Letter to a Discouraged Student

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I share with you today a letter I wrote to one of my students. Months of lockdown, isolation, and uncertainty, is finally getting her down. A few days ago I wrote her a note hoping to remind her of what I know she believes in her heart of hearts. Unexpectedly, I found myself also reminded of what I believe and encouraged thereby. Perhaps it will remind you as well.

Dear Jody [Not her real name]:

I’ve been thinking over our recent conversation about the mood of discouragement that has come upon you in this time of isolation and uncertainty. I want to give you a word of encouragement. As our problems clamor for attention, it is easy to forget life’s most important issue the resolution of which will pronounce the verdict on our whole lives: will we remain faithful, do we really love God above all things, and do we trust him in life and in death. In all circumstances, this is the most important decision we must make. We have expectations and plans for our lives, and when they do not unfold as we had hoped, we feel abandoned by God. Jesus, the apostles, and all the saints of the Bible and Christian history tell us, however, that should not expect to have easy lives, with worldly success after success coming our way. Christ-formed souls cannot be mass produced on the broad way of comfort; they are forged in the furnace of testing, purified in the wilderness of loneliness, and made strong through bearing the cross.

We can be certain that God will give us what we need to win the real war and achieve true success. We need to get clear on this: no matter what happens to us, God has not and never will abandon us! Suffering, loss, and pain are not signs of God’s abandonment. Not at all! If we embrace these things as from the hand of our Father in heaven, they will remind us that the real battle is for our souls, not for our bodies, reputations, possessions, and successes. Even if you “lose” all these worldly things, you lose nothing of lasting value if you hold on to God. So, my word to you is this: determine now that you will trust him whatever the circumstances and that you will follow him to whatever end. Nothing in all creation can take from you the most precious thing you have: you are loved by your Father in heaven and by Jesus your Savior more than you can imagine.

May his Spirit pour his love into your heart so that you are lifted above all your troubles and look down on them as “light and momentary” (2 Cor 4:17) and as “not worth comparing” (Rom 8:18) to what we have and are promised. And remember Jesus’s words: “Do not be afraid” (Luke 12:32). Imagine him standing before you and saying those words to you in your circumstances. Well…he is alive, and he is saying them to you and to me. Let us receive them into our hearts and minds.

Blessings,

Dr Highfield

Roosters Crow, Politicians Lie, and Journalists Get in a Hurry

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As I often do, I recently received a request from a journalist to comment on current affairs as a theological expert. This journalist asked me to comment from a Christian perspective on President Trump’s legal effort urging the Supreme Court of the United States to declare the Affordable Care Act (“Obama Care”) unconstitutional. She is writing an article about what Christians think about this hot button issue. Here is what I said:

“Dear Kelly [Not her real name],

Your project is interesting from a political/journalism perspective. As a theologian and an expert in Christian theology and history, I rarely find that people understand the course of Christian history or the present shape of Christian faith and practice. In some ways, it is so much more complicated and in others so much simpler than the average journalist thinks. I think I can help you best by clarifying things for you.

Your question needs clarification in several ways. Your investigation seeks to discover “a Christian perspective on this action” (Trump supporting the Supreme Court overturning the ACA). First, there can be a huge difference between the political opinions of self-identified Christians and a viewpoint justified by thoughtful reflection on the original and normative sources that define what Christian faith is and what it demands of those who would be Christian. Consider an analogy: There are differences between what the “person on the street” thinks counts as a constitutionally guaranteed right and what the United States Constitution actually says or what the Supreme Court interprets it to say.

Second: I am a Christian theologian. My job is to reflect on how the original/normative sources define Christianity. Those sources are the life, teaching, deeds, and what happened to Jesus Christ and what his first followers (aka the Apostles) taught about Jesus’s significance. In fulfilling that role, I am not in the least interested in current political issues. Some self-identified Christians and some self-identified Christian clergy and theologians, like to present themselves as experts on public policy, and, like doctors or actors or literature professors who think their expertise in one area makes them experts on complicated public policy issues, they speak confidently about things of which they have little comprehension. They smash together things that ought to be distinguished clearly before they are carefully related.

Christian faith (the original!) must be distinguished from any political program, right, left or center, ancient, modern, or future. Christian faith is about GOD as known by and through Jesus. Anyone who makes God or Christ a means to any other end, has already abandoned the right order of faith. In biblical language, this switch is called idolatry. In my role as a theologian I am equally hard on people of the right or left or center when I sense that they are attempting to use faith for political ends. Politicians can’t help themselves: that is what they do. Roosters crow and politicians lie.

