July 5 2015
COMPARING TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO TO TODAY
Two Thousand Years Ago
Two Thousand Years ago there was a drastic change in the world. Oh, it started pretty small, (all drastic changes start small) when a certain fellow, by the name of Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, challenged the people in charge of the Jewish religion in Jerusalem, because he said that the laws given to the Jewish people by the then temple administration were no longer valid.
Why did he do that? When Jesus appeared on the scene the Jewish religion had become encumbered with all sorts of new restrictions and those in charge laid heavy religious burdens on the people. Jesus, that simple fellow from Nazareth, lambasted these leaders, defied the Sabbath laws, told the crowd that the temple would be destroyed, and would no longer be the center of their religion. What especially enrages the elite was him saying that the old laws of do’s and don’ts were no longer valid but that love would be the norm, love even for the enemy, these hated Romans who had occupied the country. He summarized his new law as “Love God- that is creation – above else and your neighbors as yourself”. This caused the then church leaders to kill that man.
His 12 disciples took up the challenge, endowed with special wisdom. After some debates Paul (who himself had been a zealous persecutor of the New Way) convinced his fellow apostles that circumcision was no longer needed and so the band of Galileans – people mostly from the North of Israel, uneducated fishermen – set out to convert the world, preaching a radical new religion, making the Sunday instead of the Saturday the day to be set aside for worshiping the only God to whom also the Roman Emperor was subject.
The missionaries were aided by the Pax Romana, the Roman regime that made the entire world one unit with one language and one law, facilitating travel and communication, completely easing the way for new ideas to spread world-wide. And that’s what happened.
We now have a similar situation.
Now that same 2000 year old Christian Church is in deep trouble. In spite of Pope Francis being some sort of an icon in the world, his popularity has not translated into greater church attendance. In my neck of the woods, a bit of a rural outpost, only about 2 percent attend church regularly, and that mostly old(er) people who often hear uninspired sermons, but bear with them because the traditional coffee hour is a good time for socializing while the real church business goes on in the mid-week gatherings of study groups, choir and prayer meetings.
In many ways the social situation today resembles the universal status 2000 years ago. Then the common languages were Latin and Greek. Now the most used tongues are English and Mandarin, with English gaining ground every day. Then for Israel adherence to the law was the paramount requirement, the prescribed rituals, such as observing circumcision, temple tributes, keeping the Sabbath, all of which guaranteed salvation. Now most churches too have a set of what are called principles. Most of these rules center on opposition to homosexuality, premarital sex, contraception, out-of-wedlock childbearing, divorce and a range of other social issues. The Roman Catholic Church and many other Protestant denominations also have a female problem: women cannot serve in any capacity, even though they often compose the major part of the pew sitters. Then ideas spread through the world, without hinder, thanks to the Roman Empire. Now we have the INTERNET, the special tool able to spread a message, including the GOOD NEWS, world-wide.
It spite of failure the same format persists
When we joined the local church some 35 years ago we had regular attendance of some 50-60 people. Now, with people dying off or leaving to live with their children, the weekly attendance is seldom more than 25.
We used to have Sunday school. Now couples with children stay home, as especially teenagers don’t want to be associated with church.
Personally I feel that the current church format has become obsolete, just as it was 2000 years ago in the Temple worship. To have one person who has had a smattering of theological training speak some sort of essay – called sermon in church parlance – is no longer viable: it simply prevents a church from maturing. To enliven the worship scene with loud bands and hand-raising and overhead pictures will, perhaps, draw some pious young people, but that too misses the point. People keep on leaving the church, because the format is wrong, but nothing changes.
Last week David Brooks of the New York Times wrote a column on Christianity and its slow demise. He wrote: “More and more Christians feel estranged from mainstream culture. They fear they will soon be treated as social pariahs, the moral equivalent of segregationists because of their adherence to scriptural teaching on gay marriage. They fear their colleges will be decertified, their religious institutions will lose their tax-exempt status, their religious liberty will come under greater assault.”
I agree with him that we live in a ‘post-Christian’ era, but that’s exactly how Christianity started about 2000 years ago in the ‘pre-Christian’ era: a world hostile to the Gospel. Hostility is the seed of the church. Indifference kills the church, makes it impossible to reach people. Even though all signs point to a world situation that can no longer be sustained, both economically and environmentally, with many predicting the end of the world as we know it, the church goes its own irrelevant way. By and large the church seems oblivious to these events, just as the main press, all drunk on the deadening doses of carbon pollution which also have transfixed our brains in believing that infinite growth and infinite use of poisonous substances can be prolonged forever. The utter craziness is especially evident as most Christians deny Climate Change.
My own Reformed roots are rotting.
All this has affected also my roots, which are in the Protestant Reformation. The Dutch wing in Canada has been quite active in establishing all sorts of Christian Institutions: Christian Schools on all levels as well as Christian Social Action in labor, politics and world relief. Many years ago I was at the forefront of all this. Now I am starting to see that all this action completely depends on the continuation of the Capitalistic Society which is at the root of the current environmental plight. All these Christian institutions depend on people making plenty of money in order to be able to afford the high tuition in the different levels of schooling.
