Week 12: The Lone Ranger or Lonesome Dove?
So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
Ephesians 2:19
What were you doing in the summer of 1981? I was at the Southaven Cinema 6 watching the new Legend of the Lone Ranger movie. I was five at the time, and I dressed up as my hero to watch the film. It helped that my sister worked there, so I suppose they overlooked the kid wearing a bandit mask and toting two revolvers. White hat, double sided guns (that would never be allowed today), red scarf and a blue shirt. I WAS the Lone Ranger and I came to SEE the Lone Ranger. Butch Cavendish, The Lone Ranger’s nemesis, was not getting into that glorious blue and gold cinema so long as I was there.
While I always loved the story about the Lone Texas Ranger who survived the Cavendish ambush, that lone image is not the metaphor for Christians. Lone Ranger Christianity is the idea that one can be a Christian and never be in a biblical community. There is no need for involvement in a church, no need to worry about accountability, and no outlet to serve other believers (except through haphazard means we come up with). The reasoning is that since salvation is a personal affair, then what happens after salvation is also a personal affair. We become Lone Ranger Christians who live their lives in isolation from the body of Christ.
The truth is that salvation (becoming born again) is a personal affair, but sanctification (our growth after salvation) is a communal affair. When you read multiple passages in the New Testament you find that the general assumption is that believers will live together with other Christians in community. The evidence is in Acts, in the Epistles, and even in Revelation. There is no way to use your spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12), love others (Romans 12) or hold one another accountable (Galatians 6:1) without biblical community. Paul uses three metaphors to talk about believers, and they all imply involvement in a larger, organized, formal group: “fellow citizens, saints, household members (Ephesians 2:19).” People who say, “I am a Christian, but I don’t go to church” reveal the massive disconnect between their personal confession (I am a Christian) and their blatant ignorance (of what the Bible repeatedly teaches). The Scripture gives us clear direction that we are to be in a body of believers.
Christian Education is predicated on the reality of the local church. There can be no Christian school whose teachers and leaders have no need for the body of Christ. It may be good education, sanitized community, and even a school family, but it will not truly be Christian Education. Our teaching centers on the Bible. The Bible centers on community. You cannot have one without the other.
There are many reasons why professed believers stray from a community. The most common is hurt. The Bible never promises that the body of Christ will be perfect, but it does tell us to embrace both messiness and brokenness. Such a community is better than being the Lone Ranger because two are better than one, for if one falls the other can help them up (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it (1 Corinthians 12:27).
Another reason why many professed Christians avoid church is that churches have become more of a show than a family. I knew a pastor in Little Rock who proudly stated they were calling their meeting place a “Venue”, and their services “experience events.” While terminology might appear inconsequential, it communicates a clear message. Those attending were not going to be known, and they were there to experience an event, not be accountable. I wouldn’t want to be a part of something that didn’t really know me. I can sit home and watch a good sermon if that’s all there is. I go to church to know and be known.
The point is that it is better to be a Lonesome Dove than a Lone Ranger. Lonesome Dove was another 80’s western that appeared around the same time frame as the Lone Ranger remake. It also was about Texas Rangers, but not about one lone survivor. The Lonesome Dove novel (and later 1989 TV series) demonstrated the value of a deep relationship between a group of retired Texas Rangers facing both aging and life. If we need a good Western metaphor for our calling, Lonesome Dove is the superior. Let no church say of us, “Who was that masked Christian?” Instead, let us be committed to a group who knows us and walks along the same Christian path. Distinctively Christian Education needs people committed to a church and willing to live in that messy community.
Discussion Questions:
What biblical community are you a part of? What are the benefits and blessings of that involvement?
How has church membership affected your involvement in Christian Education?
How can you teach with biblical community in mind, and how can you encourage others not to replace the school with the church?
