Us For Them: Chapter 9: Twenty-Six Names

Now we come to the final chapter of what most people here agree is an excellent book by Austin Fischer, my friend and former student, pastor of The Vista Church in Temple, Texas.

I think it’s important to realize that Austin has been and is talking to Christians, the Body of Christ, the church. He makes his final appeal for friendship over ideological warfare. “Embracing others as family sounds nice but is hell to live because others can be awful. … Yet God in Christ had done something to get her this impossibly diverse family, and it was their [Christians in Rome] duty to be the family Christ claimed they already were.” (125)

This chapter is a kick in the butt—whether you fancy yourself a conservative or a progressive! IF you look down on the others and judge them as unworthy of friendship and fellowship. “There is no partiality with God, no moral superiority among men.” (130) All have sinned; all stand guilty before God. All are judged forgiven if they have repented and accepted what God has done for them in Jesus Christ. Who are you to judge them?

Once again, Austin uses salty language and popular culture to make his points and illustrate them. Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd in conflict then reconciled? Karl Barth’s theology? Who else, what other Christian writer, writes like this?

“How do we pursue God’s justice without usurping God’s office of judge? The question is ancient but resurfacing with holy menace in our time. We should welcome it. It’s a sacred question. In the end, it is not a question that can be settled but only lived more or less faithfully. And to that end, a proposal that presents itself is modest but firm: you’ve been commanded to be for them, even when standing against them, which is tough to do when believing you’re better than they.” (134-135)

This last paragraph of the book took the critical wind out of my judgmental sails. I can be AGAINST fellow Christians while being FOR them? The key lies in not thinking I am better than they are. No one is good but God.

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