Why 20 and 30 Somethings Are Leaving the Church

I'm a couple weeks behind in my reading, but last month Christianity Today ran a really interesting piece on why 20 and 30 somethings are leaving the church.

As someone who's spent much of the the last 15 years trying to help 18-22 year olds grow up into the church, this article struck a deep cord in me.

It's worth a read for anyone who's a 20 or 30 something, who's in church or para-church ministry, or who finds themselves one of those 20 or 30 somethings who left the church along the way.

Check it out here.

Good Riddance to the Christendom Inoculation

So some of you (for reasons I can only imagine) follow along with me in spite of the fact that you don't believe most of the stuff I post about. Thanks for coming along anyway!

Let me explain a little something about my people who inhabit my corner of the American sub-culture, a.k.a. evangelical Christianity.

For much of our country's history, Christianity had a good bit of sway. Even when people didn't subscribe fully to all the tenets, the basic Judeo-Christian framework was still the core operating system.

"Christendom" is one name given to an era when Christianity functions as a quasi-moral compass in the broader culture. I recently heard one boomer talk about how his parents were committed Christians and his in-laws were not, but their lives looked basically the same on the outside.

Christendom ruled over "the greatest generation" of World War II vets up to the boomer generation, and so there was a good deal of commonality in terms of the day-to-day practices of many--obviously with lots and lots of exceptions. This was true even as there were tremendous assaults on the validity of the Bible and church authority throughout the early part of the twentieth century.

That's shifted a good bit over the past couple of generations. And many folks in my part of the world (particularly the really, really theologically and politically conservative ones) are really upset about the loss of "Christendom."

But I live and minister in a part of the country where Christendom still holds some sway. And at times I find it more difficult, not less, to talk about matters of faith in ways that are fresh and awakening.

"Inoculation" is when people get a weakened form of a virus or disease in order to build up appropriate anti-bodies to fight off the genuine form of the virus or disease. This is the deadly fruit of Christendom. They become inoculated with a weaker form of Christianity and thus resist the real thing.

Many of the people I work with have all the right vocabulary and all the wrong definitions. They think they already "get" Jesus, sin, grace, forgiveness, mercy, justice and the like. They don't (not that any of us do), and it's infinitely more complicated because they think that they do.

And that's in large part what I fight against as I wage war against Christendom here in the South. Christendom is not a friend except to those Christians who value a "same as me" cultural hegemony and familiarity and comfort over the genuine engagement with the truth of the gospel. Christendom is an enemy of the true gospel. Thank goodness it is dissipating...even here in the South.

Kierkegaard (a long-dead philosopher) has this to say: "Remove from the Christian Religion, as Christendom has done, its ability to shock, and Christianity...is altogether destroyed. It then becomes a tiny superficial thing, capable neither of inflicting deep wounds nor of healing them"

Confusion and Rays of Clarity About the Meal Jesus Gave Us

Thursday leading up to Easter is called "Maunday Thursday" in the Christian calendar. "Maundy" is from the Latin meaning "mandate," as in Jesus mandated that we eat the bread and drink the cup--communion or the Eucharist.

Which is all well and good except that ever since last Thursday I've been realizing that, with all apologies to my sacramental-type friends in the Anglican, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Lutheran traditions, I just don't get it.

Growing up in Baptist churches with a communion service maybe once a quarter, I realize that communion in my contexts had a low value and Scripture a very high value. And I think that if I had to choose one or the other, I'm glad for the tradition that I grew up in.

Bottom line, how do people grow spiritually? Communion wouldn't make my top five, maybe not even my top ten. I don't believe that taking communion will break someone's porn addiction, for example. But Scripture, prayer, community, accountability... I have seen these things make a difference.

Take away communion, people can still grow. Take away Scripture or prayer, not so much. So what's this thing all about?

I was pondering these things as I visited a church on Sunday. They happened to be having communion this past week. And for a variety of reasons I was deeply impressed with my need. My need for mercy, for strength, for new life, for refreshing.

