A Sign of the Times

Sustainability
 
(an excerpt from the book The Orphan Church)
by Bryan Raile

And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?  (Matthew 16:3, emphasis added)

Jesus denounced those of His generation because they could not discern the “signs of the times.” What did He mean by “signs of the times?” A sign is a form of communication; it says something about the brief moment in which we live. It reveals the truth or the reality of the events we are experiencing. Jesus endorsed the idea of reading signs that have specific meaning to a particular people or generation. The signs are speaking. Do you see them?

My wonderful wife pointed out some interesting facts: she can read the signs of the times. During the 1990’s, the church we attended was leading a global prayer effort. Some of you may have heard of it. It was called “Prayer Through the Window.” It referred to a concerted effort to pray for the nations in Africa and Asia that are in the 10/40 window (the nations between the 10^th and 40^th parallels). The movement reached all over the world, stimulating millions of believers to pray for these nations who— for the most part— exist under the bondage of Islam. The movement discontinued in the year 2000. During the 1990’s, the buzz word coming out of the culture was “global.” It was everywhere; everything was going “global.” Major businesses went “global,” economics went global, currency went global, the internet went global, and on and on. The message echoing through American culture during that decade was “globalization.” It seemed ironic that the culture or the society at large, inadvertently, projected something of what God was saying to Christianity, particularly our group who had set out on a mission to pray for the darkest nations on earth to hear and receive the Gospel. 

This begs the question:  what are the signs of these times right now? Can we read them, or will we be as ignorant as the people of Jesus day? 

Scanning the horizon, we can actually see two signs of the times that may be speaking through society to God’s people. One sign slaps you in the face every time you read the newspaper or view the news online, and another is relatively new and has only been flashing its message for a few short years. The first message is focused on gender. Everywhere you go the discussion of the day—the issues being tried in courts, the decisions being made regarding public schools and universities— are regarding gender. When the culture at large is dealing with an issue, it is a sure sign that God is pressing His Church to search the Scripture, get it right (to become of the right perspective), and not be blown away by the blizzard of public opinions. All through history, the Church brought forth its best and most brilliant theology during a crisis of ideas, and now is no different. Will we rise to the occasion and have proper discernment? 

So, what is the second sign of our times? The buzz word now echoing throughout the culture is “sustainability.” 

If you were to frequent a particular eatery that served a buffet style on a regular basis, you would notice if something was removed from the spread of delectable foods, would you not? Believe it or not some things have already vanished from the smorgasbord of churches because they were not sustainable, and one particular group  resided here in America when the colonies were organizing; however, it vanished before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Who might that be? That would be none other than the Puritans. They were not sustainable. (We’ll speak more about them in a later section.) 

I believe God— speaking through societal fads— is posing sustainability as a question, and this particular fad is always working its way through our society as a question rather than a statement. Farming practices are being questioned as to their sustainability. It shows up grocery labels, “From sustainable farming practices,” etc. Labor management and business methods are being scrutinized for their “sustainability.” This is a sign of our times. Perhaps God is asking the same thing of the smorgasbord of churches that grace our cities and towns. Is the smorgasbord sustainable? In order to answer that question, we must first find out what “sustainable” looks like. In the church world, what is sustainable and what is not? That is the question. The obvious answer to that is that which is sustainable is that which has always been here: the thing that is as it has always been will be what is here when the dust clears. This means that something that is sustainable has its roots in the past. If the thing that is sustainable is something ancient and very old, then we must look to the past to find it.

So, what is the purpose of this book? What is it that we wish to say? We wish to bring you the news; the “bad news and the good news.” What is the bad news? The bad news is that some forms of modern Christianity that appear on the smorgasbord of every community are not sustainable because they have been cut loose  or orphaned from the classical Christian root. They are orphaned in their faith because they have no connection with pre-Reformational Christianity. The good news is that many in orphaned expressions of Christianity are rediscovering their spiritual family history and attending to the old ways in order to walk in the well-trod ancient paths.