I posted some reflections last week on whether or not God is good. A friend mentioned that she’d like to hear a similar rumination on the church. Following are my non-exhaustive thoughts, from many years of experience being both for and against.

I became a Christian in the summer of 1993. For me that meant believing that the bible on some level emanated from the Almighty, that Jesus was God, and that it was time to go back to church. Since then, I’ve been committed to multiple churches, and held every position imaginable, from janitor to pastor, with the exception of the person who sits at the front desk and organizes things.

I’ve donated a ton of money and much more of my personal time and energy to this church thing, convinced that it’s something the world really needs. I’ll admit that I’m still haunted from time to time by the people that I’ve hurt over the years. It seems that the higher up you go in any hierarchy, the more people get caught in your wake. I also carry my own wounds from leaders and others who misstepped, either triggering some already existing wounds, or creating new ones. Mostly the former.

Freedom and Hurt

I’d say that’s one of the hardest things about church. The deeper you go, the more likely it is that someone — probably in leadership — is going to hurt you. It’s easy for leaders to get confused, sell out to the wrong agenda, preach the wrong message, represent the wrong god (politics these days), fight the wrong fight, marginalize people, mismanage funds, exploit shame, etc.

In all of that, folks get hurt.

If there’s any organization that shouldn’t be hurting people, it’s church.

At the same time, I’ve seen people set free by their faith community, challenged towards a deeper maturity and a truer sense of their personal worth. There are churches that have transformed the city that they operate in, garnering for themselves, even among the non-church crowd, a reputation that would make the biggest corporation jealous.

There are some churches that are just as committed to their city (and beyond) as they are to their congregation.

When I think about what church is supposed to be, I think about that. Nobody would question the “goodness” of church if they all operated that way.

Sadly, in our current media moment, the good stuff rarely makes the news, leaving the worst churches to be ambassadors and representatives of the whole thing. That’s one of the reasons why so many Americans are bailing from an institution that’s been a staple of American life since its inception.

Keeping the Butts in the Pews

But is church, in the general sense, a bad idea? Should we get rid of it altogether? Or better, should we characterize all churches by the arguably horrible behavior of some of them?

I don’t think we should do that with other staple intstitutions, say, marriage for example. That one hurts people all the time. So do corporations, political institutions, government services, and other fundamental elements of our world. In all of these, you’ll find shining examples of benevolence and hard work on one end; abuse, injustice, sometimes murder on the other.

Does that make them bad?

The problem isn’t with organizations and institutions, the problem is with people. All of these require leaders, followers, agendas, money, and ultimately opportunities for the abuse of power. Some manage to stick to their guns, remembering their place in the world, keeping the care of people somewhere near the forefront of their agenda. Others get carried away by self-serving siren songs that too many times come disguised as a good idea.

That doesn’t make whatever institution an inherently bad idea. It seems to me that any organization that’s supposed to serve a large group of people is going to be tempted to take care of itself, usually at the expense of the people it’s supposed to serve.

The church is not immune to this, often capitulating to its own survival at the expense of a greater calling. When the church becomes more concerned about keeping butts in the pews, understandable as that agenda is, it changes into something that few people want to be part of, leaving outsiders even more convinced that church just needs to go away.

Neccessary?

It’s interesting to think about where America would be if you got rid of faith altogether. It’s a difficult proposition as there simply aren’t any countries, similar to ours, that don’t have some system of belief enmeshed in everything else, especially their formation.

As Western countries put church in the back seat like never before, while simultaneously experiencing cultural changes of unprecidented heft and speed, it will be equally interesting to see what happens next. Will getting church out of the way make us all better?

I’m not convinced. I do get exasperated with churchy folk running around, pointing fingers, judging others (never themselves) for all manner of contemporary, allegedly questionable behavior.

Is that the church’s job?

At the same time, somebody needs to question our moral experiments as we put “feelings” in a place of authority that they’ve never had in my lifetime. Morality is a tricky thing, and seems to change based on how much a culture values relationships. When a society tends towards closeness and interdependence (think America 200 years ago), it adopts a moral code that’s quite distinct from the one that’s peddled in a place where people tend towards independence and isolation, like we do now.

Because humanity has such an arbitrary time at figuring out right and wrong, we’ll need something a bit more stable than feelings to guide the way.

Should church play a role there?

Long ago, when we fought for our independence, church was right in the middle of it all, providing all manner of spiritual and non-spiritual aid and guidance. When we fought our next war, the one where we couldn’t decide whether or not chattel slavery was legit, church was in the middle of that one, too, convincing both sides that they were fighting for the lord.

Would slavery have had such a foothold in our country without so many organized faith communities claiming that it was God’s way?

While churches have racked up their share of evil perpetrations, isn’t there an equally long list of good deeds, or at least one that’s worth considering? If we’re going to judge the church by its behavior, we’ll need to look at the whole thing before we decide whether or not church is a bad idea, or a good one that often goes bad, or something that needs to go away.

Personally, I’m not ready to condemn church as an institution, but I have no problem condemning the corporate sins — especially with regards to racism, injustice, awful politics, and homophobia — that are so prevalent, keeping the church in America at bay.

Some churches have had the life sucked out of them by that garbage, some are working on it, a few have managed to take their people to a higher calling. As someone who once tried to start his own church, I can attest that folks get angry when you go after the more personal sins; the kinds of changes that today’s church needs to make are dangerous. Org-threatening. I have deep respect for churches that are inclusive and multi-racial, for example. They had to walk through hell to get there.

I have a history of being committed to churches that many would call “bad.” The first non-catholic church I ever attended (30+ years ago) was one of the whitest, straightest, conservative, suburban, evanglicaliest churches you could imagine. But I found, among many other blessings, a level of acceptance that I hadn’t known since my youth. While I’d have a hard time committing to a similar church today, I can’t call that church bad. I still benefit from its ministry and committment to me.

As a former pastor, I believe that people of faith need a place to go where they can, for at least an hour, acknowledge and celebrate that God exists, to feel accepted and welcomed, to consider those scriptures that call us to a better, more peaceful and courageous version of ourselves, to learn the deeper meaning of love, and be challenged to take that, without condition or limitation, into the deepest parts of their world.

Outside of church, no institution provides anything close to that.

 

Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash