I just finished "Present Future". Great book. As I have stated in previous posts it's giving what I've been struggling with for a while a voice. I was talking to Brett a month or so agop and as we talked we both felt like I was going through now what he had been through a while ago as far as our views of the church.
Well I picked up a book that was given to me from my old boss at my graduation 2 years ago and based on the highlighted sections I only made it through the first part of the book. This book is amazing. I forgot that I was wrestling with questions I had about the church at least 2 years ago and I think it has been longer than that. I don't know how I forgot about that struggle. It's weird. It's almost like a section of my spiritual life was snipped from memory for a while and now I've found it again. That probably sounds strange but there it is.
Anyway this book is amazing, not solely for it's content, but for the fact that it was published in 1961. I can't believe that people were beginning to struggle with the idea of the ineffective church model/mentaility that early on. And I'm sure the book is simply a product of what the author was struggling with for a good time before he wrote the book.
The auther is Elton Trueblood by the way and the book is entitled "The Company of the Committed".
Here are a few quotes from the book that stood out to me:
"Whether our religion is segregated from common life by being limited geographically (i.e. to a religious building ), or temporally (by undue emphasis on one hour a week, which is usually on Sunday morning), or limited in personnel (by assumption tht religion is the responsibility of a special professional class called clergy), the damaging effect is the same....The major danger of our contemporary religion, then, is that it makes small what ought to be large. By segregating religion in place or time or personnel, we make religion relatively trivial, concerned with only a part of experience when it ought to be concerned with the whole of life.”
“It is hard to exaggerate the degree to which the modern Church seems irrelevant to modern man. The Church is looked upon as something to be neither seriously fought nor seriously defended. A church building is welcomed, partly because it provides such a nice place for a family wedding; and, after all, most families expect weddings, sooner or later. A church is also a good place to send the children on Sunday morning—they might learn something helpful, and certainly the experience of being sent will do them no harm. The point is that such conceptions are wholly consistent with the idea that the Church has only marginal relevance. We do not expect, for the most part , to find the gospel centered in a burning conviction which will make men and women change occupations, go to the end of the earth, alter the practices of governments, redirect culture, and remake civilization.”
3 comments:
I am assuming you agree with the author. Why do you feel the church is irrelevent to modern man?
Well in regard to these quotes there a couple of reasons why the church (for the most part) is irrelevant. In the first quote the author talks about the fact that church has become something we go to and not something we are. If the idea of church has been reduced to a club essentially then it does not succeed in taking the gospel to the world. At least not without a catch...which is essentially the attitude that says you must join the club in order to become a member. In other words you must join "our" church.
So my question is, is something you go to on a Sunday morning and stays there on Sunday morning or even extends to a Wednesday night something that has real relevance in your life or the world around you?
If it's something that does not permeate your life then it's can't be any more relevant than going to a basketball game. If its not something we are and something we do, if it's not a way of living with other believers in a way that changes the world around us then it can't be relevant. Or at least it's far missing the level of relevance that God intends for His people to have on this world. We don’t attend the institutional church expecting life transformation but an entertaining service. Or at least something that makes us feel good for a while. I know this isn’t how it is every were and I know this isn’t the thoughts that everyone has but a quick evaluation of the seeker sensitive church boom in this country will no doubt raise a few flags in this regard.
Can you honestly say that when you go to church you expect to come face to face with God and upon leaving you leave as a transformed individual?
The other mark of the general irrelevance of the church is the way the world looks at the institutional church. A more outside looking in idea. As Trueblood mentions in this second quote, people see the church as a place to have a wedding, a funeral or a place to go to on Easter or Christmas. Even a juvenile correctional facility. At the very worst the world sees the church as a place that harbors a “God hates Fags” shouting, Kmart boycotting, war mongering, politically swaying group of people. Now I now that this isn’t completely true. It may not even be mostly true. I know plenty of Godly people who don’t fit this mold. But I do know that as I talk to non Christians that’s the impression people have of the church. These descriptions and the term hypocrites come up on a regular basis. The church as a whole isn’t known for it’s compassion or it’s concern for the hungry, the needy, the orphans and the widows. This worldly view of the church leaves me with only one conclusion. We have missed our mark by so far that we are known for the complete opposite of what we were supposed to be known for.
And with all that said I will say this. There are so many awesome churchs (groups of believers) and organizations out there that are changing the world...way more than I am at least. There are people out there who are committed to changing peoples minds about who God is and what it means to be a Christian, a Christ follower. And its in this arena (the personal relationship) that the ideas that the world has of who God is and what church is supposed to be will be changed and corrected.
I think there in lies the radical transformation of the church.
Bomber I agree that "the church has missed it's mark by so far that we are known for the complete opposite of what we are supposed to be known for." Isn't it so sad. I mean to some people the word Christian is a bad word... Sad
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