National Barn Cleaning Week - Glenn Conjurske

National Barn Cleaning Week

by Glenn Conjurske

My readers will probably wonder what barn cleaning has to do with Christianity. I am equally at a loss to know what the political activity of the modern church has to do with Christianity. I do know that we see never a whit of such activity in Christ or any of his apostles—-not a whiff, not a scent, not a shred, not a scintilla, not an iota of political activity in the New Testament. Paul’s claiming of his Roman citizenship is the only text which is usually pressed into service for this purpose, and that really has nothing to do with the subject.

The aim and end of the political activity of Fundamentalism is to clean up the world—-to “reclaim America for Christ,” as I recently saw it expressed in a Christian political flier—-but anyone who knows what the world is must certainly know that this is as hopeless as cleaning the barn. Farmers can doubtless tell us that there is no such thing as a “National Barn Cleaning Week.” Nevertheless, some years ago I saw a sign in a cow barn which said,

National Barn Cleaning Week
January 1 —- December 31

And so it is also with the political activity of the church. It is as never-ending as cleaning the barn, and as futile also. Though the barn-cleaning goes on forever, the barn is never clean, for though the government may require us to install a bathroom in the barn, the cows will never learn to use it. There is only one possible way to thoroughly and permanently clean the barn, and that is to turn the cows out. The barn is dirty because the cows are in it, and nothing short of turning them out will ever clean it.

Just so with the endeavors of the church to clean up the world. The world is dirty because the devil and all his demons are in it. The devil is its prince and its god, and so long as he is so, the world will be just what it is. You can no more clean up the world without putting the devil out of it than you can clean the barn without turning out the cows. For a hundred years American Evangelicals have been cleaning up the country, the government, the schools, the laws, the theater, the radio and television—-in short, “reclaiming America for Christ”—-and yet the whole of it remains just as dirty as ever, and we think a good deal dirtier now than it was a hundred years ago. So what has the church gained for all its pains? When Christ returns, he will turn the devil out, and then the world will be cleaned up. Meanwhile, why does the church waste its energies in a hopeless task, for which it has not a single word of authority in the New Testament?

We do not fault the farmer for cleaning the barn. Though he will never get it quite clean, he may at any rate keep it cleaner than it would be otherwise. And some may suppose that though the devil yet reigns supreme in it, Christians may at any rate keep the world a little cleaner than it would be without their efforts. It may be there is a little less filth in the world for the efforts of Jerry Falwell and James Dobson and Beverly LaHaye. We frankly doubt it, for “the whole world” yet “lieth in the wicked one,” and he is yet its prince and god, for all the efforts of all our Dobsons and Falwells. But granting the world is a little cleaner for their efforts, this does not alter our position. It manifests a great lack of spiritual intelligence to labor to clean up the devil’s kingdom, while the devil remains its ruler and god, and Christ is cast out of it. The farmer does well to keep the barn as clean as may be, for it is his barn, but the world is not ours, nor Christ’s, but is the devil’s kingdom. “Let us go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.” There is our proper place, and our proper business.

And while we frankly doubt there is less dirt in the world for the political efforts of Christians, we are quite sure there is a good deal more dirt in the church. No man cleans the barn in his Sunday shoes. Farmers have more sense. Yet the political arena dirties the feet of all who enter it, as much as ever cleaning the barn could do. It robs men of the meekness of Christ and the spirit of the gospel, lowers their affections from heaven to earth, and fills their hands with carnal weapons. In short, it does no good to the world, and great harm to the church.

Glenn Conjurske