City Life Starter

By Stefan Johnsson

Romans 12:2 (NIV)

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Sometimes we live in a box, not of our own making, but what the society creates for us. My mother and father gave me an opportunity to see outside of this box and to look at things from a point of view that I am very thankful to have.

My mother grew up in the Dutch Reformed church in the middle of Michigan with strict conservative, Republican values. My father, on the other hand, grew up in Sweden, a social democratic country, vastly different in views and thoughts than the U.S. The political beliefs couldn’t have been any more opposite, yet, they looked beyond this when they got married. The mission of God came first in their lives, which was to reach unsaved people.

Hearing the calling of God on her heart, my mom moved to Sweden after marrying my dad and took up mission work there for fifteen years. I was born and raised in a culture with strong social welfare programs and high tax rates. When I was twelve, we moved to the U.S. and I grew up in a society with a whole different approach to politics and the ties it had to the religion. I remember my mom telling me that living in a country so different in political values than the U.S., helped her see the benefits that it offered, the help that is provided to their citizens. Never did she worry about dentist appointments or healthcare visits as they were all free. She would never have realized this without living outside of the small area of the world she grew up in.

What bothered me as I grew up and went to college, was a sense of separation between what I believed in regards to political thought with most of my other Christian friends. I felt misunderstood. I couldn’t discuss issues without most of them putting up a wall and refusing to bring up reasons behind why they believed what they do. I ended up considering myself as an outlier, finding refuge with scholars and foreigners who had an open mind in discussing the issues in society. My point was not to make America like Sweden, but to other approaches to fixing the issues at hand in the society.

I feared that many Americans equated political thought with their faith without understanding the reasons behind it. I wanted fellow Christians to look outside of their political values and to discuss issues with an open mind. Not to just vote for a candidate because of one or two social issues, but to know that this is used as a tool for politicians to gain votes. Oh, I thought, how powerful Christians can be if they weren’t swayed so easily by corrupt men and women! We have to be careful taking Christian values and conform them to the society we live in.

Why did the crusaders believe that God’s honor had to be protected by taking back Jerusalem and killing Jews? Can God not protect his own honor? They had conformed Christianity to their society.

Why did the Eastern Orthodox faith take saints and make them like minor gods that they pray to so that they can get certain things? Is Jesus not the only one we worship and pray to? They had taken the idea of Greek pagan worship and integrated it into the Christian faith. They had conformed Christianity to their society.

The point here is that you can be an American and hold to American values, but do not convolute this with your faith. Christians around the world, including Sweden, consider certain social issues differently. Does that make their political system less or make their faith different?

America does not have it all together and does not have everything right, nor does any other culture. This is because there is no perfect government or economic system. We live in a fallen world and the corruption of man brings with it a corruption of any political system that was created with good intentions. Let our faith bind us together, and to renew our minds, not to be conformed by society, but conform society to follow Jesus, the only true answer to the problems we have in this world.