There is another distinction that must be made. Christianity demands that those who want to follow the way of Jesus love God above all other things and love their neighbors as themselves. In other words, Christianity makes heavy ethical/moral demands of its adherents. But we cannot transfer Christian ethics and morality directly to the public sphere. Christianity and the Christian way must be adopted freely and knowingly. But politics is a debate about what public policies can and must be enforced through coercion for the common good. Christianity wishes to persuade, not coerce. Hence there can be no one-to-one translation of Christian morality into political policy. Let me say that again: not possible! Not possible because there is an absolute contradiction between free choice and coercion.

Let me make one more point about this distinction. Christian morality is about what we ought to do in freely embraced obedience to God; it’s about what is right. And doing right is a Christian act only if one does that action because it is right—even if one sees that it is also good and helpful and wise. Politics and public policy are so much messier! It has to be realistic about how weak, irrational, and selfish human beings are. It has to take into account all sorts of competing interests and values. Again, no easy one-to-one transfer!

Christians have different opinions about all sorts of things: tastes of all kinds, financial strategies, child rearing, health practices, and educational values. Christianity does not provide cut and dried answers to our scientific, sociological, psychological, and personal questions. Nor does Christianity give a direct answer to public policy questions like the one you pose. Christianity assumes that believers will use their God-given reason to work out as best they can answers to these questions. For sure, Christianity envisions an ideal community. But that ideal community, I want to remind you again, must be freely chosen by people who love God and their neighbors from their hearts! That is never going to happen in this world. Never!

Hence like everybody else Christians must use reason in their efforts to think out realistic public policies. Aiming for a perfect society in this world is irrational because it would require one of two things (1) transforming all human beings into good angels or (2) massive coercion. Angels we are not, and using coercion to realize the perfect society is a contradiction in terms! Hence reason demands that public policy avoid utopianism for Christian reasons (no angels and no coercion) and enlightened self-interested reasons. Christians think about this problem on the same ground as everyone else. And even if all Christians cherish the same ideals, they often come to different conclusions about how best to embody approximations of those ideals in a secular society of imperfect people.

Specifically on the Affordable Care Act: Christian morality requires love of God and love of neighbor. But no one believes we should try to coerce everyone to love God and their neighbors! Christianity envisions an ideal community–called in the New Testament “the kingdom of God”—where everyone loves God and each other. But how do you translate that ideal into a society where most people do not love God above all things or their neighbors as themselves?

Complicating matters greatly from a rational point of view in the debate over the ACA is our inability in a world where most people do not love God and their neighbors to reconcile competing political/social/moral values: specifically, freedom versus compassion. Freedom and compassion are Christian values. Christianity envisions a society where people freely love each other. Hence compassion and freedom are not ultimately irreconcilable ideals…but not in this world! For Christianity, all good acts must be done freely. How could you love or exercise compassion unfreely? But the ACA, as is all law, is enforced through government coercion. To oversimplify matters and not to accuse anyone of ill will, it’s seems that those who support the ACA tilt things toward the compassion side and those against it favor freedom.

Hence there is no clear cut Christian answer to the ACA question. The truly Christian answer would be the arrival of the kingdom of God! A rational Christian person might aim for the most realistic balance between compassion and freedom possible in a society like ours. And this formula is not simple! And Christians won’t agree on the proper balance.

Let me state my final answer to your question: There is no Christian answer to your question. Notice that I did not say there is no one Christian answer, but there is no Christian answer to this rational question as surely as there is no Christian answer to a math or chemistry problem. Given the competing values (freedom and compassion) in our society of less than perfect people, there no easy rational answer either. Don’t believe anyone who says there is.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Ron Highfield”

“Thy Church Unsleeping” (Rethinking Church #30)

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Did I achieve my goal in writing this series? Did I clarify my relationship to the church and find a way forward? Perhaps I had already come to my conclusions and simply had to articulate in detail my reasons. Nevertheless, I have learned from this process. As readers of this series know, I was a leader—an elder—at the heart of a parachurch church for nearly twenty-three years. In this role, I gave lots of time and lots of money to its maintenance. I experienced lots of frustration and anxiety. And there were also moments of joy and success. I loved and still love the people. But my overall conclusion is that the system of organization and traditional social expectations limit how well such an institution can actually manifest the church in the world. Hence I came to the conclusion that I could no longer serve as a leader of an institutional church. Nor can I be an enthusiastic participant in the parachurch church project. I don’t want it to disappear, and I don’t want to discourage those who benefit from it from participation. I too can participate in it and support it in its role as a second circle bridging simple churches to the universal church. But I can no longer direct huge amounts of time and energy and money to its success as an institution. I need to use that time, energy, and money for something I really believe in.

