5: Overprotective
Disconnection: “A lot of [our upbringing] was very fear-based to get you to do something as opposed to giving you logical reasons why you should or should not do something.”
—Nathan
Reconnection: “Our son is teaching us, his ministry parents, how film can reveal the truth about our human condition and our need for redemption in ways that are as powerful and provocative as any sermon.”
—Valerie
As I listened to the young worship musician, I thought, He’s better than most of the people I see on American Idol. I wonder if he’s ever auditioned.
After the worship service, as Sam and I waited in line at a restaurant in Missouri, I asked if he had ever considered going on the megapopular TV talent show.
“Nope, you can’t qualify if you’ve already had a recording contract,” he said without any hint of haughtiness.
As he talked about his previous work, I discovered that one of Sam’s songs—not a worship tune, a love song—hit it big a few years ago. He had composed the song for his bride and performed it for her on their wedding day. It had a catchy refrain, and the studio recording was chosen as the soundtrack for an episode of a popular teen television drama.
For some of the churchgoers Sam knows, the song’s success was a disappointment. They made it clear to him that he should never have agreed to have his song on secular TV—especially not in a scene depicting teen sexuality.
Sam told me, “I don’t get it. Most of my time is spent on worship music, but not every song I write is about faith. I thought the idea of being a musician—of being a Christian musician—is to write songs that matter to people, songs that matter to our culture because they tell the truth. But when I write a song that’s not used in a way every Christian agrees on, I get hammered for it. What am I supposed to be using my talents for exactly?”
HELICOPTER CULTURE
You have probably heard about “helicopter parents” who hover over their children to keep them safe from every conceivable danger. They keep a vigilant eye on the little (and not-so-little) ones, protecting them, insulating them from the hots, colds, and sharp edges of life. Helicopter parents try to protect their child not only from physical danger but also from failure and negative consequences of every kind.
The rise of the helicopter parent corresponds to a rising culture of protectiveness across the board. When I was growing up during the 1970s, car seatbelts were an upgrade. Over-the-counter medications came in bottles that anyone—including toddlers with poor motor skills—could open. “No smoking” signs were the exception not the rule. Jungle gyms and playground slides were made of rusty metal, and merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters still existed. Helmets were worn by racecar drivers and BMX pros, not by kids taking an after-school spin around the neighborhood on their Huffys. Only the winning Little League team got trophies, not every kid who put on a uniform.
I’ll move on before I get too nostalgic.
Toy, food, and packaging safety are now front-page news. Nearly every product on store shelves is labeled with fine print absolving the manufacturer of liability. Businesses spend billions each year on quality checks and regulatory fulfillment to avoid litigation or prosecution. Even churches go to great lengths to protect their congregants’ safety, whether by performing in-depth background checks on all prospective children’s ministry workers or carrying liability insurance in case anyone is injured on church property.
Protectiveness has become a way of life in our culture—and an argument can be made that much of it is, on balance, a good thing. No one wants his or her child playing with a toy coated in harmful substances or mistreated by an unqualified childcare worker. But it should not surprise us that our culture’s obsession with safety has shaped two generations of Boomer and Buster parents who are deeply risk-averse when it comes to their kids.
Is it possible that our cultural fixation on safety and protectiveness has also had a profound effect on the church’s ability to disciple the next generation of Christians? Are we preparing them for a life of risk, adventure, and service to God—a God who asks that they lay down their lives for his kingdom? Or are we churning out safe, compliant Christian kids who are either chomping at the bit to get free or huddling in the basement playing World of Warcraft for hours on end, terrified to step out of doors?
Here are some of the criticisms that young Christians and former Christians level at the church:
Overprotective | In Their Own Words
Percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds who have a Christian background
completely true of me
completely or mostly true of me
Christians demonize everything outside of the church.
11%
23%
Church ignores the problems of the real world.
9%
22%
My church is too concerned that movies, music, and video games are harmful.
9%
18%
Church does not offer opportunities to artists and creative people.
5%
13%
I am involved in social causes that the church doesn’t seem to care about.
