Outback Christians

There is an immense stretch of uninhabited territory in Australia’s interior. Australia’s land mass is nearly as vast as that of the continental US (carve off CA & FL and you about have it), yet the entire population of Australia is less than 4 times that of Minnesota! The vast majority of this sparse population hugs the coastline. So with only 20 million people ringing earth’s largest island, the vast interior is one desolate stretch of dusty waste—Australia’s celebrated “Outback.”

A documentary surfaced some years ago that included the vignette of a man who lives alone in a small house in the Outback a gazillion miles from the nearest human being. This modern day hermit is so isolated, his only routine contact with people comes when the infrequent train passes near his place and railroad employees kick off a crate of supplies as they speed past. That’s all the face time this mate needs, or wants!

Perhaps we chuckle at such a guy (rather than merely pity him) because we can identify with his isolationism. It is not always easy to live in community with people, and sometimes you wonder if a little shack in the middle of the Outback wouldn’t suit you just swell for a year or two…or fifty!

But our chuckles are also tinged with a dash of scorn because we intuitively recognize this hermit is playing a game. This man cannot live in isolation from other human beings any more than a dolphin can live without water. He survives off the cooperative industry of people who laid rail lines across the Outback. He depends on railroad employees to transport and deliver his supplies. Even the crating that holds those supplies and sustains their unceremonious toppling from speeding trains reflects a long cooperative chain of human endeavor: from felling trees, to processing the lumber, to constructing the crate, to the marketing and sales efforts of the chain of companies involved in the process of producing crates. So this isolationist may not do a lot of communicating with other people, but it would be misguided to think he is independent of human cooperation. No one lives alone.

By creative design, each of us is innately dependent upon human partnerships. At the dawn of human history, Adam and Eve had to partner together to procreate. Their infant sons, Cain and Abel, were dependent upon their mother’s milk for life. Before long Cain was farming the land for food and Abel was herding sheep as primitive agricultural, horticultural and textile industries formed out of humanity’s mutual cooperation in the God-given quest to subdue the earth for the glory of His name and to propagate the human race (Gen. 1:26-30; 4:1-2, 17-22).

The mischief—in our hard-wiring as communal beings created to subdue the earth together for God’s glory—is the potential we have to utilize our communal capacities for ill. We can join efforts not only to labor for God’s kingdom on earth, but to spend our energies constructing kingdoms for the glory of self. Such endeavors constitute rebellion against our Creator, desynchronize us from our creative purpose, and subject us to the destructive consequences of our folly (Gen. 11:1-9; Judges chapters 19-20; Rom. 1:18-32). Communal endeavor is, in itself, a good thing—a necessary thing—but it can degenerate into a hideously evil thing as well. One need only mention the collaborative atrocities of the German Nazis two generations ago to illustrate the point beyond dispute. The canvas of human history is widely splattered with horrendous accounts of collaborative degeneracy.

According to the Bible, the only solution to collaborative evil is the transformation of human hearts from evil to good, and the establishment of one mind to rule them all. On both counts the answer is Jesus Christ (Ps. 2; Isa. 11:1-10; 52:13-53:12; Mic. 4:1-5; Acts 2:14-39).

Ironically, too many self-proclaimed followers of Jesus Christ proceed in emulation of the Outback hermit. “Faith is a private matter. No need for community. Me and Jesus have this thing going, but it’s really got nothing to do with other Christians.”

Resting tenuously on the collaborative efforts of other Christians to print Bibles (or some other such kick-the-crate-off-the-train service), such Christians largely isolate themselves from any vital relationship with, or accountability to, a community of believers. Granted, community life has its problems, but followers of Jesus should also recognize that, to paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thesis in Life Together, Jesus died alone that we might live together.

As a Lutheran pastor, Bonhoeffer resisted the collaborative evil of the Nazi regime. On the other hand, he realized the saving grace of Jesus not only transforms individual hearts, it transforms a community—a community that rejoices to be directed by the mind of Jesus and to subdue the earth to the glory of His name, as His people. Outback isolationists in the Christian realm are no mystery—life together is certainly complicated—but if you are such a Christian, you are missing one of the central reasons for your existence (Eph. 2:11-22, 4:1-16; 1 Cor. 12:12-27). The Christian Outback is a place to retreat on occasion. It is no place to live.

Dan Miller has served as the Senior Pastor of Eden Baptist Church since 1989. He graduated from Pillsbury Baptist Bible College with a B.S. degree in 1984 and his graduate degrees include a M.A. in History from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and the M.Div. and Th.M. from Central Baptist Theological Seminary. He is nearing completion of D.Min. studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dan is married to Beth and the Lord has blessed them with four children: Ethan, Levi, Reed and Whitney.