As I said in previous essays, I am a professor, a theologian, a Christian, and a lover of the church. I have had the opportunity to receive an amazing education, and as a professor of theology, I have been given time to teach, read, learn, think, and write. I have had experience in the fulltime paid ministry and as a leader in a church. Hence I feel a call teach what I have learned to as many people as possible in whatever medium I can. As far as my relationship to the church, I participate in a simple church that meets in our house—or online during the pandemic. This has been one of the most profound and encouraging experiences of my life. But as a teacher of the faith I feel a call to serve all believers everywhere, the universal church. I don’t believe I—or any other theologian—should identify myself as a teacher of the specific doctrines characteristic of my tradition. I speak to everyone “as one without authority,” a phrase Kierkegaard used to describe his writing as someone lacking ordination. I view my ministry as trans-congregational and trans-denominational. Like a traveling evangelist—who travels mostly via the internet and books—I will preach the good news to anyone anywhere.

I end now with a prayer and one of my favorite hymns.

Prayer

Father in Heaven! Bless Thy church everywhere: the persecuted with courage and relief; the weary with rest and renewal; and the lukewarm with revival.

Come Holy Spirit! Quicken the dead; strengthen the weak, embolden the fainthearted.

Come Lord Jesus! Accompany those who must walk lonely paths, give your gentle presence to the dying, and gather your people into their eternal home.

Amen.

The day Thou Gavest

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended. The darkness falls at Thy behest;

To Thee our morning hymns ascended: Thy praise shall hollow now our rest.

We thank Thee that Thy Church, unsleeping, While earth rolls onward into light,

Thro’ all the world her watch is keeping, And rests not now by day or night.

The sun that bids us rest is waking Our brethren ‘neath the western sky;

And hour by hour fresh lips are making Thy wondrous doings heard on high.

So be it, Lord: Thy throne shall never, Like earth’s proud empires, pass away;

But stand and rule and grow for ever, Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

Keep it Simple (Rethinking Church #29)

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The essays today and tomorrow will bring this series on rethinking church to an end. As I stated in the first essay, my primary purpose has been to clarify my own relationship to the church and get a feel for a way forward. I hope that others may benefit from thinking along with me. I continue to believe that I can best help others by telling them what I see, understanding that each of us is placed differently.

A Simple Church

I wish that every Christian was part of a simple, small church. I hesitate to call it “a church” because the image of the parachurch with all its extra features inevitably comes into our minds. I prefer to think of it as the simplest manifestation of the church. Simple churches must guard their simplicity by limiting themselves as much as possible to the essential features, activities, and mission of the church, which I described in the first few essays in this series. The simple church owns no property, has no employees, and takes no collections. As far as the government is concerned, it does not exist. Its worship is not stage centered but community centered; and the community centers itself by focusing on Christ. It will—indeed, it must—have leaders and teachers, but everyone gets to participate. It is a family where even the little ones are honored. Everyone knows everyone. It is not a little church with ambitions of becoming a big church. It has no agenda and no ambitions but to love one another and help each other better to serve the Lord. It manifests the fullness of the church because Christ and the Spirit are there directing our attention to the Father.

The simple church can take many forms according to circumstances. If necessary it can be just your family, and in extreme circumstances even you alone. You may be part of many simple churches, for example, in online fellowship with far-flung friends. Your simple church gathering may welcome guests or it may be reserved for intimate friends. Worship can take many forms as long as it does not become stage centered. Keep it simple, and don’t forget why the church gathers.

Reform Parachurch Churches

In the previous essay, I proposed a concentric circle model of how individual Christians and simple churches can maintain communion with the whole church. As I argued, simple churches that close themselves to the universal church will become insular and one-sided. They will miss out on the gifts and insights God gives other believers. The parachurch church—the traditional church congregation—is first circle beyond the simple church.

