One topic of theology that seems to be the most under
discussed and yet is incredibly obvious is the understanding of the church.
Often times Christians get so caught up in doing church and knowing the
language of “christianese” that they end up not being able to see the
proverbial trees for the forest standing in their way. Our fundamental
understanding of whom and what the church is supposed to be is vital to our
functioning in a practical Christian lifestyle. There are many definitions of
the church that abound, so I will not be attempting to cover every definition;
instead, I will attempt to bring out a diversity of opinions and then give my
own thoughts on the topic.
In
a discussion of the Christian church, I think it’s fair to make some
observations of a couple of perpetuations that have invaded traditional
Christian theology and are character of what I like to refer to as
“pop-Christianity”. The first is a term that I most definitely did not coin; it
describes well the illness that has beset the church; it is called “the gospel
of prosperity”. This is the teaching that God wants you healthy, attractive and
wealthy. Then, the logic goes, God’s will is supreme and since God wants all
those things for me, I guess I’ll just be ok with that. This belief is not only
contradictory to the more ascetic foundations of Christianity in the desert
fathers, martyrs and even Christ himself but, it excludes that majority of the
world who is either ill, poor, ugly or some combination of the three. The
gospel of Christ is one of open arms to the marginalized, not one that excludes
them or treats them as secondary citizens or “not fully Christian” Christians.
Unfortunately
the gospel of prosperity is alive and well in charismatic or (as Simon Chan
says in his book Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshiping Community)
charismaniacal[1] circles.
Preachers such as Joel Osteen even add to their statement of beliefs that “God
intends for each of us to experience the abundant life he has in store for us”[2].
This is not only an inaccurate view of how God regards us, but it is exclusive
to those who have not experienced the “abundant life”; are these people simply
not included in God’s intentions for prosperity? This is a dangerous doctrine
that chases people away from the church due to the narrowness and exclusivity
of the gospel of prosperity
Another
major cripple to Christianity is what Author, Kendra Dean, calls Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism in her book Almost
Christian[3].
This belief is also alive and well in our churches and misconstrues the purpose
of the Church. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism displaces the original story of
believers who had struggles to remain holy with a story that simply says “do
good, feel good and then maybe include Christ. The church is called to much
more than feeling like good people, doing nice things and remember Jesus once a
week.
This
is a problem of nurture over and against nature. We are directly responsible
for showing a correct theology of the church to our children. In the west, we
get so sidetracked to keep up with things that we forget the ever-present God
who is truly in control of things. Being a Christian is more that simply being
nice, doing good things and then sprinkling on a little Christ. We must be intentional
now about the future generations and how they will worship.
Moving
on from some of the more frustrating issues that plague the church, we must
look at a remedy. One solution to the cheap faith of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
and the inaccurate proclamations of the gospel of prosperity is that of a
liturgical theology. Chan does a fair job of demonstrating the importance of
the worship of the Christian church. In fact, Chan defines the church as
primarily a worshiping community rather than any kind of social functioning
group that serves a purpose. Chan goes so far as to say “like play, the liturgy
has no purpose, yet it is full of meaning”.[4]
What he means is that it is unfathomably important to encounter God and yet
there is no other agenda to be pursued. Truly, being a worshiping gathering of
people is an end in itself.
In
order to demonstrate the balance that liturgy strives to maintain, I would like
to defer to Theologian John Zizioulas. In his book Lectures in Christian Dogmatics he succinctly states that in
relation to the world, “the Church should be offering itself to the world
rather than imposing itself on it”[5].
While the church as a worshiping community should be focused on worshiping of
God, we must not draw a strict dichotomy between the church and the world.
While there are many arguments for being distinct from the world, there are few
strong arguments to justify departing from it entirely and as Zizioulas says,
we should be offering the world something. That something is a relationship
with the creator and his church; this is something that is worth living for and
(as many martyrs have demonstrated) worth dying for.
I
have already started to share some of my own ideas on what the church is
supposed to be. I do like the way that Chan identifies the church as a
collection of worshipers primarily. As a worship leader, I have found that it
is incredibly important to maintain a worshipful lifestyle in all ways.
Everything from eating and drinking to prayer and scripture reading can be forms
of worship. Worship is any action that one executes in order to acknowledge God
for what he is. As a community of worshipers, our focus becomes on God instead
of on humanity and all of the ways that we are different or even similar for
that matter. We often substitute traditional worship for feel-good songs that
have little to no theological backing. How sad that the bride of Christ should
forget the importance how to say “I
love you” to her lover so soon after the church’s inception.
In
conjunction with seeing everything we do as worship and seeing ourselves as a
worshiping community, I think it is almost as important for the church catholic
to be as relevant as possible in any case; however, it is important for us to
remember that the pragmatics of trying to be relevant necessitate moving
outward and focusing our energies on the world who will persecute us. Following
the example of Christ, we welcome this persecution for the payoff is much
greater; the waking up of sleeping souls to the reality of the Kingdom of God. We
as the church, the bride of Christ acknowledge our responsibility to preserve
the ecclesia at every opportunity through the truth that our traditions import.
This doesn’t mean the liturgy is the only answer – no, it is but one of many –
but it does mean that the handing down of our faith is the only way that the
church will survive; to this end, tradition is the answer.
Leave me a comment and lemme know your thoughts too!
Pax,
The Dread
[1] Chan,
Simon. Liturgical theology: the church as worshiping community. Downers
Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2006. Print.
[2][2]
"What We Believe Joel Osteen Ministries." Joel Osteen Ministries.
N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2012.
<http://www.joelosteen.com/About/Pages/WhatWeBelieve
[3] Dean,
Kenda Creasy. Almost Christian: what the faith of our teenagers is telling
the American church. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
[4] Chan,
Simon. "The Worship of the Church." Liturgical theology: the
church as worshiping community. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2006.
54. Print.
[5]
Zizioulas, Jean, and Douglas H. Knight. "The Church." Lectures in
Christian dogmatics. London: T & T Clark, 2008. 161. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment