Let me state the obvious: we’re divided. Democratic governors raise the ire of their red constituents. Republican governors get dumbfounded disbelief from the blue. Parents and teacher draw sides in both public and private school debates. Pastors lead increasingly polarized congregations. No one in leadership can win. The debate over masks creates a lose/lose situation.
A close missionary friend of mine told me about a recent encounter on a long international flight. The guy next to him—a strong believer with equally strong opinions—took the 11 hour opportunity to lay out his case against vaccinations and mask mandates. My friend listened patiently and then said, “I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish. It seems to me that you’ve forgotten your mission.” For Christians in America, I fear that we’re trying to win a battle and losing the war.
The mission of God can guide us through this maze of madness.
For years in the western church, any sense of biblical mission slipped into the background of the Christian imagination as the idea of western progress took its place. Under the influence of a western worldview, the idea of salvation grew increasingly personal while church gatherings grew increasingly private.
Michael Goheen (Introducing Christian Mission Today, IVP Academic, 2014) encourages believers to view salvation and the church within their natural context of biblical mission rather than a super-imposed secular worldview. It’s not that the western worldview gets it all wrong; it simply doesn’t have the vision to get it all right. So, for example, salvation is certainly personal. But it doesn’t end there. God offers his salvation to us so that he can offer his salvation through us. At the same time, the church may gather weekly in private, but it’s dispersed daily to embody the gospel in every nook and cranny of the public square for a watching world to see.
That brings us back to masks. Western culture encourages me to take my stand on masks as an individual choice with little or no regard for how the lost perceive me, my church, or the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when my western worldview shapes my understanding of scripture, it can even lead to standing ovations for statements like “If you show up to impede our First Amendment rights, we’re going to show up at the door with our Second Amendment rights.” (Pastor Greg Locke, Freedom Matters Tour). But biblical mission should give me pause. It’s hard to offer salvation to the lost when they think I don’t care about their safety or the safety of their children.
So if I have to choose between my individual rights as an American and my witness as a follower of Jesus, I want to make sure they know whose mission has captured my imagination and won my allegiance.
I wear a mask for mission, not for mandate.