6%
12%
Barna Group | 2011 | N=1,296
THE RISKS OF OVERPROTECTIVENESS
In short, many young Christians feel overprotected. Millions of young believers perceive that the church has kept them fearful of and detached from the world—a world, mind you, that they are called by their faith in Christ to redeem. Let’s look at how this sadly ironic risk aversion is causing major disconnections.
Alternate Thrills
One of the most significant consequences of being overprotected is that millions of young people look for excitement outside traditional boundaries. This may be pornography or sexual experimentation, drugs and other addictive substances, extreme thrill seeking (YouTube is fueled by high-octane, stupid human tricks), total immersion in video game universes, under- and overachievement, hyperexercise and eating disorders, and so on. I believe that self-harm among teens and young adults is also connected to their longing to take risks. Some young people cut themselves just to feel something.
Risk-free Christianity also inspires the pursuit of other forms of spirituality. One out of every four young adults (27 percent) told us that they “grew up a Christian, but since then have tried other faiths or spiritual practices.” We encountered one young woman, a nomadic Catholic, who is curious about Baha’i. “It just seems really different than what I got in catechism,” she said. “Jesus was taught as this miracle worker, but that wasn’t my experience. This guy told me about the Baha’i faith. And while I kinda felt like he was trying to convert me, he described a spiritual adventure that was pretty appealing.”
Yes, some young people are driven to thrills because pop culture is constantly seeking to outdo the spectacle of itself: “You’ve Never Seen Anything Like This!!!” every ad seems to promise. But the church must own up to the part it has played in passing on a faith that is yawn-worthy instead of Christ-worthy.
Failure to Launch
The culture of heightened expectations—as well as more significant economic and professional hurdles for young people to clear—is making it harder than ever to “launch,” to get going in life. As we discussed in chapter 2, most twentysomethings have not completed the major transitions that have come to define adulthood: leaving home, completing higher education, achieving financial independence, getting married and starting a family, and so on.
Although there are many social and economic reasons for this delay (for instance, the increasingly common view that marriage should be postponed), I believe that the Christian community is complicit in young adults’ failure to launch. We have not provided a clear, compelling, prophetic voice to answer the issues that cause young people to stay “stuck.” A few years ago, Barna Group conducted research for a mainline denomination. We interviewed young people who were de-churched (former churchgoers) and discovered that one of the major reasons they had left the church was that their faith community had not been able to help them deal with the life issues they faced. Too often, we have not provided practical coaching on marriage, parenting, vocation and calling, and all the smaller choices emerging adults must make along the road to maturity.
One bright young man we interviewed described how one of his high school teachers was shocked to discover that he was planning to attend a Christian college. “She told me I would forfeit tens of thousands of dollars in annual earning power by not choosing a ‘higher profile’ university. As I processed her advice, it never occurred to me that I should talk to anyone at my church about it.”
Paralyzing Self-Doubt
A friend of mine recently told me about a young woman she is mentoring. Chris, who is twenty-six, is terrified to make a decision—any decision. Her insecurity and fear of regret are intense and constant, whether she is choosing between brands of pasta at the grocery store or deciding to accept her boyfriend’s proposal of marriage. Sometimes Chris thinks she senses a call to missions or full-time ministry, but other times she’s not so sure. Recently she told my friend she would rather work her minimum-wage job and live with her college roommate for years than make the “wrong” decision about the next phase of her life.
Chris is an extreme example, but many twentysomethings experience self-doubt severe enough to keep them in personal, professional, relational, and spiritual paralysis. Think about it. For their entire lives, young adults with helicopter parents have been shielded from failure and regret. To their mind, negative consequences are truly unthinkable—maybe not even survivable! Why else would their parents protect them so completely?
Some church-raised young adults experience similar self-doubt when it comes to making spiritual judgments. Instead of equipping them to make thoughtful, prayerful decisions and then to trust God for the outcome, the church has instilled a debilitating fear of sin or “stepping out of God’s will.” How can we expect the next generation to move forward with confidence into God’s future when they are scared of making a misstep?
Loss of Creatives
A fourth consequence of overprotectiveness is the loss of many of the most talented, creative individuals from the church community. This perception—that the church is overprotective—is most common among young exiles, those who feel stuck between the safe, comfortable world of their church experience and the dangerous, all-encompassing faith they believe God requires. Exiles want to follow Jesus in a way that connects with the world they inhabit, to partner with God outside the walls of the church, and to pursue Christianity without separating themselves from the world. Many of these exiles are also creative types—artists, musicians, entertainers, and filmmakers—who feel their calling is out of tune with their Christian upbringing. They think the church doesn’t know what to do with creatives like them.
Many of the church’s brightest talents, like Sam, have been asked to confine their gifts to the service of the Christian community. As a consequence, many young creatives have headed for the hills; it’s no small coincidence that many of today’s hottest entertainers and artists left behind a churchgoing heritage. The church has a hard time preparing these young people for service to the world, while also keeping them grounded in and deeply connected to the body of Christ.
Recall Katy Perry (we met her in chapter 3), whose Christian family ate “angeled” eggs when she was a child—and who is now a twentysomething “curious as the cat,” ready to try everything she was denied by her overprotected upbringing. Or consider the Grammy-winning rock band Kings of Leon, made up of the three Followill brothers and their cousin. Nathan, Caleb, and Jared did much of their growing up on the road with their dad, a Pentecostal preacher, “barnstorming churches and tent revivals in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.”[38] According to Rolling Stone magazine, “The boys’ religious mandate was strict: no movies, no music but church music, no ‘mixed bathing,’ no competitive sports, no short pants (even while waterskiing).”[39] In an interview with Relevant magazine, Nathan Followill said, “We didn’t even own three CDs. . . . I think my mom had this guy named Leon Patillo and I can remember Russ Taff. Oh, then there’s Shirley Caesar.” While the brothers wouldn’t change how they were raised—“There would be no Kings of Leon without our upbringing,” Nathan says—they point to the overprotectiveness of their upbringing as a factor in their dropping out. “A lot of that was very fear-based to get you to do something as opposed to giving you logical reasons why you should or should not do something.”[40]
Not long ago I had the privilege of visiting my friend Charlie Peacock’s Art House in Nashville. (Charlie doesn’t talk much about it but he has enjoyed an accomplished recording and performing career, and has mentored a number of highly successful young artists, such as Switchfoot and The Civil Wars.) I spoke to a group of seventy or so young musicians and artists, and then they shared their formidable talents with me and each other.
I was struck to find out that very few of these young creatives are pursuing careers in the Christian music industry; most of them are attempting to “go mainstream” with their gifts. I was also impressed by their eagerness to learn how to live faithfully outside the Christian subculture. Charlie and the other convener of the event, Mark Rodgers of The Wedgwood Circle, coached them on how to follow Christ while navigating the cannibalistic, ego-infested waters of the secular entertainment industry. During breaks between sessions, some of the musicians expressed to me their frustration with the lack of support from their home churches, which are ambivalent at best and condemning at worst about their dreams for a mainstream career.
And it’s not just young musicians. Our study has found a desire among many young Christian creatives to engage in the broader world. I have interviewed young actors and film directors, fine and graphic artists, designers and activists, as well as young adults from other creative careers, who believe the Christian community has been unnecessarily insulating. They don’t want to be consigned to the “Christian ghetto,” a phrase that consistently comes up in our interviews. Most echo the sentiment that the church is not a safe place to take risks and not welcoming to the creative compulsion so ubiquitous among the next generation.
OVERPROTECTIVENESS TURNS TO DISCERNMENT
Let’s think back to one of the central arguments of this book: the next generation is living through a period of compressed social, cultural, and technological change. This environment invites them to live out their faith in new and sometimes startling ways.
I want to suggest that the widespread desire for a life in the mainstream is one of the consequences of monumental change. This is not the first time mainstream credibility has inspired faithful believers. Think back to the biblical account of Daniel. Life in Babylon gave the young Hebrew the platform and opportunity to influence the broadest circles of political and societal power. God used Daniel and his peers, exiles in a pagan culture, to bring about his purposes. Could it be that the growing desire for mainstream influence among the younger generation is the work of God—preparing them to bring restoration and renewal to our culture?
I believe so.
Yet this hopeful potential in the next generation also comes with a number of very real challenges. An aspiration to influence culture begs the question of how to embody in-but-not-of faithfulness, and how to deal with the poison pill of cultural accommodation that the pull toward mainstream influence makes available. Let me put it this way: gaining credibility for its own sake is vanity; gaining credibility to participate in God’s work to redeem his world is a mission. I am concerned that too many Mosaic Christians are so interested in pursuing the good, the true, and the beautiful that they forget to acknowledge and draw near to the source of those pursuits—Jesus.
The church must help the next generation live into the difference, by turning our overprotectiveness into discernment. Here are some examples:
Overprotectiveness characterizes everything that is not Christian as evil.
Discernment helps young people understand that other people are not our enemies, but that there is fundamental brokenness in humans and an adversary who intends to derail us in every possible way.
Overprotectiveness makes strict rules about media consumption to “save the kids from smut.” It avoids watching, reading, and talking about current events and pop culture in the hope that they will just go away.
Discernment reads “the Bible and the newspaper,” in theologian Karl Barth’s famous formulation (we might update this to “the Bible and the Internet”). Unless we choose to live in secluded Christian community—which is a viable option for only a few—exposure to media-driven culture is inevitable. Rather than steering clear of secular films, music, websites, books, and television shows, let’s watch, listen, and read together and do “cultural exegesis” as a faithful community.
Overprotectiveness oversimplifies the tough stuff of life—suffering, failure, relationships—and offers formulas instead of honest, contextualized answers.
Discernment is transparent about the hazards of being human and teaches the full witness of Scripture, which is messy, complex, and, ultimately, wonderfully true.
Overprotectiveness discourages risk taking and uses fear to “protect” the next generation.
Discernment guides young people to trust God fearlessly and follow Christ in the power of the Spirit, even at the risk of their lives, reputations, and worldly success.
Overprotectiveness tries to convince young people that the only (or best) way to serve God is by working in a church, parish, Christian nonprofit, or mission field.
Discernment recognizes that there is no difference between sacred jobs and secular professions. Yes, we need called and prepared young people to serve as priests, pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. But we also need to affirm the powerful sentiment captured by Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper: “Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ ”
Overprotectiveness paints a false picture of reality that hurts young people much more in the long run than honesty would in the short run. Many teens and young adults have been told they can be, do, and have anything they want—only to find the “real world” not quite so obliging.
Discernment develops a robust theology of calling that recognizes each person’s unique purpose and gifting as nothing less (or more) than what God has ordained. Let’s recognize that the Holy Spirit has plans for the next generation that are bigger than what they can dream for themselves, and let’s make it our business to tune their hearts to hear his voice, not just ours.
The Risks of Following Christ
I have heard hundreds of sermons but I still remember this line from one of my father’s: “When you have a child, you open up a grave.” Sounds morbid, but Dad was reminding his listeners, as Scripture does in many places, that our lives are fleeting.
This way of thinking is exactly the opposite of our security-oriented, prepare-for-the-future mindset. And I believe that at the heart of our problems with overprotectiveness is our very human need to control.
But God refuses to be controlled.
An overprotected generation has been sold the lie that “Christian living” means material blessing, automatic protection, and bulletproof safety. Two millennia of Christian martyrs beg to differ, and many young adults today are interested in those martyrs’ lives of jeopardy and fulfillment. They are desperate for a new way to understand and experience the worthy risks of following Christ. Life without some sense of urgency—a life that is safe, incubated, insular, overprotected, consumptive—is not worth living. The next generation is aching for influence, for significance, for lives of meaning and impact. Think of your favorite film or novel. Invariably the best stories, regardless of medium, involve significant hazards for the characters. We care about characters for whom the stakes are high—yet we have done all we can to lower the stakes for the newest real-life protagonists in God’s grand, risky story.
Let’s reorient our thinking about the proper role of risk in our contemporary Christian witness.
The Risks of Parenting
Unfortunately, no Christian parent earns a reward in heaven for coaching his or her kids to live long and secure lives. Sure, we all hope to make it to a ripe old age—and there is nothing wrong with managing not to die young! But ameliorating risk is not how God measures effectiveness among parents. God looks at how we shape our children’s hearts and minds to be responsive and obedient to him.
This means taking seriously Jesus’s words: “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it” (Matt. 16:25 NLT). Are we willing to embrace this truth on behalf of the children God has entrusted to our care?
My friends Britt and Kate Merrick have been fervent and tireless in fighting the cancer that has invaded the body of their smart, sassy, seven-year-old daughter, Daisy. God has blessed her recovery thus far, but Britt, a pastor in Southern California, has been very clear in his teaching during the last year that the hope of the church and of parents is not that every child lives. It’s that Jesus is Lord. That kind of faith takes my breath away, and I truly believe it is the kind of faith to which all Christ-following parents are called. We never stop interceding on our children’s behalf but we put our hope only in Jesus, who is Lord of all.
Of course, there are times when and places where we should shield our children from danger and unwelcome content. We have a biblical responsibility to nurture our children—especially young children—in safe and godly environments. But we must not use our fear for their safety as an excuse for not properly preparing them to be used by God. Jesus prayed to the Father for his disciples, “I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one” (John 17:15 NLT). Might we have the grace and courage to pray the same for our kids?
What if God is preparing this generation for great exploits in his name? What if a new renaissance of global mission could be realized by this generation? Is our preoccupation with safety keeping our children on the sidelines? Or are we willing partners in preparing them for what God has planned?
The Risks of Cultural Influence
A growing sentiment of this generation is that they want to be, in the words of my friend Gabe Lyons, a “counterculture for the common good.” For many young Christians, there is a realization that they want to follow Christ in a way that does not separate them from the culture. They want to be culture makers, not culture avoiders.
This kind of influence comes at a cost. Sometimes being a cultural influencer comes at the cost of acceptance within the Christian community, as Sam found when his love song hit it big in the mainstream. Those who seem too cozy with secular business, media, entertainment, social sciences, and politics are viewed with skepticism by many devout Christians.
By a similar token, I know some young believers who are reluctant to be linked to the “Christian tribe,” which has a decidedly negative reputation in many sectors of our society. There is a talented Broadway actress who feels she must keep her Christian bona fides in the background. A well-known singer-songwriter in his twenties feels the need to be publicly cautious about his faith connections. Similar sentiments are repeated by other young Christians in science, government, business, and the academy. It’s not that they hide their faith, exactly; they are just intentional about when and to whom they reveal it.
I can almost hear what some readers are thinking at this point: Aren’t they just ashamed of the gospel? Are these young Christians willing to stand up for Christ or not? I understand these questions but I want us to imagine for a moment that these young adults are missionaries to a group of people who know next to nothing about Christ, God, or the Bible. Suppose that they are missionaries in an Islamic dictatorship where their livelihood and even their life are at stake. While they do not aspire to live long lives for their own sake—they want above all else to live for God’s purposes—they do not want to be reckless with God’s gifts of life, talent, relationship, and opportunity. In such an environment a missionary must be discerning about how and when to reveal his or her faith. I want to suggest that we should see young people who are using their gifts in our broader culture as missionaries. They are helping to re-create, to renew, to redeem the culture by adding their voices to the wider conversation about what it means to be human. No, most are not handing out religious tracts, but by living into their calling to reflect the Creator’s image, they point the way to him—which is harder than it sounds. Perhaps those of us who are older need to cut them some slack and let them minister as God directs in a culture that is so different from the one in which we grew up.
Christ-followers contend with two opposing temptations. The first is cultural withdrawal. When we remove ourselves completely from the surrounding culture, we neglect Jesus’s calling to be “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). We have a duty, a healthy Christian obligation, to bless the world around us. The prophet Jeremiah gave this challenge to God’s people exiled in Babylon: “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare” (Jer. 29:5–7 NLT). Read that last line again. Let’s make music, movies, tools, services, and ideas that bless people around us, Christian or not. We are blessed to be a blessing.
The second temptation is cultural accommodation. A healthy desire to influence culture can turn too easily into an unhealthy preoccupation with acceptance by mainstream culture. When this happens, we consume what the world has to offer and end up with lives no different from anyone else’s. Some Christians in every generation have succumbed to this temptation, including Mosaics—some of whom would rather be cool than Christlike.
