Why I Love the Church—and (usually) Like it Too
Not long ago, author Ann Rice said she has decided to “quit being a Christian.” Her decision prompted many to ponder the current state of Christianity and the church.
I’ve been thinking lately about these issues too. I can understand why Rice would say she’s “committed to Christ” but “it’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.”
Christians have sometimes not acted lovingly. They have sometimes seemed more intent on settling petty disputes than following God’s loving leadership.
I don’t know if Christians personally attack Rice. But I know from personal experience such attack can be demoralizing. It tempts one to paint all Christians and Christianity itself, as she puts it, “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous.” Christians can be so cruel to fellow Christians.
In contrast to Rice, I recently reaffirmed my commitment to the group known as Christians and the beliefs of Christianity. I cast my lot with this sometimes ragged crowd of fellow adventurers.
I don’t deny that some Christians display the negative traits she lists. But I think there are good reasons to remain part of the Christian community.
I remain in the church partly because I think it’s important to affirm beliefs in common. For instance, I believe what Christians call “the Apostle’s creed.” I believe the articles of faith from my own denomination, the Church of the Nazarene.
Of course, were ten Christians to sit down and write a list of statements they each believed, we’d find ten different lists. Even though Christians share much in common, they also think and believe differently. Both unity and diversity exist.
For instance, I teach theology with some great university colleagues. We agree on many things. But we also disagree amongst ourselves. On some issues, we agree to disagree … peacefully.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be “locked in” to believing the exact same things throughout a lifetime. I don’t agree with everything I once believed … even everything I only recently believed!
There is great power, however, in believing statements in common. There is great power in working as a community to reshape those beliefs in language that makes sense to each generation. Theology is dynamic, not static. When done well, it’s a community project.
At its best, the church is a loving household of faith. Family relationships themselves sometimes need to be the glue that keeps together those who don’t believe everything in common. Common worship and shared Eucharist are also important for maintaining unity.
At their bes
t, Christians build one another up. They support one another, even when they disagree. They act as saints who care for their brothers and sisters and for those outside the community of believers. Christians express mutual affection, and they act for the common good.
Christians don’t always act their best, however. Instead of building up, they tear one another down. Instead of standing for the way of love, they fearfully defend ideas and practices that were once helpful but are less so today. They sin instead of live lives of love.
One of my favorite professors as a graduate student compared the church to Noah’s ark. “So many different animals could generate a lot of manure,” he said. “But it’s better floating in a boat with animals than drowning in the ocean alone.”
I choose to remain in the church, even though it and its members have very real problems. After all, I too have problems. My choice to remain sometimes causes my family and me great heartache. Sometimes people say things that literally make me cry. Sometimes I feel ill when I’m around people who have hurt me or say things I think are foolish and I cannot believe.
But the church and her people are also the ones who have taught me most about God and about living abundant life. Christians have been the most positive role models for me. They have loved me despite my sin and ignorance. Saints have worked with God to influence me in profoundly positive ways.
I love the church, so I reaffirm my commitment to contribute to her well-being.
I also like the church – most of the time, at least.
I enjoy traveling with others on the road of life, seeking to imitate the way of love expressed by our community’s leader: Jesus.
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Comments
Dr. Ord, This blog entry reminded me of something I wrote not long ago. I was meditating on Eph. 4:31, and noticed that Paul’s prohibitions of malicious talk comes in the context of instructions to the church. Part of my response was:
“Why do I get along better with some of my secular friends than I do with some of those in the body of Christ? Why have the people of God hurt me far more deeply, more often, and more intentionally than anyone in society at large has? Why has my struggle with bitterness focused exclusively on professing Christians? This is a fact: The only thing that has kept me part of any church is this: Jesus has always been faithful to me and this ill-behaving bride of his is the one He set His heart on to love. So I will be part of her, even though I see so little of Christ in her.”
While I agree with your comments about traveling together, at bottom, the reason I stay with the church is because Jesus Christ is committed to her.
Thank you for your commitment to Christ and the Church.
Thanks! I found this very encouraging for me.
Dr. Oord,
Very positive post on an often contentious subject. I like it. I suppose the bottom line is, despite the tensions (or maybe because of them) we need each other. We can’t be loving in isolation. We can’t do theology in isolation.
Anyway, as you know, this is something I’ve been thinking about a bit lately. I believe it is going to become a very important discussion, one that will be far more prominent than it has been in the recent past.
