Faith’s Enemies

I was intriqued the other night when Billy Bragg paused half way throug his brilliant 2 hour performance and began preaching about faith. He boldly declared himself to be a man of faith. He is a man faith, in deed everybody has a faith in something, and Billy was quick to clarify his adoring socialist fans that is was not a Billy Graham kinda faith, nor a church of England kinda faith but rather a faith in the people , in our common humanity. The object of Billy’s faith is human beings and his hope I take it is a new world order and the greart leap forward. What surprised me was what old Bill saw as his faith’s enemies. It made me think immediately of what the gospel faith’s enemies might be.

Billy named 3 of his faith enemies.

1. Scepticism.

It struck me that socialist feels threatened by liquid modernity because its scepticism questions the totalitarian metanarrative that they cherish so dearly. It takes a razor to to their framwork and tests the very fabric of their worldview. Billy’s seems to fear that scepticism threatened and harassed the necessary belief that ‘our common humanity’ could unite together in fighting for what is good and lively and right.
The gospel apology faces a similar challenge that tests its metanarrative and asks whether its is not only logical and coherant, but is it really livable and workable. The object of the Christians faith – Jesus – stands up pretty well in comparion with a ‘united common humanity that seeks the good of all’ -becasue he is a new humanity that is all we ought to but never could be.

2. Individualism.

my guess is the problem for Billy is that when his overarching metanarritve starts crumbling (and it has been since the Berlin wall) the dander is that rather than fighting the tide together in community we retreat into rugged individualism. We self preserve and wihtdraw from the communitarian vision. That indivualism than erodes our common life and opens the path for self greed and exploitation.
The reality of the gospel is that we are saved not only into fellwoship with God but into the fellowship of his people. you can’t be a united to Jesus person without being united to Jesus’ people. Nothing erodes the community of God’s people more than self service and individualism.

3. Consumerism.

This really struck me because whilst I have preached against 1 and 2 and heard many others do the same, rarely have I heard anyone preach directly against the dangers of consumerism. I think it relates to scepticism and indiviualism in that when people feel insecure and lost in our culture, they tend to retreat in themsleves and ‘buy into’ a culture of consumption that therapeutically seeks to buy their way into security.
I wonder how much this has infected our church? It seems there are many churches who are hocking spiritual commodities in a Christian culture of church shopping and consumption that feeds on ‘what works for me’ and ‘what I find helpful’. Many churches now are endeavouring to make the spiritual products they sell sexier, brighter, kid friendly and more glossy than the spiritual shop next door. This is the problem with the atractional church. Whilst it genuinely desires to connect with the culture in which they live, they end up connecting more with Christian consumers who will shop with them until a brighter better product comes along.

Christian consumerism will only every be countered by radical gospel centred discipleship in community.