The Pretty Tents of Wickedness

Engage Carefully

If you’re a Christian, there’s a particular passage that should shape your social life. It’s in Psalm 84:10-11, and it reads:

“For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD bestows favor and honor: no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

It’s easy enough to reject the uglier “tents of wickedness,” but we may find it harder when the tents looks pretty. If you haven’t noticed, wealthy tents—their circles of prestige, beauty and accomplishment—usually look very pretty!

We might envy those wealthy friends who glide among prominent social circles. It seems that life, for them, is full of pleasures, treasures, and prestige. Their unexamined lives seems to work for them, not against them. If you’re a believer living in such a culture, you may fee out of step with this dynamic, even if you enjoy similar financial success.

I live among many such people, and some are my friends. They’re members of the best clubs, with homes on the best streets, and second homes on the best lake, beach, or mountain. Their kids are usually popular in high school; in college, they’ll join the most exclusive sorority or fraternity. Later, they’ll graduate and find a fantastic job—often because they know the right people. This isn’t unique to my city, nor is it inherently wicked; it’s just life among the accomplished and connected.

Sadly, though, many of these pretty (and politically conservative) people also give lip service to “God and country” but have little interest in knowing God, taking him seriously, or seeing his kingdom expand. For all their family money, success and vaunted philanthropy, they are spiritually impoverished.

To be sure, they will claim a connection to the Christian faith, but it’s a tenuous one at best; Christian holidays, weddings and funerals are the only things that inspire their visits to the fashionable local church. They may be members of some venerable old cathedral, but they have little concern over the false teachers who occupy its pulpit.

Our wealthy, pretty, successful and philanthropic friends may, in fact, be living “in the tents of wickedness.” No doubt this seems a harsh condemnation of many well-meaning people who are law-abiding stalwarts in the community—perhaps a little too “fire and brimstone” for some ears. This isn’t just for the tent-dwellers, though; the Psalmist provides a warning and a promise to us all.

When we imagine these biblical tents, we’re more likely to imagine uglier and more obvious evils— the drugged underbelly of the entertainment industry, corrupt politicians and their political bretheren, or groups that advance shamelessly perverse agendas. We might imagine the seedy side of Las Vegas, or the gang violence and graffiti of New York.

If these are our only images of the tents of wickedness, we are sadly mistaken. The tents of wickedness are in our own towns. They are in our neighborhoods, encamped around our expensive schools—and they even look like churches. From the outside, they’re appealing, and even welcoming. “Come on it, grab and drink, and have a good time.” There’s usually only one rule: “Don’t get too serious about God!”

Before anyone gets offended, let me be clear that I’m not condemning parties, beautiful homes or old churches. More broadly speaking, I’m not condemning wealth and achievement. We can’t condemn things that—when stewarded biblically— are part of God’s good creation and reflect his character. Legalism is not pleasing to God; it’s a standard feature of false gospels and serves only to inflate pride.

Serious Christians must, however, take a dim view of the prevailing social culture when it treats God lightly and enthrones his many counterfeits. We should bristle when robed priests and vicars preach universalism; we should feel uncomfortable when popular charities advance leftism or glamorize philanthropy. It should pain us to see private school chaplains lying about God and hiding the true gospel. Those who lie about God will one day answer to his wrath.

Nonetheless, our vocation, neighborhood or school may surround us with souls firmly gripped by wealth culture and its gilded deceptions; but rather than stand at a distance in disgust (as I’m often tempted to do), we must point them to Christ through our counter-cultural—but joyful and productive—lives.

A counter-cultural life counts all those enviable things as trash compared to knowing Jesus Christ. It’s not a life of virtue-signaling. It’s one that celebrates excellence but pursues it as an act of worship that points to God, not self. Importantly, it’s one that refuses curry favor with the world by serving as a weather vane, always moving with the cultural winds.

It doesn’t mean we frown at achievement, sanctify mediocrity, neglect our property, or shun those who don’t know God. Our accomplished friends and neighbors, even the ones who dwell in the glamorous tents of wickedness, are people who need the gospel—just like underprivileged and addicts who rightly attract our charity and sympathy.

Raising a Christian family among the privileged has its challenges, then. Nice-looking people who have nice jobs, nice schools and nice clothes may live in the tents of wickedness. It’s hard to see evil lurking in the stately and curated homes of high achievers or at their glitzy galas. Despite this challenge, we cannot and should not withdraw from the world.

We have a double-sided duty, then: As believers armed with light and hope, we must engage the people around us, not avoid them. We are God’s ambassadors, after all, and ambassadors take the King’s message abroad. We can’t hide in a bubble; we’re called to salt the culture with the elevating influences of biblical truth. At the same time, we must “hate even the garment stained by this world’s many corruptions. If we grow too comfortable among the surrounding tents, we may soon find that evils we once denounced are now hiding in our unsuspecting hearts.

What about the promise at the end—that “no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly”? All those popular and glittering things—the wealth, beauty, positions and whatnot—are on a short lifeline. They’ll suffer decline, deceive us, and go up in flames. True, they may earn us a few placards on walls or benches, but they will never give us the deep and driving joy that propels us not only now, but into eternity.

God always provides a promise with his warning. In place of earth’s counterfeit goods, he provides “every good and perfect gift from above” (James 1:17). We’ll never be deprived of any authentic and deeply satisfying good “in the courts of the Lord,” walking in faithful friendship with the God of the universe.

In the end, being faithful ambassadors for Christ among the tents of wickedness demands that we travel their streets only in the Holy Spirit’s power. Without his searching guidance, we’re prone to wrong turns that would lead us not just among or near, but straight into their wickedness. With his guidance—though surrounded by worldlings and their fashionable tents—we’ll enjoy our plenty in the sturdier courts of the Lord.