John
We are called as Christians to Love one as we love the church. When we come to Christ we must die to self. This is very hard to do because that is where we have built ourselves as a person. But God said we must die to self. People love there self but have a very hard time loving others. We must push everything aside when it comes to loving others. We have to forgive and walk in that forgiveness every day. That is the hard part of forgiving someone. When we truly forgive then we have truly loved that person. Some people just need to let go and LOVE
I really appreciate this article. I’m wondering what you once believed that you no longer believe and what it was that you only recently believed that has now changed?
“I don’t agree with everything I once believed … even everything I only recently believed!”
Thanks to all for your comments.
@Shirley: There are many things I can list, but here’s one: I used to believe I could say a prayer and that would guarantee that I’d never sin again. I no longer believe in such guarantees, although I do believe God can transform me from being oriented toward sin to being oriented toward love.
Tom, I have really enjoyed your blog which has inspired me to learn about open theism.
But of all your entries, this one, somehow, touches me deeply.
Tom,
Thanks for the reminder. Great timing. The following comments just appeared on one of my sites:
“You are a soft spoken DEVIL! Your god is not my GOD! Your jesus is NOT MY JESUS! Your jesus is not allowed to call people names and cause division. My JESUS called people like you HYPOCRITS, VIPORS, SNAKES, FULL OF DEAD MEN’S BONES, ect…! My Jesus came to bring a sword and was “hateful” by your very own definition. Hallelujah! Keep serving your effiminate jesus!”
I think this is exactly what drove Anne Rice away from Christianity. Fear mongering, bullying, abuse of power, etc. All those things that are opposite of love.
I had my share of bad moments Tom, where I have had to come before God and beg for mercy. But like you, I’m hanging in there, I still engage with my fellow sojourners in community. It’s hard, but I’m making it. Again, thanks for the reminder.
I didn’t really grow up going to church so writing a list of what I believe would be a very difficult task because right now I am caught in this state where I don’t know what to believe. I’m being torn between two different worlds. I guess in my own life, I enjoy going to church but it is becuase of the relationships of the people that I have met along the way. I keep telling myself. If I am going to go, I need to be going to for the right reason. When I figure that reason out, I want to find a home church here in nampa.
Tom, I was going to comment that the Church of the Nazarene did not suffer from the same polarization as the mainline denominations (like mine). But after looking through the Nazarene blogs, I see that I am very much mistaken. It’s good to see theologians love the Church, especially when the Church is not always so good at loving their theologians back. God bless you; these are good and important words. Living in communities will always be a challenge and often painful, but as far as I can tell, it is there and only there where we learn what love really is.
I have always struggled with this concept. It is sad that the people you should feel most comfortable with in being yourself you have to hide from at times. The way I have always thought of Church is like a family in the sense that those that are closest to you know how to hurt you the most. This is not really healthy though. We, as the Church and as Christians, are all in this together, and we are nowhere near perfection. We should be able to share how we are doing and know that we are growing with each other and in our walk with God. We should not have to feel like hiding or changing where we go because it should be a loving environment.
I am tired of all my hipster Christian friends. It is way too easy to say something like “I am so disenchanted with the church today.” Really? Great, I am too. Say something original. Yeah, Christians don’t get along, this is not a profound thing to say, it’s been happening for 2000 years. It is easy to walk away from that, it takes a little more out of you to stick with it. To simply run away from the problem solves nothing. Imagine staying, working, praying, and becoming the change you want to see instead of just complaining about it. What a concept.
Just a thought..
I wonder if people, like Rice, have been falling away from the faith not because of increased disputation and argument, but because of tepid, simmering acts of acquiescence which fly under the banner of peace and accord. If you look close enough, there seems to be hierarchical lines dividing the psyche of a Christian: peace always, always trumps anger—no questions asked.
But Christ asked questions, ones which were decidedly marked by honest, forthcoming anger.
Christ was unflinching with Peter, rebuking him and calling him “satan.” And what about the critique of temple authorities, which, make no mistake about it, was one of the most important aspects of his life and ministry? Christ did not set the moneychanger tables down gently, and the bullwhip that he was carrying wasn’t just for show. Lastly, on the cross, Christ files one of the most poignant laments in all of Scripture—father, father, why have you forsaken me!!?
But anger doesn’t get the last word. Through honest expression of anger, and through dark interims of frustration, where little answers are found, comes, ultimately, reconciliation and love and renewed life. But if anger is circumvented, and we unequivocally cry “peace! peace! peace!” then things like resentment and contempt are born, festering throughout the church body.
Paul, too, is in this same vein, where he opposes and rebukes Peter at Antioch.
