Two weeks ago I wrote about the tendency of some Christians’ language to sound very confusing to nonbelievers.
Or worse: Christians’ failure to speak plainly in favor of naively communicating in Churchese will result in others’ incorrect assumptions about the meanings of the words “mercy,” “sin,” “God” or even the word “Christian.” (The latter term, according to many, could mean a non-Jew; someone really really good; or a churchgoer who believes in God.)
That was part one of a three-part series about this particular traditional “Churchian” strain of American Christianity, as opposed to the problem of Megachurch formation and emphasis on changing the Church to more accurately reflect the culture. It’s unclear which is the greatest problem among God’s people, at least in America: those Christians who seek to show the world that they’re not really all that irrelevant to the culture, by means of building bigger and more expensive churches with entertainment equipment and calculated pop-culture ripoff references; or the unchanging, hyper-traditional Churchianity syndrome.
This Traditional Church posits the opposite extreme of the Megachurch problem, by means of continuing in the same old, rarely changing rut of faith practice:
1) Speaking in Churchese;
2) Adherence to Churchianity, in addition to Christ;
3) Outmoded evangelism — preaching to people as if we’re still in the 1940s and more people believe in the Biblical God and morality, or even universal standards of Right and Wrong altogether.
Column part one, on Jan. 11, spoke of the first problem. Now to move on to those other aspects of “Churchianity” that keep traditional Christians — genuine and otherwise — comfortable and unchallenged, and put off those who could otherwise be drawn to Christ.
House Rules
Those familiar with the American Church, primarily evangelical or “fundamentalist” Protestant denominations, know that there are some things you can do in some church worship services, and many things you can’t.
These will vary from congregation to denomination. Most of them aren’t directly found in Scripture or the scope of true God-given commands and doctrines, but sometimes the church members may imply — or even say directly — that these traditions are just as Biblical as the Bible itself.
Take Southern Baptists, for example. A typical Baptist Church in southern America consists of several common elements. Which one of these is absolutely, without-a-doubt, handed-down-from-on-high Biblical for Doing Church?
1. Baptismal tanks.
2. Pianos.
3. Organs.
4. Altar calls.
5. Pews.
6. Sunday schools.
7. Scripture reading.
8. Revival meetings.
Did you catch it? Only number seven is absolutely without a doubt Scriptural — duh — for the Christ-honoring church body.
All the rest are merely auxiliary.
Perhaps we’ve heard of the silly stories in which entire congregations split over something as stupid as the most spiritual color of paint for the sanctuary walls. But most of the problems over peripherals like that seem much more serious: music style, amount and type of programs and ministries, leadership techniques and so on.
Music style is probably the worst. “Worship wars,” pastors are calling these conflicts.
And they lead to both extremes. I’ve been in churches where the worship leader would not stop thrashing on his drums long enough to actually consider the words of the praise song, which were already pathetic anyway.
But I’ve also been in churches where surely the very idea of drums would have been met with the Scowl of Impending Wrath.
Even if you haven’t been to one of these churches yourself, you’re likely aware of the stereotype, which is unfortunately true in many congregations: Behold, drums are Worldly and of the Devil! Whereas pianos have evidently been materialized directly from the Celestial City into the sanctuary.
Yet how many of us have been in churches, or heard of such churches, where to question such traditions was to question the will of God Himself? It’s the same way with nontraditional churches, of course.
In fact, the danger of ensuring these traditions don’t become so entrenched is that this effort will itself become the next entrenched tradition.
Imagine a world of the future, perhaps the year 2046, in which older churchgoers, having grown up in church with “Shine Jesus Shine” and “Lord I Lift Your Name on High” resist revolutionary youths’ efforts to add 19th-century hymns to the worship services.
It’s already happening; I’ve already seen hints of this seeming paradox.
Meaning the fight against change is not at all limited only to a certain generation or method of conducting a worship service.
‘We must — be — protogolegorically correct!’
Meanwhile, for many Christians, the system of Churchian traditions extends far beyond only the appearance of a sanctuary or the style of a worship service. Certain methods of morality, many based solely in aspects of local or chronological culture, are often upheld as being just as Christian as believing in the Virgin Birth.
Here’s just one (often literally) glaring example.
Recently I was present during a church’s (on-tape) speech by a popular evangelical speaker on creation/evolution topics.
This man is a young-earth creationist, very popular on the teaching circuit and very fundamentalist, often in a positive sense. As a speaker, he’s entertaining, interesting to watch and very direct.
