The Ending Dying Church

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto….
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not. 

--From "East Coker" in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets


Imagine we are approaching the “end times”. Capitalism and Socialism and all manner of isms and “-ities” have managed not to deliver. Utopia is truly utopia. Christianity, the religion that once usurped the most powerful political and intellectual systems/civilizations, seems on the brink to be overrun, replaced, and usurped. Do dare I say reformed? 

The early Christians saw in Jesus Christ a new way of being God’s people. In Jesus, they experienced a new way of being spiritual, loving God and loving neighbor. Children, women, the poor, the sinner and the outcasts were given welcome in the teachings and practice of Jesus. In Christianity love and faith took on greater meaning than the observance of the law; and grace changed everything. In Christ, Christians believed that God loving us had more power than us loving God: we are loved and loved unconditionally. 

Then Christians grew powerful and set up structures and systems that seem contrary to the Spirit of Jesus, though necessary to organize. Power, wealth, and hierarchy marched hand in hand with the new found faith. With centuries came new interpretations and challenges. We became obsessed with Christianity and its beliefs and less focused on the person of Christ. We became more focused on survival than dying that others might live. Believers in Jesus are now the wildest, most varied, most puzzling, and most amazing group of believers in the world. What are we to make of the glories, inconsistencies, sins, outdated traditions, ineffective methods for evangelizing, falling attendance, lack of teenagers in worship, mixed messages, lack of relevance and changing influence on the political, moral and cultural stage? 

What happened to poverty (selling all you have)?
What happened to turn the other cheek? 
What happened to the Prince of Peace?
What happened to neither slave nor free, woman or man, Jew or gentile – where did the egalitarianism of Jesus go? 
What happened to the beatitudes and the whatever-you- do- to-the least?
What happened to unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies?
What happened to let the greatest among you be the servant of all?

These questions make think there is a huge paradigm shift coming. 

What if some other religion or movement begins to convert world leaders, like Christians did in the early centuries? What if a new religion stands to embrace the claim it is the true religion of peace? 

When the dust settles after the dust-up with the Roman Catholic Church all of us will have to answer hard questions about what it means to be followers of Christ. I suspect that we might have gone too far from the “mustard seed”. I suspect that our efforts to find better ways of doing the same-old same old will fail. We all might have to find new ways of being church. I bet nobody knows what that will look like. One thing is sure, we cannot sustain this way of being church (nor should we). Or should we? Is the end or the beginning?
Posted April 13, 2010
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Comments

1

The Orthodox consider the Roman Catholic Church to be the first 'protestants'. Reform. R-e-f-o-r-m. REFORM !!! It's the Paschal Mystery - the grain of wheat that falls. Any not willing to change (to die in order to live) are the real heretics.

A.O.G. on April 14, 2010

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