And then I got the elements. And something about the bread and the cup impressed the reality on me: I had already received those things I felt I needed. Mercy? Strength? New Life? Check, check and check again. I had been given those things and more in the work on the cross.

A little piece of bread and a shot of grape juice spoke those realities to me, re-oriented me around the most-true things that I had lost sight of in the clutter of my everyday life and the various and sundry tyrannies of the urgent.

I still have a long way to go to really "get" all that's wrapped up in the communion thing. I don't ever think that I'll be a full-fledged sacramental kind of guy. But the Lord shed some light last Sunday on a part of my corporate disciplines experience that I needed to be awakened to

Inheritance Greater than Rice-A-Roni

Yesterday afternoon I managed to pry myself away from college basketball for a couple of hours to lead our small group Bible study. I'm glad I did.

We dug into Ephesians 1:15-23. And there was one particular phrase that really caught my attention and (since I lead the thing) that I made our small group deal with:

[I pray that] that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints...

What I want that last line to say is "inheritance for the saints." But it doesn't say that. It says "inheritance in the saints." All about those stinkin' prepositions again. A couple of takes on this.

First, part of God's inheritance at the end of all things is his people. God has created all people and longs for all people to be his inheritance. But the reality is that not all will come to the party he is throwing. For those who do respond, we are richly treasured, glorious, objects of joy and delight. That starts today. God delights to have you for his inheritance today. Really. Soak in that for a second.

Secondly, God's people are a significantly rich part of our inheritance for one another. This section of Paul's prayer is listing the things available to the believer, the gifts that God longs to give us. Not only are we God's inheritance, we are the inheritance for one another, given to each other as part of our eternal joy and gladness.

If we move beyond the theory and to the practical, and if we're honest, many of us would find this disappointing. Most of us would prefer to self-select, to have our circle of friends from our church or our flavor of "the church" and not have to be associated with the rest. There are lots of annoying Christians out there, no matter how you slice it.

And so this sounds more like the consolation prize on Jeopardy then the real winner's take-home: a year supply of Rice-A-Roni while someone else got the jackpot. I want something better than to have to be stuck with this sorry lot called "the church" with all its embarrassments throughout the centuries.

But God, in his infinite creativity and with every possible resource at his disposal, has seen fit to so design our great inheritance with one another smack in the middle of it. If you are in Christ today with me, then you and I are given to one another right now and will be finally and eternally given to one another forever.

For those for whom this feels particularly repulsive, the good news is that this final giving will be as finished and fully redeemed people. But this has some immense ramifications for how we live life here and now.

If you are my inheritance, for example, I better care of you. Slandering you or gossiping about you, lying to you or using you for my own gain, despising you for either your weaknesses (to make myself feel good) or your gifts (which make me feel bad), all of these are out of order. You are my inheritance. It's time to treat you as such.

And "the church" that is so easy to hate on, those are your peeps, your eternal inheritance. Might be time to make peace with that now.

The Last Word on Christians in Politics

Okay, so maybe not the real last word, but the last word from me for a while. This passage of Scripture has profoundly shaped how I think about political stuff (so much so that I've blogged about it before), maybe it'll be helpful for you as well.

Joshua was leading the Israelites into their promised destiny after forty years of wanderings in the desert. Here's what happens from Joshua 4:

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come."

If ever any government or people-group had an officially God-sanctioned mandate to do something, it was Joshua with the Israelites. Yet even here, even as God's People, the Israelites, are about to take the land promised to them by Yahweh, the angel of the Lord refuses to take sides other than His own.

God is not a Republican. He is not a Democrat. He is not for America. He is not for Israel. He is ultimately not on any side other than his own. God is passionate for His own kingdom, His own glory. We dislike people who are like this, but God is a little bit different.

For a human to worship anything other than God is idolatory. If God were to exalt anything over Himself, even and especially humans, he, too, would be an idolator. So thankfully He doesn't. He is always and ultimately for Himself...which blesses us immensely. In so doing, he remains good. That is good news.

