How to shrink your church

Article: How To Shrink Your Church In One Easy Step: Every major American church that has taken steps towards liberalization on sexual issues has seen a steep decline in membership.

More accurately: :How to shrink your denomination..."

I don't usually do "articles" on this site.

The author makes a correlation between declining church attendance and liberalizing sexual morays. Or rather, a correlation between increasing or steady church attendance and keeping to Biblically standard morays.

Correlation, however, does not mean causation.

John 14:21 (NASB)
21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”

Obeying Jesus's commandments opens us up to Jesus's revelation of Himself to us. It is not the obedience itself that prevents church decay. It is the personal and on-going revelation of Jesus by Himself to us that prevents the decay. But more than that. The personal revelation is what brings church life and therefore church growth.

Woody Allen versus truth and beaty. [Jokingly]

Article: Woody Allen's Bleak Vision
By Rev. Robert Barron

The "buffered self" versus the "porous self." Or nihilism versus transcendent reality.

I was chagrined, but not entirely surprised, when I read Woody Allen’s recent ruminations on ultimate things. To state it bluntly, Woody could not be any bleaker in regard to the issue of meaning in the universe.

I broke the follow quote up into sections.

Woody Allen’s perspective represents a limit case of what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “the buffered self,” which is to say, an identity totally cut off from any connection to the transcendent. On this reading, this world is all we’ve got, and any window to another, more permanent mode of existence remains tightly shut.

Prior to the modern period, Taylor observes, the contrary idea of the “porous self” was in the ascendency. This means a self that is, in various ways and under various circumstances, open to a dimension of existence that goes beyond ordinary experience.

If you consult the philosophers of antiquity and the Middle Ages, you will find a very frank acknowledgment that what Woody Allen observed about the physical world is largely true. Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas all knew that material objects come and go, that human beings inevitably pass away, that all of our great works of art will eventually cease to exist.

But those great thinkers wouldn’t have succumbed to Allen’s desperate nihilism. Why? Because they also believed that there were real links to a higher world available within ordinary experience, that certain clues within the world tip us off to the truth that there is more to reality than meets the eye.

These clues include the reality of beauty and our appreciation of it; and the existance of "morality — more precisely, the unconditioned demand of the good..."

Article: How to Tell Whether You've Got Angst, Ennui, or Weltschmerz

As I read through the article, I realized that each corresponds to a different type of rejection of God.

Angst:

Angst is the word for fear in German, Dutch, and Danish. It comes from the same Indo-European root (meaning tight, constricted, painful) that gave us anguish, anxiety, and anger. In the mid 19th century it became associated with a specific kind of existential dread through the work of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. He talked about a type of anxiety that arises in response to nothing in particular, or the sense of nothingness itself. It’s not exactly fear, and not the same as worry, but a simple fact of the human condition, a feeling that disrupts peace and contentment for no definable reason.
*****
...Angst foregrounds dissatisfaction, a complaint about the way the world is.

Angst is a result of the rejection of God as the God of the peace that passes understanding. If God is not there to fill our lives, nothing (that is, nothingness) will. If real peace, the peace that passes understanding, does not fill our lives, we are going to experience that fear of angst. And it will express itself in complaint.

Ennui:

Young people at that time, feeling that the promises of the French Revolution had gone unfulfilled, took on an attitude of lethargic disappointment, a preoccupation with the fundamental emptiness of existence.
*****
By the middle of the 19th century, ennui became associated with the alienation of industrialization and modern life. Artists and poets suffered from it, and soon a claim to ennui was a mark of spiritual depth and sensitivity. It implied feelings of superiority and self-regard, the idea being that only bourgeois people too deluded or stupid to see the basic futility of any action could be happy.
*****
Ennui also has connotations of self-indulgent posturing and European decadence.

Wow, segments of our population (academics, pundits, and celebrities) are stuffed full of moral "superiority and self-regard" and unsubstantiated claims of "spiritual depth and sensitivity."

Ennui grows out of a rejection of God as the One who has good plans for our lives, who "works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose". If life is empty, it is because God does not fill it.

Weltschmerz:

Weltschmerz, German for “world pain....” It describes a world weariness felt from a perceived mismatch between the ideal image of how the world should be with how it really is.
*****
Though weltschmerz and ennui are pretty close synonyms, ennui foregrounds the listlessness brought on by world weariness (it can also be a term for more simple boredom), and weltschmerz foregrounds the pain or sadness. There is perhaps a greater sense of yearning in weltschmerz (part of the pain is that the sufferer really wants the world to be otherwise).

Weltschmerz is a rejection of God as the "Paracletos." The One who walks along side. The Counselor. The Healer. Life as a fallen human being, among fallen human beings, is going to be painful. God alone is one who brings healing and consolation (Well, "God alone," also through the people willing to serve.)