Aren’t Christ and Paul utilizing a prophetic voice? Doesn’t this come down to us from the prophetic canons? Recall Jeremiah and his anger toward both Israel and God. Recall Amos and his own anger toward Judah. We could even, perhaps, recall God himself in Gen 6:6, where he grieves and repents of his action to send the flood, and through this anger and frustration, cuts a covenant with all of creation toward final reconciliation.
In the end, I wonder if our anger has been co-opted by a sort of unwritten tepid peace which looks natural but is really a normative structure. And so, what we have are bunch of voices which are being squelched in the name of “peace.” Like when the pastor says, “come to the alter of the Lord and leave everything behind you, leave all your troubles.”
Often when I get upset with one(s) in the Church, this song from Derek Webb helps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbnX92DvRIw
Stanley Hauerwas said in a recent interview: “You oughta stay with the people that harmed you!”
Jesus did.
—But this is my point: when we get upset with members of the church we ought to face them, sincerely and honestly, not retreat into the internet.
I like this quote by Hauerwas. And yes, Jesus, did stay!—but in many ways he also left.
En route to the cross, there are various times where Jesus dangerously risked possible dissolution along the way. Notice all the times he suddenly leaves the company of his disciples in order to pray; I am guessing they weren’t prayers unlike the ones he prayed at Gethsemane and Golgotha, prayers which were dangerously confused, reticent and mutinous.
Now, the story goes, that he in fact did stay the course, and defeated death and sin, inaugurating eschaton. But I am not ready to say that that was a forgone conclusion; it was humanly possible that Jesus could have chosen otherwise.
Thanx for your words about church. I love the church because it is primarily community for me. Even though church life can cause a certain amount of strife, the over-all experience is positive, encouraging and gives enrichment to my life.
Sadly the choice many disenchanted people make is to disengage from their church thus removing themselves from any community activity. It’s like they choose to live in a continued state of anger. This makes for a lonely and uneventful existence.
I’ll tolerate the issues so I can continue to experience the great contact I have with loving friends whom I also happen to like.
Last year at this time I was studying abroad in Germany. Going into that beautiful experience, I had just come out of a different and bad experience with the church. I had an internship where I was shown a vast variety of examples as to exactly what the Church should not be. With this in mind, going to Europe and meeting so many people with this mentality of “i’m not a Christian, i’m a follower of Christ,” I could not help but be compelled to identify myself with the same statement. My love for Christ was still there, but I was disgusted with what I had just seen and experienced, and in many ways was broken by it.
Taking a Church History course in Europe, I found myself reflecting on how Christians have behaved in the past and became even more disgusted after exploring Christendom. I found myself looking at religion and “Christianity” as extremely negative things to associate myself with.
It wasn’t until I returned to the states, and upon taking a Missional Health and Growth course that I was hit with the realization of the importance of what it means to be the body of Christ. Through this course and the professor’s teachings, I was given the encouragement to transform the disgusted attitude I so strongly held into something beautiful and constructive. To love God is to love others, and to claim to be something different than a Christian in my mind switched into denying God’s work in the lives of so many others for thousands of years. Although they did not always have it right, and although in many ways we may not have it right, we need to learn from the past in order to transform our present and cultivate our future into a shaping of hope for the body of Christ to better fulfill the Missio Dei.
Dr. Oord,
As a youth pastor this is something that I think about quite often. I am always in thought about how I can communicate to my students how important it is to not only believe in Christ, but to also show Christ in their communities. I agree with you that even with her down falls the church is a good place to be. It is important to share that community with fellow believers. I also agree that I have my own problems and with those problems the church can grow together. It down right sucks that Christians are mean at times. I think that as pastors we need to be teaching love and the practical/tangible side to love. We need to emphasize loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.
Shaking the topic of Church off my mind would be an impossible task. There are so many factors that influence church both good and bad. Ann Rice is one of many who have made the decision to quit being a Christian. I believe she and others leave because the necessity and power of Church is not widely known. Dr. Oord spells the necessity and power of Church rather succinctly saying, “It is important to affirm beliefs in common,” and, “Great power in working as a community to reshape those beliefs in language that makes sense to each generation.”
Dr. Oord’s message and other like it need to be broadcasted inside and outside the church so that there will not be many more people like Ann Rice.
Hamish
It is always dangerous when people get their eyes to much on one another, because eventually people will let us down and hurt us—even people with the greatest of motives. Tom, I am with you however, in that there is an important part of my own journey with Christ to be in community with other people. It helps me keep the bigger perspective to know that I am not in this life alone but have others that can help bring insight and understanding to my walk with God.
Tom-
I think a there are a lot of convincing reasons why people “leave” the church. I’m convinced that we need to do a better job at “exposing humanity” inside our churches. Currently, people don’t feel free to be honest or show their true selves for fear of rejection or judgment.
