Thursday, February 12, 2009
Outside The Profession
Recently, Mark Roberts 'teased' an interview he did with N.T. Wright on his own blog. His first question absolutely floored me:
I remember the Cosby Show of the '80's. The running joke was that Cosby and his wife somehow could never get the kids out of the house. Well, such has come to pass, only now no one thinks its funny. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that parenting is about making ADULTS. People that leave the house and start their own lives and families. Well the church never quite seems to have gotten that message.
We hold tight, keep our congregants as dependents. What is worse yet is that when someone does have the gumption to break away, it is usually out of gumption and not maturity - thus the new family they make is highly dysfunctional. Of course, the high gate-keeping standards for ministry of the mainlines is designed to prevent this, but since we are not raising adults to begin with.... It is not a pretty picture.
It is high time we started raising adult Christians in the church.
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What does it look like to be “Simply Christian” outside the professional church from 9 to 5?It floored me because of the qualification about being Christian "outside" the professional church. It strikes me that if we need to put such a qualifier in a question about what it means to be Christian then something has gone horribly, terribly wrong with how we do church. Part of Wright's response really tells the tale:
We don’t expect to think. We don’t expect to make decisions. That’s what the Vicar is for.We expect the clergy to tell us what to do, and we don’t want to think for ourselves. I want to say, “No, you’ve all got to be individuals and do your own thing.” Actually, I think that’s part of the Gospel.What Wright is basically asserting here is that the church infantilizes believers and that most believers seem to like it. It makes sense if you think about it - parenting has gone largely the same way.
I remember the Cosby Show of the '80's. The running joke was that Cosby and his wife somehow could never get the kids out of the house. Well, such has come to pass, only now no one thinks its funny. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that parenting is about making ADULTS. People that leave the house and start their own lives and families. Well the church never quite seems to have gotten that message.
We hold tight, keep our congregants as dependents. What is worse yet is that when someone does have the gumption to break away, it is usually out of gumption and not maturity - thus the new family they make is highly dysfunctional. Of course, the high gate-keeping standards for ministry of the mainlines is designed to prevent this, but since we are not raising adults to begin with.... It is not a pretty picture.
It is high time we started raising adult Christians in the church.
Technorati Tags:maturity, adulthood, church
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