I wish, therefore, that traditional churches would recognize their parachurch status and reform themselves to play that role more effectively. Parachurches cannot replace simple churches but can facilitate communication and fellowship among them and between them and the universal church. Parachurches churches can become places where the best teachers among the small groups and guests from elsewhere can share insights with the larger gathering. And they can facilitate cooperation among believers in projects that cannot be accomplished and should not be attempted by simple churches. Also, traditional churches, given their social visibility, can become a person’s first introduction to Christianity. They can provide some spiritual support for people that are not yet involved in simple churches.  However, parachurches should recognize that they cannot provide intimate the fellowship and the mutual encouragement possible in simple churches. Accordingly, I hope these churches will encourage all of their attendees to participate in something like what I call a “simple church.”

Next Time: My conclusions and my prayer.

What’s the Solution? Any Practical Advice? (Rethinking Church #28)

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I am a professor. As I look back on my life it seems that this is what I was destined to become. I love to learn and teach. Thinking is a passion and understanding a necessity. I want to know the truth of things, the cause of things, and the order of things. Everything is my subject. I don’t mean every subject—chemistry, physics, biology, and sociology—although I am interested in all things. I mean everything all together, the whole universe. What does it all mean? Why does it (and we!) exist, and where is it all going? I want to know its deepest secret, to see it, touch it, smell it, and taste it! I want to enter into it, be immersed in it and raptured by it. That is why I am a theologian. That is why I am a Christian. For me, the question is not “Why seek God?” The question is “Why seek anything else?” Why should I devote my energies to anything else but the best, greatest, and most beautiful of things?

I am in no position to judge my own abilities as a thinker and teacher, in absolute terms or in comparison to others. However I am pretty sure that I am better at thinking and communicating than at church planting and administration. So, when I am asked about the practical implications of what I’ve been saying in this series, I hesitate to give advice. Each of us has different experiences and finds ourselves in different situations. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Perhaps I can best help others by reflecting on what the series means for me.

I am a Christian, and I feel a special bond with other Christians. I want to enjoy their company—conversation, prayer, and worship. I want to give and receive, love and be loved, teach and be taught, strengthen and be strengthened. In other words, I need the church and I love it. There is only one church, because there is only one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one hope, one baptism, and one faith (Eph 4:4-6). But that church is scattered in time and space. We cannot know each and every member by physical proximity. Yet, I believe I have an obligation to establish a relationship to the whole church in every place and every time.

I think of that relationship as a huge set of concentric circles. We need an inner circle of friends with whom we can spend time in intimate fellowship. Without intimate fellowship of this kind we cannot experience true community, which is a taste of the kingdom of God. It’s not an adjunct, a recruiting tool for the big church. It’s the real thing. It is where we meet the living and breathing, feeling and thinking, flesh and blood church. It’s not the anonymous crowd or an impersonal institution or distant clergy. This inner circle can take many forms. However it must be open to the next circle and the next and the next, and so on until we’re in touch with the whole church. Why must we do this, and how can we accomplish it?

We need communion with the whole church because it is one and God gives gifts, insights, and experiences to every part, everywhere, and in every age. And every part needs what God has given to every other part. Cutting our little group off from the whole is like limping along with one leg, fighting with one arm, and flying with one wing. We get so focused on our little insights and limited experiences that we mistake the part for the whole. Each little church can be a manifestation of the whole church only as long as its circle is open to all the other circles.

How can our inner circle commune with the entire set of concentric circles? Perhaps here is a legitimate role for the parachurch church. Such churches provide places for many little inner circles to gather to hear from each other and from a wider circle of a tradition—Baptist, Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Wesleyan, Lutheran, and Anglican. As I have emphasized in this series, it’s important not to allow the parachurch church and the tradition it embodies to replace the inner circle of fellowship. But even they are too narrow to encompass the whole church. There are other traditions, wider circles to encounter. To receive God’s gifts and insights they preserve we will need to speak with or read the works of representatives of these traditions.

Different Protestant traditions need to maintain communication with believers from other Protestant traditions—Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist. Protestants must listen to Roman Catholic and Orthodox voices and vice versa. Each little circle needs to be informed in some way by the thought and experience of all the others. And all of the living need to listen to the voices from the past. The most important voice from the past is the Bible. But in every age certain Christian truths were perceived with great clarity and others were overlooked. Ours is no different. The church needs scholars who keep the past alive. It needs theologians who read the Bible and theological works from every era and every tradition to keep each little group, every parachurch church, and every tradition aware of the whole church.

And that is why I am a professor. It’s why I teach. And it’s why I write.

The Point of it All (Rethinking Church #27)

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We are nearing the end of our project of rethinking church. In the concluding essays I want to draw the series together in a few summary points, make some observations, give some advice, and make a proposal.

The Point of it All

  • The essence of church is simple and versatile. Where there is genuine faith in Christ, baptism, and the meeting to fellowship with the Lord and each other, there the church becomes visible.
  • The mission of the church is simple and clear. Its task is to witness by word, life, and deed to the reality of Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
  • Most churches, past and present, augment their essential nature and mission with optional features that they view as legitimate means, appropriate in their situation, to manage their affairs and carry out their mission.
  • It is vital to distinguish between the simple essence and mission that must be present in every genuine manifestation of the church and the additional features that may be helpful in specific times and places.
  • To emphasize the distinction between the simple church and traditional churches that have taken shape over the centuries, I called the latter parachurch churches.
  • Churches need to examine themselves continually to make sure that the once-helpful additional features do not replace or neutralize the essential features. Church reform always begins by comparing the existing condition of the church to its God-given essence. Whatever feature or activity that renders the church incapable of manifesting its essence or accomplishing its mission must be recalibrated to harmonize with the original norm.

My Hope for the Series

I don’t think I have unrealistic expectations about the prospects for human perfectibility. I am not offering a secret formula for creating the perfect church. I do believe, however, that it is possible to do better. I have not argued, and I do not believe, that parachurch churches are illegitimate and should be abolished. Many people find them life giving, and I would not take that away from them. I hope, however, that the leaders of these churches—if they happen on these essays—will take to heart the distinction between the essential features of the church and the nonessential ones and engage in self-examination and reform. Experience in church leadership has taught me that reform of existing parachurch churches will not be easy. You may need to start from scratch, and like Paul avoid “building on someone else’s foundation” (Romans 15:20).

I embarked on this series in hope of clarifying my own understanding of the church and my relationship to it. I also hoped that others might benefit from thinking along with me. I had in mind especially those believers who find themselves troubled or alienated from traditional churches but have not lost faith in Jesus. They love being with other Christians but are disillusioned with traditional churches. Some of these believers are older and have given much of their lives to church work, as volunteers or as paid clergy. They are tired and a bit cynical. I want them to know that they do not have to choose between unhappily continuing in the traditional church until they die or melting into secular culture. There are many options for being the church in this world between those two extremes.

I also had in mind young people (20s to 40s) many of whom are not be able to hear the gospel message because it gets mixed with “churchy” language and programs. Having spent a lifetime in the church, I understand “Christianese” and even speak it. I can pick up on the slightest biblical allusion. I get the symbolic rituals and holy tones of “preacher speak.” But most young people don’t get it, and acquiring a taste for these things is not prerequisite to becoming a disciple of Jesus. It all sounds strange, weird and cultish.

If there is any value this generation seeks it’s “authenticity,” and if there is anything it hates it’s “inauthenticity.” And if there is any institution that reeks of inauthenticity it’s the traditional church. For sure, there is more to the Christian way of life than authenticity, but Jesus was hard on hypocrites and praised the pure in heart. Authenticity is not trendiness but honesty. It’s having no gimmicks and planning no tricks. No plastic smiles, fake happiness, or implausible certainty! Jesus said to his disciples as they left to tell the good news to the Judean towns and villages, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give” (Matt 10:8). Freely! Not a word that comes to mind when I think of most churches.

I want my young friends to experience a community of other believers where they can learn and teach, know love and fellowship, encourage and be encouraged by others, and give and receive strength. I want them to experience the simple, essential church wherein they can be formed into the image of Christ and become authentic witnesses to the kindness of God embodied in Jesus. They may at some point learn to speak “Christianese,” come to appreciate the arcane traditions of the church, and may even wish to join a parachurch church. That may be a good thing. But let’s not force them to begin there.

To be continued…

Open Door and Cheap Grace (Rethinking Church #26)

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Perhaps by now you are wondering where I am going in this series. Do I have anything good to say about institutional churches? And if not, what is the alternative? I promise that I will answer both of these questions soon. Today, however, I need to continue my critique of institutional church practices. We must rid ourselves of the notion that contemporary forms of doing church are the only and forever best ways of being the church in the world.

The church will face many challenges no matter what form it takes or what means it uses to accomplish its mission. Jesus was persecuted and his message rejected. We can expect no less. The world is never going to welcome the call to repent of its immorality and idolatry. It loves the broad way of self-indulgence and pride. It’s not attracted to the way of self-denial and self-control. Holiness holds no appeal and righteousness excites no hunger or thirst. But sometimes the church creates problems it might not otherwise face by the forms it adopts and the means it uses.

Programs that Need Money

I’ve already spoken about money at some length. However I want to mention one more problem with money-driven churches. Contemporary churches instinctively institutionalize programs that need money and lots of it. Hence it needs contributing members and lots of them. This need introduces ambiguity into the church’s evangelistic witness. We are tempted to reduce the price of conversion from “repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15) and “take up your cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34) to “come and join our nice church.” The motto of every successful retail business is “The customer is always right.” If we set up the church so that we need to attract customers and keep them happy, how can we at the same time call them to “count the cost” of following Jesus (Luke 14:15-35)?

Family Friendly Churches

Since history began every member of most families worked to support the family. For most of that time, families could work together in agriculture, home industries, and domestic chores. There were no electronic media, no schools, no soccer practices, and no music lessons. Evening meals were taken together. But the rise of the modern economy and culture brought dramatic changes to family life. Increasingly, since the end of WW II many middle class children grow up in homes where both parents work in industry and children spend their days in schools, their evenings doing homework, and their weekends in sports activities. Parents expect daycare workers and schools to educate their children while they are at work and coaches to teach them athletic skills in the evenings and on the weekends while they relax.

And on Sundays modern parents expect churches to act like the daycares centers and schools on which they rely during the week. Church leaders respond to this pattern of expectation by providing child care, age segregated Sunday school classes, and a full range of youth programs. Churches feel pressure to hire children’s ministers, youth ministers, young adult ministers, and family life ministers. They build huge complexes to accommodate all these activities. Otherwise they will lose families to churches that provide them. In the meantime, parents fail to teach their children the faith or spend time with them modeling the Christian life, which is among the top two or three essential responsibilities of parenthood. Are we helping or hurting families by assimilating the church to the pattern of busyness that is the bane of modern family life?

Guest Friendly Churches

Before the nineteenth-century revivals that periodically swept the United States after 1810, church services were not really guest friendly or evangelistic in nature. For the most part, they were for insiders, the elect. After the Civil War right up to the present, the Sunday service became a time to “invite your neighbor” or to receive “walk ins off the street.” The sermons and all other public activities betrayed an awareness that the “unconverted” may be in the audience. The constant presence of outsiders guaranteed that the church could never conduct its meetings in ways designed to build up the church to maturity in Christ. The original purpose of the gathering was forgotten.

Stage-Centered Meeting

In my experience, most contemporary churches are stage centered. People come to watch, listen, and feel. The preachers, readers, worship leaders, musicians, and singers are at the center of attention. The church experience becomes performance and entertainment. If the performance is not satisfactory we go somewhere else. Center stage in the spotlight becomes a place of honor to be sought. The stage replaces the table, the music replaces the Eucharistic meal, and a feeling of transcendence replaces Christ crucified and risen.

Next Time: Don’t despair! We can do better.

Why Church Reform is (Almost) Impossible (Rethinking Church # 25)

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Models of the Church

In every age the church takes form in the world as an association of people, and it borrows a model of organization from the surrounding society, modifying it according to needs. In the early days, the church adopted the Jewish model with the central authority vested in the apostles and elders at Jerusalem and locally in household patrons and elders that presided over the church in a particular city. Sometime during the second century, elders became priests and a single bishop asserted rule over each city.  After the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it began to model itself after the imperial administration. In the East, powerful bishops or patriarchs ruled over the main cities—Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constantinople—and the surrounding districts. In the West, the bishop of Rome began to model himself after the Emperor to become the single head of the whole church and all the bishops. The church developed a huge and complicated bureaucracy to administer the imperial church.

The Protestant churches of the Reformation era in breaking with Rome became national or city-state churches. As I pointed out in the previous post, Protestant churches in the United States still preserve the basic form acquired in the Nineteenth Century. Some denominations adopted a centralized and bureaucratic administrative structure. Others remained a loosely associated family of local congregations. Still others choose some level of centralization between the previous two.

However they organize themselves formally, at an informal level certain styles characterize most contemporary churches. (1) The church as a business. Church leaders, whatever their official titles, administer the affairs of the church in the way chief executive officers and boards of directors administer businesses. Churches have products, marketing strategies, strategic plans, shareholders, customers, and hold market shares—all by other names of course. (2) The church as a school. Schools have administrators, teachers, classrooms, lectures, and curricula. (3) The church as a charitable organization. This type too must be organized to receive and distribute goods and services to its target recipients. (4) The church as a theater. Theaters need administrators, theater halls, actors, musicians, and directors. (5) The church as community center. Community centers offer gathering places for socializing, meetings of various interest groups, recreation, and organizing for political activism for one cause or another.

Two Big Problems

Reform is Impossible. Though these non-theological models and styles dominate the actual running of churches, churches still use the religious rhetoric of the kingdom of God, family of God, or body of Christ. Apparently, they don’t see the irony in this. For they don’t resemble a family at all. Nor do they hold everyone accountable to the ethics of the kingdom or work like the body of Christ. And when an individual actually urges the business, school, charitable organization, theater, or community center type church to return to the family or kingdom or the body model, the deep logic of these models absorbs, overwhelms, and neutralizes every effort at reform. I do not doubt that churches adopt these models in good faith and for practical reasons. But hidden within each of these models is an irresistible logic fundamentally at odds with the essential nature and mission of the church. All species of star fish can regrow a lost limb as long as the central disk remains, and a few species can regrow the central disk and all other limbs from just one limb. I learned from experience that you cannot reform a church by tweaking this or that program or renaming an office or an activity to sound more biblical. It changes nothing to start calling a church secretary an “office minister.”  True reform begins with abandoning the foundational logic of alien models and all their outward manifestations. The problem is in the DNA not in the name.

Assimilation is Inevitable. The irresistible logic, the DNA, of such models as businesses, schools, charitable organization, theaters, and community centers—even if they are adopted by churches—demands assimilation to the archetypical, secular form of the model. When churches look and operate like other institutions in society, the logic of the model demands that they place themselves under or be forced to assimilate to the ethics, laws, and social expectations applicable to analogous institutions. By law and social expectation our society expects all employers and public accommodations—theaters, schools, hotels, restaurants, etc.—to treat every individual equally regardless of ethnic origin, religion, physical ability, gender, and sexual orientation. This logic seems as compelling to insiders as it does to outsiders.

Until recently, most churches ordained and employed men only as clergy, and even roles open to laypeople were reserved for men. However with recent changes in public expectations, many people are asking such questions as “If women can be senators, professors, heads of fortune five hundred companies, actors, singers, world-renowned athletes, and police officers, why can’t they become preachers, bishops, and elders…since the church in all other ways looks and acts like businesses, schools, and theaters?” This irresistible logic is powerfully working its way through all churches in the western world. And, just as it will inevitably drive most churches to assimilate to feminism, it will surely drive many churches to assimilate to the gender revolution.

The pressure to assimilate to a culture hostile to authentic Christianity cannot be successfully resisted merely by stubbornly refusing to change. It can be dealt with only by uncovering and repudiating the subversive logic at play when we adopt the model of the church as public accommodation or business. It is not the church’s essential mission to provide the public with employment or places of honor or social services or social acceptability or recreation or social networking—or any other worldly good or service. I don’t think we yet realize how much freedom to pursue our essential mission we give up when in good faith and for good reasons we adopt models designed to pursue other ends. Nor have we yet realized how costly our liberation from the relentless logic of assimilation will be—nothing short of death and resurrection.

To be continued…

Should the Church Serve the Common Good? (Rethinking Church #24)

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Since the Fourth Century, the church has functioned within Western society in the role of a supporting player. It became a teacher of morals, pastor of souls, and guarantor of the overarching worldview that made sense of life and the social order. The church accompanied you through all of life’s passages with her sacraments: at birth with baptism, passage into adult with confirmation, transition into the married state with holy matrimony, and in your journey through death with last rites. And along the way she helped unburden your conscience through the sacraments of penance/absolution and Eucharist. The church was involved in education and ministry to the poor. Feast and fast days, Sundays, Saint’s days, and holy days of all sorts marked out time and gave rhythm to life.

The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation did not fundamentally reorder this symbiotic relationship between church and society at large. Looking back with benefit of hindsight at the late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries we can see some early indicators of the coming change, but it was not until the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries—after Darwin, Spencer, Dewey, Freud, and Marx—that the exponential growth of cities and rapid industrialization produced the beginnings of secular society in the United States. There had always been a large minority that were unchurched. But even the unchurched thought of themselves as Christian and viewed the institutional church as a social good.

The current institutional form of churches in the United States—despite all the doctrinal and organizational differences among them—derives from the Nineteenth Century, the era after disestablishment—that is, after the separation of church and state—and before thorough secularization. Churches of today do not expect to be financially supported by the government but still present themselves to society at large as serving the common good. And they expect to be treated as a social good. They want to speak to the moral, social, and political issues of the day. They wish to retain all their traditional privileges.

However in the early Twenty-first Century a significant, but disproportionately powerful, secular minority in society—especially within journalism, education, and entertainment—no longer thinks of the church as a social good. This minority is especially critical of traditional Christian morality. They no longer view the church as a reliable teacher of morality. Indeed, the church is viewed by many as institutionally sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and racist. Its critics portray it as a purveyor of hate and a hindrance to social progress.

What is to be done?

Since I am speaking in this series autobiographically and from experience, I don’t want to generalize. However, from what I see I do not think that the status quo can be maintained for much longer. Some secular progressives would like to destroy the church by using government power to tax and regulate it into oblivion. Others hope to cancel its speech with interruption and protest. But I think the greatest threat to the church’s Christian character is its own unwillingness to rethink its centuries-old role in society at large. As a whole, society no longer looks to the church as its moral conscience, teacher, pastor, and guarantor of a meaningful worldview. Consequently, the church stands at a crossroad. On the one hand, the broad road beckons. It can try to prove its continued relevance to society at large by adapting to society’s progressive morality while deceiving itself into thinking this new morality is thoroughly Christian. Or the church can give up its vain ambition to be recognized as chaplain and advisor to an increasingly pagan culture and take up its original mission as a countercultural witness to Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Remember what Jesus said about our anxious desire to survive:

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).

This truth applies to churches as well as to individuals.

The Importance of Fellowship (Rethinking Church #23)

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Today we consider the third component of the church gathering, fellowship. I don’t know what comes into your mind when you hear the word fellowship. Perhaps you think of a time for coffee, donuts, conversation before or after the formal worship service. Or perhaps a monthly or quarterly potluck meal after the worship hour. Or even more informally, hallway conversations before worship services begin or after they conclude. These occasions can produce fellowship, but I have something else in mind. The English word fellowship translates the New Testament Greek word koinonia, which can also be translated sharing or participation or communion. The Christian idea of koinonia is that of many people sharing in the experience of Jesus Christ and being united with each other by their mutual participation in him. John speaks of personally seeing, hearing, and touching “the word of life.” But he wants others also to experience this life and have the joy of sharing this life with them:

“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship [koinonian] with us. And our fellowship [koinonia] is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete” (1 John 1:3-4).

Paul speaks of the Lord’s Supper as a participation or sharing in the body and blood of Christ and then connects this experience to the unity of the participants:

“Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation [koinonia] in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation [koinonia] in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf” (1 Cor. 10:16-17).

The church as it is described in the New Testament is a fellowship, a shared life in Christ. Christians met often in small gatherings to eat, pray, study, and worship together. As we can see from Paul’s discussions in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, they shared in the bread and wine in honor of Christ. They knew each other intimately and were supposed love each other as brothers and sisters. Their meetings were designed to encourage and strengthen each other to live a life worthy of the name Christian. Their unity, love, and holiness served as a witness to Christ. When one of their number began living immorally, they knew about it, took it seriously, and attempted to intervene. If all else failed, they would refuse to allow this immoral person meet with them (See 1 Cor 5:1-13). And that refusal was made simpler because they met in private homes, not public buildings. The individual’s spiritual welfare and the integrity of the community’s witness were at stake.

In my life as an individual believer and as a church leader I have rarely found true fellowship in the gathering of a traditional church or parachurch. You can meet with a hundred or several hundred people once or twice a week in a big stage-focused assembly for years without getting to know anyone intimately. Few people know your struggles, needs, or interests. You may never hear others’ individual expressions of faith. Fellowship, sharing, and community take time, and we don’t have time to experience real fellowship with hundreds of people. At minimum, then, a traditional church, if it recognizes the need for fellowship, must put a high priority on getting everyone in a small group designed to promote fellowship. However, some people may need to make the small group their primary church gathering and the big church a secondary one.

I mentioned above the need to intervene in the lives of Christians who are trapped in immorality or other sins. This becomes almost impossible in a big church as I discovered as a church leader. Often my fellow leaders and I discovered problems only after it was too late to help. Also, it’s difficult to confront people with their sins if you don’t know them, they don’t know that you love them, and you have not invested time in their lives previously. And in our litigious age church leaders are concerned about getting sued for invasion of privacy. All this adds up to the secular ethic of “mind your own business.” This is not fellowship!

What would the church gathering look like if we designed it for maximum benefit in worship, instruction, and fellowship?

Next Time: Do traditional parachurch churches have a future in a post-Christian culture increasingly hostile to the Christian gospel and ethics?