Circling back to Christians and politics, this is not to say that Christians should not affiliate or be committed to specific political parties. Christians are needed in both major parties to be salt and light.

But we do so as aliens, strangers, always. Neither party is the kingdom of God. Both have major flaws. We must soberly see those flaws clearly and work with love and faithfulness first to the Lord and secondly to the political parties we affiliate with.

This is not un-like our relationship with our jobs. A Christian IBM'er is to work faithfully and whole-heartedly, but ultimately realize that IBM is not the answer to the world's problems and there are going to be fundamental differences in terms of ultimate purpose.

I think history will show that the late-20th century move of evangelical Christians aligning themselves with the conservative right was pivotal in terms of mobilizing evangelicals to re-engage the political and social arena.

And I hope that the 21st century will show us mobilizing into every area of society, including both political parties, as agents of blessing, full of faith, hope, and love.

"The Coming Evangelical Collapse" Freak-Out Meets Evangelicals for Obama Bumper-Stickers

Yesterday I linked at the end of my post to an article by a current evangelical (which generally means "theologically conservative," for those of you outside our little fish pond) who predicted "the coming evangelical collapse." This aticle has generated much buzz in my part of the world--I've been forwarded a link to the article several times.

Here's his first reason why the collapse is coming:

Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

I think here the author, as in other places in the article, has a pulse on something but overstates and misses what has already happened around him.

Evangelicals, especially in their 30's and under, have already shifted away from being solely politically conservative. We are no longer in the hip-pocket of the Republican Party, thank goodness. The preponderance of "Evangelicals for Obama" bumper stickers are a small window into this movement.

Many, many 30-something and younger evangelicals voted for Obama. I did. I'm theologically conservative and socially/politically moderate. I voted for him while simultaneously preparing to work against him in regards to the abortion issue. It's not much different from backing Bush in previous elections while simultaneously preparing to work against him when it came to issues of the environment, gun control, and bending over backwards for big business.

Much of evangelicalism has waken up to the realization that we cannot be in the back-pocket of any one political party. What's pushing many of us past the stale old partnership with political conservatism is doing what evangelicals have always been famous for: reading our Bibles.

This is not to say that political liberalism is more biblical--it's to say that neither of them are biblical, so we must walk as faithfully as we can between the two and not be either groups "pet."

I've got theologically evangelical friends and students that I work with who range from libertarian to practically socialist. There's a political broadening already happening that will help evangelicalism to mature and continue to have an influence in our culture.

This is a good thing, and something that I think just might stave off "our collapse"...at least for a couple more years.

For a more comprehensive (and thoughtful) response to the article, check out Christianity Today's response here.

Irreligious-izing of America

Yesterday I read a story about a recent survey showing that America is becoming less and less religious. Specifically, less Christian. A couple of thoughts in response:

1. I think that the overall trend is true: Christianity is moving to the global South and East. America has only to look to Europe to see its religious future: a small band of faithful among a largely post-Christian, secular culture. I think that this might happen within the next 50 to 100 years.

2. The survey finds that the biggest losers are the mainline churches: Methodists, PC-USA, United Church of Christ, the Episcopal and Lutheran churches and others. Many of these churches have drifted so far away from historically faithful Christianity that they can barely be called Christian any more. Good riddance.

And so from this perspective, I think that this shift to a less culturally "Christian Nation" is a good thing. There are fewer people living a lie. There's more integrity in saying that you don't believe something than to go through the motions of some Sunday morning ritual that is done mostly out of habit or to gain social and/or business contacts.

It also sometimes makes for easier conversations about Jesus. One evangelism specialist I talked to said that his response rates in the more secularized, less churched North is way higher than his response rates in the more culturally-churched South.

People have been inoculated in the South with a weakened form of Christianity. They know the words but have all the wrong definitions. They think they know Jesus, but they don't. They have a truncated picture of him but they don't realize it.

3. Of course, the flip side of the good thing is that there is an experience of grace even in cultural Christianity. For example, to know the ten commandments and to somewhat live by them has a blessing innately woven into it. To attempt to live life cut off from our Source and our Purpose or the operating instructions given to us has innate consequences.