I am not sure the best way we could do this, but I think it starts with a mindset shift. We need to always be intentional about not “pretending” that we are something that we aren’t. We need to start a safe place for dialogue where people can feel free to ask difficult questions. We need a community that exposes their weaknesses, doubts, questions, and fears.
We cannot follow Christ without community- and that community is the church. I just think we need to reformulate how we can “do church” better.
Tom,
What an important discussion to have! However, it is so sad that we have to have this discussion. I personally have experienced deeper hurt at the hands of ‘Christians’ than by anyone ‘in the world’ however I have also experienced richer love and deeper relationships of trust with other Christians than with anyone in the world. The truth is that I never want to give up the beautiful connection I have with brothers and sisters in Christ, for it feels like only in community with them, am I able to be all that God has called me to be. I feel like it is somehow my responsibility to represent Christ and Christians in a different light than some others may have, so as to bring glory to God and build up the body. I do hope and pray that we discover together the heights and depths of God’s love through authenticity, vulnerability and collective overcoming! I hope that somehow we can change the world’s perspective as mentioned in 1 Peter 2:12.
Mike Johnson
“Hurt people hurt people” – at least that’s what I’ve heard and learned growing up. And with our baggage of hurt and wounds yet to heal, we hurl ourselves into Holy community. No wonder we experience conflict in the church – people are involved. It’s also no surprise when Christians become somewhat mislabeled for leading with anything but love.
And yet, difficult as it can be at times, I think the Church is still a big part of God’s plan for facilitating His mission. We need each other, and that means we need to learn how to love each other. When Christ-followers are known for leading with love and acting accordingly, I think we’ll see fewer posts like these and fewer frustrated followers of Jesus.
As I read these comments I find myself standing in disagreement. Yes, I will say that some people can be argumentative, hostile, and judgmental. However, I do not feel that this is a norm or even the majority. People outside the church can be just as hostile, judgmental and argumentative. The people who say these things about the church I feel are being unfair because they are saying a variety of things that they are criticizing the church for. There are more good that the church does and offers than what people give the church credit for. We run a danger anytime we make sweeping general statements about groups of people. This is one of the criticisms I had about Dan Kimball’s study. I felt that the people interviewed by Dan were being judgmental and made many sweeping general statements. If the church would have made those statements we would have again been criticized for being judgmental. Sure there are those outside the church who may feel that way but I think it is exaggerated.
I can agree that there are a lot of disputes among the church. Even this morning in church, the pastor was talking about how often times we will meet another Christian and the next question will be, “What church do you go to?” As Christians, and people in general, we like to group ourselves according to varying beliefs and traditions. But, the pastor challenged us to think beyond our differing denominations and look at the big picture—that we all believe in Jesus Christ is Lord. So, regardless of the pain or hurt that can be caused in and out of the church, it is vital to remain in a body of believers to be built up in truth.
Tom,
This post truly touched my heart and I plan to share it with my church board.
One of the things that amazes me about this “problem,” if you will is that we in the church do not think twice about our conflict over petty things. I currently started a new assignment and within the first three weeks I learned how many people do not like being a part of the church board due to the conflict over the last several years.
I believe that the church is called to be a part of the mission of God by facilitating an interaction between people and God. Our problem starts here rather than by taking first things first. First, we must worship God in spirit and truth which reminds us exactly where we fit in the whole process of the world. When we do this, our next natural step is to love each other within the church. Jesus said that the world will know that we are the disciples of Christ by the way we love one another. Our love is what will draw the world to His side and facilitate interactions between people and God’s grace.
If Christians are being like it is mentioned, “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous,” to other Christians. They can call themselves Christians but are they really? A true and faithful Christian shows and are compassionate. If a person is filled with the Holy Spirit then evil deeds would not exist in their heart. But then again it is in human nature (sin) to cause others grief.
I’ve come close to falling into Ann Rice’s camp with my own statements such as, “I am a recovering Christian.” Really, what I have meant to communicate is my discontent with the state of the church. This post has been healthy for me. I have read it a number of times now and have taken a significant amount of time to reflect upon it.
The church is, indeed, a ragged group, or as as the theologian and frontman for Switchfoot, Jon Foreman says, “a church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools.” Even those who think they have it all together as the face and voice of the church still fall into this category. Like myself, they are in need of love and affirmation.
I remain with a heavy level of critique for the church but must realize my place within her as a presence and voice and hopeful reformer. I can love the church but offer a different direction than the current dominant consciousness.