My daughter posted a link on Facebook the other day about why
people are “really” leaving the church lately. Given that’s a subject that I
take an interest in, I was eager to see what the author had to say, so I
clicked right in and read it. And for good measure, I let it sit for a day and
then read it again.
Part of the comments made I could identify with immediately.
I’ve been caught in discussions before where the emphasis was far more on using
the right term than understanding the thought and context behind it. Other
parts left me more than a little baffled, as the man described responses from
the church that I’ve never experienced, and in my roughly forty-five years
attendance, spotty during life periods to be sure, I’ve gone to more than a few.
And that’s a part of my problem with the author’s reasoning.
The tendency in the country today, maybe in world, is to
lump local, individual bodies into some huge, over-arching unit. People talk
about “the church,” or “law enforcement,” or “mortgage bankers,” or whatever
else they seem to have a gripe with as though it was some kind of monolithic
hive-mind, with every member marching lockstep (possibly in jack boots), as
they race to the next scene to squash all hope of dissent. Okay, so a bit of
hyperbole applied as my own frustration shows. I think I’m a little entitled.
“The church” is not “a church,” or ten churches, or a
thousand. The church is countless millions, meeting separately across the
states and the rest of the world each week. They meet at different times and
places, preach different sermons, emphasize different projects, represent every
conceivable background. The translations of scripture they use, and more
recently even the scriptures they consider “valid,” vary enormously in church
buildings less than a mile apart. What the author lists as the reasons people
are leaving “the church,” apply to some churches greatly, some lightly, many
not at all. Which leads me to my second, and really big, problem with the
author’s position.
Once you get past the false gentleness and humility, strip
it down to the rhetoric, you are left with self-serving whining and-… No, that’s
pretty much it.
The article or posting or however you classify it is framed
as a letter, but one that clearly expects or desires no reply. His words are
crystal. Listen silently. Accept my judgment of you, but yield none of your
own. And remember, I’m the one that’s leaving you. You failed me.
There is one passage in article that sounds so poignant, so
plaintive, until you actually put it context. The author speaks about needing a
church that is tough enough to demonstrate God’s love to the people it is
failing, and because the church can’t, people like him are leaving. The irony
would be hilarious if it were not so infuriating.
The church is not the building, it is the body of believers.
If he and those he claims to represent have faith, and he says they do, then
they are the church. So, if he and his kind are the church, and they are
walking away because the church just isn’t “tough” enough, whose fault is that?
Where is that toughness supposed to come from when people won’t hang around
because it isn’t too their liking? And if they leave because they feel the
people in the congregation aren’t tolerant, where are these tolerant people
supposed to come from? If changes are going to be made, not in one building but
in a million, how will that happen when a generation that claims to want
positive change runs without ever putting in the effort it takes to make it?
I know that there are a lot of hurting people out there, I
truly do. And I know that a lot of them come to church hoping to find a lot of
things, things like hope and peace and joy. I’ve been there, and I sympathize.
I also know that there are a lot of people out there, but they are looking for
something different, something very much like magic. Or they are looking for a
place where everyone is warm and caring and supportive and never cranky and I
don’t know what else. I don’t think they’ll ever find it, but I’m pretty sure
they won’t find in a church, at least not pre-Apocalypse.
When questioned why he fraternized with sinners one time,
Christ replied that it was not well people who required a doctor, but those who
were sick. Churches are not spiritual “well zones.” At their best, they are
out-patient clinics, with the congregation making steady progress. If the
author expects or hopes for anymore, then I would recommend that he roll up his
sleeves and grab a bed pan. Frankly, I don’t think he will, but if he did he
would be taking a really large step toward finding contentment in the church.
He would be focusing on someone besides himself.
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