In a Class of its Own
The Church of Jesus Christ, as a living organism, as a group of people, has no parallels in the world; neither the Church, capital "C" (all Christians who have ever lived) nor the church, small "c" (each local congregation).
There is no grouping with which we can compare the church to. No society, no organization, no association, no federation, no guild or league.
And yet throughout history - and strangely right from the closing of the New Testament, the end of the apostolic age - there have been numerous attempts to exchange the pure ecclesiology of the New Testament for the ephemeral structures of the world.
And so the church is in desperate need of reform in every decade and every century.
Reformation must never be regarded as a "done that in the 1500's" activity, but a regular and never-ending conforming of the church to the ways of Scripture, for like sheep, we are always going astray.
The uniqueness of the church is manifold:
- The Church of Jesus Christ, for example has no visible or earthly leader, no pope, no archbishop. The elders of every local church are accountable directly to their glorious heavenly Head.
- There are no human hierarchal structures in the New Testament to bind (or in some case to blind) congregations together apart from the Gospel and love - no denominations, where pyramid hierarchies abound: pastors, bishops, archbishops.
(There is a very good reason for this latter uniqueness: every human organisation - including every Christian organization - has the potential for corruption, and if not corruption, human foibles, such as nepotism, old-boy networks, the abuse of power, imbalance, mono-culture, and so on. Only One Leader is free from human bias and folly.)
- The New Testament Church has no physical location and possesses no property.
- The Church is utterly unique in the way it is made up of people from every tribe and nation, class and culture - in contrast to this world where, "birds of a feather flock together." Similar folks hang out with similar folks. But in the church there should be a radical difference on that front; people from every age, nation and rank rubbing shoulders, worshipping the Lord and breaking bread together. The Gospel alone connects God's people.
- A further unique feature of the Church is its complete disinterest in numerics. Every company, business and political party is driven, judged, assessed, and obsessed with the numbers game. Whether the numerics pertain to annual growth percentage, the number of hits, number of members or dollars. Numbers are everything in the world. But the Scriptures, if anything, are number-phobic, to prevent glory going to man.
So how does the church ape the world today, rather than remaining in a class of its own, or to use an old Latin phrase, a sui generis?
And more importantly, how does each distortion harm the glory of Christ's church?
The Church as Night-Club
Hillsong. Oh dear. Where do you start? You would have thought you'd walked through the wrong doors at the wrong time of the day. Lights, music, lasers. And then, worst of all, the composition of the congregation. Only healthy, Turkey-teeth, youngsters.
Emphasize the visible
Emphasize the audible
Emphasize the youthful beauty of the congregants
The nightclub is a tiny sub-culture within wider western society. And apart from a thousand other reasons a church should not ape that model, the exclusive appeal to a narrow age-band is enough to condemn it.
You might as well hang a sign on the door, "If you are older than 30, do not enter." No grey-hairs, no one who likes hymns, no sober minded folks....
The Church as a University department
A common caricature is the Church as a department of the university. In these churches people are always going on "courses" and the pastors boast about, seek, and compare their academic qualifications.
The blurb on the books written by members of this community inform the reader what institutions the writer has studied at and what level he/she has achieved.
All of this is utterly alien to the New Testament, where God's servants might boast about how much they have suffered for the Gospel, rather than how much they have been lauded by the world.
To be part of the in-crowd you need to have read the latest evangelical scholar-gurus - even though their writings will probably be unknown before the decade's out.
Long words are used and abstract ideas preferred. (Like, for example, the Latin words I once used in this blog's title, "The Church is a "sui genereis""😑). You discover strange words, to quote Simon and Garfunkel, you "never heard in the Bible" such as "Pastors Academies" and "Theologians in Residence." Acts chapter what, we should ask?
The tragic effect of this parody is at least two-fold. First, the supernatural elements of our faith are toned down, since rationalism generally tends to despise the supernatural. And secondly, ordinary people - once again it's the ordinary folks - are all too easily turned off; only the educated are allowed truth and comfort of the Gospel.
The Church as TV Studio
Ever since the pandemic, churches have sought to studioize (not a recognized word; you read it here first!) their church buildings and especially their stages. I am amazed how many church platforms now have a black (or dark) background, with cool LED lights, where fair flowers of paradise once bloomed.
On the one hand there is a new post-pandemic opportunity to share the Gospel with the world, but on the other hand dangers abound.
The service is now structured for the outside viewer. So let's introduce a strict time limit. Let's up the professionalism, so no more amateurs reading and no more learning-curve mistakes.
Only the most experienced musicians, meeting leaders, readers and preachers please. And of yes, make sure they are mostly young and mostly good looking.
In other words, the aim of morning worship is now to seek approval by the world and - oh yes - to gather as many hits as possible. What a nest of errors creep into the studio perversion of the church!
The Church as Ted Talks
In this aberration, the singular and attracting feature is the big-shot who preaches every Sunday, the Sage on the Stage. Always dissatisfied with the rather humbling title "Pastor" this bloke adds worldly titles to enhance his standing, perhaps "Apostle" or "Bishop" or "Dr" or perhaps he just slips in where he was educated, from time to time.
And as the sage gets older weird stuff happens. He looks dafter and dafter as those around him struggle to fix up his looks with facelifts, toupees and teenager teeth (old faces don't get hits you see). Must cost a bomb - and no-one is deceived.
And then as soon as he dies or moves on, the church unravels, because he was the soul and hub.
The true church, by contrast, is a priesthood of many believers, the church is likened to a body where every part and every gift - not just one - is vital and plays a role. Our only Head is Jesus Christ who is in heaven.
The Church as a Building
This is the most prevalant mutation of the Church; Church = building. "I'm going to church," "join us at church," "if they don't own a building they're not a proper church," etc. Even though we all know that the church is never a building in the New Testament and only ever people - who can meet in any location whatsoever.
Out there in the world this is the definition of the church, "there used to be a church on every corner." AI art program Dalle produced the church building drawing above when asked to draw a "church."
A very subtle shift in ecclesiology takes place when we begin identifying the word Church with a building. People stop using their homes, organism is replaced by organisation, and "We're going to church" replaces "We are the church."
The Church as a Mono-Culture
Another all-too-common ecclesiastical mutation is the mono-cultural church. In a mixed city, the church is all white people, or all black people. In a city with blue and white collar workers, the church is all blue collar or all white collar.
Or all educated, or all non-educated. And so on.
In the true church of Jesus Christ there ought to be Jew plus Gentile, Slave (the oppressed) and the Free, Male and Female.
The Church as Empire
This variety of church is alive and well in all the denominations of the world and was the very first mutant of the Christian era.
Long before Constantine we find pyramid structures showing up in the church. It is astounding to discover within a century of Pentecost, individual churches happily buried under the heavy and chilling snow drift of bishops, archbishops, and so forth.
Some of the human reasons that were originally used back then are understandable (to protect the church from error while the New Testament canon was being formed, for example), but human reason should never trump Scripture. Now that we have the completed Scriptures which nowhere mentions bishops or archbishops, local churches should free themselves from the tyranny of church empires, out of loyalty to Jesus Christ.
The pyramid empire notion comes from the world where lust for power shapes the structure and shape of every human organisation.
Reformation Today
There is a vast need in every era to return to the simplicity of the Gospel and the Scriptures vision of a pure church.
And that is need is no less today than at any time in the history of the church.
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