Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 180:717 (Jan 2023)
Article: The World After 2020
Author: Joel D. Lawrence

BSac 180:717 (January-March 2023) p. 3

The World After 2020

Joel D. Lawrence

Joel D. Lawrence is President of the Center for Pastor Theologians in Oak Park, Illinois.

* This is the first article in the three-part series “The Pastor Theologian and the Pattern of the Age,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas, February 1, 3, and 4, 2022.

Lament For A Conformed Church

Over the past few years, we have seen our world broken open. Early in 2020 the coronavirus pandemic began to wreak havoc across the globe. In only a matter of weeks the virus spread to the ends of the earth, bringing in its wake death, illness, fear, and division. In May 2020 George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, unleashing weeks of peaceful protests and violent disturbances, placing urgent questions before America: questions about racial injustice and how we tell history, about the divergent experiences of citizens and the nature of policing, indeed, about the very nature of American society. Then, in November 2020, the results of the presidential election catapulted the country into a cauldron of conspiracy and political violence, becoming a propellant for the weakening of confidence in democratic institutions.

Of course, challenging times are not new. Societies throughout history have faced the upheavals of war, disease, revolution, and ethnic disputes. But in the twenty-first-century United States, these events came as a shock: Wasn’t the most powerful country in history immune to such disruption? How could we fall prey to a plague? Hadn’t our wealth and technology promised us protection? The confluence of COVID-19, racial injustice, and political division have been truly apocalyptic, by which I mean revelatory: they’ve revealed the fissures of society and the instability of life in a globalized world.

BSac 180:717 (January-March 2023) p. 4

In all of this I have sighed a deep lament. A lament for the racial history of the United States. A lament for the millions who have lost their lives to COVID. A lament for the political discord disfiguring our society. However, as a pastor theologian, the primary focus of my lament is not for society at large but for the church. The church is fragmented; denominations are torn apart; and congregations are strained. Political partisanship, our history of racial discord, and the fear of losing cultural power are placing great strains on the body of Christ. We are hurting. There is anger. There is mistrust. This is a time for the church to engage in critical self-examination. We have difficult work ahead. To meet the need of the moment, we must go deep, exploring the root causes of the illness infecting the ...