I see many parallels between 2000 years ago and today.
In the first place we have, just like in Jesus’ time, a universal language and a universal culture, both of which are a blessing – the language – and a curse – a culture that is totally godless. For most of the world God is dead and, as Nietzsche has remarked, “When God is dead everything is permitted.”
I think the church is in a rut, just as it was 2000 years ago when Jesus intervened. Today nothing is as dangerous as ordinary, seemingly harmless matters, such as our carefree cup of coffee, perhaps a prayer at breakfast, our regular trek to church, enrolling kids in Christian Schools. For many that is the extent of Christian service. All this can be fine and even pious, but it also can slowly deteriorate into some sort of disastrous routine. If I read my bible correctly holy living has always something to do with perspective, with vision, with élan, with, dare I say it, with forming new ways and adapting to new ideas, and constantly struggling against the spirits of the age.
Forty years ago, when living in St. Catharines, Ontario I had a dispute with my minister so, rather than bringing it to a head, I left his church. Fortunately this conflict was the beginning of me changing from being Reformed and starting Reforming. Our moving to 50 acres in Eastern Ontario and building an energy efficient house was the beginning of a new journey into faith. Living among the trees, amidst the full force of nature brought us closer to creation.
The Pope in his excellent encyclical made the amazing statement that if we want to love God we do so by loving his creation.
If that is true, and I think it is, then our entire way of worshiping has to change: more creation-centered. Christianity believes that God created the world. I too do firmly believe that. Because God created it all, it is his Primary Word, his direct revelation. The Pope quoted Romans 1: 20 which contain these amazing words: “God’s creation in itself is sufficient to rob people of all excuses that God does not exist.” It might not bring them to salvation, but it certainly is ground for condemnation.
We generally refer to the Bible as God’s Holy Word, even though it is God’s Secondary Word, his indirect revelation. For some reason – which I will suspect is the easy way out – the Church has promoted the Bible to be the All and in all, the first and last word and everything in between, making faith basically a Sunday matter, in essence denying that creation is God’s HOLY Word as well.
Now more than ever we must follow the no-nonsense directive of the Bible which time and again speaks of fighting to the death and waging a determined battle with the evil in society, which becomes more evident by the day, especially in our polluting ways of life from which there is no escape.
I admire what Pope Francis said, even though there was nothing radical in his encyclical. What I missed in his words – and in the church in general – is a vision of the Kingdom. The Roman church equates the Kingdom with their church and Reformed people maintain that the Kingdom consists of Church, School, Home, an erroneous idea originating with Kuyper and Calvin. That the Kingdom is God’s creation and will come in perfection when Jesus returns is not commonly preached or practiced in Reformed circles.
That’s why I am no longer Reformed but try to be constantly Reforming, constantly seeking new ways to honor God in his creation. I try to live in tune with the sort of vision that goes beyond the church and includes the aims of Greenpeace and other environmental organizations, and entails a radical new view and basis of life.
It is my sincere conviction that, were the church to regard God’s creation as the Primary Word, of which John 3:16 is its very foundation, rather than stare oneself blind into the Scriptures, God’s Secondary Word, then, perhaps, the slowly decaying institutional church could see a distinct revival. Very perhaps. I believe Amos was right when he predicted that we are (Amos 8: 12) “searching for the word of God but they will not find it.”
As I have written in one of my blogs, this might entail changing our way of living from a suburban- single family-auto-imprisoned existence, to perhaps a more monastic family-oriented community.
Jesus, time and again, hammered on the theme: “Seek first the Kingdom” – work for the welfare of Creation – so that, indeed, the first request in the Lord’s Prayer “Thy Kingdom Come” is realized for us.
We should remember that in the New Creation – this very earth where we are now- there will be no church, no bible. So, in a sense it is not surprising that the church is disappearing. The same can be said of marriage, I presume.
To me John 3: 16 is the most important text in the Bible today: God loved his cosmos so much that he sacrificed his Son to redeem it – buy it back, in other words. It’s now in the power of the Evil One.
A few weeks ago – March 29- one of my blog’s heading was: You can’t love Jesus if you don’t love creation.
So what should the church do?
So what should the church do? The church should forget about Sunday services in its current form, the customary monologues that have proven to be totally ineffective in this age of so many competing attractions. Instead Sunday gatherings should consist of singing and prayer – lots of both, and some appropriate Bible passages – after which the congregation splits into sessions of yes, bible discussions, yes, workshops on environmental matters, yes, learn how to live responsibly in an age of depletion, pollution and food-poisoning. Most bought foods have far too many unwanted ingredients. Perhaps the local church should also have training sessions on how to grow foods, how to live healthy. The opportunities are endless: all this in anticipation for the New Earth to come.
Two thousand years ago new hope was born. Now 20 centuries later that only hope is for Christ coming again to set his people free.