Saints Unbecoming

Two weeks ago, an article entitled "How Do I Know When It's Time To Leave A Church?" was the most-read article on Crosswalk.com.

At the time, I commented about how telling it must be that such discouraging subject matter - a strong dissatisfaction with one's church - would be the top article on one of Christianity's most popular websites.

So, it's been two weeks, which can be an eternity in Internet time.  Who knows how many topics, headlines, crises, opinions, and tweets have come and gone.  You'd think the article about leaving one's church would be long gone, too, wouldn't you?  At least, it wouldn't still be listed among Crosswalk's top ten.

But you'd be wrong.  Okay, so it's not number one today... it's number three.  After two other articles of similar subject matter.  Currently, the most-read article is "What You Are Wearing To Church," which has likely been a weekly debate in families across the Western world for centuries.  The second-most-read article currently is entitled "Seven Viruses That Infect the Church."

Ouch.

Isn't this "church" thing supposed to be helping us?  Isn't it supposed to be the place where our faith walk can find refuge from the sins of the world?  Judging by what people are choosing to read on Crosswalk, however, it looks more like church is a thorn in our side, or a cross we have to bear.

When Doing Church Becomes One's Undoing

Maybe I'm back on this topic of dissatisfaction with church because I've been interviewing somebody for an upcoming article of mine for Crosswalk.  After years of trying to act like a Christian, find a church where she can grow as a Christian, get involved in ministry with other Christians, develop Christian friendships, and plug her young son into a similarly God-focused faith community for his age level, she's thrown in the towel.

She walked out of church.  She's not really bitter, or even angry, although she's sad, and almost bemused at what the rest of us continue to tolerate in our faith communities.

Looking back on her conversion experience, she figures it must have been an emotional reaction to her failed marriage.  She was told she needed God in order to have peace.  And for a while, it all seemed to work... until she tried to assimilate into a large church that asks people to "come as they are."  So she did.

Things went downhill from there.

Early in her faith walk, a small-group leader chastised her in front of their home group for professing to enjoy a popular but mildly-raunchy television sitcom, but then she witnessed him in his own home watching something even raunchier on cable.

She found out by accident that malicious gossip was being spread around her church about her and her son.

Her son went on a couple of church youth outings and witnessed adult sponsors of the events getting tipsy on contraband liquor.

She herself attended events with fellow church-goers where alcoholic beverages were flowing.

It was as if everybody else was as wounded, anxious, and depressed as she was, and church had become simply another crutch, or a glorified passport to Heaven.  The church people she saw drinking weren't living under grace, they were addicted to the stuff to fill the void she thought churchy stuff was supposed to fill.  Preach hellfire and damnation for the world's gays, but adultery within the church is only wrong if you get caught.  None of it matters - your passports to Heaven have already been stamped.

When she started expressing her doubts on Facebook, church friends either ignored her, or de-friended her.  When she saw one of her pastors at their kids' mutual sporting event, he didn't want to talk to her.  She realized she was more wounded, anxious, and depressed now that she had gotten involved in church, than she was before "professing her faith."

So she relinquished her faith.  Returned it, even though she didn't get a refund for all she'd been through.  She didn't expect to find a bunch of holy-roller saints in church, but she didn't expect a bunch of sinners who self-righteously claimed to be holy-roller saints, either.

"Don't pray for me," she's asked me, "because that's so patronizing.  I have explored your faith option and found nothing that comforts me more than my own awareness of my own spirituality."

Preachers Missing a Teachable Moment

We evangelicals might be tempted to parse this woman's refutation of Christianity in order to find clues to its theological inadequacies, but before we do that, consider the haughtiness with which one of our celebrity preachers recently praised a fellow celebrity preacher friend of his.

Mark Dever, senior pastor at Washington, DC's wildly popular Capitol Hill Baptist Church, served as a guest preacher earlier this month in the pulpit of Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Sovereign Grace Church is the new congregation established by C.J. Mahaney, the embattled former director of Sovereign Grace Ministries, which has come under fire for hiding allegations of child abuse.  However, Dever has come out not only in support of Mahaney, but veiled contempt towards those who have filed a lawsuit against his former ministry as its alleged child abuse victims.

In what appears to be an arrogant affirmation of the indicted despite a Biblical need to be sensitive to any harm that has befallen alleged victims, Dever offered Mahaney's congregation a heavy dose of hero worship.

"If you’re visiting or if you’re sort of new to Sovereign Grace," Dever said in his sermon, regarding Mahaney, "you have a privilege in having this man as your pastor that you don’t fully grasp..."

Not only does one celebrity pastor inadvertently chastise fellow Christians who dare question the integrity of another celebrity pastor, but he appears to display a degree of impunity that seems to defy the Gospel of Christ.  It's not that during a time of crisis in one's personal life or public ministry, a minister of the Gospel shouldn't be able to depend on his peers for comfort, friendship, and support.  But it almost appears as though Mahaney's friends have willfully ignored the facts in this case.  Indeed, the fact that we need to keep talking in abstract terms instead of facts betrays the fact that Mahaney and his friends have not broached the accusations with the seriousness the rest of us have accorded them.

