answers than those to the left and those to the right of us. We have a real opportunity to cut through the confusion and cast a compelling vision for life. One that isn’t built on grievance or oppression, but one that is full of grace and yet clear about the world. One that is bold and countercultural, and that mirrors the style and work of Jesus.
I think there are five categories where we have to give better answers than those to either side of us. Five categories where the world is confused but looking for something better and truer, that resonates deeply with them and challenges them to be something more.
Those five categories are:
Worldview – Every other category below flows from a coherent worldview. By worldview I mean a coherent framework through which a person can make sense of the world. Christianity is the best one; Liberalism is a house of cards. Liberalism’s worldview can’t hold up under the weight of logic, and we have to expose its weaknesses. For instance, Atheism cannot make sense of the most important things in life, like love, morality, or human rights. Their presuppositions can’t support them, which is why they were all born out of Christianity. We need to repeatedly point out the hollowness of liberal platitudes and show our people why human dignity is an exclusively Christian idea.
Manhood – There is no doubt that there is massive confusion around gender more broadly, but as complementarians I think we have a unique opportunity to speak to the nature of manhood in powerful ways. In a moment where strong manhood is often labeled toxic, we can give men a vision for leadership that is strong but not abusive, that empowers women without subjugating them, that uses our God-given strength to protect the weak rather than exploit them. As I tell my son, God gave him strength to love, care for, and protect the people around him, not to take advantage of them or to apologize for his strength.
Race – This one is always tough, but our counterparts to the left and right have drifted so far to the poles that we have a particularly interesting opportunity to stand out as both biblical and sane. The left has wrapped its whole agenda around identity politics, which is not only a loser in the public eye, it inevitably devolves under logical scrutiny. The right has imagined its own kind of identity politics entirely driven by perceived (and real) grievances about how the left treats white people. Their response, unfortunately, has been to run to ethnonationalism and sometimes outright racism. The Bible gives us a clear framework for how to talk about and live out an approach to racial differences in light of the image of God. This is a biblical approach that I think also rings true to non-Christians.
Sexuality – We all know where the Left has gone on sexuality, essentially baptizing every perversion that the liberal man can conceive of. The opportunity for us exists in the gap created by the Right. In reaction to the Left’s insanity, they have chosen to approach anyone who doesn’t easily conform to biblical sexual ethics with deep disdain and outright scorn. They mock, belittle, and call names on the internet from behind anime avatars. We have an opportunity to draw a clear distinction by simply treating people with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria (and those who support them) as deeply broken people in need of grace and a movement of the Holy Spirit. Isn’t that what’s ultimately happening here? Satan, Sin, and the Flesh have gotten a hold of them, and the only way out is the power of the Spirit. Let’s be the people who pray and appeal to the Gospel when we are faced with people who are deeply broken by sexual sin.
Cultural Engagement – Any strategy for cultural engagement should be born out of deep theological conviction and a vision for how the world works. We believe that God is sovereign, sin is deep and that our only hope is the grace of God working miraculously in our lives. We are humbled by the fact that God has shown us undeserved grace, and that manifests itself in the way we engage the people around us. Or at least it should. While the Left simply follows culture around, the Right has decided they are at war, and anyone who doesn’t agree with them is an enemy, both of them and God. This is not only unbiblical, but it’s a losing strategy. It puts us at violent odds with the people we are called to love and share the gospel with. It’s hard to love someone that you are trying to kill.
This is already about 1000 words too long so let me wrap with this. This moment in time may or may not be a historically crazy moment. Either way, what’s happening around us has created a unique opportunity to stand out and, I think, have a significant impact on the world around us. The gospel is still the most powerful thing in the universe, and we have been entrusted with it. Whether it’s 1944, 1968, 2004, or 2024, we have a unique opportunity to cut through the noise of the world around us with the saving signal of the gospel. Let’s lean into that as hard as we can, preaching and leading boldly so that the world may know that Jesus Christ is Lord.
