Recently a well known, and controversial, Christian Church leader in New Zealand announced that he was in the process of purchasing land in the middle of one of the north island cities. The land he says was to be set aside to build a 'holy city'. It will be a 'walled city' a protected place where children will be educated in a christian environment, not in the secular public school system. It will be a place exclusive to the members of the church who are willing to sell up and move in.
It will be a safe place to live, protected from the evils of the world: a place that will provide all the needs of the people: it will have its own shops, gyms, banks, schools - people who live here will lack for nothing and require nothing from the wider society. It will be a city governed by the church leaders according to the principles of the Bible, or their interpretation of it.
This is an influential church, led by a charismatic leader, with thousands of adherents around the country and there are already reports of people ready to sell-up and move into this exclusive, protected inner city fortress.
I wonder sometimes if I read a different Bible! I don't see or hear Jesus modelling an agenda that speaks about a craving for protectionist exclusivity. I don't see Jesus barricading himself away from "the real world" as a lifestyle. Sure, he took time out, but only to re energise himself to attend another party with the 'sinners' or to remind himself that his focus was 'others'.
I admit there have been times as a father that I would love to have locked my family and friends away from the pressures and confusions of society - but that's not what the Jesus model of 'in the world, but not of the world' is all about, is it? And frankly, I think that being barricaded away with any group of like-minded people with little, or no, interaction with people of different opinions, lifestyles and beliefs would drive me crazy.
And yet, I think many churches comes dangerously close to recommending that its members separate themselves from 'the world'. And many Christians, (including Salvos) become so church-centric that they never attempt to cultivate non-christian friends, or they lose contact with friends from their previous 'worldly' life, or they become so busy with the 'church' that they become completely irrelevant to, and out of touch with 'others'.
If Christianity, as we have heard so often, is all about relationship - then it cannot be exclusive and protective: it must be open, frustrating, joyful, confusing, empowering, painful, engaging, messy and amazingly unpredictable. That's sounds more like life (and a party) to me!