The kingdom of God, global warming modeling, and the perils of incomplete modelling

The perils of incomplete modelling

I just posted an article over on the LochLomondFarms site on the inadequacy of the global warming models that has application to the Kingdom of God.

By nature (pun intended), humans have to "simplify" the climate in order develop and run computer models of it. This simplification involves humans trying to figure out which factors are essential to include and which we can drop.

Researchers also have the "unknown unknowns" problem (as Donald Rumsfeld so colorfully said). There are simply factors that we don't know that we don't know. These will also cause models to fail.

The models have consistently failed because they are OVER-simplifications of reality.

What does this have to do with the Kingdom of God?

On a Facebook posting, a friend of mine explained, from his point of view, why there was a significant failure in the church we were both attending at the time. He was focused in on specific events and people. I am looking at it more broadly. 

Model making
So what is a model, in this context? It is an analogy for the way we put together our world view.

Take maps as an example. The earth, in its riotous complexity is the real world. Maps are models of it. We can have road maps, topographic maps (maps of surface features), geologic maps, political maps, population maps, maps of religious beliefs, or beer preferences, or surnames. All of these are models. All have their limitations.

Maps of religious beliefs may be at a national, state or county level. I saw one that showed religious belief by major denomination. Does anyone believe that Lancaster County, PA, home of the Amish, is predominately Roman Catholic? But it was, by the criteria that the map-makers set.

How/Why did it happen?
My task is to find and know God. But "His thoughts are not our thoughts."

My task is to go from being a self-centered individual to being a God-submitted believer in a God-centered gathering. But I am a fallen human being, of limited (not God-like) intelligence.

I am commanded to do impossible things: "Go, and sin no more." 

I am going to fail because I have to over-simplify my models of reality: my models of God, of church, of myself, of marriage, of sin, of forgiveness. The list is functionally infinite.

I have working models of all these things. However, none of them are going to correspond to God's reality of them.

Good ideas, even "quoting the Bible good ideas" have to be over-simplifications of God's reality. Throw in fallen human nature, and reliance on any models, no matter how "Biblically-based" will cause problems (sizes ranging from hang-nail to catastrophic).

In others words, "it happened" because I am not God. And neither was anyone else.

(Just a note, I was not in leadership prior to or during the disaster alluded to above. However, when talking about failure, I prefer the first person singular, rather than "we" "you" or, even worse, "him/her".)

What can be done? Solutions?
The oversimplification problem precludes anything from being a complete solution. We simply cannot model anything well enough to avoid failure. If, in hindsight, we come up with a model to stop a repeat of a given failure, it will not stop failure in other areas.

It may not even prevent failure in the same area again.

On the other hand:

• Humility. For me, humility is the conscious awareness of my own abilities, inabilities, fallibility and limitations in the face of God. 
• I must NEVER get stuck on "my" interpretation of a controversial scripture. And it is controversial if ONE believing, Spirit-filled, Spirit-led (you chose) person disagrees with me.(And, yes, there is a difference between genuinely controversial and the "I don't want to believe that" fake variety.)
• Pure and simple devotion to Jesus. I have found that looking at Jesus alone avoids some problems, offense is taken less frequently, and allows quicker healing of real damage. On the other hand, I am part of a body, a gathering we call the church. I have to allow others to be part of who I am.

Summary.
Not failing is not an option. I do not deserve success. I have sinned, and will continue to "fall short of the glory of God."

I am saved by grace through faith. Even my victory over the world is because I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. It is not because I have done anything or have modeled God and church properly, that is, by works.

Church, Synagogue and the Gathering; Part 2

Church, Synagogue and the Gathering; Part 2

Part 1 is here.

I have done word studies where I then go back to the Bible and "expand" or "amplify" the word in the context of the passage it occurs in. It is a fresh way of looking at and meditating on a passage.

One such application of this occurred when I realized that any place the word, "righteous," was used I could "expand" it to "righteous by faith" or "righteousness by faith."

I am going to do something similar here, with the words, "church" and "synagogue."

CS Lewis has Screwtape say:

One of our [the Devil's] great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.

Matthew 18:20 (NASB)

20 For where two or three have gathered together ["synago"] in My name, I [Jesus] am there in their midst.”

Ephesians 1:18-23 (NASB)

18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might 20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

This is the church: it is any assembly, in the name of Jesus, even if only 2 or 3 people. It is also the immensity of all the body of Christ, from Peter to the youngest Christian.

Matthew 16:18 (NASB)

18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

"And upon this rock I will build my assembly, I will call forth a gathering, rooted in eternity, My body of whom I am the head, spread out through time and space; immense, powerful, full of the riches of your inheritance, and I will be in the midst of it."

Side note:
Is it possible to be a part of the body of Christ, and not "assemble together" or "congregate" or "collect together" or "be brought together" with other believers?

In English, we have collective nouns: a pride is an "assembly" of lions, a flock is an "assembly" of sheep or birds. The words, "church," "synagogue," and "body" are collective nouns for an "assembly" of Christians.

