Church as Distraction

My blogging buddy Bill Kinnon has a gift for expressing deeply felt things about the church in ways that resonate with many people.  In his posting, To the People formally known as the Congregation, he offers insight that should be read in its entirety. Go read it and come back. I have a couple things to say.

Thanks for returning.

Here's the essential issue that I see in what Bill writes and what I tried to say in a previous posting called Christianity as Abstraction.  It is also what I tried to get at in my comment to Bill on his polemic.

There are plenty of reasons to be critical, even cynical. That's okay as long as it leads to something positive and constructive.

The problem isn't the church, or worship, or music, or sermons or even egotistical pastors. Those are all symptoms of some other thing. In this sense, the church is a distraction from what is really at issue.

At the heart of what Bill is saying, and many others are affirming, is really the loss of our humanity. 

To regain our humanity is to live truthfully as a person whose interior and exterior lives are connected in some meaningful way.  We live in a culture that celebrates the surface of life and denies the issues of human identity, purpose and relationships.  Yet, it will be here that we find a way to be the church that fulfills the hope that lingers in the shadows of Bill's polemic.

The question then is how do I live a whole human life and what place does God and the church have in that quest?

UPDATE: Since I wrote the above, I've read the additional links that Bill has provided.  One additional thought. The church is the way it is because of the people who are there. If you don't like, take a moment or more to reflect on your own contributions to the dysfunction that is the church.  There are no perfect churches.  No perfect people.

It may well be that the problem with serial church shoppers isn't the church but their own inability to commit to the work and sacrifice to make the church what it is supposed to be.  I say something about that at another time.

Comments

[DennisS]

Wow. I haven't read the links from the post, but I sure appreciate what you have written here. I especially like your synopsis:

"At the heart of what Bill is saying, and many others are affirming, is really the loss of our humanity."

I'm inviting eight local pastors over for lunch on Wednesday, and I'd like to share this with them. With only 19% of the population here in worship on any given Sunday, and the age of those in the congregations, we've got plenty to talk about.

I noticed that you didn't mention:
"My Rule of Thumb is that people seek experiences that are personally meaningful and socially fulfilling." Perhaps that is because you post it fairly frequently, and thus your regular readers will be quite aware of it.

It seems to me that people do want that which is meaningful and purposeful. This week I realized that I didn't include anything specific in the sermon about how the text affects me, how it was specifically meaningful to me. (I usually do this to some degree.) Not that I'm terribly narcissistic, but people want to know that it is important - that the text really makes a difference in the life of someone they know. They want to know how it can make a difference in their life.

Thank you for continuing to post thoughts and ideas. I don't comment very frequently, but I do like reading your blog.