Episode 1. "Church" - A Four Letter Word
When I was growing up, it was pretty normal for most people to go to church. It’s just what you did back then. But these days, well, it’s not the norm at all. In fact ‘church’ has become a …
When I was growing up, it was pretty normal for most people to go to church. It’s just what you did back then. But these days, well, it’s not the norm at all. In fact ‘church’ has become a bit of a four letter word.
I’ve often thought if I were a marketing consultant and I won a tender to run a marketing campaign to give the term ‘Church’ a positive position in the contemporary mindset, you know in the secular psyche if I can use those words. I wonder whether I’d actually want the job.
I mean this word ‘Church’ has almost become a four letter word in society today. Scandal after scandal. So many people see large parts of the Church as being an anachronistic, outdated, irrelevant, the vestiges of some old style religion that still appears to be alive and well today.
At Easter and Christmas they seem to put old guys, Archbishops, Cardinals on TV for their short 8 second grab on the reason for the season. And none of them ever really inspires you do they? None of what they say makes you want to race out and go to Church does it?
I mean, I’m not being mean, I’m just telling you what most people think. And when those parts of the Church that appear to be more contemporary and with it, well you see TV footage of them and their concert style worship and they’ve got their hands up in the air and I remember thinking, ‘whoa, that’s a bit weird. Don’t want them to get a hold of me.’
So the easiest thing in the world is for those of us who live inside this thing called ‘Church’ to completely lose sight of how people on the outside see and think about this thing we call ‘Church’.
For me the greatest indictment of the Church in my living memory has been the whole issue of child sexual abuse. It seems to spread across so many denominations and so I don’t want to single any one of them out. Only it’s not so much an issue but a string, countless thousands of cases of the most appalling abuse of position and trust imaginable right across where the Church exists in the world.
People who claim to be God’s emissaries sexually abusing children and not just children, adults too. And then if that isn’t terrible enough the systematic cover ups by many major denominations. I was reading a government report into this issue, into one denomination in one particular country and the report concluded that the senior levels of this Church denomination had and I quote, “obsessively and systematically covered up the widespread sexual abuse of children by its clergy for decades.”
And this, this has happened over and over and over again. You Google the term ‘Church sexual abuse’ on the internet and aside from the fact that you get over 4 million hits, 4 million, you discover Church essays, position papers, enquiries, policy papers, white pages, on this whole subject.
Now you may well ask, ‘Berni, why are you rabbiting on about this? Why are you being so critical about this?’ Well simply to make the point that Church has an image problem in the wider society. And this isn’t the only issue but this one issue alone is so utterly appalling and reprehensible in the sight of the average thinking and feeling person on the street and why wouldn’t it be as to warrant the damnation of this whole concept of Church.
Is the whole Church like that? Of course it isn’t. But there’s enough mud flying around for it to stick and then there are so many other issues. The Church seems to be ‘anti’ so many things, anti this and anti that and please, right now, I’m not making any comment or judgement about the validity or otherwise of those positions one way or the other.
As it turns out I have some very strong views on some of those issues but it’s not the views and beliefs that I’m commenting on right now, it’s the perception of society as a whole that this thing called ‘Church’ can hold itself out to proclaim judgements on issues of sexuality for instance. I mean look at the whole child abuse thing. Is it any wonder that people look at the Church and think, ‘what a bunch of hypocrites’?
There’s a Church not far from me, a denomination that lost over 160 million dollars on some bad stock market investments. There’s another small local Church sitting a couple of hundred metres from where I live on over 20 million dollars worth of real estate with less than a dozen members showing up every Sunday morning.
These days there are so many Bible believing Christians, having been burnt by this thing called Church that they’re leaving it in droves while still hanging on their faith to Jesus. In fact academics are writing text books about this group of people.
Now maybe I’m treading on some sensitive, even painful ground for someone today and the last thing that I am about, let me be very clear, is dragging down the Church but if you belong to God’s Church, whatever denomination, whatever shape or form that takes, do you see the image problem the Church has?
Church, these days, is very definitely a four letter word for many people in contemporary society. The sad thing is so many good things are happening amongst this group of people we call Church around the world. It’s not all bad. Far from it but we live in a world today where people both inside and outside the Church are struggling so deeply with what Church means. What it is, what it’s supposed to be, what it achieves.
So many people are struggling so deeply and in many cases painfully with these issues that I believe we have to talk about this on the program. So that’s what we’re going to be looking at over the next few weeks. And as you may have noticed I’m not about pussy footing around, let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s see things for what they are and there’s a good reason for that.
Because like it or not, whatever you think about Church, whatever your experience has been, Church is part of God’s plan and it is something that lies at the core of God’s plan for this world, for humanity. Have a listen to what Jesus said to Peter the Apostle. He said, Matthew chapter 16, verse 18. He said:
I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
Remember Jesus said He will build His Church and make her strong. And God also refers to the Church as His bride. Ephesians chapter 5:
Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her to make her Holy. Cleansing her by washing her with water through the word and to present her to Himself as a radiant Church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but Holy and blameless.
And God calls the Church Christ’s body. 1 Corinthians chapter 12:
For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, although many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one spirit we were all baptised into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and we are all made to drink of that one spirit.
Now as individualistic as we may have become in contemporary society here 21 centuries after Jesus walked on the earth. As much as we’re focused on ourselves, God’s plan, God’s plan is for His children to be part of His family.
It’s a powerful plan, it’s a great plan and to be sure sometimes being a Church hurts. Sometimes it disappoints. Sometimes it falls such a long way short of what we expect these people of God to be and how we expect them to love us but its God’s plan nevertheless.
I saw a sign outside a local Church recently that said, ‘Don’t let Christians put you off Jesus’. As bad a piece of marketing as I think that is, leading with your chin, this sign somewhat clumsily and intensely puts its finger on the problem we’ve been talking about today. That Church is a four letter word.
So the thing we’re going to be looking at over these coming weeks is despite so much doom and gloom and obvious failures of this thing called Church. How do we make sense of God’s plan? How do you and I if we hunger after God and grow and thrive in the body of Christ, the Church, despite all the things in this world that scream at us that we should run a mile? Well how?
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