Either way, their attitudes and actions don't seem to square with the Gospel they've built their careers preaching.

I don't personally know any of the people about whom I've written here today.  The woman who's returned to atheism was referred to me by a mutual friend, who thought I should hear her story.  Our mutual friend is saved, and the only church friend who remains in contact with this woman who's left the church.  I've never met either Dever or Mahaney, and only know of their disturbing, stubborn alliance through what I've learned about it online.

But hey - even if all the rest of this is anecdotal, don't we know how hard it is to do church?  We don't need to be told this by an atheist, or preachers pretending that accusations of child molestation don't exist.

Still, I believe that God is sovereign.  He knew from eternity past that these days would come for His North American church, when His people would be so cantankerous, malicious, hypocritical, self-righteous, and unlike Christ.  Yet still, the church is His invention.  He has purposes for it, even if we can't see them.  I believe that, because I believe God is sovereign.  We can't irrevocably screw up His church, even though it sure looks like we're giving it our best shot.

What am I to make about all of the feedback I've received from this atheist, who, frankly, seems almost freer now that she thinks she can cross "God" off of her list of things to make her happy?  I don't know.  After all, most of the world today sees religion as simply one of many means to an end, with the end being some sort of self-realization.  All the better to find those things that don't work earlier rather than later, right?

What our celebrity preachers are doing in the name of this God, however, truly unnerves me.  The God in Whom the Holy Spirit has given me faith is not a God to be mocked by elitist games of personal favorites during - of all things - sex abuse cases.  In their cloistered world of church plants, seminars, and doctrinal associations, it's almost as if the guys with the biggest bully pulpits win the day, while hapless sheep bleat in the fields.

Or go online in droves to Crosswalk.com, getting advice on evaluating how sick their church may be.

Wanna Break Outta This Ghetto?

We keep hearing about all of the people dropping out of organized religion.

Some days, I think I'd like to be one of those people.

Imagine how freeing it would be to live out your faith without being pelted by little ditties from your religion's sacred websites and ministries.  Or sanctimonious sermons, tweets, and essays about theology and cultural nuance.  Assuming, that is, that other religions have anything similar to the "evangelical industrial complex" we conservative Christians have built for ourselves since the Second World War.  Catholics have Rome and their Pope, a remarkably successful humanitarian effort called Catholic Charities, the political advocacy of their Conferences of Bishops, and here in America, at least, a band of disgruntled nuns agitating for liberal feminist causes.  But do Roman Catholics, or Muslims, or Buddhists have the plethora of para-church ministries, political action committees, consulting groups, ministerial alliances, denominational hierarchies, bloggers, TV networks, polling organizations, webzines, musical groups, non-profit niche organizations, megachurch empires, and publishing houses like we in our evangelical "ghetto" do?

I know this may sound counter-productive for a person who wants to write professionally about issues facing evangelicals, but good grief!  At some point, shouldn't we be starting to see some sort of return on all of this investment in the North American evangelical community?  Or might our Christian ghetto be starting to feed on itself; thinking it's finding some satisfaction, while that satisfaction is coming at its own peril?

I've thought about writing a book about this myopic busywork as I see it, but then I wonder whether doing so would only contribute to the problem?  It brings to mind that oft-neglected passage from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes about "the making of many books," which to my mind stands as irrefutable proof that cynicism has a valid place in the Body of Christ.  In this section from Chapter 12, King Solomon, apparently already bemused - or frustrated - by all of the wisdom mankind thought they could write down, reminds his audience that there is really only one thing that's important in life:

"Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails - given by one Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

Much study certainly wearies the body, doesn't it?  We even have the Holy Spirit with us today, a benefit not bestowed during Solomon's day, to help us "fear God and keep His commandments," and still, how many mortal experts on the subject do we think we need?

The Apostle Paul warned believers about picking favorite teachers and subscribing to their ideas.  In 1 Corinthians 12, he chides the early church:

"My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.  What I mean is this:  One of you says, 'I follow Paul;' another, 'I follow Apollos;' another, 'I follow Cephas;' still another, 'I follow Christ.'  Is Christ divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Were you baptized into the name of Paul?  I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name... For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel--not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

And again, in Chapter 3:

"You are still worldly.  For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?  Are you not acting like mere men?  For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not mere men?  What, after all, is Apollos?  And what is Paul?  Only servants, through whom you came to believe -as the Lord has assigned to each his task.  I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow."

What King Solomon and the Apostle Paul clearly knew all those centuries ago - millennia, even - seems foreign to us today.

"Have you read Dobson's latest?"

"Keller has a new book out on Kindle."

"I think Driscoll is super-relevant to the Northwest culture."

"I love Francis Chan."

