Where Did It Go Wrong?

This is a question that has been following me lately. And I don’t just mean concerning my work. (I am still convinced that it was going pretty well, always in need of improvement, but pretty well). I am thinking much more about Christianity in the West.

Now the church has never been nor will it ever be perfect. It is a human institution. Yet these stories speak of an institution that has both in its history and in its current expression come to more often then not inflict pain instead of bring healing and destroy faith instead of build it up. What does it mean when, as one of my friends wrote “I am more moved by the people in and around me than I have ever been by any of the churches I have attended. In fact, when I attend a church, more often than not, I leave feeling lonely, frustrated, irritated and sometimes angry.”

Now I can tell you what the standard answer is. It is that when Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and as it became a religion of empire much of the core of Christianity was lost. It is a good answer. Like most answers that fit into a sentence, while expressing some truth, it also covers up most of the truth and distracts us from digging into the specifics.

After being tossed out like a piece of garbage by the “Bishop” and I was walking home one phrase kept running through my head so I will share it.

“To understand the end of something you must understand its beginning and growth. For our endings are often foreshadowed in our birth and growth. Like wise if you take the time to understand a things death. You have the chance to see the foreshadowing of its resurrection”

What does it mean? Good question, if you can tell me I would appreciate it. Christianity as it has been in the west is dieing. Perhaps if we look to its beginning we might begin to see more clearly why.

Over the last couple of days, as person after person has been phoning me and e-mailing me to offer their support and encouragement, I have been also been hearing something else from many of them, tale after tale about how the church had severely hurt them or someone they knew. It breaks my heart. It is also important because it tells us that people are not leaving the church from laziness or because they have become too materialistic (more standard answers usually given by church folks) many are leaving because they have been profoundly hurt by the very things which has been called to bring healing.

So often at the heart of these tales I have heard is that these people were not treated with the dignity they deserve. Treating peope with dignity was one of the truly amazing things about Christ. Jesus went along and made friends with anyone. I am sure you know the list, Fishermen, soldiers, beggars, Roman collaborators, prostitutes, the wealthy, revolutionaries and even religious folks. What was amazing, was that all of those things which socially defined people as social things, were striped away and instead the person was encountered as they were. They were treated not only with dignity, but a piece of healing occurred. What is amazing in reading the gospel is that it wasn’t just one way. In one of the most amazing stories of the Gospels, the story of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7) or its retelling as the Canaanite woman (Mathew 15) Jesus is actually taught by this foreign woman. Now the commentators have tried to cover this up, but the text makes it clear. The dignity each person has is not the dignity of one deserving help, no it is instead the dignity of one in whom God dwells and in whom God is revealed.

 

It is from this that the ancient tradition of hospitality grew. Each person, each stranger, was to be welcomed and treated as if they were angles, messengers from God. More importantly each person was to be treated, especially the least of these, as if they are Christ, the very coming of God into the world. These are not just pious words; rather this is a call to one of the deep practices of faith. It is one of the mysteries of faith, that Christ is not only present in those you least expect, but revealed and comes to us through those we least expect.

How have we responded?  We chase each other away. We dismiss people as thinking they are entitled, or ignorant or more likely we ignore them. More often then should ever be we reach out not to heal, but to hurt.  And perhaps one of our greatest crimes has been that we have placed our institutions and our rules and our policies ahead of people. We ignore the pain of those whom God brings to us and in the process we ignore the revelation of God they live.

And we are surprised that the church is dieing. God has come to us, walked in our midst, asked for our care and instead we held meetings and made motions, set policies and defended tradition and truth. In the process we have felt both right and righteous. Were we not defending the truth and good order?

With great wisdom, many are now looking for God. They have learned not to look amongst the right and the righteous. Their own souls bear the marks of the lashes, dare I say even the nails that have been used to defend and proclaim the truth. God is amongst the wounded. May we all learn to see God there.