Methodist evangelism scholar George Hunter, III has said that the church is very good at providing people with beliefs for the short-view and the long-view, but not for the medium-view. The short-view is usually a crisis, when we are looking for immediate guidance, such as when we face a sudden tragedy and need comfort or when we enjoy a sudden victory and want to share it. The church can be very good at offering meaningful and tangible support in these moments. The long-view is when we are considering the big questions of life: Why are we here? What happens when we die? Much of the church’s teaching addresses these very questions, providing a coherent and cogent explanation of God’s purposes for creation and how we can participate in those.
The medium-view…involves making the countless decisions that life demands of us as well as living in the aftermath of those decisions.
The medium-view deals with how we go through our daily lives. It includes paying our bills, navigating relationships, going to work and/or school, enjoying our leisure, and all the other mundane things that go into our regular living. It involves making the countless decisions that life demands of us as well as living in the aftermath of those decisions.
Perhaps because it is so mundane and so much of it is “given,” the church spends little time talking about the medium-view. We all have to eat. We all have to relate to others. We all have to deal with money. We all have to be responsible in various ways. What is there to say, really? Christians do these things just like everyone else does. There is nothing mysterious about them, unlike dealing with tragedy or death. Isn’t faith powerful because it illuminates the dark corners of these great and awesome unknowns?
Jesus spent most of his time teaching about the medium-view.
While the Christian faith does provide light for us to see the short- and long-views of life better, Jesus spent most of his time teaching about the medium-view. The theme of Jesus’ teachings was the Kingdom of God. While this might sound like a long-view topic, Jesus taught about it in terms of how it affected our daily lives. This is because the Kingdom of God was not just an eternal reward, it was present in the here-and-now. As Jesus said, “the Kingdom is in your midst” (Luke 17:21).
This means that when Jesus exhorted his listeners to “seek first the Kingdom of God,” he was not just telling them to get ready for post-mortem judgment, he was telling them to live in a way that demonstrated the presence and power of God in their daily lives. The early church understood this. It is why much of the material in the letters written by Paul, Peter, and the other New Testament writers touched on issues like relating to other people, dealing with money, marriage, sex, participating in cultural activities, interacting with the government, and other mundane things. It is not that Christians engage in different sorts of activities than anyone else does, it is that Christians are supposed to engage in these common activities differently. Their ethical structure has been shifted because they should be living out the presence of the Kingdom of God in what they do. This is not just a matter of deciding to live differently. The Christian’s very character should be changed because they have opened themselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
God will set all things right, and then the Kingdom of God will be present in its fullness. With this firm hope in mind, Christians have plenty of light to see the medium-view clearly, knowing how to approach daily activities as disciples of Jesus.
In this sense, the long-view and the medium-view come together in the teachings of Jesus. Ultimately God will set all things right, and then the Kingdom of God will be present in its fullness. With this firm hope in mind, Christians have plenty of light to see the medium-view clearly, knowing how to approach daily activities as disciples of Jesus.
So, perhaps the reason that many churches do not speak to the medium-view is not because there is a lack of Christian teaching to provide for it. Instead, it is because the medium-view is where we most feel like we are in control. Technology, personal savvy and intellect, and any number of any other things help us to feel like we can carry out our daily tasks essentially on our own. We are strong enough and smart enough to do it. To focus on the medium-view through the lens of the Kingdom as Jesus preached it would disrupt this. It would change how we live. It would demand that we let go of our sense of being in control. It is precisely because it is not mysterious, but blatantly obvious how we would need to change if we followed Jesus in the medium-view that we avoid it.
If this is true—that the church backs away from the medium-view because it demands obvious ways of transformed living that it could be held accountable for, such as Christians demonstrating a commitment to justice, kindness, and humility—then it is little wonder that the Christian witness is so weak. When Christians have no substantial difference they can show in how they go about their daily lives: when their children are no more gracious to others, when they are no more generous with their money, when their marriages collapse at the same rate, they demonstrate no greater concern for the poor and marginalized, and their ethical decisions are no more demonstrably good or moral, they lose their capacity to claim their message is worthwhile. If it were, would not they follow it themselves? Instead, they avoid its claims in their own lives, hanging onto it only when they face the moments uncertainty brought by the short- or long-views. In such situations, Christians are rightly accused of just using their faith as a crutch.
When Christians have no substantial difference they can show in how they go about their daily lives, [they] are rightly accused of just using their faith as a crutch.
The challenge for Christians is not to try and scrape together a few medium-view beliefs that they can mix together with their short-view and long-view beliefs. There is no lack of medium-view implications for those who follow Jesus! Rather, it is to take the medium-view implications of following Jesus seriously. This is a matter of transformation, but not one that requires massive change all at once. As John the Baptist explained, we can start small with that transformation by doing things like being content and sharing with those who are in need (Luke 3). We can move on from there.
The criticism often leveled at Christians is that their faith has some good ideas that just don’t work in real life (including by Homer Simpson). However, this is not a critique of the teachings of Jesus so much as it is of the ways that Christians have chosen to block out the medium-view of the Christian faith from their vision. We have plenty of light shining from Christ to see the medium -view in addition to the long-view and the short-view. We just need the commitment to follow where the light of Christ shows us that we have to go.