It's one thing to read about a Christian's autobiography and how God has worked in their life, as long as they're not trying to make a name for themself.  And some people have a legitimate gift for explaining controversial theological concepts.  There's also a valid need for us people of faith to be aware of what's happening around us and how we're to model Christ in, through, and despite it all.  But do we really need everybody who wants to be a prominent religious figure in America to write a book parsing a section of theology other people have been parsing for centuries?  Are there really any new revelations out there today?  Did God really forget some stuff back in His Bible 1.0?

You think you can help explain a wrinkle in our ever-evolving society, or a new development in our cycle of cultural fads, and make it pertinent to faith and how we model Christ within our spheres of influence?  I suppose it could be helpful, as long as the Gospel is celebrated instead of the current trend.

Otherwise, don't we risk losing focus?

This is not an abstract question.  For example, one prominent Christian parachurch organization recently featured an article on their website in which several of their prominent members defended another of their member pastors and the parachurch organization he had founded against charges of sexually abusing children.

OK - are you keeping score?  So far, we have two parachurch ministries ("non-church theological charities," for my unchurched readers) and several prominent Christian leaders.  The one guy the others were defending used to run a parachurch organization (that was actually comprised of churches - confused yet?) that employed some men who've been accused of child abuse.  And the accusers have been stonewalled for years by attempts at covering up the whole story.  Allegations have now been formalized in court, and these prominent leaders waited a while before coming out and proudly defending their friend, the other leader, with whom they've shared their platform within our evangelical industrial complex for years.

In other words, a bunch of pastors got together and unilaterally defended a fellow pastor against some serious legal charges made by people they insinuate aren't credible.

Unfortunately for all of these leaders, their endorsement was worded so ineffectually that it has simply added fuel to the fire.  They danced around the allegations and based their support more on their friendship than the claims in the alleged cases, virtually ignoring the sensitivity even our hedonistic, secular culture affords people who say they are victims of child abuse.  Basically, these leaders argued that their friendship with their fellow leader held more weight than allegations made by people they don't know personally.  Which, frankly, reeks of nothing else but sordid cronyism and good-old-boy protectionism, two of the main reasons why sex abuse victims usually hesitate to seek justice in our society.

Not to be outdone, some other leaders from yet another parachurch organization came out a few days ago with a similar blanket endorsement for their fellow leader, basically throwing the alleged victims under the bus without so much as stopping to see what the bus hit.  It's as if all the theologically-trained men riding the bus trump anything a bunch of upset laypeople have to say.

Today, there's an article on the website for one of these parachurch organizations entitled "Caring for Victims of Sexual Abuse."

Yeah, right.  Lots of credibility they've got on that issue right now.

If you're keeping score, the religious leaders are currently losing, along with the purported victims.  Victims who are supposed to be shepherded by Godly leaders.  Men we call "pastors."

Time is money in our culture.  So, with all the time it takes to create all of this website content for our evangelical industrial complex, write all of the books, lead all of the seminars, speak at all of the conferences, and do all of this other heavy-lifting in our Christian ghetto, I'm wondering where these guys who claim to be pastors find the time to be, well... pastors.  They probably get to pick the plumb wedding assignments, and maybe the most prominent people in their congregations get to be buried by them, but what about the mundane responsibilities like hospital visits?  The visits to congregants and their relatives who are under hospice care?  I realize "every believer is a minister," and all of us evangelicals should be participating in compassion care, but who in Christ wouldn't appreciate a gracious, unfettered visit from their senior pastor as they recover from surgery, or stare death in the face?

One pastor I knew who was gliding up the Christian ghetto's career escalator himself joked that "if you see me at your hospital bedside, you know it's really bad."

Then there's all that awful marriage counseling, sitting down with two disgruntled spouses and trying to convince them God doesn't want them to divorce.  I suspect it's much easier to hold a conference or seminar so you can stand behind a lectern or a video camera and teach other people how to teach about the sanctity of marriage instead.

There's likely no connection, but considering how increasingly jaded many Americans seem to be getting about faith, perhaps it's no surprise that also today, the number-one top-read article on Crosswalk.com is "How Do I Know When It's Time To Leave a Church?" written by Dr. Roger Barrier.

And just this afternoon, I received an e-mail from a prominent magazine to which I used to subscribe, whose title blared, "Things Christians Must Never Do."  I immediately deleted it, without even opening it.  I've got that list already, and so does everybody else:  it's called the Ten Commandments, right?

Adding to the myopic and oddly disconnected march of incessant Christian colloquialism is the website of a popular male Christian blogger who today provides a glowing review of yet another book extolling the virtues of mothers who work at home.

Even as economic studies continue to show how unaffordable having a stay-at-home-mom is becoming, particularly in America's Northeast.

Meanwhile, the Voice of the Martyrs is providing reports on current examples of religious oppression in Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan.  Right now.  As I'm typing this out.   And Crosswalk.com has an update on increased persecution in Sri Lanka.  Are we as burdened for these brothers and sisters in Christ as we are celebratory of our favorite preachers here in our ghetto?

Ahh, yes, here in Christianity's ghetto, where the lead article on another of our prominent parachurch websites currently asserts that the Gospel of Christ is "underestimated."

No wonder.