Yesterday I lifted the first part of this article from Ian Farr. Today the second part with a focus on the body of Christ.
Is the end of the world drawing near: part 2
In the midst of all this is the church of Jesus Christ. The amazing thing is that there, generally the situation is “business as usual”. People attend meetings week after week where the “bigger picture” is seldom referred to, or if it is, usually with a bit of “tut-tutting” or “let’s pray about it.”
But the church as we know it is very much a product of that world that is passing away. In the words of theologian Walter Brueggemann, “the church is so fully enmeshed in our dominant culture that freedom for action is difficult.” Strong dominating and controlling “top-down” leadership; a striving for bigger and better buildings; wanting to be the best “show in town” are often the things that characterise the church today. Repeated exhortations for bigger and better “offerings” and more diligent tithing have become commonplace. Oh, I am sorry if I sound a bit scathing, but this is the situation I often see around me here in South Africa. It seems that the church has become so much “of the world” and little “in the world” rather than the other way around as Jesus would have us to be. And that world, of which it has become so much a part, is passing away.
Again, I owe to Brueggemann the metaphor of 587 BCE, when the world of the people of Judah was coming to an end, the temple was about to be burnt, the city destroyed, the land lost. But this was the will of God for the people! Most of them could not, or would not, believe it could happen. How could they, the chosen people of God, be dealt with in such a way by their God? We read that the prophets of Judah were saying, “Peace, peace – all is well. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” Jeremiah alone seemed to see the reality. There is no peace, because of the great injustice and unrighteousness with which the people have been comfortably living. The temple is finished! “The order is rapidly fading.”
Be it far from me to claim to be the Jeremiah of my generation, or to claim any likeness to that great man. However, I am bewildered and troubled by so much that I am hearing (and so much that I am not hearing) coming out from the church. The message so often seems to be, “All is well, come and get blessed, get rich, be healed and made prosperous. In the church is the answer, the church of the Lord, the church of the Lord.”
But all is not well. “The order is rapidly fading.” In Europe and to a lesser extent in USA and many other parts of the world there is a huge drop-out rate of Jesus followers from the institution of church. Many, especially “church leaders”, bemoan this fact, and use words like “rebellion”, “insubmissive” or “backsliding”. Yet as I have met and talked with many of these people, I have frequently found a deeper love for Jesus, and desire to follow him, than I have met among many who are still in the institutions. People are often finding each other in deep and meaningful “relationships for purpose”, rather than simply being in a room together once a week in an impersonal way. To some, this will seem “out of order”. It is – it is out of that old order that is rapidly fading, and, I believe, it is of God. The world as we know it is being shaken, and that shaking is under the hand of God. While I grieve the passing of something I have been part of all my life, which has nurtured me, and provided me with so much over the years, at the same time I rejoice with a great sense of expectancy and hope for the future. Out of all this, I believe the true church will arise. Not as another institution, or the latest fad, or following the latest “Christian super hero”, but as true salt and light in the world in a way that effectively “enlightens” as it spreads out into the world with powerful love and subversive living and speaking.
Can I believe that the church can be the real enlightenment as disciples of Jesus together live out the ways and values of God’s kingdom?
Difficult as it may be, but, Yes, I believe I can.
I had an interesting dream recently.
I was with a friend in some sort of car park.
Then I heard the sweet sound of worship
coming from a nearby building.
Me and my friend went over to find out
what was going on.
I looked through an open window and saw
a good man I know dressed in a colourful cassock.
He was ministering some wafers to the congregation
and I beckoned him come over.
He came over and gave me and my friend
one of these tiny wafer things each.
I was immediately slain in the Spirit,
laughing and doing somersaults.
Now, the bloke in the cassocks in the dream,
as far as I know, does not wear such clothes
in real life.
I felt that they symbolised him operating
in a certain amount of religiosity.
But he’s got a lovely caring heart,
and though I was outside of the formal
context, he did not reject me but ministered
the bread to me.
I am sharing this dream just as a caution
to people.
To be called out of the main pentecostal
framework can be a wholly liberating
process; getting free of the controlling spirits etc.
However, this fellow in the dream was not snobbish
to me on the outside but had grace for me.
The warning for those outside is to continue
to honour and respect those operating still inside
the old pentecostal framework.
As did David honour the passing,
though still ruling,
person of Saul.
So interesting to encounter Ian’s thoughts. Synergy from yet another part of the world.
It is dear brother, this second part of the message moved me greatly, because it came from an urgent meeting with the feeling of seeing things from the viewpoint of God. You have the vision of decay of the church as an instrument to impact and generate changes in the world and the creatures of God, the creation groans waiting for the manifestation of God’s children, why not react? why the church does not respond? why the church does not rise? I see that you feel like a prophet, and the reality is, your vision is clear and is of God, I pray for others have the same vision and thus increase the possibilities of reaction. We live for Jesus and for Jesus, for your sake, even if the institution does not cooperate, is blind, it (the institution) will even be on earth when Jesus returns.
As a south African who has been away from the institution and living abroad for a few years I can say that I see now in retrospect that christian culture has become a idol to be revered and worshipped…
I’m always challenged by WB!
A by-product of moving outside things is ‘freedom of action’ but fundamentally, I realised that, unless we make the move, our mindsets remain ‘inside’. This also applies to the Jeremiah passage – a prophet called to live ‘outside’ – so much so that he needed protection from his brethren in Anathoth from the institutionalised of his day. A de-toxing of mindset. The challenge is maintaining relationship for all that.
There is a rearguard action going on in the church to maintain the values of Christendom particularly in the UK. Some of these values are worth holding on to – I don’t want to see children killed in the womb; I’m concerned about the spiritual doors that can be opened if ‘all roads lead to God’ from ‘whatever faith’ – there are many others. And, a rearguard action is OK but is really only designed to hold the bridge until the army escapes. It’s not a place from which to launch a counter-attack or even regroup. Counter-attack takes a new envisioning, new resources, new heart, new strategy.
The underlying mindset involved in Christendom is one of empire – a hidden embedded cancerous hierarchical structure that places power and charisma at the top and worships it. Not kingdom. Not servant-hearted. Not kenotic love. Until that is dealt with, no counter-attack is possible.
In empire, the reward is power and control. In the kingdom, the outcome can be death. But it’s death that seeds life, his life in us – new envisioning, new heart and new resource…