The Ambivalent Christian

by Dave Daubenmire

I am reminded today of a story I heard several years ago. A public-school teacher was doing his best to make his social studies class exciting so that the students would develop a love for civic engagement. In his attempt to pique their interest he asked the students a question.

“What are the biggest problems we face in America today.”

After a few moments of silence, he attempted to get one of the more lethargic students involved in the dialogue, so he repeated the question.

“Tim, what do you think are the two biggest problems facing this nation today?”

Tim, with his baseball cap on backward, responded as he removed a tootsie roll pop from his mouth, “Honestly? I don’t know and I don’t really care.”

That was probably the most honest response given in the hallowed halls of hell that afternoon.

I don’t know and I don’t care. That perfectly describes the history of how we got in the mess we are currently in.

The dictionary defines ambivalent as “having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.” It is becoming harder every day to find someone who actually gives a hoot about what is going on around us. Like my buddy Chad says, “No one cares about mailboxes being destroyed by some punks driving by until it is THEIR mailbox.” Only PERSONAL affront seems to matter to much of America anymore.

Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.” What does that have to do with me? I hear that response all the time. How does somebody else’s abortion impact me? Live and let live. My body…my choice. Stop pushing your morality on me.

Ambivalence is the default position of a secular mindset, but it certainly should not be the attitude of a true Christian. As one of my friends told me years ago, hate is not the opposite of love…indifference is. How can you claim to love your neighbor if you turn a blind eye to his plight? Apathy, lack of interest or concern, is the road to tyranny. I don’t know and I don’t care is the siren-song that is destroying America.

Ambivalence is anathema to the Gospel. The entire focus of Christianity is the idea of PERSONAL sacrifice.

Greater love has no man than this than he would lay down his life for his friends.
Present your body a living sacrifice.
Take up your cross and follow me.

It is not my mailbox. How does that impact my life? I don’t know and I don’t care. This un-holy trinity is destroying our nation.

America lies in the crucible. We are hanging by our fingernails. Never in the history of this nation has the dark side been so out in the open. Dorothy warned us about the “man behind the curtain” but we failed to realize that the images were true. There really was a Wizard spinning the levers of this nation. Our failure to distinguish truth from fiction has left us in a lurch.

Ultimately, the battle is a spiritual fight. The Seed of the Serpent has cast his lot against the Seed of the Woman in an eternal struggle for Kingship of the world. As President Lincoln stated at Gettysburg “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” Can we endure? WILL we endure? That story is still to be written.

But apathy and ambivalence area recipe for defeat. A half-heartedly Christianity will not lead us back to Kansas. No heel-tapping of our ruby slippers will repair the foundations that have been winnowed away. Only a vibrant, all-in Christianity will carry the day.

End-time theology has crippled America. The much-expected rapture has taken the fight out of the church. Personally, I do not worry about the end of days. I call myself a pan-millenialist…a belief that it will all pan out in the end. But I do know this, no matter where you stand on the issue, Jesus exhorted us to “Occupy” till He comes. The last I looked He still has not arrived. Our task is to fight to hold on until He does.

The Book of James tells us that “a doubleminded man is unstable in all of his ways let him expect NOTHING from God.” Doublemindedness is another world for ambivalence. How can we obey His command to Occupy when all our focus is on evacuation?

The war in the heaven lies is real and it is breaking out in technicolor right before our very eyes. Toto has pulled back the curtain and the “workers of iniquity” can no longer hide. Why do we act as if we cannot see them? Why do we refuse to do what only the church can do? We must stop praying and asking God to do for us that which we can do for ourselves.

In a general sense cognitive dissonance is simply refusing to believe what your eyes can see. Things are NOT getting better in America and hiding in our prayer closets will not win the day. Prayer WITHOUT WORKS is dead. Christianity is a contact sport.

Doesn’t right and wrong matter to us anymore? We should be grieved by watching all our institutions fall under the dominion of the Devil. Our failure to do the dirty work necessary to restore Truth and Justice to this nation must grieve the heart of the Savior we claim to serve.

“But we win in the end, Coach,” I hear the ambivalent Christians chortle. “HE wins.” I respond. “We just get to be on the team.”

We say God is all powerful. We proclaim that we “can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens us” as we sit passively in our pews and watch the Devil’s kids eat our lunch.

The goats and the sheep were separated a long time ago. Today God is separating the real sheep from the fake sheep. Half-hearted, double-minded Christianity is an affront to the King we claim we serve.

The heathen are raging and the ball is in the Church’s court. Are we going to sink or swim? I think I know your answer.

I don’t know and I don’t care because we win in the end.

E-Mail Dave Daubenmire: ptsalt@gmail.com