“12 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” (1 Cor 12:1-11 ESV)

Passwords and nimble demonstrations of allegiance, the Faith is mocked because its fiercest enemy—”Tell me where he is swaddled, that I may come and worship”—is bearing the cloak of a sheep. Just tell us, we are the people of your God and ours, we seek to worship. To submit. To assemble and revere the Almighty! The fiercest enemy moreover, is cloaked in the personal reassurance that they are Innocent, Right, Benign, Sheep. And moreover, this enemy has all the accoutrements of a Good Theological framework vis-a-vis Law. What’s that? A good framework yet an enemy? Yes! The sensibilities around thrift with finances, around trust networks and chastity of expenditures and the flesh, all these things happenschance Deliver their adherents to a prime Position and Entitled License: just tell the good judge you are a God-fearing simple Christian man or woman, and see the heart warm.

Or perhaps not. Grace dictates the antipode to Law by aligning Righteousness, the Faith, Belonging, Membership, with a topsy-turvy overturning of all things Holy especially… the Law of Moses. As handed down in Scripture. As safeguarded—nothing too too radical, brothers, sisters… we want it to go down somewhat easy—safeguarded by the saints of Antiquity.

And what of lost Scripture? There was a story told (“How can I help this aid agency or that prayer network?” “First Listen! Listen to where they are coming from!”) of a mottled, botched up effort to join a church and… upon rejection, not to go clamoring up the slippery slope of that one church body, but instead—cue hours of midnight tears—start the project Independent of that Church Body: the project of going Back to the childhood associations, to go back—as a new believer—to the unchurched but also those not poisoned Against said faith…

Needless to say it was a moonshot, but each of us is part of God’s Plan in one way or another. Each of us learns how dastardly those networks enshrined by Password (“Christ died for you!”) and protocol can be, not because God isn’t using them to prepare the way, but because the fiercest Battles are won not by the organization but by the inspired Individual: God has placed them at the helm for a reason, and thus “society sometimes just works…”: be subject to all earthly authority, because nothing is instantiated apart from God’s design. No ruler is in power except that God has licensed her or him for a season.

For a season: we submit to no man or woman in this world, since all are sinners: what would that look like, to covet having “a Don” (in the Oxford sense), “a Lord” (in the sense of the Hebrew tradition/scriptures, “a Head” (in common parlance) just as the Israelites wanted a king. But how and what to do when that head makes a mistake, or falls into sin? More, do you see how gentle the lines of trust are in the peaceable and Christian entanglement of friendlies, of souls, of networks? Always tempted to cry “Adultery!” or the opposite, to overlook that sins rear their ugly head again and again even and especially after we are long cleansed of them.

But what would that look like, and would such a “King”, “Lord”, etc. be available to—to quote only a bit perhaps a fashionable pastor of the last century—the washerwoman or the clerk, to the one in hospice care or the soldier on the front line? You ask for “Him”, that you might come and do reverence, but if they won’t listen to the Emissary (the ones sent) why would they listen to “Him”? No, you are not asking after Her or Him, but after acceptance and absolution. All things available to you by the Blood of the Son, who tore down in our hearts the dividing wall of hostility, making One People with His blood. And to that aid organization or that missionary empire of saints, your newfound friends are a bit post- Law, post-Password: you are recognizing a hardfought war, no longer just with animist or ancestral religions, but with the neighing sycophants of Law within the Body Herself. And you are Contributing of your own patient Judicious Care and Justice, Mercy, and Peace, to the welfare of the saints new and old. You know way more about this than the random street-corner dweller in a Western city, but perhaps they too do know something of a third culture, a global phenom found on those fascinating edges of tomorrow where the Future—not for the poor nor for the rich alone—is found. Where Chinatown in a Western city meets financial district, or where classy residential meets public park.