THE CHURCH IN FLUX
Chapter 24
How then shall we live?
We often accuse the church that it is behind the times, old-fashioned, not in touch, too bound to outmoded traditions. Here is a paradox: in order to be with it, in order to actually be ahead of the curve, in order to be able to give real leadership to a society that craves for solutions, if the church really is concerned about its future – and, of course, it should be – then, in these last days, it has to go back 2000 years, to the church’s first days. That is the paradox the church faces.
In that glorious beginning when people responded to its call in droves, the first-time Christians, all over the Roman world, formed small groups of tiny active cells, anticipating and preparing for the imminent return of Christ.
Of course, the Roman Empire provided the necessary infrastructure for the gospel to spread world-wide: a world-government, universal travel, security guaranteed by the Pax Romana, also one language, spoken or understood by all aware people, all this aided the spread of the Good News.
Now, after 2000 years, after a long human history in which people organized themselves to a Tee, have become technically capable of previously un-heard-of feats, many now start to realize that all this progress has come at a price, that the bills are coming due, that the debt is so large, an amount larger than life, greater than anything the world can ever produce. Fortunately the account has been settled, the bill has a stamp on it: paid in full at Golgotha. Yet this rescue plan comes with a condition attached: only those who are ready to enter the new creation, those who have actively sought the Kingdom will, when the human-induced collapse occurs, when renewal is at hand, gain entrance there.
So the crucial question today is: “How then shall we live?”
That is the issue all Christians face now more than ever. Preparation for the Lord’s coming cannot involve the aid of the gadgets which is causing the demise of human culture in the first place. Today, almost everything we do involves the burning of fossil fuel which is the greatest threat to God’s creation. The question ‘how then shall we live?’ forces us to explore the initial problem of ‘how can we live without these mechanical aids?’ The simple answer is that we cannot, and yet we must try, and when we fail to do that – and we will fail because we have painted ourselves in a corner – the least we can do is pray for forgiveness, while keep on experimenting to live holistically, always with the welfare of creation in mind. In other words, we now must strive for a life that will last for eternity. Now is the time to enter that new life, so that easing ourselves into that New Creation by actively being engaged in living that life now is not an impossible task. From now on it must dominate our very thinking all the time.
In the previous chapters we have seen that in our age Satan calls the shots. He has determined the sort of development humans must undertake, development that, in the end, proved to be creation destroying, leading to a total disintegration of civilization.
This means that we have to start from scratch, start very modestly, heeding Jesus’ words that “where two or three are together in my name, there I’ll be also.” This means that it cannot be done within the current ecclesiastical organizational structure, even though mostly church members would be involved. Only personal witness, not so much through the spoken words, but mostly be through acts of charity and expressed through showing constant love for all God’s creation. E. F. Schumacher, in his “Small is Beautiful”, has shown that small is better anyway. Massive gatherings always entail massive use of energy in transportation, in heating or air conditioning costs. Mega churches have no other goal than promoting personal adoration, results in becoming super organized and so becoming subject to the law of bureaucracy and de-personification.
The New Testament points to house-congregations. The church in Jerusalem which counted thousands of members, avoided the danger of being oversized by splitting into manageable small units that met in each others homes, as is evident from Act 2:46 where it says that ‘they broke bread in their homes and ate together with sincere and glad hearts.” The apostles too went, according to Acts 5:42, from house to house and never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. Romans 16:5 relates that the Christians in the capital of the Empire worshipped in the home of Priscilla and Aquila, to which Paul sent his greetings. He also visited – see 1 Corinthians 16:19 – to the (house) churches in Asia, as well as to Nympha and the meeting at her house as is plain from Colossians 4:15. Philemon 2 confirms this structure as well.
So there is overwhelming evidence that this form of simple organization on the grass root level contributed immensely to the rapid spiritual maturing of the first generation Christians. This process has everything to do with them being on their own, with them personally discovering the depth of Christianity, its wide scope and its broad implication through self-discovery, through prayer and meditation and discussion on a communal level. This was possible because they believed that they were indeed all prophets, priests and kings.
It’s a great pity that the later church has not seen this as a proper way to grow. Soon thereafter the church appointed leaders who then, in turn, prescribed for them how to act in matters religious. This hierarchical structure also resulted in Old Testament ornate vestments and intricate pageantry so unlike the simplicity and freedom Jesus showed in his life.
Of course delegating authority is the easy way out, except that a faith function cannot be delegated: it is a personal matter. The church in becoming a sort of travel agency where guides did the planning, where the clerics became the travel consultants, in this way eliminated personal excursions, and stifled spiritual growth.
The Reformation was supposed to have changed this concept by giving power to the believers, but in reality nothing much different emerged: the same principle of tour guides, of specially trained persons, schooled in dogmatic and theological questions, robbing the laity of exercising personal growth and developing Kingdom expertise, so different from the early New Testament vision where not a professional power structure oversaw developments, but where every member of a local church group saw as his or her calling to exercise the office of believer in their mission to realize their Christian goal. Nowhere in the New Testament is there any hint that the world must be conquered for Christ by means of an organized power structure.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9, quoting Jesus’ words, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” The apostles did not, as a body, address the Roman authorities protesting slavery, nor did they send a referendum to the Emperor in connection with the idolization of his office, neither did they design a political manifesto to guide the bureaucrats who had become Christians in their work. What the apostles did do was to point out to the new Christians from all walks of life to be a shining light, to do what was just, to love justice and to walk humbly with God: in other words, to live the Covenant. Those who kept slaves were reminded that they would have to treat their slaves as fellow humans. Paul told Onesimus, a run-away slave, to return to his master and gave him a note for him wherein he urged his former owner to treat him well, for Christ’s sake and not punish him because he had escaped.
It is with that sort of maturity, with that aim for self-responsibility, in being a grown-up Christian engaged in their own environment and busy in their own surroundings where the future of the church lies. That’s what caused the phenomenal growth of Christianity in the first Century. The growth of the church was not due to operating a smoothly functioning organization, no, it was the influence of adult-in-the-faith believers, who used their daily contacts in life to influence their pagan neighbors and acquaintances and even employers. According to various sources it has been especially the women who played an important role there, something true even today. It was through them that, in the year 95 A.D., Christianity penetrated even into the imperial family.
Because men, women and children in their full-grown faith in Jesus Christ did not hide their beliefs but in their day-to-day activities showed their faith for all to see, without relying on official pronouncements and well-run organizations, that Christianity blossomed in the world of antiquity. This indicates that the more the church favors organization over personal witness the less it becomes the communion of saints.
So how do we recapture that original spirit? How then shall we live to be found acceptable to Christ and be welcomed into the New Creation? That the present structure is not working is also evident from the burn out rate among the current clergy. The (Canadian) Presbyterian Record reports that in a survey of more than 300 ministers from six Canadian denominations, they found that the number of those who had been diagnosed with clinical depression was double the national average. It also mentioned that these statistics likely underestimate the extent of clergy suffering, since studies show that only about half of those with major depression seek help. It’s therefore no surprise that sermons, by and large, do little or nothing to enhance spiritual growth for the flock, as, says this article, “although ministers read the Scriptures in preparation for sermons, it rarely nourished them personally.” Let alone others, I might add. One minister calls “ministry an endless job, often a bottomless pit.”
Although the article lists several ways to help ministers to avoid work overload and deal with the many problems associated with being a church pastor, it fails to come up with a new structure for the congregation where pastoral care and preaching is delegated to those members of the church who have the time and the talent to do that.
How then shall we live?