Productive Hope in a Cultural Wasteland

It's time to build.

Many have described the current status of our culture and society as “post-Christian.” Before now, Christian faith influenced our society in many ways. It even influenced the thinking, decisions, and actions of people who did not follow Jesus in a committed way. In past times, the church centered the community, and people respected the Bible’s teaching. This cultural Christian influence did not make society a perfect place or a utopia (just ask millions of black slaves and their descendants), but it did seem to make the role of the church fairly easy to understand. The church’s building marked the time with its chapel bells ringing in the hours of the day, and the church’s ministers called upon people to believe what they already knew about God and the Bible.

The church today in the American and Western world faces a very different situation. Committed Christians who believe the Bible and Christian teaching increasingly find ourselves as a minority population. This trend will continue as our culture and society move further beyond the cultural influence of Christian faith. The question is not whether or not committed Christians will be a minority population. The question is, “What kind of minority population will we be?” How will Christians respond to our status as a cultural minority? Will we get angry and defensive? Will we get scared and reactive? Will we get complacent and halfhearted?

I don’t think God wants us to respond in any of these ways. He doesn’t want his people to be angry, scared, or complacent. He wants something better for us. Among other places in the Bible, we find a blueprint for our response is the little-known, often-ignored, tiny Old Testament book of Haggai.

Haggai spoke into a situation very similar to our own. The people of God has lost ground. They had been exiled from their land. Their temple had been destroyed. They were struggling and they had lost their nerve. They had lost sight of God’s call upon them as his people. The institutions that had anchored their lives crumbled around them.

One of the most influential books I’ve read in recent times has been Yuval Levin’s A Time to Build. In this book Levin argues that our cultural and social institutions used to be formative, shaping the values and actions of the people inside of those institutions. But today many institutions have become performative, being platforms that people use to achieve status or success. Think of the ways politicians can use their office to make themselves famous and rich, rather than doing the grimy and often inglorious work of governing. Think of the ways that pastors can use their office to become famous and rich, rather than doing the grimy and often inglorious work of pastoring. Think of the way athletes can use their position to become famous and rich, rather than doing the grimy and often inglorious work required to win as a team.

In this sort of cultural wasteland, Christians are called to be people of productive hope, investing in building the social structures around them. Most especially, we’re called to build families and churches. Many are also called to build businesses and bureaus, companies and communities.

2,500 years ago, God loved his people enough enough to send them a prophet to call them back to God’s better way. Today, the message of Haggai to the people of that day speaks to us directly as well:

It’s not the time to get angry.
It’s not the time to fear.
It’s not the time to give up.
It’s time to build.

I’m planting a church because the institution of the church matters. I want to build and create, not just to critique or consume. In his book, Levin writes that our culture needs a renewed “party of the church,” distinct from the political and cultural parties of our time. This phrase—“a party of the church”—captures exactly what I want to spend my life building.

You can destroy in a moment.

You can consume in a minute.

You can build only with much time, effort, and consecrated conviction, often invisible to everyone but God.

There’s a time to destroy, and a time to consume, but I plan to use my (life)time to build.

I hope you will too.