I do, however, have some reservations with how Lints handles it. This is an idea with clear implications for pursuing unity amid diversity. Second, Lints points to biblical teaching on God himself-specifically his Trinitarian nature. Remove individual identity or relational identity, and you corrupt the biblical doctrine of the image of God. The Bible, instead, treats us as individual persons formed by God in relationship with him and others. As Lints explains, we can’t treat complex human beings purely as members of identity groups or as atomized individuals. First, he highlights Scripture’s understanding of humanity, which allows us to wrestle with how race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality shape our personal identities without defining them to the core. The church needs resources for this mission, and Lints points toward biblical teaching in two critical places. Lints stands ably on Newbigin’s shoulders, continuing his pursuit of a mission-shaped church and a church-shaped mission suited to the cultural realities of the post-Christian West. While illogical to the world, this opportunity makes sense in light of what 20th-century missiologist Lesslie Newbigin calls “the logic of the gospel”-a gospel in which God welcomes estranged others as forgiven friends. Instead, the church might find that its diverse, pluralist context provides promise for the pursuit of unity. Advocating a new Christian nationalism or Christendom misunderstands both the story of our culture and the story of the Bible. Rather than trying to rebuild this cover or retreating from cultural engagement, we must recover the grace and hospitality of the gospel’s narrative of inclusion.įor those like me, who are still dizzied by evangelicals warmly embracing Christian nationalism over the past half decade, Lints reassures us that we are not crazy. Lints rightly shows that, in our current moment, the “cultural cover” of Christendom is crumbling. It allows us to believe and tell the whole truth about our culture. The church’s possession of a gospel that both includes and excludes frees us from picking a team. I found this helpful for navigating a culture divided between telling the American story as a 1619 exclusion narrative (rooted in the enslavement and subjugation of African Americans) or a 1776 inclusion narrative (rooted in the universalism of the Declaration of Independence). He describes, for example, how the seeds of both inclusion and exclusion have been planted in the soil of American democracy. Lints begins by surveying the different stories we tell about our culture and its history. And part 3 (chapters 9–10) helps form a contextualized wisdom for the present and the future. Part 2 (chapters 5–8) offers resources for pursuing unity with Christian faithfulness. Part 1 (chapters 1–4) narrates the stories of our diverse and divided culture. Theologian Richard Lints tackles such questions in his new volume, Uncommon Unity: Wisdom for the Church in an Age of Division. The deep differences of our cultural moment stir questions in our hearts: Is division the inevitable result of difference and diversity? And if the church is divided, what hope is there for unity in the world? This insight is so familiar that we might be tempted to retire it as a cliché.Įxcept we can’t, because we’ve been through too many painful ruptures to ignore: friends ghosting us without warning, church members leaving for every reason and no reason at all, news of wars far away, and whispers of civil wars near to home. For what has felt like forever, division has been a common experience for our families, neighborhoods, churches, and nation.
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