Rage Against the Machine!

If you profess Christianity and strive to live as a Christian in America today, will you be part of the establishment, or anti-establishment? Conformist, or rebel?

Christianity has been seen as both/and throughout history. Romans 13 tells us to “submit to the governing authorities”, but we well know there are times when doing so will clearly put us in conflict with God’s authority.

This is true on a more personal level as well, when the “governing authority” in our lives might be our own earthly parents, whom we are told to respect and obey as children, but from whom we need to gain our independence and our self-identity as teenagers. In the process, we might have to face decisions of whether it is better to obey our parents, or to obey God.

However many people I talk to, like a man named Nicholas, have to face the realization as adults that in their quest for independence and identity as teenagers, they actually rebelled not only against their parents, but also the God in whom their parents faithfully put their trust. It’s probably the most common “prodigal son” scenario, and there comes a time when they need to realize their rebellion has led them down a path similar to Jesus’ story of the wayward son, who woke up when he realized he “longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating”, and turned back to the father he had abandoned.

But these aren’t just individual experiences. It’s been the path we are headed down as a nation and on a global scale in the last few generations. Nicholas rightly pointed out that the alternative skateboard culture he had surrounded himself with in his teens, which had been so anti-establishment, is now actually THE establishment. It is now reflected in every institution of our dominant culture, not just the government but also the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, our educational industrial complex, our globalized corporations, the military, and many religious denominations.

For the first few centuries, early Christians had to meet and worship in secret, at risk of their own lives and livelihoods. They truly knew what Jesus meant when he taught “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” and what Paul was experiencing as he wrote “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. The underground church was being refined through persecution, and growing as a result.

But then, a horrible thing happened. It became cool to be a Christian.

In the Edict of Milan of 313 AD, Emperor Constantine decreed that Christianity would be a legal religion of Rome, and declared himself a Christian. Now, people began to associate themselves with Christianity in order to gain prestige, power and influence, rather than to forsake those pursuits to serve Jesus. House churches were replaced by elaborate public buildings, and the wealthy showed off their finest clothes at church services scripted by a professional clergy. This “Christianity” became The Establishment.

Christianity has struggled with its association with the secular establishment on and off again throughout its history. I believe Jesus wasn’t just referring to religious leaders, but also those who falsely associated themselves with Christianity when he said “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Despite our call to respect the governmental authorities to a limited extent, the government is usually just a small subset of what can be considered the “establishment”. And those who truly follow Christ have been pushing back against the establishment ever since it sanctioned and carried out his crucifixion over 2000 years ago. If Nicholas and others like him want to genuinely push back against the worldly establishment, the best place to do that is in a sincere devotion to following Jesus.