Does the church know the definitions?

The church and unbelieving world can and do use the same words. A few of the most popular words today are justice, peace, equality, relationship, and freedom. This is not bad. What’s bad is when the church uses these words in the same way as unbelieving society. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon brought this out in their book, Resident Aliens.

“Big words like ‘peace’ and ‘justice,’ slogans the church adopts under the presumption that, even if people do not know what ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ means, they will know what peace and justice means, are words awaiting content. The church really does not know what these words mean apart from the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth…It is Jesus’ story that gives content to our faith, judges any institutional embodiment of our faith, and teaches us to be suspicious of any political slogan that does not need God to make itself credible” (Pg, 38).

Jesus Christ is the Word of God, and therefore also the defining shape for our words of justice, peace, relationship, and so on. The trouble for the believer in our Western Culture is in part that we are afraid to say Jesus Christ is Lord. Therefore, we have no more meaning to our justice, or peace, or relationship than today’s mere economist, politician, or democratic defender.

So the question does the church know the definitions? Not if we do not know the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Thankfully, many, many churches around the world are learning the Word of God.