In Defence of Christian Fight-Talk
In Defence of Christian Fight-Talk
It’s no easy thing to fight good fights. Fights are hard things. They’re supposed to be.
The trouble with fights is that it’s not always easy to know if the fight you’re in is good, bad, or ugly. If you’re a Christian, even just talking about “good fights” is hard. Christian fight-talk can often be viewed with suspicion by other Christians who might wish to keep out of trouble by acting and speaking “nicely”. The problem is: doing the nice thing is not at all the same thing as doing the right thing. Christians are called to fight good fights, whether they like it or not.
I. BEYOND THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Many Christians have been immersed in contexts where fight-talk seems to be the lingua franca of the Church. If that’s you, you may tend to hear any Christian fight-talk in a vastly different key. Such talk can easily become skewed to suit tribal or political purposes, or may simply be the extension of a confrontational personality. But as an indirect result, any sharp-tongued or world-denying speech by Christians can easily be dismissed as though it swims in the same swamp as the uglier forms of fight-talk we’ve heard all too many times before.
How Christian Fight-Talk is Heard
A while ago I put up a quote on Facebook recently which caused a fair bit of reaction on various sides of this spectrum:
The sexual revolution may have given people freedom, but what it took away was far more precious: a sense of belonging, identity, and families. Generations have been denied their inheritance. This way of life is now so scorned and foreign that many of the bitter, angry young people marching to the trendy tune of the latest Pied Piper do not even realize that their primal screams are howls of longing for the very things many of them claim to despise.
– Jonathon Van Maren
One of the responses I received was from someone brought up in Northern Ireland. All their life they’d heard angry shouts from the Church as it lined up its doctrinal cannons against the evil and/or foolishness of the world, especially on sexual immorality. To them, this quote seemed reminiscent of the acerbic or insensitive approaches to complex social issues they think they’ve heard many times before. Isn’t this a time, they think, when a friendlier, less oppositional approach might be more fruitful for the cause of the Gospel?
The Difference a Context Makes
To have seen and heard the kind of tribalised fight-talk that fed the socio-religious troubles in Northern Ireland would no doubt give you ears to hear things very differently. The same could probably be said for parts of the US, particularly during election season.
We must always be aware of the nuances when speaking in particular contexts. Yet this is precisely why in other western contexts – such as over the Irish Sea – we must be aware that the Church’s lingua franca is not aggressive confrontation, but polite agreeability. This too can come at a deadly cost, even if far more subtly.
II. THE IDOL OF AGREEABILITY
Agreeability is a particularly favoured idol of the British psyche. It is that hobbit-like yearning for tranquility and pleasantness which recoils at anything resembling “extremity”. This is especially true when it comes to how one holds one’s opinions. We become masters at social pleasantries, smiling, nodding, and amen-ing our way through life, with little regard for the ultimate consequences of all this serial agreeability. If we ever do have something disagreeable to say, we tend to focus more on how it’s said than what is said. Indeed, if the British were given the option to add an Eleventh Commandment, we would undoubtedly choose: Thou Shalt Not Offend.
Disagreeable Disagreement
Christians are called to dwell in unity (Ps. 133:1), to strive for peace (Heb. 12:14), and to avoid controversy (1Tim. 6:4). Yet they mustn’t use such injunctions as cover-up for the unavoidable fact that the life of true faith will always lead to confrontation somewhere down the line. I have tried to point out that Christianity – as undoubtedly gentle as it must be – is paralysed without its fight-talk. We end up allowing the world to coerce us into agreeing with all sorts of contrary things, and we tell ourselves that we’re being good Christians for doing so.
The endgame of serial agreeability is that the world almost always infiltrates the Church as she smiles and nods her way into compromise. Scripture contains an abundance of fight-talk because this battle with the world never really goes away. We don’t have the authority to put such talk to one side just because it doesn’t happen to suit our ecclesial or societal tastebuds, however badly we’ve seen it done before.
III. BIBLICAL TROUBLEMAKING
It should be noted, of course, that any Christian seeking the pleasantries of social respectability may find plenty of Bible verses on-hand to prop them up. Jesus told us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), Paul told us to avoid quarrels (2Tim. 2:23), Peter told us to respond with gentleness and respect (1Pet. 3:15), etc. The tricky thing is that these very same people caused more trouble between them than most of their hearers combined!
