Quadrants can be created by asking two binary questions and placing them respectively on an X and Y axis. The responses to each will create the quadrants in charting overlapping and intersecting responses to each with respect to the other.
Let's play.
X: Should Christians engage outside culture? Yes/No?
Y: Should Christians admire outside culture? Yes/No?
Of if you prefer, the Y axis could be posited as, "Should Christians have a High or a Low view of the world outside of the church?"
Q1: Engage: No, Admire: Yes
Q2: Engage: Yes, Admire, Yes
Q3: Engage: No, Admire: No
Q4: Engage: Yes, Admire, No
We are commanded by Christ to be in the world, but not of it. He prayed for us to this end. The intersection of these two questions produces four distinct methods or tactics for being a Christian in the world.
Q1: Alongside the outside. Lives in the secular world, but worship in the sacred one on Sunday.
Q2: Accommodate the outside. Listens to the secular world to gain a voice for the faith in theirs.
Q3: Abandon the outside. Lives in own world, or ghetto, in a cloister outside of worldly sway.
Q4: Attack the outside. Lives in Christ's world and calls the outside to surrender to their King.
In other words, with respect to the world, you can either:
Q1: Work by
Q2: Work with
Q3: Work away from
Q4: Work against
Enmity is inescapable, but these intersections produce differing attitudes towards the enmity between the seed of Eve (Spirit) and the seed of the serpent (flesh):
Q1: Evade the enemy's priorities
Q2: Embrace the enemy's priorities
Q3: Evade the enemy's presence
Q4: Embrace the enemy's presence
Q1 differs in its evasion from Q3 in that it evades the tensions by not having any. It just works alongside the world, letting it do its thing and separating or compartmentalizing life into sacred and secular categories, conceding much of life to the world. Q3 evades the enmity by retreating into its own community. It recognizes the tension by trying to escape it; whereas Q1 evades the enmity by ignoring it altogether. Q1 thinks it can live with the world like a spouse in a loveless marriage living parallel lives. It imagines it can share an address without sharing it's influence or being influenced by the other.
Q2 sends out feelers for what the world likes and then plants a church aimed at meeting their felt needs. It orients its approach around the enemy's desires, hopes, and dreams. It begins and ends with the world and becomes more and more like it with every move it makes.
Q2 differs in its embrace from Q4 in that it embraces the enmity and attempts to empathize with it. It seeks to understand it and learn from it whereas Q4 embraces the fact of enmity by preparing for war. There is a stark contrast between embracing your enemy with hugs and embracing the fact of your enemy by engaging him in battle. Q2 seeks to love its enemies by surrendering to them whereas Q4 seeks to love its enemies by defeating them.
Q3 attempts to evade the world's presence altogether by quarantining itself. It attempts to save the healthy by keeping out the sick. Q4 embraces the fact of the enemy and accepts its presence. It does so by preparing for war. Si vis pacem para bellum. (If you want peace, prepare for war.) Q4 wants peace and expects to achieve it through the surrender of the world.
The four intersections also end with very different eschatological attitudes about the end of the world. In short, is it victory or defeat here that is expected?
Q1: Accept defeat
Q2: Accept defeat
Q3: Expect defeat
Q4: Expect victory
Q1 and Q2 both accept the dominance of the world. The one by simply accepting it's place and seeking to work alongside it, the other by accepting it's place and seeking a place for Christianity in their world.
Q3 expects the church to lose and sequesters itself. It loses the battle by conceding it, placing it's hope in a future when their cave dwelling can be done in broad daylight.
Q4 expects the church to fulfill Christ's commands. Q4 expects to see the leaven work through the loaf and the Kingdom come, not go. Q4 believes that Jesus did not place it on a suicide mission, but accepts the fact the casualties are a part of all wars and that battles are lost on the way to victory and that climbing a mountain sometimes involves going down a slope in order to arrive and ascend the next cliff.
The intersections also result in differing attitudes about "the center." Who gets to determine the agenda? Who gets to define the terms?
Q1: Assumes no center
Q2: Assumes no periphery
Q3: Assumes the periphery
Q4: Assumes the center
Q1 assumes that there is no center. It is content to let the world have politics. It is content to participate in politics, but only when done outside its Christianity. It votes as a citizen, not as a Christian. It assumes there is no arche that holds everything together: religion is one thing, re-zoning the city, another.
Q2 assumes that there is no periphery. It accommodates itself to unbelief in order to create one new man, but not the one Christ died to reconcile (Eph 2), but one co-existing lovefest of ecumenical meaninglessness.
Q3 assumes the periphery. This world is counted altogether forfeit. It belongs to the prince of the power of the air and it always will, so why fight it. It retreats to the corners and is content to carve out a Christian community out there. It lights a candle in a dark corner and hopes a dark wind won't up and blow them out.
Q4 assumes the center. It is Kuyperian and believes that Christ is Lord of every square inch of earth. It assumes that He is King of every molecule and thought and policy and association in existence, in heaven and on earth. He is the arche and to Him all things will be organized as under one Head.
Final Analysis:
Q1: ChristiUNdity
Q2: ChristiANDity
Q3: Benedict option
Q4: Boniface option
Q3 and Q4 are the only permissible Christian approaches. Q1 unseats Christ as King by implying there are two kingdoms: one belonging to the world and one belonging to Jesus. It puts the UN in Christian.
Q2 seeks to make the throne so large that anyone can fit on it, thus functionally eliminating the rule and reign of Jesus by crowding Him out. It is the classic error of subtraction by addition, i.e. Christ + AND. To add anything to Him is to take away from Him.
Q3 is a way of retaining a world where Christ is Lord by retreating. There is a time where resistance is no longer possible and retreat is recommended, even by Jesus: e.g. pregnant before the siege of Jerusalem. If you see the city surrounded, head for the hills. However, that is under only extreme situations in order to preserve the seed so that it may be sown again to sprout in broad daylight.
Q4 is the approach of Boniface, who chopped down the sacred tree of Thor and used the lumber to build a church. It is aggressive and assumes the center. It expects the kingdom of God to manifest itself more and more as we believe and behave accordingly. You cannot compartmentalize Christianity and retain an orthodox faith. You cannot accommodate the world and retain an orthodox faith. You can attempt to save the treasure by burying it or hiding it in the attic if the Gestapo is on to you... OR you can invest the treasure into expansion efforts in expecting to see compound interest work in your favor for the glory of God. Q3 and Q4 fight for the faith. The one seeks to shelter it from the world, the latter seeks to overwhelm the world. Q3 imagines Christianity as on an Ark escaping from the flood. Q4 imagines Christianity as the flood filling the earth and overwhelming it all (Hab. 2:14, Isaiah 11:9) until even the last enemy, death, will be capsized by the storehouse of Heaven opening up entirely upon it.
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