Jesus refers to a sheep, by itself, as being lost and which must be found. A sheep is still a sheep even if it is not part of the flock, but a sheep by itself is in danger.

Luke 15:4 (NASB)

4 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

A sheep remains a sheep whether it is part of the flock or not. On the other hand, a sheep that is not part of a flock, and thus overseen by the shepherd, is likely to soon become a dead sheep. 

A Christian remains a Christian whether or not he is part of a church, but how healthy is that?

Therefore, if person refuses to be part of a local body, an assembly, a gathering, is he part of the body of Christ?

Or, merely because he is a Christian, he is a part of the Church, "spread out through time and space, and rooted in eternity?"

Church, Synagogue and the Gathering; Part 1

Church, Synagogue and the Gathering; Part 1

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
     Samuel Johnson; April 7, 1775.

Samuel Johnson detested "false patriotism" which he viewed as being a rejection of the King as sovereign. He saw his allegiance as being a "subject" of the King, not a "countryman," loyal to a nation.

The reformers and progressives of the time (if I can use a modern word for a much older movement) adopted the word, "patriot," to distinguish themselves from those who saw themselves as "subjects" and, therefore, old-fashioned.

So the phrase, "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," is Johnson's rejection of the manipulation of the meaning of a word to serve a political purpose. Johnson's false patriots were men who rejected the king as their sovereign, and so were "scoundrels."

In more recent times, the phrase has been used as a weapon against true patriots in the post-war era. In fact, in a delightfully clueless and utterly ironic use of the phrase, a communist of the time titled her book attacking patriots, "Scoundrel Time." In fact, she was exactly the sort of "scoundrel" that Samuel Johnson had rejected two centuries earlier.

So, what does this have to do with the "church, synagogue, and the gathering?"

The words translated in the KJV of the Bible as "church" and as "synagogue" were translated using those words for political reasons. (I could note, at length, how the Church of England, a product of the Reformation, were the "reformists" or progressives of their times. However, I think that I have made the point simply enough.) Later translations of the Bible have kept those words.

First mention of "church" in the bible is Matthew 16:18 (NASB)

18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

First mention of "synagogue" is Matthew 4:23 (NASB)

23 Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.

"Church" means "assembly of citizens," from the Greek for "to call forth" or "to call out."

"Synagogue" means "collecting, gathering; a Christian assembly," from the Greek for "to bring together."

Both words could have been simply translated as "gathering" or "assembly." They were in several places, such as Hebrews 12:23.

"Church" and "synagogue" were used for political reasons. The "Church of England" presented itself as the only true "church" (meaning, here, the political organization, rather than the living body of Christ, composed of all believers). It would have been harder for them to do that if the Greek words had been translated literally into English.

In The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis has Screwtape say:

One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.

Using the words, "church" and "synagogue," hides the immensity and grandeur of the "assembly" in a confusion of meanings that include the building that houses a local assembly and the political organization(s) that oversee them.

Word studies:
"Church" = ekklēsia. Strong: G157

a popular assembly, Acts 19:32, 39, 41; in NT the congregation of the children of Israel, Acts 7:38; transferred to the Christian body, of which the congregation of Israel was a figure, the Church, 1 Cor. 12:28; Col. 1:18; a local portion of the Church, a local church, Rom. 16:1; a Christian congregation, 1 Cor. 14:4

Origin of ECCLESI-

Late Latin ecclesia, from Greek ekklēsia assembly of citizens, church, from ekkalein to call forth, summon, from ex- + kalein to call

"Synagogue" = synagōgē, Strong: G4864

a collecting, gathering; a Christian assembly or congregation, Jas. 2:2; the congregation of a synagogue, Acts 9:2; hence, the place itself, a synagogue, Lk. 7:5

Origin of SYNAGOGUE

Middle English synagoge, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin synagoga, from Greek synagōgē assembly, synagogue, from synagein to bring together, from syn- + agein to lead

A storm of blessings

Matthew 7:24-27 (NASB)

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

Warning: Analogies will we made, and then stretched like a taffy pull.

I was doing a simple word study on the use of water, and water-related words, in Matthew. When you do that, you get some odd associations. Water, and rain, are often used in association with blessings or miracles.

While it is obvious that Jesus is referring to a storm, it is fun to flip this around and think of the rain as a bringer of blessings. In a sense, this analogy does work. Only those well-grounded in the Word and in Jesus Himself, are going to be able to handle a "storm" of wealth, or fame, or charismatic out-pouring. When you think of the how so many "mega-church" or prominent TV ministries have imploded, a "storm" of blessing will still cause the house to fall.

Gratitude

Psalm 138:1-3 (NASB)

1 I will give You thanks with all my heart;
I will sing praises to You before the gods.
2 I will bow down toward Your holy temple
And give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth...