The “Country Club” Church Is Crap.
Say that ten times fast…
Danielle recently made a comment concerning a post comparing Jack Bauer of the TV Series 24 with Jesus Christ:
And I think there’s a comparison to the church in there. Because although the suspense is pretty cool (as in what will happen here on earth, as well as after we die), it is the human parts of the story that compel people to keep reading/listening/feeling/believing perhaps. And the church has been nothing if not revolutionary in history. Jesus’ story is a prime example.
It instantly reminded me of a couple quotes that generally make me want to pick up sword and shield to charge headlong into this cosmic revolution. This is an axe I gring almost continually. Having not grown up in the church, paradigm for what church should be is not as convoluted by tradition and/or fundamentalism. I am perhaps more able to read how the church is portrayed in scripture without the baggage of moralistic rules and cultural taboos. Of course, I do have other things that cloud my judgment, and there are people who have grown up in the church and are able to see through much of that. But this is something that is particularly close to my heart because of my experiences.
For your reading pleasure, here are two of my favorite quotes:
As the church, we can no longer accept our status as a mere social club with different moral values, we can no longer be the unassuming, unthreatening charity organization that we have been. We can no longer be the iirelevant, weak, detached “don’t” on the map. Irrelevance, divisiveness, weakness, incoherence, and self-righteousness has characterized the church for far too long. We are meant to speak, live, and act against the powers of this world. We know how to be as “innocent as doves” but have no idea how to be as “wise as serpents.” They should see us, like Herod saw Jesus, as a threat to their power and very way of life. Our call, though, is not antagonism, hatred, and condemnation, but to model, symbolize, and live out the self-giving, self-sacrificing love of Christ which brings true unity and community. Ultimate reality for the church is always a man on a cross dying for a people who hated Him. - Jeremy Bedenbaugh, Associate Pastor at Green Tree Community Church.
Talk about revolutionary! Love that radical cannot help but change the world! Yet the church (particularly in America) has settled for politicking for policy change from a distance instead of getting in the messiness of people’s lives to love them where they are and how they need it. Instead of selfless service to our fellow man, we have made idols out of personal comfort, convenience, and social status. Before I get too riled up, here is the other quote:
We need to recover the grand, cosmic significance of Jesus’ saving activity that moves the gospel out of the narrow realm of our self-preoccupation. One of the marvelous things about this gospel is that He has saved us so that we can be a part of His redeeming activity. The gospel, properly understood, is much broader than our concerns for personal survival, security, significance, success, or even self-centered sanctification. The gospel presents us with Jesus, not meek and mild, but One come to set the world on fire. It presents us with a plunderer, and it bids us to throw ourselves away in the pursiot of this new world order. - Bob Heppe, Missionary.
In short: “It’s not about you!” Our American individualization has fooled us into believing that we as individuals are what is important, greatly reducing the power of God’s “saving activity.” This also reduces our role in the church to membership and inclusion with a group of likewise “good, moral people.” It makes me sick. How can we read passages like the following and not be convicted of how wrong that is?
The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!
(Luke 7:34)
*sigh* Ok, I’m done ranting for now. What do you all think? Am I just overreacting? Do you see the problem to be as huge as I do? Is the contrast not frightening? What should the church be like?
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The problem with the church today is that people see it as a voluntary association with other like-minded individuals, rather than the body of Christ. Here’s a rather long(but good) quote from Catholic theologian Orestes Brownson:
“Herein is the distinction between an association and an organism. In the association, the body has no life but the aggregate life of the members, and therefore, none but what they impart to it; in the organism, it is precisely the reverse, the life of the members is in the body, and they have none but what they receive from it, through their intimate union with it…But now is the Church of Christ, not an association, but a body, an organism, and therefore, does not receive its life from its members, but imparts in them their life; and they can live only in their intimate union with it…In declaring the Church to be the body of Christ, we necessarily declare that Christ is the life of the Church.”
That doesn’t really pretain to your original question, but I guess I don’t think that the church can be revolutionary if it sees itself as a bunch of people who want to be like Jesus and change the world. The metaphor needs to be stronger…the church is the body of Christ! I also think that the primary goal of the church should be to seek communion with Christ, not to use the teachings of Jesus as merely an end to saving the world.
This bothers me as well. Christians in America tend to be a little too organized, clean, educated, systemitized, self-satisified, and dishonest. We have failed to remember who we are and what God has done to make us worthy to become His people.