4. In the end, the article notes that evangelical churches, particularly mega-churches, are the ones that buck the trend and are booming. This makes sense as the corollary to point 3 above: as people grow tired of religious stuff that means nothing (as generally exercised in the mainline church), they either leave the church or they search for the real thing.

I think that that this is a unique time for the church in America. There is so much shifting ground both within the church and in the broader culture.

Evangelical Christianity is uniquely wired to respond to these changes because we've always believed that we had a message worth communicating to the culture, no matter what the cost. It remains to be seen if we've got what it takes to deal with the incredibly complex challenges coming at us right now.

One (Christian) commentator thinks that evangelicalism in the U.S. will collapse in the next 10 years along with the mainline churches. Some of it--maybe much of it--needs to die. It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

Catalyst #8: A Multi-Lingual Theology

Catalyst #8: That all our theology is language-based, which is shaped by culture. Can any one language or culture tell the whole story of God? Emergents by and large plead for a multi-lingual approach to telling God's story, which fits with their earlier influences of pluralism and mulit-culturalism.

Huzzah!
This is a great, great stride in western Christendom...and one that will eventually yield much fruit in terms of a fuller, richer understanding of God and the work of Christ.

The Danger
The danger here is a reverse discrimination against the rich heritage and legacy of God's work throughout the centuries in the west. In other words, as we're embracing a more global understanding of God's kingdom and entering into a richer dialogue, let's not chuck a couple thousand years of God's work in Europe and America.

The Verdict
This is good for evangelicalism in particular, as we figure out how to engage a multi-ethnic, pluralistic world. We've got to have a Christ-centered, multi-lingual gospel.

Thus endeth the posts on the Emergent Church...and the pressing issues that I see in my students all the time!

Catalyst #7: Homosexuality

Catalyst #7: Homosexuality. They are convinced that sexuality is complicated, are committed to having relationships with all types of people, and live in a tension with the Bible about what to do about this issue.

Huzzah!
Hooray for a more thoughtful, nuanced, and well-informed engagement with this issue...and for genuine relationships that help us to push past caricatures to engaging with real people.

The Danger
A couple of years ago I had an epic conversation with a number of people over this issue. If you missed it, click here. Scroll down to the post starting on Oct. 5, 2006 and read through the comments and then some of the posts afterwards.

My bro also had a really good post (and a long string of dialogue) over on his blog a couple weeks ago.

The Verdict
I think that the homosexuality issue and the "do all religions lead to God" issue will be the two most fracturing questions in all of Christendom over the next fifty years.

The acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual marriage will move more and more front-and-center in our culture--it is already starting to eclipse the abortion issue as the boundary-line of conservative v. liberal politics. If we're going to hold to historically orthodox thinking on the purpose of sexuality, gender, image-bearing and marriage, we better have clear and solid thinking. And then we need clear and solid pastoral answers to the inevitable questions that will come.

Catalyst #6: Scripture and a Loving God

Catalyst #6: For some the Bible has portrayals of God that does not square with their understanding of God as loving. So often they will mythologize or allegorize some portrayals of God (often in the OT) and say that later pictures are the real thing--i.e. Jesus as the perfect picture of the God who is altogether gracious and loving.

Huzzah!
Hmmm...well, I agree with the "Jesus as the perfect picture of God" part...

The Danger
The danger here is that we are always tempted to make God into our own image. My systematic theology professor called it "going around the circle the wrong way."

Here's how this works: we start our engagement with God with us. We come with our own ideas of what a loving/just/perfect/righteous God "should" look like. We then encounter the God of the Bible and are shocked that somehow God doesn't look like *we* think he should. Who knew that my opinion would not be the perfect arbiter of what a perfect God is?

So we have a decision to make. We can reject this God. We can try to figure out a way around the description of this God. Or we can have our very definitions of what a loving, just, perfect, righteous God looks like re-defined by this God.

