Three options?

How I plan to keep living in California

My circle includes a fair number of good folks who have relocated¹. Bless them! I mean it. If they are better positioned to live their lives in faith towards God and love toward their neighbor (including their kids) somewhere else—they should. There are such good reasons to leave. California is an easy target with regressive economic policy, housing prices and a high percentage of addiction-related homelessness, lack of shared narrative or ethical compass, and ubiquitous pot smoke that reeks of nihilism or resignation. California’s population started to decline in 2020, and USA Today reports that by now our population has shrunk by about 500,000 people. More personally, some of my favorite friends and family have left or are planning to leave. We miss their presence and their absence leaves our state poorer. There are good reasons to leave—the best being a call from God to go somewhere else.

I’m still of the opinion that there are also good reasons to stay, and besides, God has called us (me and my house) to this place, at least for now. That said, the decision to stay is made more onerous by a growing industry of California-bashing. Some purveyors are the expected cynical pundits or satirical reporters looking for “likes” and “shares” with gotcha titles like “Five Reasons No One Should Live In California.”² Other commentary, more personal, comes from those that have recently left, or who are jonesing to get out of here. Jesus says if you have to leave a place, shake the dust off of your feet. Just go. Don’t bring California dust with you. You are justified by your faith in Christ alone, you don’t need further justification for your free-in-Christ decision to leave.

And, I don’t need further justification for my free-in-Christ decision to stay. My decision to stay is not judgment on your decision to leave. I confess my occasional covetousness for greener pastures in my lifelong battle against wanderlust³. Each of us is paying attention, or at least doing our best to pay attention to the Holy Spirit’s vocation particularized in time and space. If we are judging one another by our wisdom or foolishness, or our rightness or wrongness, or winner or loser lenses, we have to keep this uncharitable competition going with digs, slams, and smack talk. But, if you are in mission where you are, and I am in mission where I am, then we don’t dig or slam or smack talk. We don’t rag on each other’s host countries. Instead, we pray for each other (Philippians 1). We take up offerings for each other (2 Corinthians 8-9). We honor one another (2 Corinthians 8). We encourage one another (Romans 16). That is what we do with fellow missionaries.

Christians in every time and place have to grapple with how they are going to live where they live. A cursory look at our letters and literature reveal the timeless nature of this core question: Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians⁴, to Peter’s letters to the exiles in Asia, to Augustine’s City of God, to Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, to Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, to Keller’s Center Church, and Well’s Humble Faith Bigger God. Add Frost, Hirsch, Padilla-deBorst, Newbigin⁵... I can’t say better what they have already said, but I’d like to synthesize some of their ideas.

I suggest three orientations for how the church engages or disengages in relationship to increasingly hostile-to-faith spaces. I would be very curious if you would add any, or change any. Also, they are not as tidy as I state them here. There can be some hybridization especially in a democratic republic. Think of these more as primary postures, rather than exclusive worldviews. My goal when I communicate such things is clarity and charity. Painting an uncharitable picture of people who have chosen another way further alienates instead of inviting mutual understanding. Here are my three engagement options.

1. From the top. This was and is exemplified in the church’s alliances with political and cultural power centers found both on the right and the left—top right and top left. Righteousness and justice come flowing down, from the Supreme Court or from the court of public opinion. “This is the most important presidential election of our lifetime. The future of our nation is at stake.” Prayer is not underestimated in this model of engagement. 2 Chronicles 7.14 and Psalm 33.12 are the quotable verses underpinning this posture. In fact, prayer is one more weapon in the culture war. The favored biblical motif of this stance has us as Israel, and our call to protect and defend American exceptionalism by fighting off the modern day Philistines. Concrete example: Engagement with the public school looks like showing up at the school board meeting, the posture likely adversarial.

2. From outside. Retreat! This is the biblical Essenes movement, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Puritans, and the Amish. Separation is necessary to live the life we are called to live. This model can be expressed on a macro or a micro scale. At a macro level, this is relocating to a safe place, a safe state, a sanctuary. Again, both left and right have their boundaries marked well for approved places. Much of the country (especially red) is safe for one, and most cities (especially blue) are safe for the other. News and information sources are easy to find that provide confirmation for our way of thinking, and shield us from news or commentary that might undermine our established way of thinking. I recently started a new practice. If I check either Fox or CNN online, I check the other. Revelation—they do not report on the news differently. They report on different news. At a micro level, this could even include sectarian communal life. House Church. Home School. This option has a long history in the church, and has been effective, at least on occasion, at preserving a counter-culture that has at times positively impacted the broader culture.

3. Embedded. In this posture (full disclosure—my primary posture), the church is distinct but not distant from the host culture. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18.36). He didn’t say, “My kingdom is not in this world.” In fact, he said, “The kingdom of God is drawing near” (Matthew 4.17). And he taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6.10). The church’s power is not found up the earthly power structure (LA to Sacramento to Washington DC). And our defense is not stronger by living away from the world. We are “in the world, but not of the world” (John 17.15-16). Paul tells the Ephesian congregations that they are “in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1.1). They are a city in a city, colonies of heaven in the colonies of their host culture. They are the constituted and gathered people where the kingdom of God is in Philippi as it is in heaven—in Los Angeles as it is in heaven. They have complicated allegiances, requiring mutual discernment and prayer for how to faithfully live where they live. They pray for and honor the emperor (even the bad ones), but they only pledge ultimate allegiance to Christ who is Lord. They have the capacity to make nearly every vocation holy by the word of God and prayer. They can live in any neighborhood, come from any socio-economic class, and will certainly oppose certain aspects of the agendas of left or right. The tools of the embedded posture will be salt, light, and leaven. The embedded church will pay attention for examples of “common grace” and will find common cause on issues of shared concern even with those with whom they disagree on many moral, ethical, and spiritual matters. They will seek the shalom of the city, for in the city’s well-being they will find their own (Jeremiah 27.9). They are not pining for return to the age of Christendom nor are they satisfied with civil religion They know they are at great risk for over-accommodation, so they will need a deep discipleship and authentic community. They don’t see their own participation in sports, organizations, or even the local pub as a threat to their mission, but as a graciously subversive strategy, as the Spirit tucks his people into every nook and cranny of this God-loved but massively wounded world. Concrete example: Engagement with the public school looks like the church showing up to the neighborhood school and saying, “How can we be good neighbors?”

I got a little carried away on the embedded orientation, but that is probably because it is my own. I’m curious what you would add? I’m curious what you would say differently? How would you describe the “from the top” or “from outside” orientations? What titles would you give them?

1. This is not meant to burden the conscience of anyone who has moved from here. The logistics to leave are complicated and not easily chosen. I actually trust the discernment process that my friends and family have engaged. I also rejoice at the life they are making in other places. That said, I have a lot of grief, missing them not because they were insignificant to me, but because of their relational and missional significance. We had a pastor/spouse Life Together group with a total of 10 participants (solid gold people and friends to this day). They have all moved on to other states. We had a service of sending for a dear couple two Sundays ago, and will have another this Sunday.

2. Coming usually from what Jonathan Roach has termed, “troll epistemology.”

3. I have much more coming out about this in the next year, as my dissertation is focused on the Benedictine vow of stabilitas.

4. Excellent treatment of being more “Corinthian than Christian” in this episode of Talking Theology. Rev Canon Dr Philip Plyming is warden of Cranmer Hall, as well as the host of Talking Theology. His new book, Being Real: The Apostle Paul's Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today https://podcast.cranmerhall.com/231001/13107406

5. I am guilty of remaining unaware of missiologists who are women and from the developing world, whose voice should be more influential in my understanding.