Our world is on fire. 

The past week has given us more heavy news. Israel and the United States are now engulfed in military conflict with Iran. Will that lead to regime change, the activation of sleeper cells within the USA, or both? The gutting of USAID appears to be leading to hardship worldwide. Gaza continues to be indiscriminately leveled. Israeli families still mourn the loss of family members taken hostage by Hamas. 

The economy is nervous. Political divisions continue to tear us apart. These are just a few of the problems that make the global headlines. Of course, we know that millions weep in Burma, South Sudan, and places we have never even heard of. Yes, our world is on fire.

As a follower of Jesus, I feel the weight of the global reality. I often ask, along with many of you, what can I do amid such violence and pain?

This week, I have dealt with the pain by going on a Caribbean Cruise. 

Escape is a luxury of privilege. Removing ourselves from the pain of the world, whether it includes expensive getaways or the simplicity of a tent, is not the reality for those on the margins. There is no escape for Palestinians in Gaza. There is no vacation from the lack of vaccines and HIV medication being experienced by those who have the least. There is no relief from hunger when the aid trucks have been stopped at the border. There is no good night’s sleep in the bomb shelter.

And yet, here I sit, or rather recline, poolside on a private island in the Western Caribbean, blissfully or willfully ignorant of the pain. Oh, there are still complaints: “the elevators are too slow,” “we only get one lobster tail?” and “what do you mean I can only get one drink at a time?” 

Apparently, perfection can’t be found even in paradise.

Amid the nonsense, of which I am a willing participant and of which I greatly appreciate, part of me cannot shake those who have no escape. Rather than fully engage, it’s so much easier to just take a break.

I wonder if the North American Church has suffered from escapism? In doing so, we have chosen numerous paths. 

First, we escape simply by attaching ourselves to whatever entity happens to be in power. By aligning itself with the cultural, financial, and political powers, the church has escaped scrutiny from the world. In the process, we have lost our prophetic witness and even the gospel. There is no shortage of articles and books written about this. But our syncretism is only one avenue of escape. Just as problematic is that the church continues to engage in argumentative escapism.

Theological disagreements are as old as the church itself. Peter, James, and Paul got into some good ones. And yet I can’t help but feel that our recent pietistic arguments have allowed us to escape the demands of the gospel. 

While the USA was dropping Agent Orange on Vietnam, church leaders were still fighting to keep women in their “proper place” in the church. While HIV/AIDS ravaged the globe, church leaders were still busy shaming divorced people into their proper place in the community. And today, while the world burns, church leaders have decided that mass shootings, global warming, the cutting of funding for the marginalized, and even potential nuclear holocaust can take a back seat to debating whether men and women in monogamous gay relationships are permitted inside the community. 

In no way am I trivializing these arguments. We should always be discerning the will of God, and these arguments certainly have a real impact upon those who are marginalized in these debates. In that sense, they are real gospel disputes. 

But for those on the inside, for those of us who hold power, could it be that they are a convenient escape from the gospel? Could it be that they allow those in power to remain secure in our own righteousness, while the marginalized continue to suffer around us? Keeping the “them” out, whoever “they” might be at any given time, allows us to never have to ask whether or not our camels will fit through the eye of the needle. 

I wonder if the reason some flee the church is not because they don’t want the gospel, it’s because they do? They just don’t think it’s currently found within the church. 

I wonder what difference the church could make if we engaged the real world with its real problems rather than taking the easy way of self-righteous argumentative escapism? 

But enough about that, the buffet line is getting a little long.

Cruise ship by Peter Hansen on Unsplash