Jesus blasted the Pharisees for their hypocrisy (Matt. 23:13-36) and overturned the tables in the Temple (John 2:15). Paul’s preaching caused riots, landing him in prison multiple times (2Cor. 6:5), whilst he even publically opposed Peter to his face about a doctrinal issue (Gal. 2:11). Meanwhile, Peter denounced “the ignorant and unstable” enemies who twisted Paul’s words “to their own destruction.” (2Pet. 3:16), and directly accused his Jewish hearers of murdering Jesus (Acts 2:36).
Weren’t there more “diplomatic” ways of saying things? They didn’t seem to think so. These were not men who dealt in agreeable pleasantries merely to save face. These were men who traded in salty words, and who knew when and how to aim them at the right targets.
The Wrong Kind of Trouble
All this means there must be something else going on with the Biblical injunctions to pursue peace and gentleness. We are to avoid the wrong kinds of confrontation, the wrong kinds of trouble, but only because we know what the right kinds are. Precisely because the Christian Gospel will always cause quarrels, it doesn’t need Christians adding their own.
This is why Paul tells us to avoid nit-picky theological debates which merely drag us all into worldly distractions (2Tim. 2:23). This is why Peter tells us not to fight back when opposed, citing Jesus’ example: “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” (1Pet. 2:23).
Why does Peter even need to tell Christians this? Isn’t it obvious that we shouldn’t revile and make threats? It wasn’t obvious to them, obviously! Peter was speaking to people for whom it was, presumably, a genuine “live option” that they might retaliate verbally or physically against their oppressors. Such was their apparent grasp on the keys of the kingdom, their readiness to respond to the fight.
The Right Kind of Fight
Christians are to fight in a different way. This is why Peter and Paul are often at pains to tell Christians not to break the law, because suffering for doing evil is a bad witness to the Gospel. However, when we suffer for doing good, this brings shame to those who slander us (1Pet. 3:16-17). Conversely, if we sink to the level of lawbreaking, we merely give our slanderers fuel for the fire.
But just imagine for a moment having to tell the average middle-class congregation today that they must try not to break the law. The very idea would be laughable. You couldn’t convince most Christians to break the law if you paid them! The point is not that Christians ought to desire to break the law or seek trouble, of course. The point is that we should choose not to seek trouble for the right reason: not because we’re fearful of being slandered, but because of the mission and message to which God has called us.
If we seek to stay out of trouble for the right reasons, we may stand a chance of facing up to trouble for the right reasons too. And in our time, there may be plenty of trouble to go around without the need to invent any of our own.
IV. FIGHT-TALK AND DOG-FIGHTS
An illuminating TGC article recounts the moment when the great Evangelical preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones confronted T. T. Shields, a notably acerbic preacher from the generation above him. In a memorable exchange between the two Evangelical giants, Lloyd-Jones told Shields: “You can make mincemeat of the liberals and still be in trouble in your own soul.” There is indeed a way in which we can revel in the kind of fighting that sells short the entire point of guarding the Gospel. We can become defined by what we’re against.
When Shields retorted that his “dog-fights” on particular issues often win more followers to the cause (by no means an invalid retort), Lloyd-Jones added: “I have always observed that if there is a dog-fight a crowd gathers; I’m not at all surprised. People like that sort of thing.” If we’re going to take Christian fight-talk seriously, we need to move beyond the theatrical posturing so often bated by the culture of our social media platforms.
Fight-Talk and Restraint
What I find fascinating about that exchange is that Lloyd-Jones was the one arguing for restraint. Lloyd-Jones himself was regularly criticised for his own Christian fight-talk on various issues. Though he may have been a hero to many, he was also seen by the respectable types of his day as a bit of a rabble-rouser. This quote from one of his early sermons gives a glimpse of his own propensity to fight-talk:
Turn to the New Testament again and read it carefully. Its picture of the Christian everywhere is of one who is fighting a great battle, with Jesus Christ as his leader and as his captain. He is out in a great crusade, a great war against sin and all iniquity. Are you in the fight, in the conflict? Christ calls upon all His true followers to enter the fray!
To hear Lloyd-Jones chastising a brother-in-arms for overdoing their fight-talk is quite something. It means far more coming from him than from many of our respectable Evangelical institutions today (including TGC!). Lloyd-Jones can tell us to tone it down because he knew how to tone it up. And he wasn’t afraid to do so. We can learn a lot from this example. Too often we hear preachers lambasting previous generations for their tone without carrying the same fight in their own generation.
Fight-Talk as Mission Mobiliser
It’s true that walk often speaks louder than talk. Words require actions too. But Christian fight-talk is necessary to mobilise us for the troubles that lie ahead of us. This remains true regardless of however much trouble has been caused by the fight-talk that’s gone before us.