Monday, January 12, 2009
Crumudgeonly Thoughts
The Constructive Curmudgeon had a couple of interesting posts recently - Post I
It just seems like we never quite get church right. I have met individuals that seem to get the what it means to be a Christian. No, they are not perfect, but they seem to understand that proper balance of claiming righteousness and acting humbly, they seem to grasp the tension, and live comfortably in the "already, not yet." I have seen Christian communities that can grasp such, but generally only for limited periods, but unlike the individuals, when they corrupt they seem to lack capacity for confession and restoration - a corrupted community seems to stay corrupted, unless, of course, it just goes ahead and dies.
I think that is the key - somehow, organizations lack the capacity for confession, for repentance. Why is that? What would it look like if a church confessed?
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What can we do about the hyperactive deadness of so much American Christianity?And from Post II
While reading Michael Horton's generally excellent book, Christless Christianity, it struck me with considerable force why so many Americans recoil from "organized religion" and why they favor an undefined "spirituality" over religion.It seems to me that when you look at these two posts - they answer each other. Christianity is "hyperactively dead" (a phrase I think is a winner!) because organized religion spends so much time focused on "self." In the case of the more traditional mainlines the self is the church - the church serves itself, not the Lord - hence the hyperactivity for hyperactivity is indeed necessary to keep an organization like that running. In the case of the modern evangelical church, the "self" served is the individual, but in this case so much so that the church becomes void of the things that make it church. In both cases people do not find what they are looking for. we are left with either a lifeless husk, or a formless nothing.
Would any sane person desire unorganized courts or an unorganized police force or an unorganized medical service? Of course not. In these areas knowledge and authority are recognized as necessary. But when it comes to spirituality, we are on our own. There is no objective and knowable authority, supposedly. The individual soul discerns what it takes to be sacred (for a season--or a weekend).
But organized religion--religion with creeds and offices and a remembered history--well, that just tramples the untrammeled Self. It imposes (another hated word today) on our dispositions. It challenges the authority of the "I."
It just seems like we never quite get church right. I have met individuals that seem to get the what it means to be a Christian. No, they are not perfect, but they seem to understand that proper balance of claiming righteousness and acting humbly, they seem to grasp the tension, and live comfortably in the "already, not yet." I have seen Christian communities that can grasp such, but generally only for limited periods, but unlike the individuals, when they corrupt they seem to lack capacity for confession and restoration - a corrupted community seems to stay corrupted, unless, of course, it just goes ahead and dies.
I think that is the key - somehow, organizations lack the capacity for confession, for repentance. Why is that? What would it look like if a church confessed?
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