It's Time to Rid Ourselves of Tribal Christianity

Our world is getting smaller.

Our universe is getting larger.

What are we to make of this? Perhaps we might attribute the shrinkage of the world to modern travel and computer technology. Never has it been so easy to travel over large distances in so little time.

Or to communicate face-to-face with family and friends almost from anywhere in the world: Face Time and Skype have made our world smaller indeed.

From a relational perspective our world is smaller than it has ever been. It is believed that most of us live in a six degree of separation world in which we are just six or less steps away from introduction to any other person in the world with whom we know or someone who knows him or her.

When one considers the earth on a cosmic scale our planetary home is in the words of Carl Sagan just a “pale blue dot” (note arrow in picture above).

Speaking of the larger context in which our planet exists, scientists estimate that it would take one traveling at the speed of light (186,282 mph) 93 billion years to travel from one end of our universe to the other. 

“Are we there yet dad?”

Yes we live on a shrinking planet relationally speaking, but we are also traveling through space in a universe whose size is almost incomprehensible—and continues to expand. Herein lies the mind blowing paradox of God’s creation. 

In spite of our world becoming relationally smaller our world it is becoming more and more dangerous. Never before has there been so much weaponry of mass destruction. Militarism has become the single most preferred system for conflict resolution. 

Our world is becoming ideologically disparate, alarmingly so it seems. 

Even within our own nation we experience such political and religious diversity.  The notion of a unified national vision seems no longer possible. 

This all seems fairly odd given the technological advances that have contributed to shrinking our planet on a relational scale. One would think that we humans would have by now learned to live together in peace and would have long ago settled our political and religious differences. One would think . . .

But we live in the real world. 

Now this brings me to my point: It is time to rid ourselves of tribal Christianity. It is time to begin focusing on what may unite us as a human race rather than what divides us, especially in the religious arena.

Now here’s my thesis: If we don’t rid ourselves of tribal religion in general and tribal Christianity in particular I see little hope for the world, and no I don’t see this as an eschatological sign that we are living in the last days.

The world has become way too small and way too ideologically disparate for the movement Jesus started to continue as just another tribal religion: That is, Christians refusing to worship together because of doctrinal differences or Christians not welcome at the Lord’s Table because they are not members of a particular congregation or denomination. 

Or Christians believing that their own particular faith tradition is the only one sanctioned by God; or Christians in general believing that they are the only favored ones of God; or the notion that anyone who dies outside a particular Christian framework is doomed for hell.

Or Christians who continue to build fences around themselves in order to separate themselves from the world in which they have been placed. There is more . . .

These are all attitudes of ancient tribalism modernized for today's world. 

We must change the way we understand the relationship between God and His creation. We must create a new faith paradigm that is much more inclusive, gracious, and grandiose if we hope to survive as a human race.

If we desire to protect and sustain that pale blue dot we call home then we need to expand our religious horizons much like our universe is expanding. We cannot continue to live in our own self-designed tribes of preference and hope for a sustainable future on earth.

The earth on which we live is but a speck within a much larger universe. Perhaps we might capture a vision of God that is much more cosmic in nature than tribal in size. We must!

It’s our only hope for survival I am afraid. Otherwise we are headed for a global catastrophe that will rock the ages and I’m not referring to a dusty old hymn.

It is time to rid ourselves of a tribal Christianity that has become dangerously too small for today’s world.