Yet he often becomes misdirected anyway in a very interesting “Attention Deficit Disorder” sense. The most dangerous thing he could say seems to be “By the way.” That’s because, among his very well-intended efforts to present the Christ of the Bible and outline how real science confirms the creation account in Genesis, this speaker incidentally equates certain cultural beliefs with the truths of creation:
1. The speaker’s brief reference to alcoholic beverages led to his quick side-note condemnation of drinking altogether, because it’s sinful.
2. Cigarettes and smoking, too, aren’t at all right.
3. A tangential slide image showed in a negative light a spike-haired “punk” with earrings, tattoos and otherwise “unwholesome” appearances, prompting another mini-sermonette from the speaker about the sin of tattoos.
4. Multiple fallacious instances of argumentum ad cerebrosus (arguments from outrage) already crowded the speaker’s rationale for rejecting silly-sounding evolutionary ideas: e.g. he appealed to “common sense” and his hearers’ emotional reactions to “disprove” concepts of origins that already sound weird. But when presenting a certain textbook example of the “Big Bang” theory, the speaker arguably sneered, “They cut down a tree to print that? Where’s Al Gore when you need him?” — a transparently right-wing political reference, of course.
Certainly, most of the speaker’s audience, including me, have no reason to condemn these remarks.
I don’t smoke, don’t drink and I have my hair done “wholesomely.”
The only needles entering my skin have been to take blood out or put medication in, not to inject small pockets of ink.
And I’ve also frequently find fault with Al Gore and believe he’s certainly worthy of good-natured mockery, a la Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al. (At this point, Gore is about as dangerous as representatives of specific Ba’al worship.)
But with Statement 4, this speaker just subconsciously dismissed as illegitimate those few Christians who don’t get his right-wing joke. They, for whatever reason, aren’t politically conservative — the naïve, the Southern Democrats, or the genuine Christ-honoring Liberal who is simply wrong about the best political course for the USA.
Statement 3 relegated all spike-haired people into “non-Christian” or at least “freak” status. Clearly such an appearance could denote someone’s inner attitude of wanting to fit in with a corrupt subculture, but is it really true that no true Christ-follower would style his or her hair like this? And again, might we sometime arrive in a future world in which traditional “true” Christians wear their hair spiked, or as long as the “spiritual” men of the Bible once did?
And Statements 1 and 2 just disqualified C.S. Lewis.
Based in Grace
In that speaker’s zeal, and perhaps motivation to persuade his hearers that he was “one of them” with his opposition to tobacco use and “worldly” appearance, the speaker failed to remember the principles of Grace and the futility of ascribing cultural practices the same weight as clear Biblical principles.
Yes, alcohol and tobacco can lead to addictions. Yes, very often punk-hairdos and other dress styles denote ungodly patterning after secular trends. Yes, politicians such as Al Gore want to make America into an economically Socialist nation with a by-proxy established secular religion.
But it’s incorrect for any speaker or church to ascribe This is Law status to any of these condemnations and ignore Grace even for Christians take a sip now and then, or are pathetically wrong about political issues.
Especially for those who already believe they know that is what Christianity is: a system of Law and Order, certain Rules and Traditions you have to follow as best as possible in order to weigh the justice scales your way and crack open the Pearly Gates for after your expiration date.
Or, even if you do believe Christ has already paid for everything, well, you want to give him the “most,” right, or be more spiritual with more good deeds and practices, right? That goes for the “correct” foods, music preferences, holiday celebrations, medical practices, education methods, wealth accumulation — all manner of things for which multiple Christians have found “Biblical” rationales that aren’t actually Biblical.
Elevating man’s law above Scripture. It’s all in Galatians, being condemned by Paul — many of these cultural practices by name, actually. Legalism. And it enslaves well-meaning Christ-followers beyond the reach of Grace and the honor and focus on a sovereign Lord.
So much more so with nonbelievers who need to hear the truths of Condemnation Under Law and Salvation by Christ’s Grace. That’s mere Christianity. The real thing, impervious to cultural shifts and human traditions.
Not Smear Churchianity, which either declares or implies that nonbelievers have to accept all the traditions as gospel truth along with the actual Gospel Truth. Or imply others that they have to join only this church in order to make the salvation recipe work. Or roundly condemns visiting nonbelievers or stranger Christians for incidentally violating one of the unwritten House Rules in a particular church.
(Coming soon is Part Three — Old school evangelism: electrifying only yourself.)
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