My professor exhorted us to think around the circle the other way. We do what we can to come to the God of the Scriptures ready to have that picture and that God inform our understanding of what a just/loving/perfect/merciful God is, rather than with our own agenda of what that God should look like.

This is Christianity, not Unitarianism. You don't get to get a ball of Play-Dough and decide what shape God is. God is mercy and love and justice, and his character and actions are what define what those words mean. There is no such thing as mercy and justice and love as disembodied, ethereal ideas. Love and justice and mercy are found alive and active and perfectly at work in God--yes, fully in Christ but it's the same God at work throughout the Scriptures.

Are we, then, the perfect evaluators of what true love, what true mercy, what true justice, what true judgment and righteousness and redemption are all about? Aren't all our definitions shaped by our own experiences, the cultures we live in, the whims of the times we happen to inhabit and how our digestive tract happens to be responding to the food we just ate a couple of hours ago?


The Verdict
Depending on the severity and the direction of this line of thinking, it's simply a re-mixed version of an old heresy: the Old Testament God is different from the New Testament God.

Post-modernity as a cultural movement is simply an over-reaction of the heart to the previous over-reaction of the head of modernity. In short, post-modernity tends to encourage us to think with our hearts. That's not always bad. But this is a good example of where it can go wrong.

Again, I'm not trying to say that there aren't hard things in the Scriptures that sometimes don't make sense. I'm not trying to flatten out a complex issue--there is some funky stuff in the OT especially that I sometimes just sit before and I say to God, "why?"

But I think that to iron out those tensions by simply writing them off conveniently as allegory or not "really" telling us what God is like at all is to miss the point. It gets us off the hook too easily. I think we're supposed to live in that tension, not erase it by pulling a Thomas Jefferson and whiting-out the passages we don't like.

Catalyst #5: Pluralism

Catalyst #5: The public schools message of multi-culturalism and pluralism conflicted with their church's teachings that those outside of Christ were doomed. "Possessing both a faith that is particular and an intimate knowledge of religious pluralism prodcued a tension that was nearly intolerable." This leads them to a religious pluralism or a much broader interpretation of what it means to be "a Christian."

Huzzah!
The need for Christians to engage with a genuinely pluralistic world with compassion and dialogue and winsomeness is well past.

The Dangers
Oi. This could take a couple of posts. Let me see if I can pitch my case against capitulating to a "all religions (or maybe just most religions) lead to God," even if that feels better.

#1. Most 21st century westerners smugly assume that we're living in the first pluralistic culture, or at least that the first century AD was a fairly and charmingly sweet and simple time. This is patently false. A quick glance through the book of Acts shows a veritable plethora of engagement with all kinds of religious practices: centuries-old religions alongside magic and sorcery alongside sophisticated philosophies.

In every case, in every cross-cultural and cross-religious engagement, the new Christians were adamant: what had happened in the death and resurrection of Christ was a new and final and decisive God-event that had ramifications for all peoples, everywhere.

The early disciples absolutely did not celebrate the religious diversity that they encountered. They were sickened and saddened by it. And they countered it at every turn with the news of the God who had come to live and die and conquer the grave for them.

It was this essential, urgent message that compelled the early Christians through the first centuries to death at the hands of lions and paranoid emperors and dungeons and swords and famines.

#2. If all roads lead to God, then the Christian story makes no sense. If Jesus comes and hijacks a perfectly fine Jewish religious system that leads people to God anyway, why bother? Why not just leave the Jewish people alone if Judaism will lead them to God anyway?

If any and every (or at least most) religions lead to God without all the blood and sweat of Gethsemane and the horror of the cross, what's the point? Is all that just a charade, a giant show, a sham? It would seem that it's not only a nice thing that God comes and dies for our sins. It would seem that if there's any other way, that cup might have passed...in fact, the entire incarnation might have passed.

Here's where the weak understanding of the cross that we discussed in an earlier post really hurts the Emergent movement.

#3. In fact, Jesus is perpetually correcting both Jews and Gentiles. He tells the woman at the well in John 4 that the Samaritans don't know who or what they worship. They're wrong. And a time is coming when they will finally get a chance to get it right. And it's come because of him. That's the point.

#4. Who decides which religions lead to God? The KKK thought of themselves as a religion, do they get to God? What about people flying planes into towers? Clearly most of us think that some religions or at least some religious people don't get there.

So given that almost everyone believes that not everyone seems to know a God who is good and loving, even if they're religious in some sense, we're back to what Christians throughout the centuries have argued throughout the centuries. Not every religion leads to God. In the final analysis, most of us are just discussing which religions lead to God. Christians just argue that what God did in Christ is unique.

Throughout the centuries most of the major religions have held that there are significant, eternal consequences to the decisions we make regarding God. Of course, this has led us to do many stupid things on all sides. We do not have to kill each other to believe deeply that there are eternal consequences to our decisions.

The Verdict
This is more or less all bad. And if this continues to be a central plank of the Emergent church, it'll probably go the way of the mainline churches, which are dying by the boatloads as baby-boomers start to die. Nothing is at stake, so there's no fresh re-engagement with culture as it shifts.

This issue is a huge stumbling block for many, many people. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying that it takes a good bit of mental and theological gymnastics to adhere to historically orthodox Christianity and say that it doesn't really matter what you believe.

For a fantastic, thoughtful, not-angry but very thorough discussion of this stuff, check out The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbiggin. When I'm swimming in the fog of this question and asking the hard, heart questions of how this can possibly be good news, I re-read some Newbiggin and he helps me to re-find my bearings

Catalyst #4: Church Failure

Catalyst #4: Emergents grew up in a time of serious public failings of evangelical leaders (Ted Swaggart and Jim Baker). This amplifies the feelings of cynicism towards the church as a viable institution...and creates the felt need to start over with greater authenticity.

Huzzah!
Yay for a commitment to greater authenticity and integrity within the church. This is clearly not only a problem for people who grew up in the church but also for people who look at the church from the outside.

The Danger
The dangers here are the same as with any new start-up that's attempting to break away or re-form something that they see as antiquated or no longer functioning: it becomes self-righteous (everyone else is doing it wrong and we've got it right) or more reactive (this is what we're NOT) rather than pro-active (this is who we are and what we're doing).

There's also the temptation/desire to make the break so badly that you chuck stuff that's good. This certainly happened to some extent in the Protestant Reformation. It's certainly happening some here in the Emergent church as well, at least in some parts of it.

I also find in my situation that bashing on the church (both to Christians and non-Christians) garners cheap trust. Hey, I'm cool, I think that the church by-and-large is a really screwed up institution that can't be trusted and is pretty much a disaster top to bottom. So we're all on the same side! Most all of my students are cynical towards the church.

So the danger here is that we feed into cynicism (which is a sin) rather than do faithful re-hab that genuinely acknowledges the brokenness of the church and also the beautiful and glorious stuff about the church throughout the centuries: schools built, drinking water purified, hospitals and orphanages and disaster teams. It's not all bad. In other words, we need to be honest about the church as it truly is--and still love it. Christ does.

The Verdict
I think that there's some good stuff here...just depends on how it all plays out in the individual church and in the individual lives.

Back to the Original Program

Catalyst #3: Their educational history and experiences have led emergents to disown the idea that when science and the Bible contradict that science must step aside. They refuse to give the Bible the "trump card." They remain committed to it, but with a different view as to what it actually is and how it works as a piece of literature to describe the workings of the cosmos. They are both left and right wing, committed to the Bible and open to new ideas.

Huzzah!
I believe that this is primarily aimed at the relatively small percentage of evangelicals who hold to a very strict reading of the creation account in the first few chapters of Genesis. Not being one of those myself, and in fact often feeling embarrassed on their behalf, I find this move good.

The Danger
Some of the dangers here are the same as in the earlier posts discussion about moving beyond "Scriptural inerrancy."

But a specific issue to consider in this case has to do with the relationship between science and faith. Forgive me for again going to C.S. Lewis, but he's good here..as he is with so many things!