In the critical tension between cultural withdrawal and cultural accommodation, we need new, better ways—a new mind—to equip a generation to live in-but-not-of the world. This may mean that parents and faith leaders should allow young people to take bigger risks. It may mean trusting that their calling is different from our own and requires them to live in a greater degree of tension than would make us comfortable. It certainly means we need to facilitate transparent relationships and conversations so we can all find the God-spaced ground between withdrawal and accommodation.
My friends Steve and Valerie have modeled this “new mind” as their son, a filmmaker, has grown into a man. (We briefly met their son, Justin, in chapter 4, “Exiles.”) Steve and Valerie have served some of the most influential Christian organizations in the U.S., and when Justin decided to study moviemaking in a secular film program after finishing seminary, they heard lots of concerns: “Christians and Hollywood don’t mix.” “But he had such a bright future as a church leader!” Their family had always been culture-engagers—public school supporters, theater- and moviegoers, actively involved with their secular friends and neighbors—and willing to take risks, so they thought they were prepared.
But Steve told me, “You should see some of the major films he’s worked on to build his credibility in mainstream Hollywood, David. It’s mostly great stuff. But sections are also jarring. The first movie that hit national theaters with his name in the credits opens with a sex scene that is not visually explicit but left no question what was happening. I thought, Whoa! Who do I feel comfortable inviting to see this? How many Christian folks will understand how strategically he’s placed? That he may be the only Christ-follower some of these Hollywood-types ever meet, one of the only believers with inside access?”
“When some Christians tell us they are praying for him,” Valerie said, “I’m guessing they really mean they hope he doesn’t go to hell in Hollywood. We wish they would pray for him to find favor and work for God’s pleasure. You know what? Our son is teaching us, his ministry parents, how film can reveal the truth about our human condition and our need for redemption in ways that are as powerful and provocative as any sermon.”
Steve continued, “Were we younger and braver, we like to think we would follow a similar path. But Justin is following the unique calling of God on his life, and we are more convinced than ever about the strength of his faith, even though it is expressed in his professional life differently than in ours.”
The Risks of Holiness
Cultural influencers embrace risks for the sake of the gospel, but I am concerned that many in the next generation do not fully appreciate the importance of holiness and obedience. It is right for young Christ-followers to pursue lives of mainstream influence, yet it’s dangerous—and not in the good way—to do so without understanding our culture’s powers of seduction.
We must steer young cultural influencers away from the temptation to measure their faithfulness, personal worth, effectiveness, or giftedness by the level of mainstream acceptance they achieve. When the world’s standards of success become the yardstick, Christians with the best of intentions cave to the pressure to cut corners, cheat just a little, lie to protect their reputation, take a favor under the table, ignore the marginalized to please the in-crowd, or blow by their own boundaries of behavior—all to measure up to society’s standards. Gaining credibility with the world must never become more important than obedience to God. The apostle John wrote, “Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. . . . And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave” (1 John 2:15–17 NLT). Living a creative, Spirit-filled life, set apart for the Lord’s holy purposes, is not for the weak-willed.
Looking again at Daniel’s life, we see that holiness both defined him and gave him influence in the world around him. His access to the Babylonian cultural elite afforded him an opportunity to speak truth to power. But it was his commitment to holiness that made him worth listening to—and that landed him in the lions’ den (see Daniel 6). God shut the mouths of the lions and vindicated Daniel before the Babylonian politicians who had conspired to see him dead.
Risking holiness doesn’t always have a happy ending, however. During World War II, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer took a stand against Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich—and against the German church, which ignored and even supported the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer was convinced that followers of Christ have an obligation not to withdraw from culture (even when it’s as wicked as the Nazis) but to be in it, and not to accommodate the culture (like the German church did) but not be of it.
Three weeks before the war ended, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged for plotting against the government. He had risked everything to obey in holiness, but God did not “shut the lions’ mouths.”
Bonhoeffer’s “Daniel moment” got him killed.
His life and death stand as a stark challenge to anyone who believes that following Christ is the easy road to blessing, riches, comfort, and acceptance. And the widespread, ongoing influence of his life and writings represents a rebuke to a church that has too often failed to prepare the next generation for the grand, terrifying, exhilarating adventure of God’s mission to the world.
Each of us will face a “Daniel moment” sometime in our life. Maybe more than one. Will we—and those whom God has called us to disciple—know what to do when it arrives?