The Perils of Activism

J. I. Packer (through his writings and lectures) is one of the most significant influences in my life.  Doctrinally, there is a mass of sane and salutary stuff in Packer (most of the time; I know, ECT, and so on.  Yeah, yeah; okay, agreed).  Sometimes I've been influenced by Packer in dramatic, life-changing ways.  For example, some years ago I was wrestling with whether or not I should stay in an OPC church that was doctrinally sound but on a different page practically than I was finding myself as convictions were forming.  I could have stayed.  It wasn't an issue of needing to separate or anything like that.  It was just a question of usefulness and trajectories and long-term service.  And Packer, in a moment, with one word of wisdom, sealed the deal for me, as it were.  All became rather clear. 

So I ended up at College Church.  And there I met my wife.  Now I'm at one of College Church's church plants, finding myself persuaded of God's hand leading me to where I am.  And I really do have Packer to thank for it.  A word in season, how sweet it is. 

But I'm being more personal and autobiographical than I set out to be when I began plunking away here.  Packer wrote in the early nineties Keep in Step with the Spirit.  Wonderful, right-minded, helpful stuff.  In a chapter on the way of holiness, Packer speaks of how holiness has been a neglected priority.  He says, "The pursuit of holiness is very evidently a Christian priority, but it is one believers today commonly neglect.  That, alas, is all too easy to see."  He then proceeds to speak of some areas where we fall short.  I only want to highlight one: activism.  What follows are some of Packer's thoughts on the perils of activism, as he calls it:

Look at the activism of our activity.  Modern Christians tend to make busyness their religion.  We admire and imitate, and so become, Christian workaholics, supposing that the busiest believers are always the best.  Those who love the Lord will indeed be busy for him, no doubt about that; but the spirit of our busyness is constantly wrong.  We run around doing things for God and leave ourselves no time for prayer.  Yet that does not bother us, for we have forgotten the old adage that if you are too busy to pray, you really are too busy.  But we do not feel the need to pray, because we have grown self-confident and self-reliant in our work.  We take for granted that our skills and resources and the fine quality of our programs will of themselves bring forth fruit; we have forgotten that apart from Christ--Christ trusted, obeyed, looked to, relied on--we can achieve nothing (see John 15:5).  This is activism: activity gone to seed through not being grounded on sustained self-distrust and dependence on God.  But activism is not holiness, nor is it the fruit of holiness, and the activist's preoccupation with his own plans and schemes and know-how tends to keep him from either seeking holiness or increasing in it. 

There's much more here from Packer that is helpful.  For now, however, that is enough.  Perhaps you'll take up and read that good old right-minded and sane stuff.  Keep in Step with the Spirit is the title.  And Packer is his name, and theological packing it in is his game.