Lewis argues that we should neither be too quick to proclaim victory when "the sciences" (everything from physics to biology to even archeology) seem to agree with a Biblical account or portrayal of the world. Nor should we be too intimidated when the sciences reach conclusions that appear dismissive of the Christian understanding of the world.

To borrow a phrase from a column I recently read, the general public squints at the world of "science" and considers it to be uniform mass of well-educated, white-coated people who with one voice reach firm conclusions about "the world of facts" and "how things are" that leaves no room for doubt or discussion.

In reality there is a very small slice of the body of scientific knowledge where this is true. The rest of it ebbs and flows like fall and spring fashions. Read journals from fifty years ago and you'll find any number of discoveries that appeared to be certain at the time that have since been disproved or nuanced or corrected or completely overhauled.

The Verdict
So if we're not going to give the Scriptures a literalists "trump card," let us also be slow to turn and give the world of the sciences that same card. And let us walk in humility and wisdom, winsomeness and thoughtfulness as we interact with the ancient wisdom of the Scriptures and twenty-first century understandings of how the world works.

Thinking about Church

We live in a time when there's a lot of anti-institutionalism in the air. "I love Jesus but I hate the church" is a theme that keeps reappearing with variations in many settings.

So it is interesting to note that Jesus, who in abridged form is quite popular with the non-church crowd, was not anti-institutional. Jesus said, "Follow me," and then regularly led his followers into the two primary religious institutional structures of his day: the synagogue and the temple. Neither institution was without its inadequacies, faults, and failures. The temple especially was shot through with corruption, venality, injustice, discrimination.

The temple was immense and beautiful. Jesus didn't seem to be impressed. All the same he didn't boycott the place. He didn't avoid either synagogue or temple. He regularly joined the prayers of in the small-town synagogues scattered around Galilee. He made regular pilgrimages with thousands of his countrymen at the appointed times of festival worship to the Jerusalem temple.

Those who followed Jesus, followed him into those buildings, those religious institutions. After his ascension they continued to frequent both temple and synagogue. Given the stories that the four Gospel writers have written for us, it doesn't seem likely that, if Jesus showed up today and we were invited to follow him, we would find ourselves taking a Sunday morning stroll out of the city: away from asphalted parking lots, away from church buildings filled with people more interested in gossip than gospel.

We sometimes say, thoughtlessly I think, that the church is not a building. It's people. I'm not so sure. Synagogue and temples, cathedrals, chapels, and storefront meeting halls provide continuity in a place and community for Jesus to work his will among people. Following Jesus means following him into sacred buildings that have a lot of sinners in them, some of them very conspicuous sinners. Jesus doesn't seem to mind.

A spirituality that has no institutional structure or support very soon becomes self-indulgent and subjective and one-generational.

-taken from The Jesus Way (pgs. 230-232)
Eugene Peterson

Wheat & Weeds

A couple of weeks ago at Rockbridge I was talking with a student who was struggling with her churched upbringing. She was particularly frustrated with the fact that the church seemed so apathetic towards the things that seemed to really matter. So many people there seemed to be so cold and lifeless. She still liked Jesus, but was really unsure about the church as an institution.

I pointed her to a parable that Jesus told. A man plants wheat in his field. An enemy comes along and plants weeds. His servants realize what's happened and they ask the master if they should pull up the weeds. Don't, he says. You'll accidentally pull up the wheat, too. Let's wait, let them grow up together, and we'll separate it out at the end.

This is the church.

Of course, it was like this from the very beginning. Jesus picks twelve. One of them is a traitor. He was a hypocrite--the gospel writers record that he kept the treasury and would regularly steal from it. You wonder if anyone inside or outside of the company of the apostles knew about Judas' thieving habits. You wonder why Jesus would suffer to be associated with such sleaze. Doesn't he have a reputation to uphold?

Judas and the disciples grow up together. And in the end one of them plunges into the darkness to betray the Lord of the cosmos.

If Jesus had a hypocrite in his company from day one why do we expect our experience of his people to be any different?